Virginia's Unusual Space Tax Break is Only Part of the Story (Source: WDBJ)
We're learning more about an unusual proposal, a tax break for launching cremated remains into space. Backers of the bill say there's more to it than that. They admit it's an unusual piece of legislation, but say their ultimate goal is firmly grounded in science. Jack Kennedy is a member of the Virginia Commerical Spaceflight Authority Board. "I think it is so unusual it can take people aback. Unusual ideas tend to do that, and one needs to look a little deeper."
Wise County's Circuit Court Clerk, Kennedy is a former Delegate and State Senator and a longtime advocate for the space industry in Virginia. He proposed the space burial tax deduction as a way to make the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport more competitive with other launch facilities in New Mexico and Florida. The bill would authorize a tax deduction of up to eight thousand dollars for Virginians who pay to launch their cremated remains into space.
If Virginia can develop a new market, he says the rockets that lift cremated remains into space, could also carry toaster sized nano-satellites developed by Virginia universities. "We've got to have a larger capability that ranges from being able to put small sats into orbit to doing much larger human missions," Kennedy said. (12/31)
40-Year-Old Puzzle of Superstring Theory Solved by Supercomputer (Source: KEK)
A group of three researchers from KEK, Shizuoka University and Osaka University has for the first time revealed the way our universe was born with 3 spatial dimensions from 10-dimensional superstring theory*1 in which spacetime has 9 spatial directions and 1 temporal direction. This result was obtained by numerical simulation on a supercomputer.
According to Big Bang cosmology, the universe originated in an explosion from an invisibly tiny point. This theory is strongly supported by observation of the cosmic microwave background*2 and the relative abundance of elements. However, a situation in which the whole universe is a tiny point exceeds the reach of Einstein's general theory of relativity, and for that reason it has not been possible to clarify how the universe actually originated. Click here. (12/31)
Billionaire Space Race: The Year Private Space Transport Takes Off (Source: Forbes)
I apologize in advance to those of you with aversions to new year predictions, but here’s mine: 2012 will see private space ventures attract more interest from the super-rich than ever before. Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, and Paul Allen will find themselves with some company as billionaires across the world begin to invest in space transport in earnest.
This isn’t exactly rocket science (pardon the terrible pun): as NASA slows its own plans and parcels out multimillion-dollar Space Act Agreement contracts, the very wealthy will be able to indulge their fascination with the final frontier while picking up the government’s slack. Entrepreneurs with an engineering bent who may not be interested in space tourism — inevitably a niche market, with tickets costing upwards of $200,000 — may feel energized by the prospect of an expanding role for the private sector in space transportation.
For contracts worth billions rather than millions, they’ll find themselves competing with more established aerospace giants, but there’s room in what is arguably a limitless market. What was essentially a government fiefdom for 50 years is up for grabs. Click here. (12/31)
India to Select Crew for First Manned Mission to Space (Source: Economic Times)
Joining the project for India's first indigenous manned mission to space, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has signed an MoU with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and is now planning to set up facilities for selecting the crew for the maiden flight. IAF is setting up facilities for the first round of selection process which will begin by 2020.
"IAF has entered into an MoU with the ISRO for long term space research. ISRO has supplied it with lot of equipment and the provisional time for first selection is 2020 and the original thing is likely to take place much later," Kakria said. Maintaining that the mission would be completely indigenous, Kakria said all equipment required for the project would be supplied by ISRO and there is no collaboration with any foreign company or country. (12/31)
Could Ancient Pottery Improve Spacecraft Tiles? (Source: Discovery)
You might not think that a collaboration to study the chemical and physical properties of ancient Attic pottery would have anything to do with space missions, but, well, you'd be mistaken. Earlier this year, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded nearly $500,000 to scientists from the Getty Conservation Institute, Stanford's National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC) and the Aerospace Corporation to do just that.
Among other objectives, it is hoped that the project will improve our understanding of iron-spinel chemistry, which is critical to the advanced ceramics used for thermal protection in aerospace applications, such as protective tiles on the Mars Rover Sojourner, or the fleet of space shuttles, for example. Click here. (12/31)
December 30, 2011
NASA Listens as Voyager One Nears Edge of Interstellar Space (Source: Federal News Radio)
When NASA first envisioned the Voyager space probes in 1972, Ed Stone was there to help design them, and he was there when Voyager One launched in 1977. Thirty-four years later, Voyager One has reached the outermost edge of the solar system, still sending back signals. As the Voyager Program's chief scientist, Stone is still listening.
"Voyager One is now about 11 billion miles from Earth," Stone told The Federal Drive with Tom Temin on Friday morning. "It's very close to the edge of interstellar space. It's still inside the huge bubble the sun creates around itself called the heliosphere." (12/30)
Astronaut Stops to Smell the Roses (Source: MSNBC)
One of the last astronauts to ride on a space shuttle will be riding a totally different vehicle on Sunday: a flower-bedecked float in the 2012 Rose Parade. The 5.5-mile journey down the parade route in Pasadena, Calif., doesn't hold a candle in distance or danger to the 5.3 million-mile journey that NASA astronaut Rex Walheim made in July during STS-135, Atlantis' program-ending mission. But it's a perfect follow-up for several reasons. Click here. (12/30) http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/30/9833312-astronaut-stops-to-smell-the-roses
After Exploring Space, Hernandez Finds Mission on Earth (Source: The Record)
You'd think after 2009, Stockton astronaut Jose Hernandez wouldn't have any new worlds to conquer. Think again. He used last year as a transition time - moving from NASA to a commercial aerospace job in Texas to an October announcement that he was moving back to the San Joaquin Valley so he could run for Congress. His new world will unfold in 2012 when the 49-year-old Hernandez, a Democrat, campaigns for the first time as a candidate for public office. (12/30)
Russia Falls, China Rises in Space Efforts (Source: Aviation Week)
The two largest space powers outside the U.S. had wildly divergent records in 2011, with Beijing boasting 19 launches and demonstrating in-orbit docking for a future space station while the Kremlin ordered an investigation into a string of high-profile engineering failures plaguing Russia’s space program.
The implications for Russia of a nosedive in the quality of its space efforts could be especially serious. The failures have been condemned by President Dmitry Medvedev, and the efforts at recovery will be watched carefully beyond Russia. The troubles have hit just as NASA has become reliant on its International Space Station (ISS) partner for manned spaceflights and as Moscow seeks to expand its commercial reach with launches from South America. (12/30)
Langley on Track to Meet NASA Facility Reduction Goal (Source: Daily Press)
Half of NASA's 10 major field centers are lagging behind on orders to rid the agency of aging buildings, wind tunnels and other structures, according to an internal report. The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 required agency downsizing, which NASA hopes to achieve by demolishing, selling and transferring some of its 5,000 buildings and structures.
The National Academy of Sciences found that NASA has $2.5 billion in deferred maintenance costs. Since late 2004, the agency has disposed of 645 buildings and structures worth a combined $931.5 million in current replacement value. Among the structures demolished at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton was the Full Scale Wind Tunnel, a six-story warehouse used to test everything from World War II fighter planes to NASCAR automobiles.
Including the wind tunnel, Langley has disposed of 148,395-square-feet of real property since 2003, second only to NASA Glenn Research Center in Ohio, according to the report. The downsizing upset civil service workers, particularly Langley's aeronautics division, last decade when union leaders accused NASA of initiating a back-door attempt to close Langley altogether. The mood has simmered since because Langley has kept its civil services workforce steady. (12/30)
NASA in Huntsville Faces 2012 With a Clear Road Map Ahead (Source: Huntsville Times)
After ending the 30-year space shuttle era in 2011 not really sure what came next, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center enters 2012 with as clear a roadmap as it has had in years. Center Director Robert Lightfoot ticked off the positive developments in a late December interview. "We've just gotten the marching orders for Space Launch System," Lightfoot said, referring to NASA's September decision to go forward with a new deep-space exploration system underpinned by a heavy-lift rocket developed in Huntsville. Click here. (12/30)
NASA, Contractors Wonder if Orion Will Aid Region’s Economy (Source: Houston Business Journal)
To have and have not. With apologies to Ernest Hemingway, that pretty much sums up the story of NASA’s funding future. Back in the 1960s when funding freely poured into the agency, the public was glued to their TV sets watching rocket launches. But those days are gone. NASA no longer captivates the public’s attention in quite the same way, and has often come under criticism during the past two decades for misguided management. Click here. (12/30)
Canadian Space Program Targets the Moon for Human Exploration (Source: SpaceRef)
Canada is targeting the moon as its next step for human exploration. While this is not a new objective more details are available after NASA hosted the Human Exploration Workshop as part of the Global Exploration Roadmap. A meeting of the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG) was held in San Diego between Nov. 14-16 and brought together over 100 participants from 14 space agencies. The workshop was divided into four panels:
Jean-Claude Piedboeuf made three presentations. The first on the status of Canada's space exploration program, the second on the Moon Next Scenario and the third on Near-Term Implementation Ideas, Strategies, and Plans. What's interesting is Canada's interest in human exploring of the moon, as in Canadian astronauts. This is not a short term goal, but after focusing on the ISS, it's part of the next step of robotic and then human exploration of the moon and is considered a Canadian exploration objective. (12/30)
With Main Spaceport Facilities Done, Virgin Galactic Moves In (Source: Las Cruces Bulletin)
In return for NMSA building the terminal hangar and two-mile-long runway at the spaceport, Virgin Galactic has promised to set up its headquarters in New Mexico, and Las Cruces will be home to its first offices opening in January 2012. Virgin has already hired more than 100 people, many of them Americans, because large-scale rocketry falls under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) passed after the 9/11 attacks.
One of the critical issues facing the tourism and supply chain economic development for the spaceport is adding suppliers to liability protection, which lawmakers have only been willing to give to the main launch companies such as Virgin. Without similar liability protections given to those supporting the companies taking passengers on space flights, spaceport supporters are saying the effort won’t generate many jobs, especially if Spaceport America’s business becomes limited to only government and testing launches.
One local company, Barnett’s Las Cruces Harley-Davidson dealership, debuted merchandise that flew to suborbital space 73 miles over Spaceport America in a rocket launch May 20. Along with student educational experiments, the UP Aerospace rocket carried 30 insignia pins for Barnett’s. The three varieties of pins all come with certificates about the flight anda display case to be sold online for between $3,000 and $5,000 each. (12/30)
Musk Tweets On Space Competition, Technology (Source: Hobby Space)
Elon Musk posted the following two Twitter messages in response to China's recent space pronouncements: #1) "SpaceX has Boeing, Lockheed, Europe (Ariane) and Russia (Proton/Soyuz) near checkmate in rocket technology. End game is all about China."; and #2) "Not that this really matters. All current rocket tech, including ours, sucks. Only when it becomes fully reusable, will it not suck."
UNIDROIT in Space: Lawyers without a Client (Source: Spacce News)
How do you get a loan using as security an asset that can literally fly away, like an airplane? How about an asset that cannot be touched and has multiple leases operating at the same time, such as a satellite in geosynchronous orbit? Those are questions that once puzzled private companies, their financiers and lawyers but are routinely dealt with today in transactions around the world. Click here. (12/30)
Disney: Man in Space (Source: USA Today)
By the mid-1950s, the idea of space flight and outer space exploration had gone beyond the fantasies of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers to be a real technological possibility. During this time, Walt Disney never showed any interest in the space opera fantasies that had captured the imagination of the American public. Television shows like Space Patrol and many others were as prominent as cowboy Westerns. The space shows were also very similar to the cowboy shows with blazing ray guns and hostile aliens and barren landscapes.
Walt’s interest was in the future just around the corner, inspired by the “World of Tomorrow” exhibits at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. At Disneyland, the Tomorrowland area that opened in 1955 was supposed to represent the world of 1986, which was the next scheduled appearance of Halley’s Comet. Click here. (12/30)
Probes to Study Formation of Moon (Source: Pasadena Sun)
NASA officials on Wednesday announced plans to study the moon with two twin spacecraft probes that should give scientists their most detailed map of the lunar surface and help them unlock the history of its genesis. The $496-million mission has taken four years to come to fruition and will last at least 82 days. Up to 25 engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory will monitor the compact, solar-powered probes, in addition to a team at Lockheed, which built the spacecraft.
