All Space articles – Page 190
-
News
Sticky business
Tim Furniss/LONDON Dust from the comet Wild 2 will be collected and returned to earth by the fourth mission in NASA's Discovery programme which kicks off with a Delta II launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida on 6 February. It will be the first time that samples from a ...
-
News
Japan's Mars probe faces long wait
A propellant shortage will force a delay in Japan's $80 million Nozomi Mars probe reaching its target until towards the end of 2003, four years late. Launched last July, the Nozomi used more propellant than planned during a burn on 21 December to correct a deviation during a gravity-assist ...
-
News
USA threatens to stop Russian launches
Russia has reacted defiantly to a threat by the USA to restrict Russian commercial launches of US-built satellites. The Clinton Administration has warned Moscow to crack down on exports supporting Iran's military capability or four commercial satellite launches planned this year will be cancelled. The move would mean the loss ...
-
News
Orbital Sciences breaks record with $2.5 billion orderbook
Orbital Sciences (OSC) is claiming a record $2.5 billion-worth of new orders in 1998 for space and ground infrastructure systems product lines. Just over half the contracts were for Pegasus, Taurus and suborbital rocket launches and $475 million for sensors, electronics and satellite ground systems. The latest figures bring ...
-
News
Another PanAmSat craft malfunctions
PanAmSat's space woes continue despite the successful launch of the PAS 6B satellite on 22 December. Yet another satellite in its fleet has malfunctioned. Two of the 24 Ku-band antennas on PanAmSat 8, a Space Systems Loral-built FS-1300 spacecraft launched last November, are not aligned properly, restricting coverage over ...
-
News
Dynamic explorers
Tim Furniss/LONDON Three small NASA spacecraft will explore the earth's dynamic systems early in the new millennium. One of the satellites, called Volcanic Ash Mission (Volcam), will demonstrate the operational and scientific applications of monitoring volcanic clouds and small atmospheric particles, known as aerosols, from a geostationary orbit. Volcanic clouds ...
-
News
NASA's Mars Polar Lander is launched successfully
Boeing launched NASA's Mars Polar Lander (MPL) aboard a Delta II booster from Cape Canaveral on 3 January. Its sister craft, the Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO), was launched last month. The MCO will enter orbit in September, while the MPL is scheduled to touch down close the Martian south ...
-
News
Long wait in orbit for Russia's Zarya and US Unity
Russia's Zarya control module and the USA's smaller Node 1 Unity are pictured linked together in orbit by the crew of the Space Shuttle STS88 Endeavour, which completed the first International Space Station assembly mission during December. The Russian-built Service Module is scheduled to be added to the Zarya-Unity ...
-
News
An-124 will be space
The Russian Government has given the go-ahead for a project that will use the Antonov An-124 Ruslan freighter to launch a lightweight booster. The proposal, put forward by a joint team led by the Russian Space Agency and the Ministry of Defence, involves modernising four An-124s. A two-stage ...
-
News
Alcatel and Loral plan joint
Alcatel and Loral Space and Communications are planning to form a new company, EuropeStar. Initially, it will operate two Alcatel-built communications satellites co-located at 45í in geostationary (GEO) orbit. Launches are scheduled to take place in 2000 and 2002, and the satellites will serve Europe, the Middle East, South ...
-
News
Concern on Shuttle safety as ISS gathers pace
The NASA Kennedy Space Centre's Shuttle safety chief, Tommy Holloway, has warned staff to be on the alert for breaches in safety as the pace of orbiting International Space Station (ISS) components increases over the next few years. The warning to be extra vigilant about quality control and safety ...
-
News
So near, so far
Tim Furniss/LONDON The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft has been thwarted in its attempt to make interplanetary history on 10 January by becoming the first craft to enter orbit around an asteroid. The NEAR, the first craft in the NASA Discovery programme to be launched - on ...
-
News
More Mir missions planned after June
Russian cosmonaut Viktor Afanasyev, who will command the 27th resident crew to fly to the Mir space station in February, says that his mission will not be the final one to the space station, as planned originally. The mission will have a duration of just three months. A further ...
-
News
Hughes technology transfer error helped China's missile programme
The US Department of Defense has confirmed that Hughes Space and Communications inadvertently aided China's missile and satellite programmes during an investigation into the failure of a Long March 2E launcher attempting to orbit the Hughes built ApStar 2 satellite in 1995. The Pentagon says that Hughes gave China ...
-
News
Mars Climate Observer lifts off
Tim Furniss/LONDON A Boeing Delta II rocket was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 11 December, carrying the first of two NASA spacecraft that will be used to conduct the next round of investigations into Mars. The Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO) is scheduled to culminate in an orbital insertion in ...
-
News
The final frontier
Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES Every time a Space Shuttle blasts off, its booming sound waves pass unseen over the forgotten bones of a long abandoned project. Lying at the edge of the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, are the forlorn remains of Boeing's 2707-200 supersonic transport (SST) full-scale mock-up. Abandoned when the ...
-
News
Hessi plans
Spectrum Astro has completed the preliminary design review of the next primary mission satellite in NASA's Small Explorer (SMEX) programme. The High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (HESSI) will be launched in July 2000. Orbital Sciences will launch HESSI aboard a Pegasus in 2000. NASA has launched four SMEX craft. ...
-
News
Smart move
Tim Furniss/LONDON On 10 December, while the first components of the International Space Station were catching the world's eye, Sweden launched its Astrid 2 science satellite. The launch was made aboard a Russian Cosmos 3M booster from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome as part of a contract with the Russian Polyot organisation. ...
-
News
Pegasus launch
NASA's Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite (SWAS) was launched at 00.58 GMT on 6 December by an air-launched Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL booster. The $64 million SWAS will investigate the process involved in the creation of stars, when gravity collapses interstellar clouds of gas. Source: Flight International
-
News
HS-601 problems continue as battery failure hits Palapa C1
More problems have hit Hughes HS-601 satellites - another of the spacecraft is on the brink of losing its final workable battery and is about to be written off. The incident brings to seven the number of HS-601s that have malfunctioned this year. The latest problem satellite is the ...