NASA has selected its next two Small Explorer Mission (SMEX) series missions and launched its latest Discovery programme craft Comet Nucleus Tour (Contour).
The Explorer for Spectroscopy and Photometry of the Intergalactic Medium's Diffuse Radiation (SPIDR) satellite will be launched in 2005 on a mission costing $69 million.
This will be followed in 2006 by the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere to observe the causes of high-altitude ice clouds in the Earth's atmosphere.
Both satellites will be carried by Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL air-launched boosters, with the vehicle carrying SPIDR requiring an extra kick-motor to reach its final orbit.
Six SMEX missions have been launched so far, with the seventh, the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, due in September.
Meanwhile, NASA's latest Discovery series spacecraft, the $159 million Contour, was launched from Cape Canaveral by a Boeing Delta II on 3 July. The 970kg (2,130lb), Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory-built spacecraft will leave Earth orbit on 15 August, en route for a rendezvous with comet Enke on 12 November next year.
It is due to reach comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 on 19 June, 2006.
Source: Flight International
