All Space articles – Page 195
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Shuttle threat
The US Clinton Administration is willing to cancel planned non-International Space Station (ISS) shuttle flights to absorb cost overruns on the ISS, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget. Only one non-ISS Shuttle flight, to deploy the Advanced X-Ray Astrophysics Facility, is scheduled for 1999, when a ...
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X Plane progress
The first wing assembly for NASA's Orbital Sciences-built X-34 spaceplane technology demonstrator has been completed in a major milestone towards the first air-launched flights next year. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, meanwhile, has invited proposals for Future X vehicles as part of the continued series of demonstrators to validate technologies ...
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Cosmonaut added to ISS Shuttle crew
Russia's Sergei Krikalev has been added to the crew of the STS88 Space Shuttle Endeavour mission set to be launched in December. It will be the first US International Space Station assembly mission to dock the US Unity Node 1 to the Russian Zarya Control module. The Russian module is ...
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Alenia delivers the first logistics module for space station
Tim Furniss/LONDON The first of three Italian Space Agency reusable Multi-Purpose Logistics Modules (MPLM) destined for the International Space Station (ISS), has now arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The MPLM 1 is scheduled to be carried on the Space Shuttle STS 100/Endeavour in December 1999. ...
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Station approaches
Tim Furniss/LONDON Late this month, technicians at NASA's Space Station Processing Facility (SSPF) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida, will begin interlinking International Space Station (ISS) components for one of the largest test operations ever conducted by the space agency. The test will imitate the assembly in orbit of ...
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Next Soyuz to be launched on credit
TIM FURNISS/LONDON The three-man Soyuz mission to the Mir space station on 13 August is being launched on credit worth $33 million after a Russian Government pledge to provide $120 million to Energia failed to materialise, says the company's director general Yuri Semenov. The space station's remaining time ...
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Scaled Composites takes HALO up to 12,000ft on first flight
Guy Norris/MOJAVE Scaled Composites' Proteus proof of concept, high-altitude, long operation (HALO) aircraft made a successful first flight from the company's Mojave base in California on 26 July. The all-composite, canard configured aircraft is one of the most bizarre to emerge from the Burt Rutan stable. Piloted by ...
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X-38 faces crucial parafoil testing during September
Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES NASA hopes to restart full scale free-flight drop tests of the X-38 crew return vehicle (CRV) as early as October, pending successful tests of a redesigned parafoil system in September. The X-38 is being developed as a "life boat" for crews of the International Space ...
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Satellite bug delays launches
Tim Furniss/LONDON The launch of at least two Hughes Space and Communications HS-601-based satellites have been delayed following control processor failures aboard the similar DBS1 and Galaxy 4 and 7 spacecraft in geostationary orbit from May to July (Flight International, 22-28 July). The JC-SAT 6, scheduled for launch on 29 ...
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Celestial Internet
Tim Furniss/LONDON Of all the advances in satellite communications since Telstar, the most interest is being created by the $9 billion Teledesic programme. Now that Teledesic has assembled a powerful industrial team to build and launch its 300-satellite constellation, the project is moving into high gear. Teledesic's copyrighted "Internet in ...
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Rotary Rocket starts construction of the first Roton parts
Construction of the first parts of Rotary Rocket's Roton commercial space vehicle is under way, kicking off an ambitious development schedule aimed at achieving initial flight tests by the middle of 1999. The first elements of the Roton, an unpiloted, unmanned, re-useable single stage to orbit (SSTO) launch vehicle, are ...
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Location of SOHO raises rescue hopes
Ground-based telescopes have located the European Space Agency (ESA)/ NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) rotating at 1RPM in its nominal "halo orbit" between the sun and the earth, raising hopes that direct communications can be restored so that the tumbling craft's solar panels can be repointed to the sun. ...
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Russian promise
Ian Sheppard/LONDON A worldwide observation campaign to define more precisely the characteristics of the Russian Glonass satellite navigation system will run from September to December this year. It will be conducted by the geodetic community, which is relying on combining the Glonass with the US global positioning system (GPS) to ...
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Space lease
Nordic Satellite's 15-Ku band Sirius 3 communications satellite, operating at 28° in geostationary orbit, will be leased for one year by Société Européenne des Satellites, Luxembourg, as a back-up for the Astra 2A, which is due be launched by Arianespace next month. Source: Flight International
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Failure report
NASA's TRW-built Lewis remote-sensing technology demonstration satellite, which failed in orbit on 26 August 1997, two days after launch, did so because of a "combination of a technically flawed attitude control system design and inadequate monitoring of the spacecraft during its early operations phase", says NASA. Source: Flight International
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Spacehab buoys up expansion plans with Johnson acquisition
Spacehab, the private company that provides pressurised modules for the Space Shuttle, has almost doubled in size by acquiring a leading company supporting NASA's Shuttle programme. Houston-based Johnson Engineering manages spacewalking training operations at NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at the Johnson Space Center, Texas, as well as supporting the ...
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NRO chooses TRW to test communications
The US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) has awarded TRW a $78 million contract to test high data rate laser communications between geosynchronous orbit and the ground. The Geosynchronous Lightweight Technology Experiment (GeoLite) spacecraft will include a laser communications experiment and a UHF communications mission. The GeoLite will be used ...
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Missile conversion
Tim Furniss/LONDON A former Minuteman II missile refurbished by Orbital Sciences (OSC) will be launched from California Spaceport at Vandenberg AFB in late 1999, carrying an experimental satellite. The Joint Air Force/Weber Satellite (Jawsat), developed by students from the US Air Force Academy and Utah's State University. California ...
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GAO says ISS may need debris shield
The International Space Station (ISS) may require a $5 billion debris shield and particle tracking network to protect its operation in orbit, says the US Government's General Accounting Office (GAO) - but funding is not included in current ISS cost estimates. Particles of debris as small as 10mm could puncture ...
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Shuttle engine plant
NASA has opened a new $6.2 million Space Shuttle Main Engine Processing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. An extension of the Orbiter Processing Facility, the new unit replaces one that was located in the Vehicle Assembly Building and will be used to help to streamline fleet operations. The ...