All Space articles – Page 204
-
News
Countdown begins for Columbia launch
NASA has begun the countdown for the launch of the US space shuttle Columbia on a 16-day research mission that will feature the first spacewalk by a Japanese. The Columbia's six astronauts arrived at the Kennedy Space Center yesterday, shortly after the countdown began for the planned blastoff ...
-
News
NASA praises European contribution
With plans preceeding to begin building an international space station next year, the head of NASA has praised French and European involvement and says he hopes for co-operation in building a low-cost crew shuttle. Daniel Goldin was in France to meet with officials of the European Space Agency; ...
-
News
MMS wins $1 billion work on the Celestri
Matra Marconi Space (MMS) has signed an agreement with Motorola which will result in an anticipated $1 billion contract to build 71 communications satellites for the US company's Celestri system. The Celestri satellites will be based on the MMS 3,000-4,000kg-class Eurostar 3000 spacecraft bus. A total of 70 ...
-
News
Success of Ariane 5 buoys Europe despite low orbit
The long-awaited launch of the Ariane 502 test-flight, from the Guiana Space Centre, Kourou, French Guiana, on 30 October - 16 months after the failure of the first launch - has boosted the morale of the European space industry, despite the slightly premature shutdown of the first-stage engine, which resulted ...
-
News
Brazil fails with first attempt to launch satellite
Brazil's first attempt to launch a nationally built satellite on an indigenous launcher ended in failure on 2 November. The South American nation was seeking to become the ninth country in the world to have succeeded in the dual task. The $6.5 million, Veiculo Lancador de Satelites (VLS), ...
-
News
Mir will come down to Earth in 1999
The Russian Space Agency (RSA) plans to begin bringing down its long-serving Mir 1 space station in 1999, provided that the new International Space Station is operating on schedule by then, with a resident crew. Yuri Koptev, RSA director-general, says that it would be possible to operate both ...
-
News
Ariane 5 is launched
The Ariane 5 was successfully launched from Kourou, French Guiana on 30 October, boosting the morale of the European space industry after the failure of the first attempt 16 months ago. The latest launch, however, was marred by a premature shutdown of the Vulcain first-stage engine, which resulted ...
-
News
Athena delays Prospector again
NASA has again been forced to delay the launch of its Discovery programme's Lunar Prospector, because of the need for additional checks to the Lockheed Martin Athena 2 booster. The flight, now to take place on 5 January, 1998, had already been rescheduled from September and was due ...
-
News
Hughes wins Russian groundstation deal
Hughes Space and Communications has received a contract from Russia to build, launch and provide the ground-station equipment for the Bonum 1 satellite. The Bonum 1 will be operated by Media Most, a major private Russian media group which is developing satellite-television services. The craft will be an ...
-
News
China's Long March 3B launches the ApStar 2R
Tim Furniss/LONDON China Great Wall Industry (CGWIC) again launched a Long March 3B booster on 17 October, marking the second successful launch in less than two months and helping to restore confidence after the failure of the first LM3B in February 1996. The booster carried Hong ...
-
News
Anti-satellite laser test is successful
The US Army successfully tested the TRW-built Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser (MIRACL) at the White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, on 17 October. During two firings, lasting about 1s and 10s respectively, the 2m- wide laser beam was aimed at the infra-red camera aboard a US Air Force ...
-
News
Asteroid prospector
SpaceDev proposes to launch the first private interplanetary spacecraft Tim Furniss/LONDON There is a fortune to be made from mining asteroids, believes SpaceDev of Colorado, a private corporation engaged in the commercialisation of space - and it plans to make it. It is proposing ...
-
News
Russian cash
Money allocated to the Russian space programme in 1998 is "so inadequate" that it could discontinue space activities. The cash is "not enough" to honour Russia's commitment to the International Space Station claims Vladimir Gusev, chairman of the Russian parliamentary industry and transport committee. The allocations are 60% less than ...
-
News
Panel trouble hits Global Surveyor
Tim Furniss/LONDON NASA's Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) orbiter may be restricted in its $250 million mapping mission of the red planet by a problem on one of the spacecraft's twin solar panels, which were to be used to control the orbit. The MGS was demonstrating the ...
-
News
Orbital surgery
NASA is sponsoring a new US national computation centre at Stanford University, California, which will focus on the use of three-dimensional virtual reality in coping with medical emergencies in space. NASA's Ames Research Center will provide $500,000 a year for five years. Source: Flight International
-
News
India uses thrusters to raise IRS 1D
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has raised the perigee of the orbit of the Indian Remote Sensing Satellite, IRS 1D, to about 700km, using the spacecraft's thrusters. The satellite was placed in a 300km perigee after the partial failure of the fourth stage of its Polar Satellite ...
-
News
Cassini takes off on mission to Saturn
The NASA/European Space Agency (ESA) Cassini-Huygens spacecraft was despatched successfully en route to the planet Saturn 42min after launch by a Titan 4B/Centaur from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 15 October. The spacecraft, which had been surrounded in controversy because it uses a nuclear powerplant, will reach Saturn in July 2004 ...
-
News
Germans despatch inspector to examine Mir components
A German camera-equipped spacecraft called the Inspektor, has been delivered to the Russian Mir 1 space station aboard the Progress M36 tanker. It will fly, remotely controlled by a cosmonaut inside the Mir, to conduct close inspection of various components using a camera. The 70kg Inspektor, ...
-
News
SST wins contract to support NASA project
The UK's Surrey Satellite Technology (SST) is the only non-US company to have been awarded initial contracts to provide rapidly developed satellite core-systems to support NASA's science programme. In total, seven companies have secured contracts The US firms involved are Ball Aerospace, Lockheed Martin, Orbital Sciences, Spectrum Astro, ...
-
News
Step forward
Kistler Aerospace's fully re-usable K-1 launch vehicle will be flight tested from Nevada, USA, or Woomera, South Australia, as early as July 1998. This is the first step towards offering a 4,500kg satellite-delivery service to low- and medium-Earth orbit (LEO/MEO), costing $17 million a time (Flight International, 23-29 October, 1996). ...