All Space articles – Page 216
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High hopes for AFLEX
JAPAN'S SMALL-SCALE AUTOMATIC-LANDING Flight Experiment (AFLEX) has been flight tested at the Woomera rocket range, South Australia, as part of a preparatory programme for the H-II Orbiting Plane-X (HOPE-X) automatic space shuttle, which, it is hoped, will fly in about 2000. The AFLEX, which has a similar configuration to that ...
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Competitive upgrade
Japan is redesigning its H2 booster to enable it to compete in the launcher market. Tim Furniss/LONDON AN UPRATED VERSION of Japan's H2 satellite launcher will have its first flight in 2000, in a late attempt to make a viable entry into the commercial-launcher market and ...
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Orbital Sciences wins X-34 launch-test vehicle deal
Tim Furniss/LONDON NASA has formally awarded Orbital Sciences (OSC) the $50 million contract to develop the small X-34 technology demonstrator for the agency's reusable launch vehicle (RLV) programme. The X-34 research will complement the Lockheed Martin's X-33 single-stage-to-orbit RLV sub-orbital demonstration vehicle and the McDonnell ...
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'Culture shock' for space travellers
The vehicle to replace the US Space Shuttle will carry people into space without a crew, says Micky Blackwell, president and chief operating officer of Lockheed Martin's Aeronautics Sector. It will be the end of the manned spaceflight as we know it and will be a "culture shock" for ...
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Spaceport funds
The Spaceport Florida Authority company, part of a business promotion for the US state in Hall 2, says that it has received an additional $280,000 funding from NASA for its project to refurbish a military launch pad at Cape Canaveral for commercial use and to develop a customer service centre. ...
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Power conversion
Power conversion specialist Interpoint is expanding its interest in space applications by supplying all conversion for the International Space Station - Alpha, which is scheduled for its initial launch in November 1997. A wholly-owned subsidiary of the US-based Interpoint, the company concentrates on aerospace and military power conversion schemes ...
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Forme astronaut sees Mars as the next space frontier
As a pioneer of the US space programme who risked his life on three spaceflights and almost lost it on his fourth - Apollo 13 - former Navy Capt Jim Lovell could be forgiven for feeling a bit let down. Isn't the US space programme a shadow of its ...
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Military mapper
The US Department of Defense plans to fly a Space Shuttle mission tomap the Earth in close-up. Tim Furniss/LONDON ACCORDING TO DR MICHAEL Kobrick of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California, "-we have a better global map of Venus than we do for the Earth". He has conceived ...
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Rapid launch
NASA's Fast Auroral Snapshot Explorer was launched into a 3,150 x 4,180km, 83¡, orbit by an Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL booster on 21 August. It was the third successful flight (out of five attempts) of the air-launched XL booster. The original Pegasus booster had eight flights, with six fully successful ...
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Hughes will build fifth Mexican satellite for 1998 launch
HUGHES SPACE and Communications continues its role as sole builder of Mexico's communications satellites by winning the contract to build the Morelos 3, which will be launched in 1998. The company built the Morelos 1 and 2, launched in 1995, and two Solidaridad craft placed in orbit in 1993 and ...
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Starsem deal
The Starsem joint venture to market the Russian Soyuz booster for commercial launches makes its first public outing at the Show. Aerospatiale has joined with Russia's Samara space manufacturing company and the Russian Space Agency to market the booster for launches of payloads weighing up to 5,000kg into low ...
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Sugar and space from amateur rocketeer
Putting Britain back into space - that's the message being broadcast, not from the British National Space Centre (BNSC) pavilion but a small booth on the Lancashire Association of Aerospace Companies. Here at Hall3/E11 stands Britain's hope of making its "first space shot in more than 25 years". ...
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AlliedSignal gears up the X-33 programme
Page 7 AlliedSignal, one of the four major sub-contractors to Lockheed Martin on the X-33 programme, has already started work on the airframe and space subsystems of the sub-scale vehicle demonstrator. The company, which is celebrating its part in every US manned space programme from the ...
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Lockheed looks to cash in on Mars mania
The life on Mars stories last month has created the most public interest in spaceflight since the Apollo moonshots. NASA's totally speculative Martian discovery resulted in thousands of calls to its Washington DC switchboard, and its Internet Home Page was so busy it was impossible to access. Media ...
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Taylor made
The UK Government has launched a new plan to promote the space industry. Tim Furniss/LONDON IAN TAYLOR, UK Minister of Science and Technology, is boldly going - at least until the next election - where no previous space minister has gone before. He has managed to ...
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Russia sends back-up crew
THE SOYUZ TM24 was launched on a Soyuz U booster from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on 17 August, carrying a crew of three people to the Mir 1 space station. The crew consists of the first French woman in space, Claudie Andre Deshays, flying the 16-day, $13 million, Cassiopiae ...
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Another Chinese launch fails
Tim Furniss/LONDON CHINA GREAT WALL Industry (CGWIC) failed to place the Hughes HS-376 ChinaSat 7 communications satellite into the correct geostationary-transfer orbit (GTO) after launch aboard a Long March 3 from Xichang on 18 August. China Telecommunications Broadcast Satellite's 24-transponder spacecraft was stranded in orbit, ...
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Fourth Japanese H2 sends the Adeos into polar orbit
JAPAN'S ADVANCED Earth-observing satellite, the Adeos, and an amateur radio satellite, were successfully launched into 800km circular polar orbits by the fourth H2 booster from Tanegashima on 17 August. The 3,500kg Adeos, has a suite of five national and two NASA instruments, and one French instrument. It is ...
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MMS wins contract for Columbus
Daimler-Benz Aerospace (DASA) has awarded Matra Marconi Space (MMS) the contract for the development of a data-management system for the Columbus Orbital Facility (COF). The system records and processes the laboratory's operational data, and scientific data gathered. DASA is the prime contractor for the COF, the European section ...
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Catching the international spacebus
Aerospatiale's Spacebus has broadened its horizons outside Europe. Tim Furniss/LONDON AEROSPATIALE'S FIRST Spacebus 3000 satellite, the Arabsat 2A, was launched on 9 July. Although the 3000 made a big impact on the international market in 1995, its progress came to an abrupt halt in 1996, partly ...