David Lehman, JPL’s project manager for the so-called GRAIL mission, said the team is excited, but there won’t be any celebrating until the second probe successfully starts its lunar orbit on Jan.1. “The anxiety level is heightened right now,” he said. The probes, known as GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B, will help scientists piece together the moon’s history by beaming back a higher resolution gravity map than what they have for any planet, including Earth. (12/29)
China: Moon Mission on the Horizon (Source: Xinhuanet)
Preliminary research on a "giant leap" to the moon has been included in the government's plans for the next five years, according to a white paper issued on Thursday. Research on a heavy-thrust carrier rocket - vital for launching manned spacecraft to the moon - will be carried out in the next five years. The white paper is the third one issued on space activities by the State Council Information Office. The other two were published in 2000 and 2006.
However, Zhang Wei, spokesman for the China National Space Administration, said that there is no timetable for a manned moon landing. Experts said that despite China's achievements in manned spaceflight and lunar exploration it needs a different type of technology, especially for the launch, to land a man on the moon. (12/30)
South Africa Hopes to Gain Head Start in the African Space Race (Source: Business Daily)
IN 2011, SA put the building blocks in place to bolster its position in the Africa space race. Internationally, the country showed its best face, hosting the 62nd International Astronautical Congress in Cape Town in October. It was the first time the important gathering of scientists, engineers and space policy makers had been held in Africa.
But SA is lagging behind some African countries in terms of its presence in space. Its pathfinder satellite SumbandilaSat, referred to as a "crippled ship", disappeared from the country’s radar this year, leaving SA without a satellite in space. The country’s first low-orbit satellite was beleaguered by problems during its two-year period in space, finally culminating in power and communication loss. Meanwhile Nigeria, Algeria and Egypt have two satellites each, while Angola has one.
"Unlike the other (African countries), we built our own satellite," Marian Shinn says. "Sumbandila was a prototype, to learn how it works. We’ve learnt and are planning to put up a satellite as part of the African Resource Management Constellation." Kenya, Nigeria, Algeria and SA are signatories to the constellation, which requires each member to launch a satellite to monitor their water, agriculture, climate and human settlement patterns, among other things. (12/30)
Editorial: Lost in Space (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
The future of the U.S. space program, and the fortunes of the economy of Florida's Space Coast, will largely depend on the level of commitment to space exploration from the president — whether it's Barack Obama or one of his Republican challengers. But as the Sentinel's Mark Matthews reported this week, space seems to be on the radar screen of just one GOP candidate, Newt Gingrich. When former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney mentioned space in a recent debate, it was only to mock Gingrich for his idea of establishing colonies on the moon to mine its minerals.
Space policy deserves to be more than a punch line or an afterthought from would-be presidents. For decades, U.S. missions to Earth orbit and beyond have been not only a source of international prestige, but also a driver of technological advances and scientific discoveries. Obama is pushing for private rocketeers to fill the post-Shuttle gap, but their success could be determined by whether the White House remains committed and can get Congress to go along.
NASA could turn into a ripe target for budget cuts if the agency is not a presidential priority. Well before Florida's Jan. 31 presidential primary, state voters should insist on hearing from each of the GOP contenders about his or her vision for space. Editor's Note: Click here to see an official list of Florida Federal Space Policy Recommendations for 2012. (12/30)
China Space Report Touts Tech, Tiptoes Around Military Uses (Source: Wall Street Journal)
Since China shocked the world by obliterating one of its aging weather satellites with a missile in 2007, it has struggled to reassure other countries of its peaceful intentions in space. That’s the background to a State Council white paper, released on Thursday, that reveals ambitious plans for space exploration over the next five years. As a follow-up to the last such report in 2006, it is partly meant to allay foreign concerns that China’s space program is driven by military calculations.
Among the highlights: an unmanned moon mission that will return lunar soil samples; new space labs; and a home-grown satellite navigation system. These developments will be accompanied by a rapid launch pace with 100 satellites planned for orbit. Though the tone of the report is celebratory, it’s clear that China realizes that its rapid ascent as a space power requires explanation to outsiders. Military analysts feared that China’s missile strike on its own satellite was the initial shot in a space arms race. Click here. (12/30)
Proposed Tax Break Could Launch New Business for Virginia Spaceport (Source: WTKR)
NASA has launched thousands of rockets from Wallops Island over the last 60 years. And the state is hoping to capitalize on commercial space opportunities with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport there. Soon, state lawmakers will consider a tax break that could foster a new niche for the facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore: launching cremated human remains into space.
House Bill 19 would authorize a tax deduction of up to eight thousand dollars for Virginians who pay to have their cremated remains launched into earth or lunar orbit. The catch? You'll have to use a spaceport operated by the Virginia Commercial Spaceflight Authority. (12/30)
New Mexico Spaceport Contractors to Meet Public (Source: Las Cruces Sun-News)
Spaceport America, Virgin Galactic and key site operations contractors will provide a briefing on upcoming activities at the first Spaceport Community Forum of the year at 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 10. The meeting will be held at the Doña Ana County Government Center at 845 N. Motel Blvd., in the main commission chambers. Representatives from Fiore Industries, Enterprise Advisory Services Inc. and Follow The Sun Tours will be on hand to share their roles at Spaceport America, talk about upcoming contract opportunities, and how to engage their procurement processes. (12/30)
2011's Top Mysteries of Space (Source: The Week)
Between a giant planet made of diamond and a massive stellar explosion that shone with the light of a trillion suns, this was quite a year for stargazers. Space junkies were treated to a marquee year in 2011, thanks in part to powerful new telescopes that let astronomers peer into previously unseen parts of the universe. From potentially habitable new worlds to a crystallized planet that may very well be one gigantic diamond, click here for a roundup of the year's most exciting intergalactic discoveries. (12/30)
Russian Officials Rattled by Breach at Rocket Plant (Source: Reuters)
Russia's deputy prime minister vowed Thursday to punish "sleepy" security officials after bloggers posted dozens of photos of an apparently unguarded strategic military rocket motor factory near Moscow. Blogger Lana Sator said she and friends met not a soul, much less any security guards, as they roamed around state rocket-maker Energomash's plant, snapping pictures, on five separate night-time excursions in recent months.
She posted almost 100 pictures of decrepit-looking hardware from inside a rusted engine-fuel testing tower, the plant's control room and even its roof at lana-sator. Russian media cited a senior space agency official, speaking anonymously, who described the breach as a shock of the same scale as German pilot Mathias Rust's brazen Cessna flight under Soviet radar to land on Red Square in 1987. Click here. (12/30)
Roskosmos to Prepare Strategy to 2030 by Late February (Source: Itar-Tass)
Russia’s Federal Space Agency will prepare a strategy of the space sector development to 2030 and later. The document is to be ready by the end of February. “Following the order of Dmitry Rogozin and the order of Vladimir Putin, we should prepare a strategy of the space sector development to 2030 and later,” Roskosmos’ Head Vladimir Popovkin said after meeting with Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. “If we do not look in future, we shall lose a lot – from the staff to technologies,” Rogozin said.
Popovkin said that the document will include objectives for fundamental research, for use of space in the interests of the social and economic development of the country and tasks for the sphere of piloting. Rogozin said that the document will be ready in 50 days. “We have agreed that in 50 days I shall receive the document, to be presented to the prime minister,” he said. “The document will be connected with the doctrine of development of Russia’s space to 2030.” (12/30)
Meridian Satellite Search Stopped After its 13th Fragment Found (Source: Itar-Tass)
The 13th fragment of the Meridian satellite that supposedly crashed after launch from the Plesetsk cosmodrome was found in the Ordynsk district of the Novosibirsk region on Thursday. It was found in the fields of the Ust-Lukovsky farm. The piece is a sheet the size of one meter in length and about 30 centimeters in width. Presumably, it is a fragment of the spacecraft’s skin.
On Thursday, the search for the space debris is stopped due to the large amount of snow. Now the search party will go to the site only if someone accidentally finds a fragment, Ryasnyansky said. The incident occurred due to the fact that as a result of failure of the third-stage engine of the Soyuz-2 carrier rocket the satellite did not reach the target orbit, and its fragments fell in Siberia.
Editor's Note: I don't believe the crash site of the August 24 Progress M-12M space station cargo carrier has been found, since bad weather in Siberia suspended the search in September. (12/30)
Rogozin, Popovkin Agree to Create Space Industry’s Personnel Reserve (Source: Itar-Tass)
Russia’s Deputy Prime Minster Dmitry Rogozin and head of the space agency Roscosmos, Vladimir Popovkin, have agreed to create a personnel reserve for the national space industry. Rogozin pointed to a shortage of personnel in the space industry. "There are young people and there are veterans, but middle-aged people in the space industry are few,” Rogozin said.
He promised that the level of professional training would continue to be raised and veterans of the Soviet space industry invited to join this effort. Rogozin said that on January 23 he would hold a meeting with the rectors of the leading universities working for the defense industry and also for the space and nuclear power industries. (12/30)
Rogozin Orders Popovkin Finalize Analysis of Space Accidents Jan 25 (Source: Itar-Tass)
Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who supervises in the government the defense industry, including the Federal Space Agency Roskosmos, ordered Vladimir Popovkin, head of the agency, to finalize by January 25 the analysis of the accidents in the space and to present a corresponding report.
“We shall analyze the reasons of the accidents in the space sector, and by January 25 I shall receive a report,” Rogozin told reporters after his meeting with Popovkin. He added that later on the report will be submitted to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Along with the report, Rogozin expects to receive a list of immediate measures to correct the situation.
“We have instructed a veteran of the space sector Mister Koptev to conduct research of these problems,” he said. Popovkin said in his turn that a detailed plan for improvement of the sector will include the introduction of control by the agency, due from January. (12/30)
China Reveals its Space Ambitions for Next Five Years (Source: MSNBC)
China plans to launch space labs and manned ships and prepare to build space stations over the next five years, according to a plan released Thursday that shows the country's space program is gathering momentum. China has already said its eventual goals are to have a space station and put an astronaut on the moon. It has made methodical progress with its ambitious lunar and human spaceflight programs, but its latest five-year plan beginning next year signals an acceleration.
By the end of 2016, China will launch space laboratories, manned spaceship and ship freighters, and make technological preparations for the construction of space stations, according to the white paper setting out China's space progress and future missions. (12/30)
China Sticks to Peaceful Use of Outer Space (Source: Xinhua)
China adheres to a principle of peaceful development in its space missions and the use of outer space for peaceful purposes, a spokesman said. Zhang Wei made the remarks while answering a question at a press conference held in Beijing for the release of the white paper titled "China's Space Activities in 2011." The white paper says that China always adheres to the use of outer space for peaceful purposes, and opposes the weaponization of, or an arms race in, outer space.
By clearly listing "peaceful development" as a key principle that governs China's space missions, the paper demonstrates the nation's resolution in carrying out space activities in a peaceful way, Zhang said. "It has been a common aspiration for the whole of mankind to explore, develop and utilize space for peaceful purposes," he noted. (12/30)
Secondary Payloads Dropped From SpaceX Demo (Source: Florida Today)
SpaceX won't launch a pair of small communications satellites during its next demonstration flight for NASA, which is targeted for Feb. 7 from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. The company now plans to launch the prototype Orbcomm satellites as a secondary payload one mission later, during the first commercial delivery of cargo to the International Space Station.
NASA had been reviewing plans to deploy the Orbcomm payloads on the next flight to ensure they wouldn't interfere with the Dragon capsule's first visit to the station. The revised launch plan reduces risk for Orbcomm and allows SpaceX to focus on its upcoming demonstration under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program.
