Space – Page 184
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Russia develops new family of boosters
Russia's Khrunichev State Space Research and Production Centre has introduced a family of launchers which could compete in the commercial market by 2001. The largest of the five proposed Angara launchers has a maximum performance to low earth orbit of 28t and can place 7,600kg (16,520lb) into geostationary transfer ...
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Germany plans RLV flights
DaimlerChrysler Aerospace (Dasa) is to build a demonstrator to develop reuseable launch vehicle (RLV) technology, with test flights to begin in 2002. The 6m (20ft)-long, rocket-powered Phoenix demonstrator is intended as a testbed for RLV technologies that could later be applied to a longer-term, two-stage to orbit RLV programme ...
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Shuttle could fly until 2020
NASA's Space Shuttle could still be flying in the year 2020 or even 2030, a Boeing executive said yesterday. Richard Stephens, vice-president and general manager of the company's reusable space systems division, says the Shuttle's four-orbiter fleet, which is approaching its 100th flight, is only 25% through its lifetime. ...
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Former astronaut questions Shuttle flight rate
Tim Furniss Former Shuttle astronaut Brewster Shaw, now heading the Boeing space station programme, has questioned the optimistic flight rate of 10 to 12 missions per year which NASA is suggesting may be required to keep the International Space Station (ISS) on target for completion in 2004. Shaw, ...
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Plate supplier
A new century has arrived at Hall 4/F11, where a leading name in the aluminium industry is making its first appearance at the Paris air show. Major commercial and military aircraft manufacturers have made Century Aluminium a preferred supplier of heat-treated plate. Aerospace plate is Century's premier product, ...
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ESA plans mission to retrieve Mars sample
Tim Furniss The European Space Agency (ESA) and the French space agency (CNES) are part of an international effort to return samples of the Martian surface to Earth in 2008. The Mars bid will begin in 2003 with the launch of a Delta III booster which will despatch ...
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Fear of failure makes launch industry nervous
Tim Furniss Satellites failing in space. Spacecraft problems delaying launches. Launch failures. This has been the story of the past year - and the nightmare may not be over. What has gone wrong? Today, we depend on satellites to such an extent that it can directly affect us. ...
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Phantom Works tackles advanced commercial design
Boeing's Phantom Works, which started life in secrecy as part of fighter builder McDonnell Douglas, has begun to get involved in advanced development work for Boeing's commercial airliner group. The Phantom Works is now a "virtual" operation, headquartered in St Louis, but with outposts at all of Boeing's major ...
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First European experiments for ISS ready to fly
Two European Space Agency (ESA) experiments will be flying on the International Space Station (ISS) later this year. Flying on Russia's Zvezda service module in November will be a global transmission services (GTS) service and the Matroshka radiation monitor, ESA announced at the show. The GTS uses ...
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Female team shows who's boss
The success of Thermal Electronics is testament to the business acumen of the fairer sex. The female-owned company specialises in the production of custom cable and wire harness assemblies, printed circuit board assemblies and electronic assemblies. It now manufactures to NASA specifications through its participation in the International Space Station ...
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Indian ambition
India's determination to become a commercial space power is beginning to pay dividendsTim Furniss/LONDON India has underscored its determination to become "a space power in the next century" by developing a geostationary satellite launch vehicle (GSLV) with which to enter the international commercial launch market. Not only is ...
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New steps to orbit
With a sixth commercial launch planned by year-end, the Euro-Russian Starsem has hit the market with a bang Tim Furniss/LONDON The Euro-Russian Starsem commercial satellite launcher consortium is an international success story. Starsem plans three more commercial Soyuz launches of 12,450kg (27,400lb) Globalstar low earth orbit (LEO) mobile ...
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Shuttle changes
New cockpits will bring the Shuttle into the space age Tim Furniss/LONDON Milliseconds can make a big difference during a Space Shuttle launch. The faster the crew can react to a problem, the greater possibility of avoiding disaster. That is where "glass cockpits" - cockpits with digital displays - come ...
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Expendable evolution
Expendable launcher makers are trying to keep their concept alive Andrzej Jeziorski/PARIS Amid predictions of a satellite launch boom in the coming decade, space industry executives, financiers and insurers from around the world gathered in Paris in May for the first world summit on the space transportation business. ...
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High concepts, low risk
Private enterprise is driving the future of space transport with a wealth of reusable launch vehicle concepts Andrzej Jeziorski/PARIS From man's earliest forays into space up to the arrival of NASA's Space Shuttle, every launch, manned or unmanned, necessarily destroyed the launch vehicle. Even today, the Shuttle is the only ...
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Discovery paves way for first crew to join the Space Station
Tim Furniss/LONDON The Space Shuttle Discovery landed at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on 6 June after the nine-day, 19h mission STS96 to prepare the International Space Station (ISS) for the first resident crew next March. This date depends on the successful launch in November of Russia's Zvezda ...
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Launch failures prompt Boeing to form review team
Boeing has formed a mission assurance review team to examine the company's Delta, Sea Launch and Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) programmes following recent launch vehicle failures. A Delta III failed this May as did an IUS, aboard a Titan IVB, in April. The team will examine organisational roles ...
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The 747 factfile
The statistics surrounding the 747 go on forever. Here are a few to mull over: * The world's 747 fleet has flown roughly 32 billion km (2.03 billion nm) - equal to flying to the moon and back 42,000 times. * That same fleet has flown 2.2 billion ...
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Starsem wins Mars Express launch contract
Tim Furniss The European Space Agency (ESA) has formally contracted Starsem to launch the Mars Express spacecraft in June 2003 aboard a Soyuz booster from Baikonur. Starsem is a consortium operated by Russian company, Samara, which manufactures the Soyuz, the Russian Space Agency and Europe's Arianespace and Aerospatiale. ...
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NASA orders hybrid Delta for SIRTF launch
NASA has contracted Boeing to supply a hybrid Delta booster to launch its Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF). The booster is a Delta II with the nine large strap-on boosters from the Delta III. This booster is also available to commercial customers for launches of 2,030kg (4,400lb) payloads ...