All Space articles – Page 207
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Spacehab aims for ISS cargo work
Tim Furniss/LONDON Spacehab, which supplies the pressurised equipment-carrying module for the Space Shuttle, is working on a lightweight, unpressurised Integrated Cargo Carrier (ICC) unit designed to provide a commercial cargo service to the International Space Station (ISS). The ICC will carry up to 5,400kg of cargo ...
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Military helicopters
The military helicopter arena continues to be a case of too many cooks chasing a limited amount of kitchen space: the market is oversubscribed with suppliers battling for too few buyers. Just when it appeared some progress towards rationalisation was taking place - the acquisition of McDonnell Douglas ...
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Launch activity includes first GPS 2R
Tim Furniss/LONDON A McDonnell Douglas Delta 2 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral on 23 July carried the first Navstar GPS 2R global- positioning-system-satellite to reach orbit. It is the 42nd in the Navstar series to be launched. The original 2R spacecraft, built by Lockheed Martin, was ...
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Japanese abandon HOPE spaceplane project
Japan has cancelled the HOPE unmanned spaceplane project as a result of budget cuts. The HOPE was to have been launched on an H2A rocket to provide logistics support for the Japanese element of the International Space Station. There were hopes of following it up eventually with a manned version. ...
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A risky business
The Mir's troubles are only to be expected in the course of manned spaceflight Tim Furniss/KENNEDY SPACE CENTER By 7 August, Russia's Soyuz TM26 should have arrived at the troubled Mir space station. It will be a member of the next mission to the Mir who will be ...
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Staying put
Calls for the crew of the Russian Mir space station to abandon ship after its recent spate of problems ignore two critical points about human spaceflight: it's bound to be risky, but human intervention is the primary element. Gaining experience in human space operations and learning from technical as well ...
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Spacewalk in August will be used to restore Mir power
Tim Furniss/FLORIDA Russian cosmonauts Anatoli Solovyov and Pavel Vinogradev will perform a 6h internal spacewalk in the connecting node/airlock of the Mir space station on 20 August, in an attempt to restore the station's electrical power to 70% of its normal output. Equipment to support the task arrived ...
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Protest delays NASA Bantam contracts
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC A PROTEST FROM a losing bidder has delayed NASA plans to award four initial-design contracts for its Bantam low-cost launch-system demonstrator. California-based Microcosm has filed a formal protest with the US Congress General Accounting (GA) office over NASA's decision to award Aerojet General, ...
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Columbia sets records
The STS94/Columbia landed at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida on 17 July after its flawless 16-day reflight of the Microgravity Space Laboratory, with more than 30 high-technology materials, protein crystal and other experiments similar to those which will be operated on the International Space Station. The ...
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Veteran flight
NASA is considering a suggestion that veteran astronaut John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, in 1962, fly on a Space Shuttle mission to study and compare the effects of spaceflight on a 76-year old. Glenn, a US senator, undergoes regular medical tests by NASA. ...
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Space debris
The Aerospace Corporation has established a centre in California for orbital and re-entry debris studies. The centre will analyse space debris, collision-avoidance systems and the possibilities for deliberate re-entry of some debris into the Earth's atmosphere. Source: Flight International
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Confidence boosters
Tim Furniss / Paris The market for launches of communications satellites into geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) is heating up. With US/Russian company ILS International Launch Services claiming a 50% share in the commercial-launcher market alongside Arianespace, its European competitor, there is also confusion over just how big the market ...
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NASA to build small rover for Japan
NASA will provide a small robotic rover to conduct in-situ measurements of the surface of the asteroid Nereus in September 2003. Nereus is a 1.5km- diameter near-Earth asteroid. The rover will be aboard the Japanese Institute of Space and Astronautical Science's Muses C spacecraft, to be launched on ...
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NASA plans mission to investigate Sun's corona
A spacecraft could fly within 2.72 million kilometres (1.7 million miles) of the Sun in July 2007 as part of a series of new interplanetary space missions being studied by NASA. The Solar Probe, protected against high temperatures by a large umbrella-like heatshield, would be used to explore ...
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Ikonos launch due in December
The Ikonos 1, the first of two remote-sensing satellites being built by Lockheed Martin for Space Imaging EOSAT in Colorado, is scheduled for launch on a Lockheed Martin Launch Vehicle 2 two-stage booster from Vandenberg AFB, California, in December (Flight International, 18-31 December, 1996). The satellite will be used to ...
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Kelly tow method gets patent
Tim Furniss/LONDON Kelly Space and Technology of San Bernardino, California, has been issued a US patent for its towed-launch technique to be used by the company's Eclipse re-usable spaceplane satellite launch system. The plan is to use a Boeing 747 to tow the Eclipse spaceplane to ...
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ADEOS monitoring satellite disappears in Earth orbit
Tim Furniss/LONDON Japan's global environmental-monitoring spacecraft, the Advanced Earth Observing Satellite (ADEOS), carrying a suite of NASA instruments, has been lost in Earth orbit. Trouble began in June, when the craft failed to respond to commands, and later a signal was detected indicating that it was ...
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Aerospatiale to build Soyuz dispenser
Starsem, the joint French and Russian company which markets the Soyuz booster for commercial launches, has awarded a contract to Aerospatiale of France to build the payload dispenser designed for launches of satellite constellations. The 400kg "intelligent" dispenser will be used to carry four Loral Globalstar mobile-communications satellites ...
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Allied on Kistler
AlliedSignal Aerospace will supply the vehicle-management system (VMS) for the Kistler K-1 reusable launch vehicle. Each VMS will include computer, power control unit, transponder, antenna and integration platform. The Kistler launch system is intended to place 4,000kg payloads into low-Earth orbit (Flight International, 23-29 October, 1996). Source: Flight ...
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Space Station solar-array model tested
Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space has completed the engineering model of the first of eight planned photovoltaic solar arrays for the International Space Station, to be launched on a Space Shuttle in March 1999. The eight-array system will supply 264kW of power. The 33m-long engineering model has been extended and ...