All Space articles – Page 198
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France presses for space vehicle
Julian Moxon/BORDEAUX Aerospatiale is pressing the European Space Agency (ESA) to launch development of an unmanned independent European re-entry vehicle demonstrator as a follow-on to its Atmospheric Re-entry Demonstrator (ARD) programme. France pulled out of the NASA-led X-38 re-entry vehicle effort in 1997 when its new Government cancelled financing ...
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Boeing wins $1.4 billion Ellipso deal
Tim Furniss/LONDON Mobile Communications Holdings has awarded a $1.4 billion contract to Boeing to design, fabricate and launch satellites in the Ellipso system to provide worldwide fixed, mobile and airborne communications from elliptical orbit. Boeing will also provide the ground segment infrastructure for the 16-satellite system in two ...
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Neurolab returns to Kennedy after 16 day flight
Space Shuttle Columbia/ STS90 returned to the Kennedy Space Center, Florida on 2 May after a 15 day 21h international Spacelab research mission. The Neurolab was dedicated to research the activity of the brain in weightlessness and involved a menagerie of animals and reptiles, many of which died during ...
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Antonov seeks help with An-225
Antonov, in conjunction with Air Foyle, has put together a proposal to re-activate the giant An-225 Myria cargo aircraft to satisfy outsize cargo demands that require an aircraft larger than the An-124 Ruslan. Bruce Bird, director of the charter division of An-124 leasing specialist Air Foyle, has been working ...
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Counting on Columbus
Andrzej Jeziorski/MUNICH Despite recent fears of delays in the assembly of the International Space Station (ISS), Daimler-Benz Aerospace (Dasa)is still working on the assumption that its key contribution - the Columbus Orbital Facility (COF) - will be launched on time, or perhaps earlier than expected. Russia is running ...
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Hair-raising missions
Tim Furniss/LONDON Some people might think it a rather weird way of making money out of space, but business is business. First, people's ashes were sent into orbit; now the Celestis company, based in Houston, Texas, is inviting people to send samples of their hair into the Universe. Celestis ...
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ICO antennas on Hughes assembly line
The hexagonal transmit and receive active array S-band antennas for the ICO world- wide mobile communications satellites are pictured at the Hughes Space and Communications factory in El Seg- undo, California. Two antennas mounted side by side on the 10 operational medium Earth orbit satellites will each form as many ...
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Hughes attempts lunar fly-by rescue plan for Asiasat
Tim Furniss/LONDON Hughes is attempting to rescue the Asiasat 3 communications satellite, stranded in a useless orbit after a launch failure last December, by flying it around the moon to reposition it in an operational geostationary orbit (GEO). The AsiaSat 3 was stranded in a 51¼ inclination, 201 ...
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Russia seeks NASA help to extend Mir missions
Tim Furniss/LONDON Russia has requested that US space agency NASA fly two more Shuttle Mir Missions (SMMs) to provide logistics support to extend the life of the Mir space station for at least three further manned missions up to at least mid-1999. The request lends support to evidence ...
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Moving up
Tim Furniss/LONDON A key marker in the development of the ILS International Launch Services Atlas III takes place this month when a prototype booster stage with a Russian-based RD-180 engine will be test fired at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. In early 1999 the Atlas III ...
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Record re-entry
Russia's Cosmos 2348 photo-reconnaissance satellite returned to Earth on April 14. Launched last December, the satellite was in orbit for 119.5 days, around 30 days longer than the previous record holder, Cosmos 2331. Russia does not now have a low-orbit photo reconnaissance satellite operating in orbit, says the Molniya Space ...
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Eutelsat contract
Eutelsat, the European satellite communications organisation, is to launch the Europesat 1 multimedia satellite into a 29¹E geostationary orbit in mid-2000. Matra Marconi Space will build the 36-transponder craft, which will compete with the Astra satellites operated by Luxembourg-based SES, which will introduce digital services from a new slot at ...
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Columbia crew is blamed for Spartan deployment failure
Tim Furniss/LONDON Blame for the botched deployment of a Spartan free flyer during last November's STS87/Columbia flight has been placed firmly at the door of the spacecraft's crew. Mission specialist Kalpana Chawla has come in for most blame, but the whole STS87 crew, led by commander Kevin Kregel, ...
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China eyes manned launch
Preparations are under way at China's Jiuquan launch base for an unmanned orbital test flight of a manned spacecraft aboard an uprated Long March (LM) 2E booster unveiled by the Chinese Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology. A three-crew flight could take place in 1999 to celebrate the 50th anniversary ...
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NASA Deep Space launch faces
Late delivery of spacecraft power electronics and an "ambitious" flight software development schedule has forced NASA to delay the launch of its first New Millennium programme spacecraft, the Deep Space 1. The delay, from July to October, will mean the scrapping of planned fly-bys of an asteroid, a comet ...
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Italy leads ESA interest in Vega K development
Development of the proposed European Vega K low Earth orbit launcher will depend on industrial funding of around Ecu70 million ($77 million) as well as the ECU350 million funding requested from interested member states of the European Space Agency (ESA) led by France and Italy. The Italian space agency says ...
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Laser link lined up
Tim Furniss/LONDON The European Space Agency's (ESA) Artemis project is now well on its way after cost and technical problems combined to delay the satellite, which had been originally due to be in orbit now. The flight model has been completed by Alenia Spazio in Rome and will soon ...
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Artemis unveiled
The European Space Agency's geostationary orbiting Artemis communications technology satellite has been unveiled at Alenia Aerospazio in Rome amid fears that its scheduled launch on a Japanese H2 Alpha Plus in 1999 is likely to be delayed at least until February 2000 because of development problems with the new booster. ...
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Orbital aspirations
Tim Furniss/LONDON The Chinese Academy of Space Technology (CAST) has announced plans for a national manned spaceflight (see box), an unmanned lunar explorer and radical improvements to space applications technology, thus enabling China to compete more effectively in the international marketplace. A space applications plan has been announced to ...
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First EOS launch suffers a six month setback
The launch of the first satellite in the Earth Observing System (EOS), the centrepiece of NASA's Mission to Planet Earth programme, has been delayed by at least six months after the discovery of a series of ground control software faults. Faults in the EOS Data and Information System (EOSDIS) ...