International Space Station: November 2008 Archives

Hyperbola has learnt that the minister's advice (a report drawn up by civil servants that sets out the options) that was supposed to reach the then space minister Ian Pearson by October this year, and didn't, could reach the new minister, Lord Drayson in January

Hyperbola has now got its own Youtube channel and that can be found here on Youtube

During the coming weeks many videos previously only found on www.flightglobal.com and previously unseen video will find their way onto Hyperbola's FlightHyperbola Youtube channel

credit: www.esa.int

Watch the European Space Agency director general Jean-Jacques Dordain's 26 November press conference here about the 2008 ministerial meeting that decided his agency's budget and plans for the next three years including ESA astronauts at the International Space Station and the evolution of the agency's resupply ship, Automated Transfer Vehicle

credit: NASA / caption: see the Earth through Endeavour's flight deck windows

On 16 November 2008 NASA astronaut Eric Boe, STS-126 pilot, is shown here sitting at the pilot's station on the forward flight deck of Space Shuttle Endeavour during rendezvous and docking operations with the International Space Station. However the pilot's window was soon to feel an impact from what could have been micro meteorite orbital debris

See close-up pictures, post-impact, in the extended section of this blog post

Click on images in this blog post to see larger versions in the same browser window

credit: ESA Youtube channel

More than any other nation or group of allies, next week's governments' ministers meeting for the European Space Agency should be more influenced by the geopolitical needs of a continent in danger of being eclipsed by Indian and China in the future, than the credit crunch or the idealism of international exploration of the solar system

The European Space Agency's director general Jean-Jacques Dordain has recorded an interview, in English and French, about the challenges facing the agency and in particular in the wake of the worldwide financial disaster

Talk of new manned transportation systems and the Moon has taken a back seat to a focus on the Earth orientated European space policy with its priorities for services for the citizens and orbital infrastructure that will be used for security purposes

But there does still seem to be hope for an evolution of ESA's International Space Station resupply vehicle Automated Transfer Vehicle, into a cargo return craft

credit: NASA / caption: but when in '09?

The latest Space Shuttle programme manifest shows the Ares I-X launch put back to 11 July 2009, assuming a 12 May date next year for the lift-off of Hubble Space Telescope (HST) servicing mission four (SM4), STS-125

And in a related change the lightning tower seen in the poster above is unlikely now to occur as the planned four lightning towers that will, Russian launch pad-like, stand at each of the "corners" of the Kennedy Space Center complex are already being put in place 

click on the images in this blog post to see a larger version in the same browser window

credit: Flight/NASA / caption: Brits unlikely to be over the Moon come mid-2009

By mid-2009 the European Space Agency would have selected its next four astronauts and if you believe what you read in the UK media  then one of those could be British but Hyperbola's sources within ESA indicate that short of a miracle a British subject won't have enough of the right stuff, by which I mean government "support" through human spaceflight funding. Instead the fourth astronaut could be Danish...