All Space articles – Page 221
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Tether tries again
Tim Furniss/LONDON IF IT DOES NOT WORK THIS time, NASA will probably ditch the project. The Italian Tethered Satellite System (TSS), it is hoped, will be deployed successfully from the Space Shuttle Columbia/STS75 on 24 February, with the aim of reaching a distance of 20km at the end ...
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Hyflex spaceplane lost after successful J1 flight
Tim Furniss/LONDON JAPAN'S HYFLEX hypersonic flight-experiment space-plane sank in the Pacific Ocean 20min after the successful maiden flight of the J1 booster on 12 February. The 1,040kg Hyflex splashed down 1,300km (700nm) down-range from the Tanegashima launch centre, but sank after a cable linking the ...
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Near thing
NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft will be launched aboard a McDonnell Douglas Delta 2 booster from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 16 February. The NEAR will enter orbit around the asteroid Eros in 1999 (Flight International, 17-23 January). Also planned for 16 February launches are China's first Long March ...
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Space and missiles
Winner: Matra Marconi Space Location: Stevenage, UK. Achievement: Success, both commercial and technical, of the versatile Eurostar communications satellite platform. In 1995, Matra Marconi Space began to reap the rewards of its long-term investment in the Eurostar communications-satellite platform. New orders have continued to roll in during ...
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X-34 programme halted
ORBITAL SCIENCES (OSC) and Rockwell have stopped design work on the X-34B launcher project, although NASA, which is partially funding the work, has not yet cancelled the programme. The choice of propulsion system for the X-34B, which was to have been launched atop a Boeing 747 NASA Shuttle ...
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Near thing
NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft will be launched aboard a McDonnell Douglas Delta 2 booster from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 16 February. The NEAR will enter orbit around the asteroid Eros in 1999. Source: Flight International
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Launch gets right to the point
THE ACCURATE LAUNCH of a Lockheed Martin Atlas 2AS booster in December 1995 has ensured that the European Space Agency's (ESA) Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) will be operational for at least 20 years, rather than six years as originally planned, says ESA. The satellite will reach its operational ...
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Crew selection
A US astronaut and Russian cosmonaut have been named as part of the three-man crew to become the first to inhabit the International Space Station in May 1998. NASA mission specialist William Shepherd, Russia's Sergei Krikalev and an as-yet-unnamed Russian commander will be launched aboard a Soyuz TM spacecraft ...
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JPL engineers fit key flight hardware to Cassini craft
NASA JET PROPULSION Laboratory (JPL) engineers at Pasadena, California have completed installation of key flight hardware aboard the Cassini spacecraft, which will be launched towards Saturn, by a Titan 4/Centaur booster in October 1997. The craft's attitude- and articulation-control subsystem was integrated, together with the power and pyrotechnics ...
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X-34 Halted
A US astronaut and Russian cosmonaut have been named as part of the three-man crew to become the first to inhabit the International Space Station in May 1998. NASA mission specialist William Shepherd, Russia's Sergei Krikalev and an as-yet-unnamed Russian commander will be launched aboard a Soyuz TM spacecraft from ...
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Endeavour succeeds
NASA's first Space Shuttle mission of 1996, the STS72/Endeavour, ended with a safe landing at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida on 20 January, after a successful eight day 22h flight, which included two space walks, gaining NASA 24h of space walk experience, in preparation for the assembly of the Alpha ...
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Galileo data delight NASA but scupper scientists' theories
Tim Furniss/LONDON THE DESIGNERS of NASA's Galileo probe have been vindicated after 57min of data were returned from the craft as it descended through the predominantly hydrogenous atmosphere of Jupiter on 7 December. The data, however, disappointed scientists, who had been expecting them to reveal far more ...
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Robot-arm contract
Canada's Spar Space Systems has been awarded a $4.2 million contract from NASA to produce three remote manipulators to assist in the assembly of the US-led Alpha international space station. The Power Data Grapple Fixtures are the mechanical and electrical attachments, or "shoulders", of Spar's remote-manipulator system robot arm. ...
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Pegasus XL to try again
ORBITAL SCIENCES (OSC) will attempt to launch its Pegasus XL booster, carrying the US Air Force REX 2 satellite, during a 30-day launch window starting on 29 February. The first launch attempt failed on 22 June, 1995.after human error during assembly led to the improper installation of one ...
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Maiden flight planned for Japan's J1 launcher
JAPAN'S J1 solid-propellant launch vehicle will make its maiden flight from Tanegashima on 7 February. The two-stage version of the new satellite launcher will carry the Hyflex hypersonics flight-experiment space plane on a sub-orbital flight. A later three-stage J1, built by the National Space Development Agency, will be ...
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Dynamic overshoot
Ten years after the Challenger accident, there is still argument over a phenomenon called dynamic overshoot. Tim Furniss/Washington DC IF NASA ERRED IN DESIGNING the Space Shuttle, its hypersensitive reaction to the term "dynamic overshoot" and to the name of Ali AbuTaha, who conducted an independent ...
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New study qualifies Shuttle risk assessment
A STUDY FOR NASA by New York-based Science Applications International research group puts the risk of a catastrophic failure of the Space Shuttle at one in 248 flights, compared with one in 78 in 1988 when the Space Shuttle returned to flight after the Challenger accident. NASA's internal estimate of ...
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Ariane/Delta kick off busy schedule
Tim Furniss/LONDON ARIANE AND DELTA boosters have been used to start what promises to be the busiest year ever for commercial launches, with three satellites for Malaysia, South Korea and US company PanAmSat being placed in orbit on 12 and 14 January, respectively. Over 25 other geostationary communications satellites are ...
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Running Wild
NASA has now selected the fourth mission in its new Discovery interplanetary space programme. Tim Furniss/WASHINGTON DC IN JANUARY 2006, A SMALL Discovery series spacecraft is scheduled to return to Earth after a journey across interplanetary space. The craft will contain a precious cargo of ...
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Shuttle launch
The first of eight planned Space Shuttle missions in 1996, the STS72/Endeavour was launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida on 11 January on a planned nine-day flight. A six man crew, including, the first Japanese NASA mission specialist Kiochi Wakata, were scheduled to deploy a Spartan research satellite and ...