"SpaceX will fully verify the mission performance on the COTS mission and focus on the successful berthing of the Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station," a news release says. In total, SpaceX plans to launch a constellation of 18 Orbcomm OG2 satellites by 2014 on its Falcon 9 rocket. (12/30)
Last Shuttle Flight was Florida's Top Story in 2011 (Source: Pensacola News Journal)
The end of the space shuttle program after more than three decades of flights to low-earth orbit launched past Gov. Rick Scott’s shakeup of state government and the Casey Anthony murder trial as Florida’s top story of 2011, according to a poll of newspaper editors. It marked the end of the 30-year-old space shuttle program. It was a moment of celebration and apprehension for NASA’s thousands of workers and contractors, many of whom lost jobs. (12/30)
Space 2012: What’s Ahead (Source: Air & Space)
Predicting the future is never easy, things don’t always turn out the way you expect, blah blah blah... Here goes anyway, with our forecast of space program events and trends for the coming year. Click here. (12/30)
Titan: A Wet World Not Far From Earth (Source: WIRED)
Astronomers weekly announce the discovery of new exoplanets, some similar in size or temperature to our planet –- but Earth-like worlds are not always far away. Though Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is a small, cold world orbiting on the outskirts of the solar system, it actually boasts many familiar features. “Titan is fascinating because it has some surprising properties so similar to Earth,” said planetary scientist Oded Aharonson from the California Institute of Technology. “It has a liquid which erodes channels, an atmosphere, a hydrologic cycle, and many other parallels.” (12/30)
Sun Storms May Affect Radios, Cell Phones (Source: ABC)
Intense solar activity may affect Earth today, potentially disrupting radio and cell phone transmissions. On Monday, the sun released a coronal mass ejection (CME), which is a "massive eruption of solar plasma," according to Space.com. The blast is expected to affect the Earth through Saturday. "Coronal Mass Ejections from the last few days may cause isolated periods of G1 (Minor) Geomagnetic Storm Activity on December 28-29," NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center wrote. "R1 (Minor) radio blackouts are expected until 31 December." (12/29)
When NASA first envisioned the Voyager space probes in 1972, Ed Stone was there to help design them, and he was there when Voyager One launched in 1977. Thirty-four years later, Voyager One has reached the outermost edge of the solar system, still sending back signals. As the Voyager Program's chief scientist, Stone is still listening.
"Voyager One is now about 11 billion miles from Earth," Stone told The Federal Drive with Tom Temin on Friday morning. "It's very close to the edge of interstellar space. It's still inside the huge bubble the sun creates around itself called the heliosphere." (12/30)
Astronaut Stops to Smell the Roses (Source: MSNBC)
One of the last astronauts to ride on a space shuttle will be riding a totally different vehicle on Sunday: a flower-bedecked float in the 2012 Rose Parade. The 5.5-mile journey down the parade route in Pasadena, Calif., doesn't hold a candle in distance or danger to the 5.3 million-mile journey that NASA astronaut Rex Walheim made in July during STS-135, Atlantis' program-ending mission. But it's a perfect follow-up for several reasons. Click here. (12/30) http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/30/9833312-astronaut-stops-to-smell-the-roses
After Exploring Space, Hernandez Finds Mission on Earth (Source: The Record)
You'd think after 2009, Stockton astronaut Jose Hernandez wouldn't have any new worlds to conquer. Think again. He used last year as a transition time - moving from NASA to a commercial aerospace job in Texas to an October announcement that he was moving back to the San Joaquin Valley so he could run for Congress. His new world will unfold in 2012 when the 49-year-old Hernandez, a Democrat, campaigns for the first time as a candidate for public office. (12/30)
Russia Falls, China Rises in Space Efforts (Source: Aviation Week)
The two largest space powers outside the U.S. had wildly divergent records in 2011, with Beijing boasting 19 launches and demonstrating in-orbit docking for a future space station while the Kremlin ordered an investigation into a string of high-profile engineering failures plaguing Russia’s space program.
The implications for Russia of a nosedive in the quality of its space efforts could be especially serious. The failures have been condemned by President Dmitry Medvedev, and the efforts at recovery will be watched carefully beyond Russia. The troubles have hit just as NASA has become reliant on its International Space Station (ISS) partner for manned spaceflights and as Moscow seeks to expand its commercial reach with launches from South America. (12/30)
Langley on Track to Meet NASA Facility Reduction Goal (Source: Daily Press)
Half of NASA's 10 major field centers are lagging behind on orders to rid the agency of aging buildings, wind tunnels and other structures, according to an internal report. The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 required agency downsizing, which NASA hopes to achieve by demolishing, selling and transferring some of its 5,000 buildings and structures.
The National Academy of Sciences found that NASA has $2.5 billion in deferred maintenance costs. Since late 2004, the agency has disposed of 645 buildings and structures worth a combined $931.5 million in current replacement value. Among the structures demolished at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton was the Full Scale Wind Tunnel, a six-story warehouse used to test everything from World War II fighter planes to NASCAR automobiles.
Including the wind tunnel, Langley has disposed of 148,395-square-feet of real property since 2003, second only to NASA Glenn Research Center in Ohio, according to the report. The downsizing upset civil service workers, particularly Langley's aeronautics division, last decade when union leaders accused NASA of initiating a back-door attempt to close Langley altogether. The mood has simmered since because Langley has kept its civil services workforce steady. (12/30)
NASA in Huntsville Faces 2012 With a Clear Road Map Ahead (Source: Huntsville Times)
After ending the 30-year space shuttle era in 2011 not really sure what came next, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center enters 2012 with as clear a roadmap as it has had in years. Center Director Robert Lightfoot ticked off the positive developments in a late December interview. "We've just gotten the marching orders for Space Launch System," Lightfoot said, referring to NASA's September decision to go forward with a new deep-space exploration system underpinned by a heavy-lift rocket developed in Huntsville. Click here. (12/30)
NASA, Contractors Wonder if Orion Will Aid Region’s Economy (Source: Houston Business Journal)
To have and have not. With apologies to Ernest Hemingway, that pretty much sums up the story of NASA’s funding future. Back in the 1960s when funding freely poured into the agency, the public was glued to their TV sets watching rocket launches. But those days are gone. NASA no longer captivates the public’s attention in quite the same way, and has often come under criticism during the past two decades for misguided management. Click here. (12/30)
Canadian Space Program Targets the Moon for Human Exploration (Source: SpaceRef)
Canada is targeting the moon as its next step for human exploration. While this is not a new objective more details are available after NASA hosted the Human Exploration Workshop as part of the Global Exploration Roadmap. A meeting of the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG) was held in San Diego between Nov. 14-16 and brought together over 100 participants from 14 space agencies. The workshop was divided into four panels:
Jean-Claude Piedboeuf made three presentations. The first on the status of Canada's space exploration program, the second on the Moon Next Scenario and the third on Near-Term Implementation Ideas, Strategies, and Plans. What's interesting is Canada's interest in human exploring of the moon, as in Canadian astronauts. This is not a short term goal, but after focusing on the ISS, it's part of the next step of robotic and then human exploration of the moon and is considered a Canadian exploration objective. (12/30)
With Main Spaceport Facilities Done, Virgin Galactic Moves In (Source: Las Cruces Bulletin)
In return for NMSA building the terminal hangar and two-mile-long runway at the spaceport, Virgin Galactic has promised to set up its headquarters in New Mexico, and Las Cruces will be home to its first offices opening in January 2012. Virgin has already hired more than 100 people, many of them Americans, because large-scale rocketry falls under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) passed after the 9/11 attacks.
One of the critical issues facing the tourism and supply chain economic development for the spaceport is adding suppliers to liability protection, which lawmakers have only been willing to give to the main launch companies such as Virgin. Without similar liability protections given to those supporting the companies taking passengers on space flights, spaceport supporters are saying the effort won’t generate many jobs, especially if Spaceport America’s business becomes limited to only government and testing launches.
One local company, Barnett’s Las Cruces Harley-Davidson dealership, debuted merchandise that flew to suborbital space 73 miles over Spaceport America in a rocket launch May 20. Along with student educational experiments, the UP Aerospace rocket carried 30 insignia pins for Barnett’s. The three varieties of pins all come with certificates about the flight anda display case to be sold online for between $3,000 and $5,000 each. (12/30)
Musk Tweets On Space Competition, Technology (Source: Hobby Space)
Elon Musk posted the following two Twitter messages in response to China's recent space pronouncements: #1) "SpaceX has Boeing, Lockheed, Europe (Ariane) and Russia (Proton/Soyuz) near checkmate in rocket technology. End game is all about China."; and #2) "Not that this really matters. All current rocket tech, including ours, sucks. Only when it becomes fully reusable, will it not suck."
Editor's Note: You can follow Elon Musk on Twitter here. (And you can follow my FLORIDA SPACErePORT tweets here.) (12/30)
UNIDROIT in Space: Lawyers without a Client (Source: Spacce News)
How do you get a loan using as security an asset that can literally fly away, like an airplane? How about an asset that cannot be touched and has multiple leases operating at the same time, such as a satellite in geosynchronous orbit? Those are questions that once puzzled private companies, their financiers and lawyers but are routinely dealt with today in transactions around the world. Click here. (12/30)
Disney: Man in Space (Source: USA Today)
By the mid-1950s, the idea of space flight and outer space exploration had gone beyond the fantasies of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers to be a real technological possibility. During this time, Walt Disney never showed any interest in the space opera fantasies that had captured the imagination of the American public. Television shows like Space Patrol and many others were as prominent as cowboy Westerns. The space shows were also very similar to the cowboy shows with blazing ray guns and hostile aliens and barren landscapes.
Walt’s interest was in the future just around the corner, inspired by the “World of Tomorrow” exhibits at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. At Disneyland, the Tomorrowland area that opened in 1955 was supposed to represent the world of 1986, which was the next scheduled appearance of Halley’s Comet. Click here. (12/30)
Probes to Study Formation of Moon (Source: Pasadena Sun)
NASA officials on Wednesday announced plans to study the moon with two twin spacecraft probes that should give scientists their most detailed map of the lunar surface and help them unlock the history of its genesis. The $496-million mission has taken four years to come to fruition and will last at least 82 days. Up to 25 engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory will monitor the compact, solar-powered probes, in addition to a team at Lockheed, which built the spacecraft.
David Lehman, JPL’s project manager for the so-called GRAIL mission, said the team is excited, but there won’t be any celebrating until the second probe successfully starts its lunar orbit on Jan.1. “The anxiety level is heightened right now,” he said. The probes, known as GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B, will help scientists piece together the moon’s history by beaming back a higher resolution gravity map than what they have for any planet, including Earth. (12/29)
China: Moon Mission on the Horizon (Source: Xinhuanet)
Preliminary research on a "giant leap" to the moon has been included in the government's plans for the next five years, according to a white paper issued on Thursday. Research on a heavy-thrust carrier rocket - vital for launching manned spacecraft to the moon - will be carried out in the next five years. The white paper is the third one issued on space activities by the State Council Information Office. The other two were published in 2000 and 2006.
However, Zhang Wei, spokesman for the China National Space Administration, said that there is no timetable for a manned moon landing. Experts said that despite China's achievements in manned spaceflight and lunar exploration it needs a different type of technology, especially for the launch, to land a man on the moon. (12/30)
South Africa Hopes to Gain Head Start in the African Space Race (Source: Business Daily)
IN 2011, SA put the building blocks in place to bolster its position in the Africa space race. Internationally, the country showed its best face, hosting the 62nd International Astronautical Congress in Cape Town in October. It was the first time the important gathering of scientists, engineers and space policy makers had been held in Africa.
But SA is lagging behind some African countries in terms of its presence in space. Its pathfinder satellite SumbandilaSat, referred to as a "crippled ship", disappeared from the country’s radar this year, leaving SA without a satellite in space. The country’s first low-orbit satellite was beleaguered by problems during its two-year period in space, finally culminating in power and communication loss. Meanwhile Nigeria, Algeria and Egypt have two satellites each, while Angola has one.
