All Space articles – Page 217
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AlliedSignal gears up the X-33 programme
Page 7 AlliedSignal, one of the four major sub-contractors to Lockheed Martin on the X-33 programme, has already started work on the airframe and space subsystems of the sub-scale vehicle demonstrator. The company, which is celebrating its part in every US manned space programme from the ...
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Lockheed looks to cash in on Mars mania
The life on Mars stories last month has created the most public interest in spaceflight since the Apollo moonshots. NASA's totally speculative Martian discovery resulted in thousands of calls to its Washington DC switchboard, and its Internet Home Page was so busy it was impossible to access. Media ...
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Fourth Japanese H2 sends the Adeos into polar orbit
JAPAN'S ADVANCED Earth-observing satellite, the Adeos, and an amateur radio satellite, were successfully launched into 800km circular polar orbits by the fourth H2 booster from Tanegashima on 17 August. The 3,500kg Adeos, has a suite of five national and two NASA instruments, and one French instrument. It is ...
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Another Chinese launch fails
Tim Furniss/LONDON CHINA GREAT WALL Industry (CGWIC) failed to place the Hughes HS-376 ChinaSat 7 communications satellite into the correct geostationary-transfer orbit (GTO) after launch aboard a Long March 3 from Xichang on 18 August. China Telecommunications Broadcast Satellite's 24-transponder spacecraft was stranded in orbit, ...
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Russia sends back-up crew
THE SOYUZ TM24 was launched on a Soyuz U booster from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on 17 August, carrying a crew of three people to the Mir 1 space station. The crew consists of the first French woman in space, Claudie Andre Deshays, flying the 16-day, $13 million, Cassiopiae ...
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Taylor made
The UK Government has launched a new plan to promote the space industry. Tim Furniss/LONDON IAN TAYLOR, UK Minister of Science and Technology, is boldly going - at least until the next election - where no previous space minister has gone before. He has managed to ...
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Sea Launch joint venture boosted by first payload
THE BOEING-LED Sea Launch joint venture, has been assigned its first satellite payload the Hughes Communications Galaxy 11, which is scheduled to be launched in June 1998. The launch will also carry the first Hughes HS-702 spacecraft bus. Boeing is joined on the $500 million programme by ...
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Catching the international spacebus
Aerospatiale's Spacebus has broadened its horizons outside Europe. Tim Furniss/LONDON AEROSPATIALE'S FIRST Spacebus 3000 satellite, the Arabsat 2A, was launched on 9 July. Although the 3000 made a big impact on the international market in 1995, its progress came to an abrupt halt in 1996, partly ...
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MMS wins contract for Columbus
Daimler-Benz Aerospace (DASA) has awarded Matra Marconi Space (MMS) the contract for the development of a data-management system for the Columbus Orbital Facility (COF). The system records and processes the laboratory's operational data, and scientific data gathered. DASA is the prime contractor for the COF, the European section ...
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Fast launch
NASA's Fast Auroral Snapshot Explorer (FAST) satellite is to be air-launched by an Orbital Sciences' Pegasus XL booster over the Pacific Ocean on 16 August. The $45 million FAST satellite will be used to investigate how particles are accelerated in space to create auroras. Source: Flight ...
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Powering ahead
Matra Marconi Space has introduced a new high-power satellite bus, the Eurostar 3000. Tim Furniss/LONDON MATRA MARCONI SPACE (MMS) has introduced a new spacecraft bus, the Eurostar 3000, designed to play a leading role in the rapidly emerging Global Information Infrastructure (GII), delivering broadband multimedia, advanced hand-held ...
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Chinese Mir hopefuls book in for Russian Star City training
Tim Furniss/LONDON CHINESE PILOTS are to start training as cosmonauts at Russia's Star City, near Kaliningrad, in October, for flights to the Mir 1 space station. Russia has also sold China a space-station life-support system and will supply rocket-engine technology, says Rex Hall, the London-based ...
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Low cost boost
NASA has selected 15 proposals for contract negotiation in its Low Cost Boost Technology project, to develop innovative, off-the-shelf, launch-system technologies which could reduce the cost of launching payloads into orbit. The proposals include propellant-delivery systems. Source: Flight International
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Seeking Titan's secrets
The Huygens probe to Saturn's moon, Titan, could reveal evidence of how terrestrial life began. Julian Moxon/PARIS FIVE MONTHS AFTER the Cassini orbiter arrives at Saturn after a seven-year, 1.5 billion kilometre journey, a small, cone-shaped craft will be despatched to that planet's largest moon, Titan, on ...
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Aerospatiale tests ARD spacecraft
AEROSPATIALE HAS completed the first descent and recovery test of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Atmospheric Re-entry Demonstrator (ARD) spacecraft in the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Sicily. The ARD was dropped from a stratospheric balloon at 82,000ft (25,000m) and, after a free-fall of 33,000ft, its parachutes ...
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Rockwell is to market Cyclone
ROCKWELL Space Systems is to provide worldwide marketing, sales and payload integration services for the NPO Yuzhnoye of Ukraine Cyclone launch vehicle. The Cyclone, developed from the SS-9 intercontinental ballistic missile, is capable of lifting an 1,360kg payload into low-, or medium- Earth orbit. The deal is " vital for ...
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Stepping up
Russia is transforming parts of the Baikonur Cosmodrome to handle increasing commercial business for the Proton launcher. Tim Furniss/LONDON DESPITE TIGHT BUDGETS, and with a little US help, Russia is bringing the parts of the Baikonur Cosmodrome which it leases from Kazakhstan for $115 million a year up ...
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Booster snags mar Mir plans
Tim Furniss/LONDON CONCERNS OVER the Russian Soyuz booster and the US Space Shuttle have marred plans for missions to the Russian Mir 1 space station. Two successive failures of Russian Soyuz launchers are causing anxiety about the planned 14 August launch of the manned Soyuz ...
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Wired up
NASA has exercised an Orbital Sciences' Pegasus XL launch option under its Small Expendable Launch Vehicle Services (SELVS) contract, to launch the Wide-Field Infra- Red Explorer (WIRE) in 1998. The SELVS contract is for up to ten launches, one of which has been completed, and five others of which, including ...
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International boosters launch five
Tim Furniss/LONDON LAUNCHERS from the USA, China and Europe successfully lofted five satellites into orbit during the first nine days of July. The most significant was a Chinese Long March 3 (LM3) booster launch of the Hughes HS-376 communications satellite, the ApStar 1A, into geostationary-transfer orbit ...