All Space articles – Page 222
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Maiden flight planned for Japan's J1 launcher
JAPAN'S J1 solid-propellant launch vehicle will make its maiden flight from Tanegashima on 7 February. The two-stage version of the new satellite launcher will carry the Hyflex hypersonics flight-experiment space plane on a sub-orbital flight. A later three-stage J1, built by the National Space Development Agency, will be ...
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Pegasus XL to try again
ORBITAL SCIENCES (OSC) will attempt to launch its Pegasus XL booster, carrying the US Air Force REX 2 satellite, during a 30-day launch window starting on 29 February. The first launch attempt failed on 22 June, 1995.after human error during assembly led to the improper installation of one ...
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Robot-arm contract
Canada's Spar Space Systems has been awarded a $4.2 million contract from NASA to produce three remote manipulators to assist in the assembly of the US-led Alpha international space station. The Power Data Grapple Fixtures are the mechanical and electrical attachments, or "shoulders", of Spar's remote-manipulator system robot arm. ...
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Galileo data delight NASA but scupper scientists' theories
Tim Furniss/LONDON THE DESIGNERS of NASA's Galileo probe have been vindicated after 57min of data were returned from the craft as it descended through the predominantly hydrogenous atmosphere of Jupiter on 7 December. The data, however, disappointed scientists, who had been expecting them to reveal far more ...
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Endeavour succeeds
NASA's first Space Shuttle mission of 1996, the STS72/Endeavour, ended with a safe landing at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida on 20 January, after a successful eight day 22h flight, which included two space walks, gaining NASA 24h of space walk experience, in preparation for the assembly of the Alpha ...
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Ariane/Delta kick off busy schedule
Tim Furniss/LONDON ARIANE AND DELTA boosters have been used to start what promises to be the busiest year ever for commercial launches, with three satellites for Malaysia, South Korea and US company PanAmSat being placed in orbit on 12 and 14 January, respectively. Over 25 other geostationary communications satellites are ...
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New study qualifies Shuttle risk assessment
A STUDY FOR NASA by New York-based Science Applications International research group puts the risk of a catastrophic failure of the Space Shuttle at one in 248 flights, compared with one in 78 in 1988 when the Space Shuttle returned to flight after the Challenger accident. NASA's internal estimate of ...
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Dynamic overshoot
Ten years after the Challenger accident, there is still argument over a phenomenon called dynamic overshoot. Tim Furniss/Washington DC IF NASA ERRED IN DESIGNING the Space Shuttle, its hypersensitive reaction to the term "dynamic overshoot" and to the name of Ali AbuTaha, who conducted an independent ...
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Shuttle launch seen from U-2
UNIQUE high-resolution bird's-eye views of a Space Shuttle launch were taken from a Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft circling over the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, at an altitude of 20,000ft (6,100m), 8km (4nm) clear of the Shuttle's flight path. NASA commissioned the recently released photographs of the STS30/Atlantis launch on 4 ...
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Shuttle launch
The first of eight planned Space Shuttle missions in 1996, the STS72/Endeavour was launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida on 11 January on a planned nine-day flight. A six man crew, including, the first Japanese NASA mission specialist Kiochi Wakata, were scheduled to deploy a Spartan research satellite and ...
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Running Wild
NASA has now selected the fourth mission in its new Discovery interplanetary space programme. Tim Furniss/WASHINGTON DC IN JANUARY 2006, A SMALL Discovery series spacecraft is scheduled to return to Earth after a journey across interplanetary space. The craft will contain a precious cargo of ...
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Second LM2E success gives China a boost
Tim Furniss/LONDON CHINA'S LONG MARCH 2E (LM2E) booster had its second successful launch within 30 days on 28 December, 1995, when it carried the Lockheed Martin-built US Echostar 1 direct-broadcasting communications satellite into geostationary transfer orbit. The Asiasat 2, also built by Lockheed Martin, was launched ...
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Chip off the new block
NASA's New Millennium programme will create new technologies for future missions. Tim Furniss/WASHINGTON DC NASA SAYS THAT ITS NEW WAY of doing things is "smaller, faster, better, cheaper". The US space agency's $100 million-a-year "New Millenium" programme is directed especially at achieving the "smaller and ...
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X-Ray Explorer is launched
NASA's X-RAY TIMING Explorer satellite (XTE) was launched into low-Earth orbit by a Delta 2/7920 booster from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 30 December, 1995, after a series of technical faults had delayed the mission by four months. The 3,040kg XTE will be used for a two-year, in-depth, timing ...
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The New Millennium man
DANIEL GOLDIN, NASA administrator, initiated the New Millenium programme. "It started in 1994 when I went out to California and had dinner with Ed Stone, the director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Wes Huntress, NASA's head of science. I said we needed an order-of-magnitude improvement by the next decade. ...
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Atlas record
Lockheed Martin launched its record 12th Atlas vehicle of 1995 on 15 December, carrying the Hughes Galaxy 3R into geostationary transfer orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The Atlas 2A was the 11th deep space launch of the year - matching Arianespace's 1995 launch rate. The 12th operation was a polar-orbital ...
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Flying backwards
A return-to-launch-site abort would test the Space Shuttle to its limits. Tim Furniss/WASHINGTON DC BRYAN O'CONNOR, FORMER Space Shuttle commander and now director of the Shuttle programme at NASA's headquarters says, "To a pilot, it's a crazy bunch of attitudes." He is describing the procedure for a ...
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Busy MIR
As the Progress M30 tanker was launched to the Mir 1 space station on 18 December, the Russian space agency said that the 1996 schedule for the station will include launches of the final module, the Priroda; four Progress M tankers; three manned Soyuz TMs; and three docking flights by ...
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Plowshare's share
Plowshare Technology of Horsham in the UK, will be European agent for Cosmos USA, marketing launches of the Russian Cosmos booster for journeys into low-Earth orbit (LEO). Cosmos USA consists of Assured Space Access of Arlington, Virginia and Russia's Polyot Experimental Design Bureau in Omsk. Source: Flight ...
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Spaceflight
Tim Furniss/Spaceflight Correspondent A SERIES OF SATELLITE launchers will have their debuts in 1996, but perhaps the most significant will come in April as the European Space Agency's (ESA) Ariane 5 has its maiden demonstration flight. The Ariane 5 will have a second demonstration flight ...