"Unlike the other (African countries), we built our own satellite," Marian Shinn says. "Sumbandila was a prototype, to learn how it works. We’ve learnt and are planning to put up a satellite as part of the African Resource Management Constellation." Kenya, Nigeria, Algeria and SA are signatories to the constellation, which requires each member to launch a satellite to monitor their water, agriculture, climate and human settlement patterns, among other things. (12/30)
Editorial: Lost in Space (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
The future of the U.S. space program, and the fortunes of the economy of Florida's Space Coast, will largely depend on the level of commitment to space exploration from the president — whether it's Barack Obama or one of his Republican challengers. But as the Sentinel's Mark Matthews reported this week, space seems to be on the radar screen of just one GOP candidate, Newt Gingrich. When former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney mentioned space in a recent debate, it was only to mock Gingrich for his idea of establishing colonies on the moon to mine its minerals.
Space policy deserves to be more than a punch line or an afterthought from would-be presidents. For decades, U.S. missions to Earth orbit and beyond have been not only a source of international prestige, but also a driver of technological advances and scientific discoveries. Obama is pushing for private rocketeers to fill the post-Shuttle gap, but their success could be determined by whether the White House remains committed and can get Congress to go along.
NASA could turn into a ripe target for budget cuts if the agency is not a presidential priority. Well before Florida's Jan. 31 presidential primary, state voters should insist on hearing from each of the GOP contenders about his or her vision for space. Editor's Note: Click here to see an official list of Florida Federal Space Policy Recommendations for 2012. (12/30)
China Space Report Touts Tech, Tiptoes Around Military Uses (Source: Wall Street Journal)
Since China shocked the world by obliterating one of its aging weather satellites with a missile in 2007, it has struggled to reassure other countries of its peaceful intentions in space. That’s the background to a State Council white paper, released on Thursday, that reveals ambitious plans for space exploration over the next five years. As a follow-up to the last such report in 2006, it is partly meant to allay foreign concerns that China’s space program is driven by military calculations.
Among the highlights: an unmanned moon mission that will return lunar soil samples; new space labs; and a home-grown satellite navigation system. These developments will be accompanied by a rapid launch pace with 100 satellites planned for orbit. Though the tone of the report is celebratory, it’s clear that China realizes that its rapid ascent as a space power requires explanation to outsiders. Military analysts feared that China’s missile strike on its own satellite was the initial shot in a space arms race. Click here. (12/30)
Proposed Tax Break Could Launch New Business for Virginia Spaceport (Source: WTKR)
NASA has launched thousands of rockets from Wallops Island over the last 60 years. And the state is hoping to capitalize on commercial space opportunities with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport there. Soon, state lawmakers will consider a tax break that could foster a new niche for the facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore: launching cremated human remains into space.
House Bill 19 would authorize a tax deduction of up to eight thousand dollars for Virginians who pay to have their cremated remains launched into earth or lunar orbit. The catch? You'll have to use a spaceport operated by the Virginia Commercial Spaceflight Authority. (12/30)
New Mexico Spaceport Contractors to Meet Public (Source: Las Cruces Sun-News)
Spaceport America, Virgin Galactic and key site operations contractors will provide a briefing on upcoming activities at the first Spaceport Community Forum of the year at 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 10. The meeting will be held at the Doña Ana County Government Center at 845 N. Motel Blvd., in the main commission chambers. Representatives from Fiore Industries, Enterprise Advisory Services Inc. and Follow The Sun Tours will be on hand to share their roles at Spaceport America, talk about upcoming contract opportunities, and how to engage their procurement processes. (12/30)
2011's Top Mysteries of Space (Source: The Week)
Between a giant planet made of diamond and a massive stellar explosion that shone with the light of a trillion suns, this was quite a year for stargazers. Space junkies were treated to a marquee year in 2011, thanks in part to powerful new telescopes that let astronomers peer into previously unseen parts of the universe. From potentially habitable new worlds to a crystallized planet that may very well be one gigantic diamond, click here for a roundup of the year's most exciting intergalactic discoveries. (12/30)
Russian Officials Rattled by Breach at Rocket Plant (Source: Reuters)
Russia's deputy prime minister vowed Thursday to punish "sleepy" security officials after bloggers posted dozens of photos of an apparently unguarded strategic military rocket motor factory near Moscow. Blogger Lana Sator said she and friends met not a soul, much less any security guards, as they roamed around state rocket-maker Energomash's plant, snapping pictures, on five separate night-time excursions in recent months.
She posted almost 100 pictures of decrepit-looking hardware from inside a rusted engine-fuel testing tower, the plant's control room and even its roof at lana-sator. Russian media cited a senior space agency official, speaking anonymously, who described the breach as a shock of the same scale as German pilot Mathias Rust's brazen Cessna flight under Soviet radar to land on Red Square in 1987. Click here. (12/30)
Roskosmos to Prepare Strategy to 2030 by Late February (Source: Itar-Tass)
Russia’s Federal Space Agency will prepare a strategy of the space sector development to 2030 and later. The document is to be ready by the end of February. “Following the order of Dmitry Rogozin and the order of Vladimir Putin, we should prepare a strategy of the space sector development to 2030 and later,” Roskosmos’ Head Vladimir Popovkin said after meeting with Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. “If we do not look in future, we shall lose a lot – from the staff to technologies,” Rogozin said.
Popovkin said that the document will include objectives for fundamental research, for use of space in the interests of the social and economic development of the country and tasks for the sphere of piloting. Rogozin said that the document will be ready in 50 days. “We have agreed that in 50 days I shall receive the document, to be presented to the prime minister,” he said. “The document will be connected with the doctrine of development of Russia’s space to 2030.” (12/30)
Meridian Satellite Search Stopped After its 13th Fragment Found (Source: Itar-Tass)
The 13th fragment of the Meridian satellite that supposedly crashed after launch from the Plesetsk cosmodrome was found in the Ordynsk district of the Novosibirsk region on Thursday. It was found in the fields of the Ust-Lukovsky farm. The piece is a sheet the size of one meter in length and about 30 centimeters in width. Presumably, it is a fragment of the spacecraft’s skin.
On Thursday, the search for the space debris is stopped due to the large amount of snow. Now the search party will go to the site only if someone accidentally finds a fragment, Ryasnyansky said. The incident occurred due to the fact that as a result of failure of the third-stage engine of the Soyuz-2 carrier rocket the satellite did not reach the target orbit, and its fragments fell in Siberia.
Editor's Note: I don't believe the crash site of the August 24 Progress M-12M space station cargo carrier has been found, since bad weather in Siberia suspended the search in September. (12/30)
Rogozin, Popovkin Agree to Create Space Industry’s Personnel Reserve (Source: Itar-Tass)
Russia’s Deputy Prime Minster Dmitry Rogozin and head of the space agency Roscosmos, Vladimir Popovkin, have agreed to create a personnel reserve for the national space industry. Rogozin pointed to a shortage of personnel in the space industry. "There are young people and there are veterans, but middle-aged people in the space industry are few,” Rogozin said.
He promised that the level of professional training would continue to be raised and veterans of the Soviet space industry invited to join this effort. Rogozin said that on January 23 he would hold a meeting with the rectors of the leading universities working for the defense industry and also for the space and nuclear power industries. (12/30)
Rogozin Orders Popovkin Finalize Analysis of Space Accidents Jan 25 (Source: Itar-Tass)
Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who supervises in the government the defense industry, including the Federal Space Agency Roskosmos, ordered Vladimir Popovkin, head of the agency, to finalize by January 25 the analysis of the accidents in the space and to present a corresponding report.
“We shall analyze the reasons of the accidents in the space sector, and by January 25 I shall receive a report,” Rogozin told reporters after his meeting with Popovkin. He added that later on the report will be submitted to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Along with the report, Rogozin expects to receive a list of immediate measures to correct the situation.
“We have instructed a veteran of the space sector Mister Koptev to conduct research of these problems,” he said. Popovkin said in his turn that a detailed plan for improvement of the sector will include the introduction of control by the agency, due from January. (12/30)
China Reveals its Space Ambitions for Next Five Years (Source: MSNBC)
China plans to launch space labs and manned ships and prepare to build space stations over the next five years, according to a plan released Thursday that shows the country's space program is gathering momentum. China has already said its eventual goals are to have a space station and put an astronaut on the moon. It has made methodical progress with its ambitious lunar and human spaceflight programs, but its latest five-year plan beginning next year signals an acceleration.
By the end of 2016, China will launch space laboratories, manned spaceship and ship freighters, and make technological preparations for the construction of space stations, according to the white paper setting out China's space progress and future missions. (12/30)
China Sticks to Peaceful Use of Outer Space (Source: Xinhua)
China adheres to a principle of peaceful development in its space missions and the use of outer space for peaceful purposes, a spokesman said. Zhang Wei made the remarks while answering a question at a press conference held in Beijing for the release of the white paper titled "China's Space Activities in 2011." The white paper says that China always adheres to the use of outer space for peaceful purposes, and opposes the weaponization of, or an arms race in, outer space.
By clearly listing "peaceful development" as a key principle that governs China's space missions, the paper demonstrates the nation's resolution in carrying out space activities in a peaceful way, Zhang said. "It has been a common aspiration for the whole of mankind to explore, develop and utilize space for peaceful purposes," he noted. (12/30)
Secondary Payloads Dropped From SpaceX Demo (Source: Florida Today)
SpaceX won't launch a pair of small communications satellites during its next demonstration flight for NASA, which is targeted for Feb. 7 from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. The company now plans to launch the prototype Orbcomm satellites as a secondary payload one mission later, during the first commercial delivery of cargo to the International Space Station.
NASA had been reviewing plans to deploy the Orbcomm payloads on the next flight to ensure they wouldn't interfere with the Dragon capsule's first visit to the station. The revised launch plan reduces risk for Orbcomm and allows SpaceX to focus on its upcoming demonstration under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program.
"SpaceX will fully verify the mission performance on the COTS mission and focus on the successful berthing of the Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station," a news release says. In total, SpaceX plans to launch a constellation of 18 Orbcomm OG2 satellites by 2014 on its Falcon 9 rocket. (12/30)
Last Shuttle Flight was Florida's Top Story in 2011 (Source: Pensacola News Journal)
The end of the space shuttle program after more than three decades of flights to low-earth orbit launched past Gov. Rick Scott’s shakeup of state government and the Casey Anthony murder trial as Florida’s top story of 2011, according to a poll of newspaper editors. It marked the end of the 30-year-old space shuttle program. It was a moment of celebration and apprehension for NASA’s thousands of workers and contractors, many of whom lost jobs. (12/30)
Space 2012: What’s Ahead (Source: Air & Space)
Predicting the future is never easy, things don’t always turn out the way you expect, blah blah blah... Here goes anyway, with our forecast of space program events and trends for the coming year. Click here. (12/30)
Titan: A Wet World Not Far From Earth (Source: WIRED)
Astronomers weekly announce the discovery of new exoplanets, some similar in size or temperature to our planet –- but Earth-like worlds are not always far away. Though Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is a small, cold world orbiting on the outskirts of the solar system, it actually boasts many familiar features. “Titan is fascinating because it has some surprising properties so similar to Earth,” said planetary scientist Oded Aharonson from the California Institute of Technology. “It has a liquid which erodes channels, an atmosphere, a hydrologic cycle, and many other parallels.” (12/30)
Sun Storms May Affect Radios, Cell Phones (Source: ABC)
Intense solar activity may affect Earth today, potentially disrupting radio and cell phone transmissions. On Monday, the sun released a coronal mass ejection (CME), which is a "massive eruption of solar plasma," according to Space.com. The blast is expected to affect the Earth through Saturday. "Coronal Mass Ejections from the last few days may cause isolated periods of G1 (Minor) Geomagnetic Storm Activity on December 28-29," NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center wrote. "R1 (Minor) radio blackouts are expected until 31 December." (12/29)
December 29, 2011
NASA Funds Near Space Corp. to Advance Titan Balloon Research (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Near Space Corporation (NSC), a leading innovator of terrestrial and planetary exploration balloon technology, has received a Phase Two NASA Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) award to fund work that will help enable future airborne exploration of Saturn’s moon Titan. NSC’s winning proposal was among 85 selected from a total pool of 428 submissions.
