Space – Page 211
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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 ...
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Russian cash fails to halt space-station delay
Russian president Boris Yeltsin has pledged to transfer funding of $139 million for Russia's participation in the NASA-led International Space Station (ISS) later this month and to allocate a further $121 million in May. This Russian financial commitment will do nothing to avoid the probable 11-month delay in ...
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NASA may re-fly Columbia in July
The Space Shuttle mission, the STS 83/Columbia, which had to be aborted because of a problem with a fuel cell, could be re-launched as early as July using the same seven crew, says NASA. The $500 million, 16-day mission ended when the Shuttle touched down at the Kennedy ...
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NASA names its Hyper-X team
NASA has awarded a $33.4 million contract to a team led by MicroCraft to build four experimental aircraft which will be used to demonstrate hypersonic propulsion technologies as part of the Hyper-X project. The other team members joining Tullahoma, Tennessee-based MicroCraft are Boeing North American, GASL and Accurate ...
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International Space Base
The name Kourou has become synonymous with that of Arianespace, but the European launcher organisation is only a user of the launch site. The CSG is operated by the French space agency CNES but was developed with funds from the member states of the European Space Agency (ESA). ...
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Lunar prospector construction complete...
Construction and assembly of the NASA Lunar Prospector spacecraft has been completed by Lockheed Martin in preparation for its launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 24 September, on a mission to obtain the first complete compositional and gravity maps of the moon. The $63 million, low-cost, Discovery mission will carry ...
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NASAselects two satellites to study...
NASA has selected two small, low-cost, satellites to study the distribution of the Earth's forests and the variability of its gravity field under a new Office of Mission to Planet Earth, Earth System Science Pathfinders, programme. The vegetation-canopy lidar (VCL) mission will use a multibeam laser-ranging device to ...
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Seasons on Mars...
The latest images from the Wide Field Planetary Camera on the Hubble Space Telescope, since its servicing in orbit by the crew of the STS82 mission, show changes between Mars' northern-hemisphere spring and summer. The annual north-polar, carbon dioxide frost cap is vanishing, revealing the smaller, permanent, water-ice cap. Also ...
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ESA swaps Space Station nodes for free launch
The European Space Agency (ESA) will provide Nodes 2 and 3 for the International Space Station, along with advanced-technology laboratory equipment, to NASA in exchange for a free launch of its Columbus Orbital Facility (COF) aboard the Space Shuttle. The COF is due to be joined to the ...
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M5 aimed at Moon
Japan's Institute of Space and Astronautical Science plans to launch its second M5 solid-propellant booster towards the Moon in August. The 30m-high, three-stage rocket, which had its maiden flight from Kagoshima (left) on 12 February, carrying the Muses B radio telescope into orbit, will next be used to launch the ...
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Launch odyssey
The Galaxy 11, DUE to enter orbit in June 1998, will not only be the first HS-702 spacecraft bus to be built by Hughes Space and Communications , but it will also be the first geostationary-orbit (GEO) communications satellite to be launched from an offshore platform. This space ...
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US Army plans for critical ASAT test
THE US ARMY and prime contractor Boeing North American plan to test in April a critical component of a weapon which has been designed to knock out low-altitude surveillance and communications satellites. The kinetic-kill vehicle (KKV), the key subsystem of the anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon, will use electro-optical (EO) ...
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Rocketplane aims for 'smallsat' boom
PIONEER ROCKETPLANE is planning to fly its Pathfinder transatmospheric launch vehicle in three years time, to be available for initial deployment of the proposed Teledesic constellation of some 840 small communications satellites. Denver, Colorado-based Pioneer is seeking $6 million in funding for detail design of the Pathfinder and will need ...
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US Army prepares for ASAT testing
THE US ARMY has awarded Boeing North American additional funding to build subsystems for a weapon able to knock out enemy reconnaissance and communications satellites. The $35 million, added to a $44 million deal won by Boeing's newly acquired Rocketdyne division, covers development of an operational weapons-control subsystem ...
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First satellite leaves Svobodny launch pad
The Zeya spacecraft was placed into orbit on 4 March by a Start 1 Rocket after the first lift-off from Russia's new Svobodny commercial-launch centre in the eastern Amur region. The 87kg military-research satellite was placed into a Sun-synchronous, 98¹-inclination, 426km-466km orbit by the five-stage modified SS-25 Topol ...
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Remote control - Deep Space 1's computer is the nearest thing yet to HAL, the computer star of the famous movie 2001.
NASA is preparing, it says, the "most advanced spacecraft advanced-intelligence software yet developed", for launch aboard its Deep Space 1 (DS1) spacecraft. The computer is the nearest thing yet to HAL 9000, the computer featured in the landmark science-fiction story, 2001: A Space Odyssey, written in 1968 by Arthur C ...
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Nine projects entered in chase for X-Prize funds
The Pathfinder Rocketplane is among nine projects which are in competition for a $10 million prize from the St Louis, Missouri-based X-Prize Foundation, which proposes to award the money to the team which kick-starts development of a privately operated, low-cost, passenger-carrying space vehicle. The prize will be awarded ...
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ISS is placed under new pressure
The decision to delay the first launches to assemble the International Space Station (ISS), because of Russian problems over funding, is putting NASA under renewed pressure from the US Congress to remove Moscow from the programme. Following the eight-month launch delay, to June 1998, NASA is being told ...
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Fractured moon
This is a composite of three images of the Minos Linea region of Europa. The colour variations reveal different contaminants in the ice. The icy plains - where no features rise above 30m in height - are fractured by many types of curved and straight faults. The surface of Europa ...
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Space Station will be delayed eight months
NASA administrator Daniel Goldin has admitted that the first launches to assemble the International Space Station (ISS) will be delayed by eight months, to June 1998. The admission confirmed a unilateral Russian Space Agency (RSA) announcement of the delay. RSA director Yuri Koptev says that it "-is entirely ...