Space Shuttle: January 2009 Archives

credit NASA / caption: Orbiter Atlantis and its SSMEs. Click on the image to see a larger version

NASA has told Hyperbola, "Some individuals at NASA believe that a limited number of established or start-up commercial space transportation organizations may express interest [in Space Shuttle Main Engines] once it is clear that the space shuttle's last mission really will occur on a certain near-term date, and that the remaining engines are still in "fly-able" condition."

credit: Spacehab

Russia's S P Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia built Mini Research Module (MRM1) will be taken to ISS on mission STS-132, the Space Shuttle Discovery's last known mission scheduled for April 2010. The MRM1 will carry in it spare parts, research hardware, and consumables. Once installed it will act as a docking port extension for the Russian Soyuz and Progress vehicles and providing additional storage capacity

credit Flight / caption: Will he stay or will he go?

While the blogosphere has been twirling to the rumour mill of Obama inspired military NASA reports (alternate universe stuff as far as Hyperbola is concened) and alleged campaigns in favour of the US space agency administrator Mike Griffin I have written a 2009 spaceflight forecast for Hyperbola's print publication sister title Flight International but you can read it here first

Will 2009 build towards a greater new decade of space activity?

The challenge in 2009 is to realise the potential of government and private sector spaceflight programmes that made good progress in 2008 to bring about greater activity in space in the future, activity that is as much commercial in nature as it is exploration