The Titan Saturn System Mission (TSSM), a proposed joint NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) effort, plans to send a Montgolfiere, or hot air balloon, to Saturn’s moon. If implemented according to the mission baseline, TSSM will launch a spacecraft in 2020 that will insert a probe into Titan’s atmosphere in 2030. The balloon component of that probe will function as a wind-driven, airborne sensor platform for approximately six months. The research to be conducted under this two year Phase Two NASA SBIR effort will improve the ability to forecast the balloon flight characteristics on Titan. (12/29)
Separating Space Tourism from Ballooning (Source: Newspace Journal)
“Space tourism doesn’t have to be rocket science,” reads the subheading of a New Scientist article about a proposed high-altitude passenger balloon concept that would take people to the edge of space. The “bloon” concept, by Spanish company zero2infinity, features a six-person pressurized capsule carried to an altitude of 36 kilometers (118,000 feet) by a giant balloon. Four passengers, paying €110,000 (US$142,000) each, will spend two hours at that altitude, gazing down on the Earth, before gently descending to a landing.
It sounds like an interesting experience: an opportunity to gaze down on the Earth at altitudes three times higher than a commercial jetliner in what appears to be a luxurious setting (according to a brochure describing the overall experience). It may turn out to be a profitable niche for zero2infinity. However, contrary to New Scientist, it is certainly not space tourism. Click here. (12/29)
Six Globalstar Satellites Healthy After Soyuz Launch (Source: Space News)
A Russian Soyuz rocket on Dec. 28 successfully launched six Globalstar mobile-communications satellites in the third of a planned four Soyuz liftoffs scheduled to place Globalstar’s 24 second-generation spacecraft into low Earth orbit, Globalstar and launch services provider Arianespace announced.
Globalstar said the satellites were healthy in orbit. Operating from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and equipped with the restartable Fregat upper stage — and using a different third-stage configuration than the Soyuz variant that failed at launch on Dec. 23, destroying a Russian military communications satellite — the Soyuz 2.1.a vehicle placed the six 650-kilogram Globalstar spacecraft into a 920-kilometer low Earth orbit. (12/29)
Orbcomm Revises Launch Schedule with Space Station-Bound SpaceX Flight (Source: Space News)
Orbcomm's new launch schedule for its 18 second-generation satellites with SpaceX scraps a planned early-2012 launch of a single satellite but results in three spacecraft being placed in orbit later in the year. The revised launch schedule reduces risks for both Fort Orbcomm and SpaceX. The companies had been struggling with plans to launch a prototype Orbcomm satellite aboard SpaceX’s next Falcon 9/Dragon flight to the international space station.
SpaceX and NASA, along with the other space station partners, had been discussing for months whether having the Falcon 9 rocket drop off Dragon near the station, where it is designed to be grabbed by a robotic arm for attachment to the orbital complex, before firing its engines to carry an Orbcomm satellite into a different orbit was not overly ambitious for the inaugural Dragon mission to the station. Orbcomm announced separately that it had agreed to purchase the Logistics Management division of PAR Technology Corp. for $6 million in cash and common stock, rising to $10 million if the business meets certain revenue targets. (12/29)
China Outlines Space Priorities, Including Debris Mitigation, New Rockets (Source: Space News)
The Chinese government on Dec. 29 issued a broad statement on its five-year space program, saying top priorities include developing three new launch vehicles — including a rapid-response launch system — and mitigating its contribution to space debris. The 17-page white paper, “China’s Space Activities in 2011,” reiterates China’s focus on lunar exploration, with robotic lunar landers and a lunar sample-return mission slated for launch by 2016. Click here. (12/29)
Near Space Corporation (NSC), a leading innovator of terrestrial and planetary exploration balloon technology, has received a Phase Two NASA Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) award to fund work that will help enable future airborne exploration of Saturn’s moon Titan. NSC’s winning proposal was among 85 selected from a total pool of 428 submissions.
The Titan Saturn System Mission (TSSM), a proposed joint NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) effort, plans to send a Montgolfiere, or hot air balloon, to Saturn’s moon. If implemented according to the mission baseline, TSSM will launch a spacecraft in 2020 that will insert a probe into Titan’s atmosphere in 2030. The balloon component of that probe will function as a wind-driven, airborne sensor platform for approximately six months. The research to be conducted under this two year Phase Two NASA SBIR effort will improve the ability to forecast the balloon flight characteristics on Titan. (12/29)
Separating Space Tourism from Ballooning (Source: Newspace Journal)
“Space tourism doesn’t have to be rocket science,” reads the subheading of a New Scientist article about a proposed high-altitude passenger balloon concept that would take people to the edge of space. The “bloon” concept, by Spanish company zero2infinity, features a six-person pressurized capsule carried to an altitude of 36 kilometers (118,000 feet) by a giant balloon. Four passengers, paying €110,000 (US$142,000) each, will spend two hours at that altitude, gazing down on the Earth, before gently descending to a landing.
It sounds like an interesting experience: an opportunity to gaze down on the Earth at altitudes three times higher than a commercial jetliner in what appears to be a luxurious setting (according to a brochure describing the overall experience). It may turn out to be a profitable niche for zero2infinity. However, contrary to New Scientist, it is certainly not space tourism. Click here. (12/29)
Six Globalstar Satellites Healthy After Soyuz Launch (Source: Space News)
A Russian Soyuz rocket on Dec. 28 successfully launched six Globalstar mobile-communications satellites in the third of a planned four Soyuz liftoffs scheduled to place Globalstar’s 24 second-generation spacecraft into low Earth orbit, Globalstar and launch services provider Arianespace announced.
Globalstar said the satellites were healthy in orbit. Operating from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and equipped with the restartable Fregat upper stage — and using a different third-stage configuration than the Soyuz variant that failed at launch on Dec. 23, destroying a Russian military communications satellite — the Soyuz 2.1.a vehicle placed the six 650-kilogram Globalstar spacecraft into a 920-kilometer low Earth orbit. (12/29)
Orbcomm Revises Launch Schedule with Space Station-Bound SpaceX Flight (Source: Space News)
Orbcomm's new launch schedule for its 18 second-generation satellites with SpaceX scraps a planned early-2012 launch of a single satellite but results in three spacecraft being placed in orbit later in the year. The revised launch schedule reduces risks for both Fort Orbcomm and SpaceX. The companies had been struggling with plans to launch a prototype Orbcomm satellite aboard SpaceX’s next Falcon 9/Dragon flight to the international space station.
SpaceX and NASA, along with the other space station partners, had been discussing for months whether having the Falcon 9 rocket drop off Dragon near the station, where it is designed to be grabbed by a robotic arm for attachment to the orbital complex, before firing its engines to carry an Orbcomm satellite into a different orbit was not overly ambitious for the inaugural Dragon mission to the station. Orbcomm announced separately that it had agreed to purchase the Logistics Management division of PAR Technology Corp. for $6 million in cash and common stock, rising to $10 million if the business meets certain revenue targets. (12/29)
China Outlines Space Priorities, Including Debris Mitigation, New Rockets (Source: Space News)
The Chinese government on Dec. 29 issued a broad statement on its five-year space program, saying top priorities include developing three new launch vehicles — including a rapid-response launch system — and mitigating its contribution to space debris. The 17-page white paper, “China’s Space Activities in 2011,” reiterates China’s focus on lunar exploration, with robotic lunar landers and a lunar sample-return mission slated for launch by 2016. Click here. (12/29)
December 28, 2011
Arianespace Completes 2012 With Soyuz Launch Partner Mission For Globalstar (Source: AFP)
Arianespace wrapped up another busy - and historic - 12 months of commercial launch services today by orbiting six satellites for mobile voice and data services on the ninth flight of 2011 - during a year in which the company lofted a total of 29 payloads using the Ariane 5 and Soyuz members of its launcher family. Today's mission, performed from Baikonur Cosmodrome by the Starsem affiliate of Arianespace, carried the latest cluster of second-generation satellites for Globalstar and utilized the medium-lift Soyuz. (12/28)
Money No Remedy for Russia's Scientific Decline (Source: Washington Post)
Although Russia has tripled its spending on scientific research in the past 10 years as it seeks to make up for the collapse of the 1990s, “innovation is losing out to exhaustion, corruption and cronyism,” says Will Englund. Under Soviet rule, science had prestige and strong support, which resulted in the first satellite and then the first man in space.
But two decades after the breakup of the Soviet Union, many young Russian scientists are looking to escape the low pay and poor facilities of the government science program, which is "shot through with back-scratching and favoritism," Englund writes. The U.S. could feel the effects as it depends on Russian rockets to carry astronauts to the international space station.
“In 20 years, all the positive things that existed in Soviet times have been destroyed, and replaced by nothing,” said Natalia Desherevskaya, a biologist at Institute of Biochemistry and Physiology of Microorganisms. Despite the increase in spending, Russia’s share of articles published in international scientific journals has fallen by 30 percent since 1998, and the number of people working in research and development dropped from more than 1.1 million in 1994 to 761,000 in 2008. (12/22)
Feeling the Ripples of Black Hole Collisions (Source: Discovery)
You might call it the universe's ultimate Clash of the Titans. As if the idea of monster black holes lurking in the heart of a galaxies isn't ominous enough, imagine two of them crashing together like a pair of Sumo wrestlers. This is an inevitable outcome when galaxies collide. But such a death match has never been directly detected, at least not yet.
Astronomers are eagerly looking forward to the day when gravitational wave detectors are sensitive enough to pick up the fabric of space-time ringing from such a smashup. This would allow theorists to precisely test general relativity under extreme conditions where strong gravity is at work. These events that happened long ago and far away are a prime target for space based gravitational wave detectors, like the long-planned Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) -- a joint mission between NASA and the European Space Agency.
According to theory, a black hole merger will first look like a sinusoidal wave on LISA's detectors. It will wiggle, increase in frequency and then flat-line after the black holes coalesce. The gravitational waves will tell scientists about mass, spin and orbital properties of the merger. (12/28)
NASA Twin Spacecraft On Final Approach For Moon Orbit (Source: NASA)
NASA's twin spacecraft to study the moon from crust to core are nearing their New Year's Eve and New Year's Day main-engine burns to place the duo in lunar orbit. Named Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL), the spacecraft are scheduled to be placed in orbit beginning at 4:21 p.m. EST for GRAIL-A on Dec. 31, and 5:05 p.m. EST on Jan. 1 for GRAIL-B.
The distance from Earth to the moon is approximately 250,000 miles (402,336 kilometers). NASA's Apollo crews took about three days to travel to the moon. Launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Sept. 10, 2011, the GRAIL spacecraft are taking about 30 times that long and covering more than 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometers) to get there. (12/28)
Japan's Satellite Launch Business Faces Cloudy Future (Source: Japan Times)
Japan's H-IIA rocket appears to have joined the ranks of the world's major launch vehicles following the Dec. 12 launch of an intelligence-gathering satellite. With 19 successes and one failure, however, Japan may stand little chance of capturing a substantial slice of the commercial satellite launch market, given the presence of well-entrenched competitors such as Europe and Russia.
The government and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. are hoping that the successful development of the H-IIA will provide a big break for Japan as it advances into the satellite launch market. However, in addition to Europe and Russia, emerging space powers like China and India also pose tough competition. This makes it likely that any Japanese satellite launch business will continue to depend on orders from the domestic government for some time to come. Click here.
Editor's Note: Sadly, this article makes no attempt to characterize U.S. launch providers as being competitive in the global marketplace. Atlas and Delta rockets should have more of this business, but fail to do so for various reasons (including, I suspect, their higher pricing structure for willing, deep-pocketed U.S. government customers). Hopefully, the Falcon-9/Heavy and Liberty rockets will introduce new competition that will bring down Atlas and Delta prices for both government and commercial missions. (12/28)
Large Hadron Collider Researchers Find New Particle (Source: GizMag)
British researchers say they've seen a new particle using data from the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. The chi b(3P) is the first new particle that has been clearly observed using the LHC, the world's largest particle accelerator, which is housed in a 17-mile (27-km) long tunnel near the border of Switzerland and France.
