All Space articles – Page 224
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Lockheed Martin to develop new version of Atlas rocket
LOCKHEED MARTIN is to develop a new version of the Atlas II expendable booster, the first launch of which is expected in late 1998. The two- or three-engine Atlas IIAR ("R" for re-engine) will replace the Atlas IIAS, which has nine engines: three core, four Castor IVA ...
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Canada launches radar satellite
Tim Furniss Martin Hindley/LONDON CANADA HAS launched the world's first operational radar satellite, which it will use to monitor the Earth's surface, particularly ice movements in the North- west Passage and Beaufort Sea, both strategic shipping routes. The Radarsat I, a synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) satellite, ...
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NASA makes Shuttle decision
NASA HAS DROPPED the competition to privatise the Space Shuttle programme, saying that it will negotiate solely with a joint venture of Rockwell International and Lockheed Martin called United Space Alliance. The space agency hopes to complete contract talks by September 1996 to transfer the running of the ...
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Ice cold in orbit
THE EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY'S (ESA) Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) is scheduled for launch on 10 November aboard the Ariane V80/44P mission from Kourou, French Guiana, two years later than planned after the project ran into some development difficulties. The Aerospatiale-built 5.3m-tall ISO, is akin to a giant vacuum flask, filled ...
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Europe remains a player
It was close, but Europe will have a place on Alpha, the international space station. Julian Moxon/TOULOUSE Perhaps it was the fabulously opulent setting of Toulouse's seventeenth century town hall that stimulated the eleventh- hour release of sufficient funds to guarantee Europe's future aboard the Alpha international space ...
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Launch set for new Shuttle-Mir mission
Tim Furniss/LONDON The STS74/Atlantis, the second Shuttle mission to dock with the Mir 1 Russian space station, is scheduled to be launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on 11 November. The primary mission is the installation of a docking module on Mir to improve clearance ...
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First Conestoga booster explodes after launch
Tim Furniss/LONDON EER SYSTEMS' Conestoga 1620 multi-stage, solid-propellant satellite launcher, exploded 45s after launch on its maiden flight from the company's commercial launch pad at Wallops Island, Virginia on 23 October. The Multiple Experiments Transporter to Earth Orbit (METEOR) payload was destroyed. The catastrophe could end ...
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Russia's Cosmos forms launcher link with Australia
RUSSIA'S COSMOS group is to link with Australian industry to develop a new liquid-propellant satellite launcher, called the Seagull, capable of placing 1,000kg payloads into low-Earth orbit after launches from a base in either South Australia or northern Australia, says Australian space minister Chris Schacht. Development and marketing ...
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Latest Galileo failure threatens the Cassini
Tim Furniss/WASHINGTON DC A FAULTY TAPE recorder aboard NASA's $1.4 billion Galileo spacecraft could prevent much of its data and images being returned from the planet Jupiter this December, after its protracted six-year journey across the solar system. Should it prove impossible to correct the ...
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Spacewalk challenge
The STS69 space-walk has paved the way for assembly of the international Space Station. Tim Furniss/LONDON A 6H 46MIN SPACE-WALK BY two astronauts on 16 September, during the STS69/Endeavour mission, has given NASA more confidence in the ability of crews to assemble the international Space ...
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Egypt selects Matra Marconi
MATRA MARCONI Space has been awarded a $158 million contract to build and launch Egypt's Nilesat direct-broadcast television satellite. The deal was clinched despite competition from Aerospatiale and Lockheed Martin. The contract with Egyptian Radio and Television Union provides for the supply of a telecommunications satellite in orbit, ...
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P&W test fires Russian rocket engine
PRATT & WHITNEY has successfully test-fired an RD-120 rocket engine on a test stand at the firm's Government Engines & Space Propulsion rocket test site in West Palm Beach, Florida. It was the first US test firing to be made of the flight-qualified Russian-made rocket engine. The RD-120 ...
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Europeans resolve space-station row
Julian Moxon/TOULOUSE AFTER SIX YEARS of wrangling, the 14 members of the European Space Agency (ESA) have finally agreed on their financial contribution to the US/Russian-led Alpha international space station. An ESA ministerial meeting at Toulouse on 18-20 October hammered out a substantial compromise, which overcame ...
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Up Tempo
Space Systems Loral's Tempo 1 communications satellite, not the Astra 1F spacecraft, will make the first commercial launch of a Russian Proton booster from Baikonur in June 1996. The Proton, marketed by International Launch Services, has five bookings for satellites launches into geostationary orbit, (Flight International, 27 September-3 October). ...
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Ashes to ashes
The US Celestis organisation in Houston, which, in 1985, offered a service to place cremated human remains into space aboard the former Space Services Conestoga booster, has now approached Orbital Sciences with a view to use the Pegasus and Taurus boosters to provide a similar commercial service, starting in 1996. ...
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Lockheed Martin and AT&T enter high-power satellite market
Tim Furniss/LONDON LOCKHEED MARTIN and AT&T have joined Space Systems/Loral and Hughes in the bid to capture a newly emerging geostationary-orbit (GEO) satellite-communications market. The companies have filed applications to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch and operate high-power, Ka-band satellite systems offering a ...
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Russian link with Australia studied
A RUSSIAN SPACE delegation, led by officials from the Russian Space Agency and Khrunichev, is to visit Australia in November to discuss joint space ventures, including a joint commercial project to launch Cosmos boosters from the Woomera rocket range, delivering small satellites to low-Earth orbit. Also being discussed ...
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Jovian hurdles
The Galileo's six-year voyage to Jupiter is nearly over, but it still has hurdles to overcome. Tim Furniss/London NASA's $1.4 BILLION Galileo interplanetary spacecraft ploughed through the most intense dust storm ever measured as it homed in on the planet Jupiter, aiming for a ...
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Second Shuttle Mir mission scheduled
NASA PLANS TO LAUNCH THE Space Shuttle Atlantis/STS74 on 1 November for the second Shuttle-Mir Mission (SMM). The six-day mission to dock with the Russian Mir 1 space station, seen here from the Atlantis during the SMM 1 mission on 29 June, will include the debut of a docking module ...
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At the crossroads
The future direction of the European Space Agency will be decided later this month. Tim Furniss/LONDON THE SUBJECT DOMINATING THE European Space Agency's (ESA) Council of Ministers meeting in Toulouse, France, on 18-20 October will be the international space station, code-named Alpha - the first internationally ...