All Space articles – Page 171
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Overload 'caused Mars failures'
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC Flaws in NASA's "faster, better, cheaper" approach overloaded programme management at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and contributed directly to the failures of the Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander, says the report by the Mars programme independent assessment team (MPIAT). The US space agency ...
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X-33 deal in renegotiation talks
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC NASA and Lockheed Martin are renegotiating their co-operative agreement on the X-33 technology demonstrator and follow-on VentureStar reusable launch vehicle (RLV). The talks are a result of technical problems with the X-33 and the decision by NASA both to delay and open to competition its ...
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NASA replaces Shuttle main engine
NASA is to replace a Space Shuttle main engine on the orbiter Atlantis, being prepared for its STS101 mission to the fledgling International Space Station in mid-April. After finding a defective part inside a metal seal on an engines being prepared for Discovery's mission to the Hubble Space Telescope last ...
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NASA stands up to Mars critics
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON NASA is braced for further criticism of its "faster, better, cheaper" approach, with release of an independent review of recent Mars mission failures due this week. In response to the expected criticism, administrator Daniel Goldin has warned that "NASA will not change course." The Mars Programme ...
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Dump compensation
Boeing has offered to reimburse NASA for the loss of two spare oxygen and nitrogen tanks, valued at $750,000, built for use aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The 1.5 x 1.5m tanks (5 x 5ft) were left outside an ISS component assembly building in wooden crates and were accidentally ...
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Starsem success in Cluster
Starsem demonstrated the flight profile for launches of two pairs of Cluster satellites in June and July, using a dummy satellite on a Starsem Soyuz Fregat booster from Baikonur on 20 March . The Fregat upper stage's first firing placed the Dumsat payload into initial low Earth orbit. The ...
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Zvezda is cleared for launch despite poor safety levels
Tim Furniss/LONDON NASA has cleared the launch in July of the Russian Zvezda service module for the International Space Station (ISS), despite US concerns about the failure of the Zvezda and Zarya modules to meet NASA safety standards, such as noise levels and pressurisation integrity. NASA says it ...
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Ariane 5 makes first dual-satellite launch
Ariane 505 flight V128 was launched from Kourou on 21 March, carrying the Asiastar and Insat 3B. It was the first commercial dual-satellite deployment mission by the heavylift booster and its second commercial flight. Ariane 505 carried a 4,835kg (10,650lb) payload to a 560 x 35,785km (350 x 22,225 ...
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Slow service take-up hits Globalstar/Iridium
Loral Space and Communications is considering selling all or part of its 45% stake in the Globalstar worldwide mobile-communications satellite system following slower than expected sales of the telephone service. Meanwhile, Iridium prime investor Motorola has notified customers of its worldwide satellite mobile-telephone and paging services that it will ...
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First Terra satellite images released
NASA has released the first images from an array of instruments aboard its Earth Observing Systems flagship, Terra, which has reached its final 705km (440 miles) polar orbit following its launch on 18 December. They include the Mississippi Delta (shown above). The image was obtained by the polar-orbiting satellite's Moderate ...
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Sea Launch fails with first ICO
Tim Furniss/LONDON The third firing of the international Sea Launch booster failed on 13 March, with the loss of the first ICO Global Communications satellite. The lift-off, from the Odyssey platform in the mid-Pacific, 2,240km (1,390 miles) south-east of Hawaii, was the second commercial launch by the Boeing-led ...
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NASA reacts to study criticisms
Tim Furniss/LONDON NASA has promised swift action following criticism in three separate reports of the space agency's Space Shuttle and "faster, better, cheaper" spacecraft programmes. The Space Shuttle Assessment Team has criticised NASA for cutting staff at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), saying that it has eroded safety - ...
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Magnetosphere deal for UK company
The UK's Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL) has won a $120,000, 100-day, Magnetosphere Multiscale Mission (MMS) study contract to investigate the range of suitable concepts for a five-spacecraft mission to study the Earth's magnetosphere. Planned for launch in 2005, the five-spacecraft MMS fleet will involve formation flying and two lunar ...
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Proton success is boost for Russians
Russia scored a morale-boosting second consecutive launch on 12 March from the Baikonur Cosmodrome of the four-stage Proton booster, with its DM upper stage, after suffering two failures last year. The launch carried an Express A communications satellite, which was injected into a parking orbit of 226 x 195km ...
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ESA selects flexi-mission candidates
The European Space Agency's (ESA) science advisers have proposed six new space science missions to be considered for ESA's "flexi-mission" series, due to be launched between 2005 and 2009. The flexi-missions were introduced in 1997 to allow two missions to be funded for the price of one former medium-class ...
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Soyuz TM cosmonauts to bring Mir out of mothballs
Tim Furniss/LONDON The launch of a Soyuz TM spacecraft from Baikonur, with the first cosmonaut crew to man the Mir space station since it was mothballed last year, will take place on 3 April. The pressurised environment on the Mir has been checked automatically and the launch given the ...
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NEAR monitors asteroid rotation
The NASA Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft has entered a lower, 200km (125 miles), orbit around the asteroid Eros after two orbit correction manoeuvres.Next month NASA hopes to conduct a third short engine burn, moving the spacecraft into a 100km orbit. By May, the NEAR will be moved as ...
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Aiming high
Hopes for the future of Japan's troubled space programme rest with a simplified and cut-price version of its H-2 launcher Andrzej Jeziorski/TOKYO The 20th century closed on a low point for Japan's National Space Development Agency (NASDA). Two failures of its expensive H-2 expendable launch vehicle not only ...
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Beal booster progresses with test firing of BA-810 engine
Tim Furniss/LONDON Beal Aerospace has conducted a test firing of its 810,000lb-thrust (3,605kN), hydrogen-peroxide JET-A kerosene BA-810 engine at McGregor, Texas, as part of the development programme for its BA-2 heavy-lift launch vehicle. The three-stage BA-810-powered BA-2 is due to fly in 2002. Beal says the BA-810 is ...
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People
American Airlines has named David Cush as vice president (VP), international planning and alliances. Cush returns to American from Aerolineas Argentinas, where he has been chief operating officer (COO) since November 1998, after the termination of the US major's management contract there. Airbus Industrie of North America (AINA) says retiring ...