The chi b(3P) is a boson, but is different than the Higgs boson, the so-called "God particle" that researchers have also been using the LHC to search for. Researchers from the University of Birmingham and Lancaster University describe the new particle as a new way of combining a beauty quark and its antiquark so that they bind together. (12/28)
LightSquared, GPS Industry Dispute Spills Into 2012 (Source: Washington Post)
The struggle over the airwaves that has bogged down Reston-based LightSquared’s plans to deploy a wireless broadband network looks like it might be nearing a showdown. The company made its boldest attempt yet to squash the opposition last week, asking the Federal Communications Commission to issue a declaratory ruling asserting LightSquared’s right to use the spectrum.
At issue is the network’s potential interference with the receivers on global positioning systems that provide navigation support to consumers, companies and the federal government. Opponents of the project say that interference could cripple industries that rely on GPS and would cost, at minimum, hundreds of millions of dollars to fix. Those claims gained further support earlier this month when officials from several government agencies reported that tests showed the LightSquared network would interfere with “the majority” of GPS receivers.
LightSquared, which is backed by Harbinger Capital Partners, said in its FCC petition that its satellite-based network is consistent with its license and should not be penalized because the GPS industry “simply has failed to prepare itself.” “In contrast [to LightSquared’s network], commercial GPS receivers are not licensed, do not operate under any service rules, and thus are not entitled to any interference protection whatsoever,” the filing stated. (12/28)
LightSquared Releases Tests on Modified GPS Devices (Source: Telecom Paper)
LightSquared filed the first set of data from independent testing of precision GPS devices which were modified to coexist with the company's proposed nationwide LTE network. According to the company, the data shows that properly filtered high-precision GPS devices do not suffer any loss of accuracy in the presence of LightSquared's signals. The government has not yet begun the next phase of its testing, which will focus on high-precision devices.
The government's testing has already confirmed that more than 300 million GPS-enabled mobile phones are compliant with LightSquared's signal. However, the government-required tests showed that the majority of standard GPS devices suffer interference from LightSquared's network. The company has claimed that this is because they are leaking into spectrum licensed to LightSquared.
It has been working with equipment manufacturers on a way to alter the devices to prevent interference. In addition, it has asked the FCC to reaffirm its spectrum rights, in order to secure regulatory clearance for its network roll-out. (12/28)
Photo Shows What Our Sun Will Look Like When it Dies (Source: Telegraph)
The outer layers of a dying star form a huge cloud of gas, lit up by the core. In an estimated 5 billion years time, our own sun will turn into a nebula like this one. The photograph, taken by Bill Snyder and featured on NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day website, shows the Dumbbell Nebula, or M27. It is about 1,360 light years from earth and can be seen by stargazers with amateur telescopes and even binoculars. (12/28)
To Truly Understand Gingrich, Read his 1984 Book on Space Exploration (Source: Salon)
“Today,” Gingrich declared to an auditorium of Iowa City students, “we are on the cusp of an explosion of new science that will create new opportunities in health, agriculture, energy and materials technology.” But, he argued, we must first reform the bureaucracy hindering unfettered science. Perhaps — but it was hard to argue with Politico’s conclusion that giving the seminar in the midst of a hard-fought primary was politically “puzzling.” At worst it was suicidal.
The best guide to understanding the reasons Gingrich took time off the campaign trail to teach a brain-science seminar — and also, in the words of Mitt Romney, to understanding his “zany” side — is Gingrich’s first book, “Window of Opportunity.” Published in 1984 when he was the three-term member of Congress from Georgia (and, the cover notes, “chairman of the Congressional Space Caucus”), the book is an extended meditation on how the bureaucratic welfare state is holding back America from a bright future of space tourism and a poverty-ending computer revolution. Click here. (12/28)
If There is Life on Other Planets, God Put it There (Source: Chicago Tribune)
Q: Do you think we'll ever know if there's life on other planets? My 8-year-old son (who is fascinated by space travel) asked me this question, but I didn't know how to answer him. Does the Bible say anything about life on other planets?
A: No, the Bible doesn't directly address the question of whether or not there is life on other planets. It doesn't say there is, nor does it say there isn't; it's simply silent on the subject. Instead, the Bible's focus is on this world, and how we can know God's will for our lives right now. If there is life elsewhere in the universe, then you can be sure that God created it and put it there. It didn't happen by chance -- anymore than life here happened by chance. The Bible's opening words underline this great truth. Click here. (12/28)
Editorial: NASA Should Accept Google Gift of Saving Hangar One (Source: Mercury News)
Inexplicably, NASA-Ames is leaving a perfectly-wrapped present unopened under its tree at Moffett Field: an offer from three Google executives to pay the entire $33 million cost to re-clad Hangar One, whose asbestos-poisoned skin is being scraped to the skeleton this winter. Google execs made the offer to save the landmark in September. Local NASA officials seem enthusiastic, but headquarters has given no official response, according to U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo -- ignoring bipartisan interest and repeated letters from her seeking a reaction.
Timing is critical because the tear-down will be finished by spring, and the most economical way to re-cover the shell is to do the work immediately. The agency says it's studying options for its 2013 budget -- but it needs to speed up its review of the offer and open negotiations as soon as possible if it appears there's even a possibility it could work. Delay could squander the opportunity. (12/28)
Lasers Measure Earth's Rotation and Wobble (Source: Space.com)
The Earth spins around once every 24 hours on its axis, creating the continuous cycle of day and night. But this rotation isn't as straightforward as it sounds: Forces large and small cause the Earth to wobble as it spins. This wobbling can pose a problem for navigation systems like GPS. Scientists working with lasers and mirrors are refining a new system to track the Earth's rotation and its kinks.
The pull of gravity from the sun and the moon contribute to the planet's wobble. So do variations in atmospheric pressure, ocean loading and the wind, which change the position of the Earth's axis relative to the surface. Together their effect is called the Chandler wobble, and it has a period of 435 days. Another force causes the rotational axis to move over a period of a year. This "annual wobble" is due to the Earth's elliptical orbit around the sun.
Between these two effects, the Earth's axis migrates irregularly along a circular path with a radius of up to 20 feet (6 meters). Pinning down the overall wobble of the planet's rotation is key to keeping certain tracking systems accurate. Currently, this is now done through a complicated process that involves 30 radio telescopes around the globe that measure the direction between Earth and specific quasars, a type of galaxy that is assumed to be stationary relative to the Earth. (12/28)
Decades Later, a Cold War Secret is Revealed (Source: AP)
For more than a decade they toiled in the strange, boxy-looking building on the hill above the municipal airport, the building with no windows (except in the cafeteria), the building filled with secrets. They wore protective white jumpsuits, and had to walk through air-shower chambers before entering the sanitized "cleanroom" where the equipment was stored. They spoke in code.
Until recently, they were forbidden to speak about the greatest achievement of their professional lives. "Ah, Hexagon," Ed Newton says. It was dubbed "Big Bird" and it was considered the most successful space spy satellite program of the Cold War era. From 1971 to 1986 a total of 20 satellites were launched, each containing 60 miles of film and sophisticated cameras that took vast, panoramic photographs of the Soviet Union, China and other potential foes. The film was shot back to Earth in buckets that parachuted over the Pacific Ocean, where C-130 Air Force planes snagged them with grappling hooks. (12/28)
Arianespace wrapped up another busy - and historic - 12 months of commercial launch services today by orbiting six satellites for mobile voice and data services on the ninth flight of 2011 - during a year in which the company lofted a total of 29 payloads using the Ariane 5 and Soyuz members of its launcher family. Today's mission, performed from Baikonur Cosmodrome by the Starsem affiliate of Arianespace, carried the latest cluster of second-generation satellites for Globalstar and utilized the medium-lift Soyuz. (12/28)
Money No Remedy for Russia's Scientific Decline (Source: Washington Post)
Although Russia has tripled its spending on scientific research in the past 10 years as it seeks to make up for the collapse of the 1990s, “innovation is losing out to exhaustion, corruption and cronyism,” says Will Englund. Under Soviet rule, science had prestige and strong support, which resulted in the first satellite and then the first man in space.
But two decades after the breakup of the Soviet Union, many young Russian scientists are looking to escape the low pay and poor facilities of the government science program, which is "shot through with back-scratching and favoritism," Englund writes. The U.S. could feel the effects as it depends on Russian rockets to carry astronauts to the international space station.
“In 20 years, all the positive things that existed in Soviet times have been destroyed, and replaced by nothing,” said Natalia Desherevskaya, a biologist at Institute of Biochemistry and Physiology of Microorganisms. Despite the increase in spending, Russia’s share of articles published in international scientific journals has fallen by 30 percent since 1998, and the number of people working in research and development dropped from more than 1.1 million in 1994 to 761,000 in 2008. (12/22)
Feeling the Ripples of Black Hole Collisions (Source: Discovery)
You might call it the universe's ultimate Clash of the Titans. As if the idea of monster black holes lurking in the heart of a galaxies isn't ominous enough, imagine two of them crashing together like a pair of Sumo wrestlers. This is an inevitable outcome when galaxies collide. But such a death match has never been directly detected, at least not yet.
Astronomers are eagerly looking forward to the day when gravitational wave detectors are sensitive enough to pick up the fabric of space-time ringing from such a smashup. This would allow theorists to precisely test general relativity under extreme conditions where strong gravity is at work. These events that happened long ago and far away are a prime target for space based gravitational wave detectors, like the long-planned Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) -- a joint mission between NASA and the European Space Agency.
According to theory, a black hole merger will first look like a sinusoidal wave on LISA's detectors. It will wiggle, increase in frequency and then flat-line after the black holes coalesce. The gravitational waves will tell scientists about mass, spin and orbital properties of the merger. (12/28)
NASA Twin Spacecraft On Final Approach For Moon Orbit (Source: NASA)
NASA's twin spacecraft to study the moon from crust to core are nearing their New Year's Eve and New Year's Day main-engine burns to place the duo in lunar orbit. Named Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL), the spacecraft are scheduled to be placed in orbit beginning at 4:21 p.m. EST for GRAIL-A on Dec. 31, and 5:05 p.m. EST on Jan. 1 for GRAIL-B.
The distance from Earth to the moon is approximately 250,000 miles (402,336 kilometers). NASA's Apollo crews took about three days to travel to the moon. Launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Sept. 10, 2011, the GRAIL spacecraft are taking about 30 times that long and covering more than 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometers) to get there. (12/28)
Japan's Satellite Launch Business Faces Cloudy Future (Source: Japan Times)
Japan's H-IIA rocket appears to have joined the ranks of the world's major launch vehicles following the Dec. 12 launch of an intelligence-gathering satellite. With 19 successes and one failure, however, Japan may stand little chance of capturing a substantial slice of the commercial satellite launch market, given the presence of well-entrenched competitors such as Europe and Russia.
The government and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. are hoping that the successful development of the H-IIA will provide a big break for Japan as it advances into the satellite launch market. However, in addition to Europe and Russia, emerging space powers like China and India also pose tough competition. This makes it likely that any Japanese satellite launch business will continue to depend on orders from the domestic government for some time to come. Click here.
Editor's Note: Sadly, this article makes no attempt to characterize U.S. launch providers as being competitive in the global marketplace. Atlas and Delta rockets should have more of this business, but fail to do so for various reasons (including, I suspect, their higher pricing structure for willing, deep-pocketed U.S. government customers). Hopefully, the Falcon-9/Heavy and Liberty rockets will introduce new competition that will bring down Atlas and Delta prices for both government and commercial missions. (12/28)
Large Hadron Collider Researchers Find New Particle (Source: GizMag)
British researchers say they've seen a new particle using data from the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. The chi b(3P) is the first new particle that has been clearly observed using the LHC, the world's largest particle accelerator, which is housed in a 17-mile (27-km) long tunnel near the border of Switzerland and France.
