All Space articles – Page 210
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Watching space
Putting its money worries aside, Russia will be pushing its space technology at Le Bourget. The Khrunichev Space Centre (5B/4) will feature a scale-model of the first component of the International Space Station (ISS). Called the Functional Control Block (FGB), the 20t module will be launched aboard a Proton booster ...
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India proposes 11 launches in five years
Eleven indigenous launches of 16 communications and remote-sensing spacecraft are planned by India up to 2003 as part of its next, $3.48 billion, five-year space plan, says India's space-research organisation (ISRO). Up to five of the spacecraft will be a new series of Insat 3 direct-broadcast communications satellites ...
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NASA astronaut returns after more than 120 days on the Mir
NASA astronaut Jerry Linenger returned to Earth aboard the STS 84/Atlantis on 25 May, after a 132-day spaceflight, mainly aboard the Russian space station Mir. He was replaced by Michael Foale, the fifth NASA astronaut to fly on the Mir (Flight International, 28 May-3 June). The STS84 was ...
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OSC completes X-34 final design review
The final design of the Orbital Sciences (OSC) X-34, the next technology demonstrator in NASA's Reusable Launch Vehicle programme, has been frozen in preparation for its first flight in 1998. The re-usable, suborbital vehicle will be flown to Mach 8 at an altitude of 80km. It will be ...
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Searching for beginnings
If there are other planets in existence similar to Earth in orbit around nearby stars, are any of them habitable, and could one of them serve as a grand exploration target for the human race? These are two of the questions which NASA will be seeking to answer ...
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Proton launch is successful
A Russian Proton DM booster operated by ILS International Launch Services carried AT&T's Telstar 5 communications satellite into orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, on 24 May. It was the Ìrst flight of the booster since the failure of the Proton launch of the Mars '96 probe on 17 November, ...
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Huygens milestone
Aerospatiale has delivered the Huygens spacecraft to the European Space Agency for launch with the NASA Cassini Saturn orbiter aboard a Titan 4B booster from Cape Canaveral on 6 October. The Huygens craft is due to land on Saturn's moon, Titan, in 2004. Source: Flight International
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Station to be manned in early 1999
NASA has released a new 45-flight assembly schedule for the International Space Station (ISS) under which permanent manned operations of the station are due to start in January 1999 and reach completion in 2003 - nine years later than planned when the programme was inaugurated by US President Ronald Reagan ...
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Teledesic selection is due by year end
Payload specialists, launchers and other major suppliers and components for Teledesic's global "Internet-in-the-sky" concept will be selected by Boeing by the end of the year. Boeing is prime contractor for the Teledesic Network which will involve a constellation of 288 low-Earth-orbit satellites providing affordable access to telecommunications services ...
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MMS wins $600 million LEO deal
Matra Marconi Space (MMS) has been awarded a $600 million contract by Constellation Communications of Reston, Virginia, to be prime contractor for the space segment of a low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite system, including delivery in orbit and insurance. The 12-satellite system, operating in 2,000km equatorial orbits, will provide voice, ...
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Speaking frankly
Seven years ago, British Aerospace Space Systems, GEC's Marconi Space Systems (MSS) and France's Matra Defense & Espace were competing against each other on some projects, but working together on others. It therefore came as no surprise when, in 1990, MSS and Matra Espace merged as Matra Marconi Space (MMS). ...
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NASA decides on Mars aero-braking
NASA engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have agreed a strategy for placing the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) into its operational orbit, using an aerobraking technique which it is hoped will not further damage one of the craft's solar panels, which did not fully extend after launch in November 1996. ...
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Europe's X-Ray telescope is on schedule
The X-Ray Multi-Mirror space telescope, Europe's largest science satellite, is on budget and on schedule for a launch aboard the Ariane 5 on 2 August, 1999, mission managers and scientists reported at a quarterly project review at the Matra Marconi Space (MMS) factory at Filton in Bristol, in the UK. ...
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Leading in space
France became the third nation in space to launch a national satellite on an indigenously developed booster - after the Soviet Union and the USA - on 26 November, 1995, and it has never looked back. The nation now employs over 13,000 people directly in space activities, 8,000 in industry, ...
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Simulator rivalry
When Thomson-CSF acquired the Rediffusion simulation business from Hughes Aircraft in 1993, the company became, at a stroke, the largest simulator manufacturer in Europe, and the world leader outside North America. Today, Thomson Training and Simulation (TTS) is competing fiercely in every market for simulators, and in 1996 ...
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First US-Russian spacewalk is completed in ISS rehearsal
Cosmonaut Vasily Tsiblyev and astronaut Jerry Linenger conducted the first Russian/US spacewalk on 29 April, working outside the Mir 1 space station for 4h 57min in a rehearsal for the joint walks required during the assembly and operation of the International Space Station (ISS). The spacewalkers deployed two ...
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NASA has five options for next Discovery mission
NASA has selected five proposals for detailed study as candidates for the next mission in the low-cost Discovery series of interplanetary spaceflights, to be launched in 2002. One or two of the five proposed spacecraft will be selected next October for full development. The five new ...
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Polyot commercial flight fails by red tape
A Russian Cosmos 3M booster carried a military navigation satellite into orbit from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome on 17 April without its commercial payload, the US-built Faisat 2V. Polyot, of Omsk, Siberia which markets the Cosmos for commercial launches, had failed to produce the necessary documentation to the Russian ...
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Joint boost
A new joint venture has been set up to manufacture and market Russia's RD-180 and RD-120 rocket engines. The partners in the new company, known as RD AMROSS, are Pratt & Whitney (P&W) Space Propulsion of West Palm Beach, Florida, and Russia's NPO Energomash (NPO-EM), of Khimky, outside Moscow. ...
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The big one
Mid-September is the deadline for what may be regarded as the most important launch in the history of the European space programme - the Ariane 502. If the second European Space Agency (ESA) development flight of the Ariane 5 satellite launcher is successful, the $366 million loss of the 501 ...