FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
2001
2001 - 1142.PDF
SPACEFLIGHT Boeing wins New Skies contract NEW SKIES Satellites has awarded Boeing a contract to build and launch a high-power C/Ku-band communications sat ellite which will be used to provide full coverage of the Americas. The 88-transponder Boeing 702 satellite, designated NSS-8, will be launched in October 2003 by the Boeing-led Sea Launch joint venture. New Skies, based in the Netherlands, operates five ex- Intelsat spacecraft and also has two new satellites on order from Lockheed Martin - NSS-7 intend ed for launch in November over the Atlantic Ocean followed by NSS-6 in October 2002 over Asia. The Boeing agreement includes options for two more 702s, "for which we have not yet developed business plans", says New Skies chief executive Bob Ross, noting that the company will require a new Pacific Ocean satellite as well as a backup for NSS-8, which will be positioned at 105° W. New Skies was formed in 1998 by the partial privatisation of Intelsat. The company plans to add one new satellite a year over its first five years. The NSS-8 and the 60-transponder NSS-6 will add new capacity, while the 110-transponder NSS-7 is intend ed to replace two satellites that are out of fuel. New Skies asked Boeing to build the powerful and flexible NSS-8 spacecraft in a bid to take on the incumbents in the Americas mar ket with a single satellite. It will have 14kWof payload power, 46 C- and 42 Ku-band transponders and no fewer than 16 beams cover ing North, Central and South America. Boeing says its complex antenna array is the most challeng ing aspect of the design. As NSS-8 will weigh 5,700kg (12,570lb), its launch requires an uprated version of Sea Launch's Russian Zenit- 3 SL launcher. Sea Launch has also been select ed by Boeing to fly two Spaceway satellites for Hughes Network Systems in late 2002 and early 2003. The Ka-band phased-array spacecraft are expected to weigh up to 6,000kg, says Boeing. Sea Launch says the current payload to geostationary transfer orbit of 5,250kg will be increased to 5,7 5 0kg by the second quarter of 2002 and to 6,000kg by the fourth quarter. The Zenit-3SL, however, is designed to have a "minimum of 6,000kg" capacity. • Engine fire stops Indian launch THE MAIDEN flight of India's Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) was abort ed seconds before take off from the Sriharikota range in southern India on 2 8 March following a fire in one of the four strap-on engines. The Indian Space Research Organisation says that all stages of the GSLV-D1 remained intact after the ground computer auto matically shut down the engines. No date is set for a new launch. The GSLV was to have placed the Indian-built GS AT-1 into geo synchronous transfer orbit. The three-stage rocket has taken a decade to build and uses Russian engine designs in the cryogenic stage. The abort was consistent with previous Indian first launch efforts with the Satellite Launch Vehicle, the Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle and the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. The launch was to have been the first of two flights before the GSLV was offered for sale with a payload capacity of 2,000kg (4,4001b) for geostationary transfer orbit. • China's Long March to launch Korean satellite The Korea Aerospace Research Institute has signed a $16.85 million contract with China Great Wall Industry Corporation to launch the Arirang 2 remote sensing satellite, formerly known as Kompsat 2, aboard a Long March 2C booster from Xichang, China, in 2004. The $176 million Arirang 2 satel lite is being built by Europe's Astrium and El-Op of Israel, and will be used to provide lm (3 ft) and 4m resolution images of the Earth. NEWS IN BRIEF • VULCAIN CONTRACT Astrium has received a $51 million order from Snecma to produce 20 Vulcain 2 thrust chamber systems and 20 flight sets of cryogenic valve systems for the Ariane 5 launcher. • LAUNCH DELAY Astro Vision, the company that plans a fleet of five geostationary-orbiting com mercial remote sensing satel lites able to provide daily coverage of the Earth to users of the internet, has delayed the projected first launch of the system until 2003. UK's Beagle 2 Mars pioneer plans follow-on mission to collect rocks THE UK scientist who is spearheading the Beagle 2 Mars lander mission - to be launched in 2003 - has proposed a Mars mission in 2009 aimed at returning Martian rock samples to Earth. Speaking to scientists at the Royal Society in London, Prof Colin Pillinger of the UK Open University said he hoped to get the backing of the European Space Agency (ESA) which is providing funding for Beagle 2, scheduled to fly piggyback to Mars with the ESA Mars Express orbiter. Pillinger believes that such a sample return mission could be flown at a cost of $200 million to $600 million, compared with the $1 billion which NASA is estimat ing for a similar mission. The NASA-led sample return mission, originally scheduled for 2005, has been pushed back to 2012 pending a technical reap praisal after the loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander in 1999. According to Pillinger, the UK-led sampler mission would fly to Mars with an orbiter and make an airbag-assisted soft landing similar to that planned for Beagle 2. He says a 60kg (1301b) probe would then drill about 1 m (3 ft) into the planet surface, collect up to 290% of soil, place it in a canister and take off and rendezvous with the orbiter. The spacecraft would remain in orbit for about two years before the right launch window to fly out of Martian orbit en route to the Earth. • FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 3 - 9 April 2001
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