The chi b(3P) is a boson, but is different than the Higgs boson, the so-called "God particle" that researchers have also been using the LHC to search for. Researchers from the University of Birmingham and Lancaster University describe the new particle as a new way of combining a beauty quark and its antiquark so that they bind together. (12/28)
LightSquared, GPS Industry Dispute Spills Into 2012 (Source: Washington Post)
The struggle over the airwaves that has bogged down Reston-based LightSquared’s plans to deploy a wireless broadband network looks like it might be nearing a showdown. The company made its boldest attempt yet to squash the opposition last week, asking the Federal Communications Commission to issue a declaratory ruling asserting LightSquared’s right to use the spectrum.
At issue is the network’s potential interference with the receivers on global positioning systems that provide navigation support to consumers, companies and the federal government. Opponents of the project say that interference could cripple industries that rely on GPS and would cost, at minimum, hundreds of millions of dollars to fix. Those claims gained further support earlier this month when officials from several government agencies reported that tests showed the LightSquared network would interfere with “the majority” of GPS receivers.
LightSquared, which is backed by Harbinger Capital Partners, said in its FCC petition that its satellite-based network is consistent with its license and should not be penalized because the GPS industry “simply has failed to prepare itself.” “In contrast [to LightSquared’s network], commercial GPS receivers are not licensed, do not operate under any service rules, and thus are not entitled to any interference protection whatsoever,” the filing stated. (12/28)
LightSquared Releases Tests on Modified GPS Devices (Source: Telecom Paper)
LightSquared filed the first set of data from independent testing of precision GPS devices which were modified to coexist with the company's proposed nationwide LTE network. According to the company, the data shows that properly filtered high-precision GPS devices do not suffer any loss of accuracy in the presence of LightSquared's signals. The government has not yet begun the next phase of its testing, which will focus on high-precision devices.
The government's testing has already confirmed that more than 300 million GPS-enabled mobile phones are compliant with LightSquared's signal. However, the government-required tests showed that the majority of standard GPS devices suffer interference from LightSquared's network. The company has claimed that this is because they are leaking into spectrum licensed to LightSquared.
It has been working with equipment manufacturers on a way to alter the devices to prevent interference. In addition, it has asked the FCC to reaffirm its spectrum rights, in order to secure regulatory clearance for its network roll-out. (12/28)
Photo Shows What Our Sun Will Look Like When it Dies (Source: Telegraph)
The outer layers of a dying star form a huge cloud of gas, lit up by the core. In an estimated 5 billion years time, our own sun will turn into a nebula like this one. The photograph, taken by Bill Snyder and featured on NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day website, shows the Dumbbell Nebula, or M27. It is about 1,360 light years from earth and can be seen by stargazers with amateur telescopes and even binoculars. (12/28)
To Truly Understand Gingrich, Read his 1984 Book on Space Exploration (Source: Salon)
“Today,” Gingrich declared to an auditorium of Iowa City students, “we are on the cusp of an explosion of new science that will create new opportunities in health, agriculture, energy and materials technology.” But, he argued, we must first reform the bureaucracy hindering unfettered science. Perhaps — but it was hard to argue with Politico’s conclusion that giving the seminar in the midst of a hard-fought primary was politically “puzzling.” At worst it was suicidal.
The best guide to understanding the reasons Gingrich took time off the campaign trail to teach a brain-science seminar — and also, in the words of Mitt Romney, to understanding his “zany” side — is Gingrich’s first book, “Window of Opportunity.” Published in 1984 when he was the three-term member of Congress from Georgia (and, the cover notes, “chairman of the Congressional Space Caucus”), the book is an extended meditation on how the bureaucratic welfare state is holding back America from a bright future of space tourism and a poverty-ending computer revolution. Click here. (12/28)
If There is Life on Other Planets, God Put it There (Source: Chicago Tribune)
Q: Do you think we'll ever know if there's life on other planets? My 8-year-old son (who is fascinated by space travel) asked me this question, but I didn't know how to answer him. Does the Bible say anything about life on other planets?
A: No, the Bible doesn't directly address the question of whether or not there is life on other planets. It doesn't say there is, nor does it say there isn't; it's simply silent on the subject. Instead, the Bible's focus is on this world, and how we can know God's will for our lives right now. If there is life elsewhere in the universe, then you can be sure that God created it and put it there. It didn't happen by chance -- anymore than life here happened by chance. The Bible's opening words underline this great truth. Click here. (12/28)
Editorial: NASA Should Accept Google Gift of Saving Hangar One (Source: Mercury News)
Inexplicably, NASA-Ames is leaving a perfectly-wrapped present unopened under its tree at Moffett Field: an offer from three Google executives to pay the entire $33 million cost to re-clad Hangar One, whose asbestos-poisoned skin is being scraped to the skeleton this winter. Google execs made the offer to save the landmark in September. Local NASA officials seem enthusiastic, but headquarters has given no official response, according to U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo -- ignoring bipartisan interest and repeated letters from her seeking a reaction.
Timing is critical because the tear-down will be finished by spring, and the most economical way to re-cover the shell is to do the work immediately. The agency says it's studying options for its 2013 budget -- but it needs to speed up its review of the offer and open negotiations as soon as possible if it appears there's even a possibility it could work. Delay could squander the opportunity. (12/28)
Lasers Measure Earth's Rotation and Wobble (Source: Space.com)
The Earth spins around once every 24 hours on its axis, creating the continuous cycle of day and night. But this rotation isn't as straightforward as it sounds: Forces large and small cause the Earth to wobble as it spins. This wobbling can pose a problem for navigation systems like GPS. Scientists working with lasers and mirrors are refining a new system to track the Earth's rotation and its kinks.
The pull of gravity from the sun and the moon contribute to the planet's wobble. So do variations in atmospheric pressure, ocean loading and the wind, which change the position of the Earth's axis relative to the surface. Together their effect is called the Chandler wobble, and it has a period of 435 days. Another force causes the rotational axis to move over a period of a year. This "annual wobble" is due to the Earth's elliptical orbit around the sun.
Between these two effects, the Earth's axis migrates irregularly along a circular path with a radius of up to 20 feet (6 meters). Pinning down the overall wobble of the planet's rotation is key to keeping certain tracking systems accurate. Currently, this is now done through a complicated process that involves 30 radio telescopes around the globe that measure the direction between Earth and specific quasars, a type of galaxy that is assumed to be stationary relative to the Earth. (12/28)
Decades Later, a Cold War Secret is Revealed (Source: AP)
For more than a decade they toiled in the strange, boxy-looking building on the hill above the municipal airport, the building with no windows (except in the cafeteria), the building filled with secrets. They wore protective white jumpsuits, and had to walk through air-shower chambers before entering the sanitized "cleanroom" where the equipment was stored. They spoke in code.
Until recently, they were forbidden to speak about the greatest achievement of their professional lives. "Ah, Hexagon," Ed Newton says. It was dubbed "Big Bird" and it was considered the most successful space spy satellite program of the Cold War era. From 1971 to 1986 a total of 20 satellites were launched, each containing 60 miles of film and sophisticated cameras that took vast, panoramic photographs of the Soviet Union, China and other potential foes. The film was shot back to Earth in buckets that parachuted over the Pacific Ocean, where C-130 Air Force planes snagged them with grappling hooks. (12/28)
December 27, 2011
China's Eyes in the Sky 'Go Public' (Source: South China Morning Post)
Beijing is making its home-grown Beidou satellite navigation system available for civilian use, posing a challenge to American dominance in the field. Though still incomplete, the Beidou system had already proven its worth in boosting China's military, technological and economic muscle, the central government said.
China Satellite Navigation Management Office director Ran Chengqi released Beidou's interface communication document (icd) at a press conference in Beijing yesterday. Access to the codebook had long been limited to the People's Liberation Army and some companies with government backgrounds, but now even Hongkongers will be able to use Beidou's service. (12/27)
Thinking Big in Space (Source: The Economist)
As a small boy Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, dreamed of going into space. He even tried to launch the hollow aluminium arm of a chair, stuffed with propellant, into orbit. It didn't work out. But his latest adventure in space travel - a joint venture with Burt Rutan, a famous designer of aeroplanes - looks more promising. Earlier this month, the two of them said they will build an air-launched orbital delivery system. To do this, Paul Allen’s company Stratolaunch Systems will have to build the world’s largest aeroplane.
The Stratolaunch, as the plane will be called, will be big. Really, really big. It will have six engines, a wingspan of 385 feet (117m) and weigh about 544 tonnes. (The wingspan of Boeing's 747 is around half that of the Stratolaunch.) Taking off will require 3.6km of runway, and the aeroplane will launch its rocket - a shortened version of the Falcon 9 rocket, built by another private space firm called SpaceX - at around 9,100m (or 30,000 feet). The whole contraption will be able to put about 6 tons of payload into low-earth orbit. Click here. (12/27)
China GPS Rival Beidou Starts Offering Navigation Data (Source: BBC)
China's satellite navigation system has become operational, according to an official. Beidou now offered location, timing and navigation data to China and surrounding areas announced the project's spokesman Ran Cheng. China has been working on the system since 2000 to provide an alternative to the US government-run Global Positioning System (GPS). The move should make China's military less dependent on foreign technology.
A launch earlier this month delivered the tenth of Beidou's satellites into orbit. Beijing plans to send a further six satellites into space by 2012 to extend the system to most parts of Asia, and then expand the network to a total of 35 satellites offering global coverage by 2020. (12/27)
Maritime Microsat Delivered to China for January Launch (Source: Space News)
Orbcomm said Dec. 27 that the VesselSat2 maritime-tracking satellite it will use to supplement its planned constellation of Automatic Identification System (AIS) satellites has been delivered to China in preparation for a Jan. 12 launch. The 29-kilogram microsatellite will be lofted into polar orbit aboard a Chang Zheng rocket lifting off from China’s Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center. (12/27)
NASA No Priority for Most Presidential Candidates (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Of all the presidential candidates, the election of Newt Gingrich likely would have the greatest effect on NASA for one simple reason. He would pay attention to it. The beleaguered space agency, despite its frequent mention in lofty speeches about "reaching for the stars," rarely gets put on the front burner of domestic policy — if it's on the stove at all.
It took former President George W. Bush more three years after his election in 2000 to unveil any significant plan for the agency. President Barack Obama's biggest impact has been following though on a campaign promise to downgrade NASA's troubled moon program — the one set up by Bush. But Gingrich is a self-described "space nut," an advocate whose ideas — from space taxis to orbiting lasers to a colony on the moon — have drawn praise and derision. Click here. (12/27)
NASA Seeks to Bolster Ties with Commercial Crew Firms (Source: SpaceFlightNow.com)
NASA and private space firms are determined to strengthen partnerships in the next phase of development in the agency's commercial crew transportation program, which is due to kick off in February, officials said last week. A memorandum of understanding is now available to commercial partners to better communicate industry concerns and NASA requirements in the absence of a fixed-price contract, which NASA was planning to implement next year to continue to development of crew transportation vehicles. (12/26)
AIA: Congress Should Address Sequestration Before Election (Source: The Hill)
The Aerospace Industries Association is urging Congress to address defense cuts from sequestration before the 2012 election. "From every reasonable, rational approach, we want to get this resolved as soon as possible -- we need to know what's going to happen," said Cord Sterling, vice president for legislative affairs at the AIA. "When your company's very survival could depend upon decisions that are made or not made, you cannot take that risk. You cannot sit there and say DOD hopes it will go away." (12/27)
Lawmakers Could Reach Compromise on FAA Bill (Source: Wall Street Journal)
Lawmakers in the House and Senate have not reached an agreement on the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill and remain at odds over the bill's labor provision. However, some observers say they could reach a compromise that would involve dealing with union organization issues separately. If lawmakers reach a compromise, the legislation could pass this spring. (12/27)
Failed space Missions Rise to 5 for Russia in 2011 (Source: Space.com)
A Russian Soyuz-2 rocket failed to launch a communications satellite Friday, marking the fifth failed space mission this year for Russia. "This area of the space industry is in sort of a crisis," said Russian space-agency chief Vladimir Popovin. The Soyuz-2 rocket fell to Earth in Siberia after the failure. (12/27)
Globalstar Announces Satellite Launch Update (Source: Globalstar)
Globalstar announced that six new Globalstar second-generation satellites have been rolled out to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in preparation for a scheduled launch on Wednesday, December 28th. Earlier this month, the six satellites were mated to the upper stage dispenser which was then integrated to the rest of the Soyuz launch vehicle prior to rollout.
