FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1997
1997 - 3310.PDF
SPACEFLIGHT NEWS IN BRIEF • ARIANEROLL The European Space Agency says that the cause of the "roll torque" experienced by the Ariane 502 launcher on 30 October, resulting in it reaching a lower-than- planned orbit, was an unex pected reaction to the separation of the solid-rocket boosters. The attempt to recover the boosters in the sea, as planned, failed when the parachutes did not deploy correctly. • EUROCKOT STUDY Motorola is considering using 20 Russian Rokot launches to help maintain an operational 66-satellite Iridium worldwide mobile communications system. The Rokot is marketed by Daimler-Benz Aerospace and Russia's Khrunichev under the name Eurockot. • ON THE BALL NASA has selected Ball Aerospace, of Colorado, to build die first spacecraft in its rapid-delivery satellite pro gramme, in which eight com panies were awarded initial contracts to prepare for work on "catalogue" craft (Flight International, 22-28 Oc tober). The Quick Scatter- ometer, QuickScat ,will be launched by a Titan 2 from Vandenberg AFB, California, in 1998 to fill in the ocean- wind-vector data gap created by a NASA instrument being rendered useless when the Japanese Adeos satellite was lost in orbit. • NEW MILLENNIUM NASA has chosen the second Earth-orbiting mission in its New Millennium project to develop and demonstrate new technologies. The $15 million Space-Readiness Coherent Lidar Experiment (Sparcle) will be flown aboard the Space Shuttle in 2001 to give precise measurement of wind speed, direction and vertical profile. Dasa plans commercial Eureca ANDRZEJ JEZIORSKI/MUNICH DAIMLER-BENZ Aerospace (Dasa) is planning to launch a commercially funded industrial- applications mission using the free- flying, retrievable Eureca space platform from the US Space Shuttle in 2000. A European Space Agency- funded flight of the German-built Eureca, equipped with 71 different experiments, was conducted in 1992-3 after deployment from the STS46/'Atlantis. It was retrieved after 11 months in orbit by the STS57/'Endeavour, but budget cuts then grounded the programme. Dasa is promoting the commer cial use of the Eureca as a platform for various types of experiments and technology demonstrations and has signed an agreement with the United Arab Emirates' Centre of Excellence for Applied Research and Training to use the space plat form to conduct telecommunica tions experiments. Dasa is also negotiating with other potential users of the Eureca. The German company, mean while, partnered by Russia's Energia and Boeing, has been selected by NASA to demonstrate space-based remote-sensing and servicing technologies for possible use on the International Space Station (ISS), using the Inspector robotic free-flier which was devel oped by Dasa and delivered to the Mir space station in October. The Inspector will begin tests outside the Mir this month. The ISS Inspector will be Shuttle-launched in 2001 to demon strate video navigation, remote crew command-and-control functions and viewing capability. • X-38 orbital and re-entry test planned for 2001 TIM FURNISS/LONDON NASA'S X-38 crew-emer gency-return vehicle (CERV) for the International Space Station (ISS) will have its first orbital and re-entry flight test in 2001. The vehicle prototype is under going atmospheric flight tests from a NASA Boeing B-52 operating from Edwards AFB, California, (Flight International, 18-24 June). Glide flights from altitudes of up to 40,000ft (12,200m) are planned by 1999. Another unmanned X-38 prototype, equipped with a heat- shield, will be carried aboard the Space Shuttle STS113 Columbia in February 2001. It will be deployed in orbit to perform a re entry and automatic-landing demonstration flight. Berthed at the ISS, the operational X-3 8 CERV will be able to return six or seven crew to Earth in an emer gency. The interim ISS/CERV role will be performed by two Russian Soyuz TM spacecraft. -*m />^k. Au—""r >•••• aaa^^ WLMJ^A T*ii2JN ir~::'"'ll IHftlB The X-38 prototype is being flight-testedfrom Edwards AFB this year The European Space Agency's (ESA) role in the X-38 CERV pro gramme and also in its own Ariane 5-launched Crew Transfer Vehicle (CTV) proposal had been threat ened by the French Government's withdrawal of financial backing, but Germany and Italy have since assumed leading roles in work on the project. A new NASA-German agree ment signed in November will result in Germany providing com ponents, including the nosecone for the X-38 spaceflight demon stration vehicle. Italy's involve ment may be confirmed later. Attempting to wrestle back the initiative, French President Jacques Chirac says that he wants France to restore the 39% funding to ESA for the CERV/CTV until flight tests have confirmed its potential as the ISS lifeboat. • WRC agrees Ka-band frequencies for Teledesic, Sky bridge, Celestri THE WORLD Radiocom-munication Conference (WRC) 1997 in Geneva has agreed to allocate Ka-band frequencies to the Teledesic, Skybridge and Celestri high-speed multi-media satellite systems. The decision to allow the Skybridge and Celestri to compete with the $9 billion US Teledesic multi-satellite system planned by Microsoft's Bill Gates and entre preneur Craig McCaw, with sup port from Boeing, will allow European industry to participate significantly in this multi-media communications application. The Skybridge is a $3.5 billion programme led by France's Alcatel, in which Aerospatiale has also invested, along with Toshiba and Mitsubishi of Japan, Loral Space and Communications of the USA and Canada's Spar Aerospace. Aerospatiale will build the 64, 1,000kg low-Earth-orbit (LEO) Skybridge satellites, based on its Proteus platform. Matra Marconi Space has invested in the Motorola Celestri project, which could result in a contract worth over $1 billion to build 71 LEO spacecraft.). • FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 3 - 9 December 1997
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