Wednesday's scheduled liftoff will be the third launch of Globalstar's second-generation constellation satellites. The Company has contracted with launch services provider Arianespace for a total of four launches of six satellites per launch. The first two launches were successfully conducted in October of 2010 and July of this year. (12/27)
Space Junk Brings Bad Atmosphere (Source: Herald Sun)
A failed Russian Mars probe laden with toxic fuel is due to hit the Earth (and chances are that it will come down over Australia), a comet had a close shave with the Sun and space junk fell in Africa. It sounds like the plot of a truly abysmal Hollywood action movie starring a shirtless Matthew McConaughey but they are all events that have occurred in the past week.
Scientists are hoping the Earth's atmosphere will incinerate the troubled Phobos-Grunt probe, currently hurtling around the planet at 30,000km/h. Jolly good then, we'll just cross our fingers and hope for the best, shall we? So, on the off-chance you're forced to an underground bunker with the family and wait for the universe to implode, here's my handy survival guide. (12/27)
Russia Appoints Deputy Prime Minister to Lead Space Sector (Source: Space Policy Online)
Russia's news agency ITAR-TASS revealed today that on Monday Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin "empowered" Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin "to be in charge of Russia's space sector." Rogozin wants a report on Thursday from Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, on the most recent launch failure. (12/27)
NASA’s Planetary Probes Dominate in 2011 (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
It was an interesting year for NASA as the 2011 calendar brought about the retirement of the iconic Space Shuttle fleet, the completion of the USOS segment of the International Space Station, the launch of three new planetary missions, and the ongoing scientific endeavors of NASA’s fleet of planetary probes. In all, 2011 proved a banner year for NASA’s unmanned explorers in our solar system. Click here. (12/27)
In Skies Over Iran, a Battle for Control of Satellite TV (Source: Wall Street Journal)
Shohreh, a 37-year-old Iranian nurse, sat down with her husband and parents one night in September to watch a documentary about Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, scheduled to be shown on the British Broadcasting Corp.'s BBC Persian channel.
But when the Tehran family settled on the couch with a bowl of pistachios and switched on the television, all they saw was scrambled imagery. The satellite signal was being jammed. "We were very disappointed that we couldn't see the film," said Shohreh, who declined to let her last name be used. (12/27)
Annus Horribilis: Space in 2011 (Source: Air & Space)
A long established year-end tradition – for good or ill – is a review and analysis of the preceding twelve months. Who am I to fight this trend? Being that I am a “the glass is not only half-empty, but chipped and cracked down the middle” space policy town crier, be fairly warned as I conclude this year’s blogging with a look back at 2011. Click here. (12/27)
Garneau Eyes Run at Liberal Leadership in Canada (Source: CBC)
Liberal MP Marc Garneau is keeping the door open to a potential run at his party's leadership, but says he would also be willing to support a younger candidate who could revive the Grits. In a year-end interview, the MP for the Montreal riding of Westmount—Ville-Marie signalled interest in succeeding Michael Ignatieff as the next permanent Liberal leader.
Garneau acknowledged he is relatively new to politics, having only been elected to Parliament in 2008 after serving as president of the Canadian Space Agency from 2001 to 2006. But the former astronaut and naval captain said he's ready to step up his contribution to his country yet again. (12/27)
Siberian Homeowner Fixes Roof Amid Compensation Snag (Source: RIA Novosti)
A Siberian homeowner who escaped serious injury when a fragment of a Russian communication satellite crashed through the roof of his house had to fix it himself as the authorities wrangle over compensation. A titanium ball of about five kilograms, crashed through the roof of the single-family home in the Ordyn district. The homeowner, Andrei Krivorukov, had gone out to the yard to fetch firewood minutes before impact.
The village administration promised to do repairs at its own expense but did not. Novosibirsk Region Governor Vasily Yurchenko said on Tuesday the compensation should be paid by the Federal Space Agency Roscosmos whose satellite and booster rocket had caused the damage. More than 10 satellite fragments were found in an area some 100 kilometers from the city of Novosibirsk. (12/27)
NASA: No Impact Expected From Latest Soyuz Mishap (Source: Florida Today)
NASA officials say a Soyuz 2.1b rocket crash today should not impact International Space Station operations because its failed third stage is significant different than the third stage engine on Soyuz FG rockets and Soyuz U rockets that launch crews and cargo, respectively, to the outpost. "The Russian Soyuz 2.1b booster that was lost on Dec. 23 has a different third stage engine than the Soyuz boosters used for launching Progress cargo vehicles or Soyuz capsules," a NASA spokesman said. (12/27)
Space Policy Not Likely to Change if GOP Candidate Elected (Source: FSU News)
After the space shuttle's retirement this year, frustration over the decline in the nation's human spaceflight capability may leave President Barack Obama open to attack in the 2012 campaign. But experts say the Republicans vying to replace Obama are unlikely to seek big changes to NASA's post-shuttle transition, which relies on Russia to deliver U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station until the commercial sector is ready to take over the job.
Obama's signature space policy shift — privatizing astronaut flights to the space station — is a conservative one, and tight NASA budgets in the coming years will limit flexibility to change course. "His image on space is vulnerable; I think his policies are less vulnerable," said Howard McCurdy, a professor of public affairs at American University. "Since the White House has already embraced the commercial approach, it's hard for a Republican to get on the other side of that position." Click here. (12/26)
Beijing is making its home-grown Beidou satellite navigation system available for civilian use, posing a challenge to American dominance in the field. Though still incomplete, the Beidou system had already proven its worth in boosting China's military, technological and economic muscle, the central government said.
China Satellite Navigation Management Office director Ran Chengqi released Beidou's interface communication document (icd) at a press conference in Beijing yesterday. Access to the codebook had long been limited to the People's Liberation Army and some companies with government backgrounds, but now even Hongkongers will be able to use Beidou's service. (12/27)
Thinking Big in Space (Source: The Economist)
As a small boy Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, dreamed of going into space. He even tried to launch the hollow aluminium arm of a chair, stuffed with propellant, into orbit. It didn't work out. But his latest adventure in space travel - a joint venture with Burt Rutan, a famous designer of aeroplanes - looks more promising. Earlier this month, the two of them said they will build an air-launched orbital delivery system. To do this, Paul Allen’s company Stratolaunch Systems will have to build the world’s largest aeroplane.
The Stratolaunch, as the plane will be called, will be big. Really, really big. It will have six engines, a wingspan of 385 feet (117m) and weigh about 544 tonnes. (The wingspan of Boeing's 747 is around half that of the Stratolaunch.) Taking off will require 3.6km of runway, and the aeroplane will launch its rocket - a shortened version of the Falcon 9 rocket, built by another private space firm called SpaceX - at around 9,100m (or 30,000 feet). The whole contraption will be able to put about 6 tons of payload into low-earth orbit. Click here. (12/27)
China GPS Rival Beidou Starts Offering Navigation Data (Source: BBC)
China's satellite navigation system has become operational, according to an official. Beidou now offered location, timing and navigation data to China and surrounding areas announced the project's spokesman Ran Cheng. China has been working on the system since 2000 to provide an alternative to the US government-run Global Positioning System (GPS). The move should make China's military less dependent on foreign technology.
A launch earlier this month delivered the tenth of Beidou's satellites into orbit. Beijing plans to send a further six satellites into space by 2012 to extend the system to most parts of Asia, and then expand the network to a total of 35 satellites offering global coverage by 2020. (12/27)
Maritime Microsat Delivered to China for January Launch (Source: Space News)
Orbcomm said Dec. 27 that the VesselSat2 maritime-tracking satellite it will use to supplement its planned constellation of Automatic Identification System (AIS) satellites has been delivered to China in preparation for a Jan. 12 launch. The 29-kilogram microsatellite will be lofted into polar orbit aboard a Chang Zheng rocket lifting off from China’s Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center. (12/27)
NASA No Priority for Most Presidential Candidates (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Of all the presidential candidates, the election of Newt Gingrich likely would have the greatest effect on NASA for one simple reason. He would pay attention to it. The beleaguered space agency, despite its frequent mention in lofty speeches about "reaching for the stars," rarely gets put on the front burner of domestic policy — if it's on the stove at all.
It took former President George W. Bush more three years after his election in 2000 to unveil any significant plan for the agency. President Barack Obama's biggest impact has been following though on a campaign promise to downgrade NASA's troubled moon program — the one set up by Bush. But Gingrich is a self-described "space nut," an advocate whose ideas — from space taxis to orbiting lasers to a colony on the moon — have drawn praise and derision. Click here. (12/27)
NASA Seeks to Bolster Ties with Commercial Crew Firms (Source: SpaceFlightNow.com)
NASA and private space firms are determined to strengthen partnerships in the next phase of development in the agency's commercial crew transportation program, which is due to kick off in February, officials said last week. A memorandum of understanding is now available to commercial partners to better communicate industry concerns and NASA requirements in the absence of a fixed-price contract, which NASA was planning to implement next year to continue to development of crew transportation vehicles. (12/26)
AIA: Congress Should Address Sequestration Before Election (Source: The Hill)
The Aerospace Industries Association is urging Congress to address defense cuts from sequestration before the 2012 election. "From every reasonable, rational approach, we want to get this resolved as soon as possible -- we need to know what's going to happen," said Cord Sterling, vice president for legislative affairs at the AIA. "When your company's very survival could depend upon decisions that are made or not made, you cannot take that risk. You cannot sit there and say DOD hopes it will go away." (12/27)
Lawmakers Could Reach Compromise on FAA Bill (Source: Wall Street Journal)
Lawmakers in the House and Senate have not reached an agreement on the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill and remain at odds over the bill's labor provision. However, some observers say they could reach a compromise that would involve dealing with union organization issues separately. If lawmakers reach a compromise, the legislation could pass this spring. (12/27)
Failed space Missions Rise to 5 for Russia in 2011 (Source: Space.com)
A Russian Soyuz-2 rocket failed to launch a communications satellite Friday, marking the fifth failed space mission this year for Russia. "This area of the space industry is in sort of a crisis," said Russian space-agency chief Vladimir Popovin. The Soyuz-2 rocket fell to Earth in Siberia after the failure. (12/27)
Globalstar Announces Satellite Launch Update (Source: Globalstar)
Globalstar announced that six new Globalstar second-generation satellites have been rolled out to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in preparation for a scheduled launch on Wednesday, December 28th. Earlier this month, the six satellites were mated to the upper stage dispenser which was then integrated to the rest of the Soyuz launch vehicle prior to rollout.
Wednesday's scheduled liftoff will be the third launch of Globalstar's second-generation constellation satellites. The Company has contracted with launch services provider Arianespace for a total of four launches of six satellites per launch. The first two launches were successfully conducted in October of 2010 and July of this year. (12/27)
Space Junk Brings Bad Atmosphere (Source: Herald Sun)
A failed Russian Mars probe laden with toxic fuel is due to hit the Earth (and chances are that it will come down over Australia), a comet had a close shave with the Sun and space junk fell in Africa. It sounds like the plot of a truly abysmal Hollywood action movie starring a shirtless Matthew McConaughey but they are all events that have occurred in the past week.
Scientists are hoping the Earth's atmosphere will incinerate the troubled Phobos-Grunt probe, currently hurtling around the planet at 30,000km/h. Jolly good then, we'll just cross our fingers and hope for the best, shall we? So, on the off-chance you're forced to an underground bunker with the family and wait for the universe to implode, here's my handy survival guide. (12/27)
Russia Appoints Deputy Prime Minister to Lead Space Sector (Source: Space Policy Online)
Russia's news agency ITAR-TASS revealed today that on Monday Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin "empowered" Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin "to be in charge of Russia's space sector." Rogozin wants a report on Thursday from Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, on the most recent launch failure. (12/27)
NASA’s Planetary Probes Dominate in 2011 (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
It was an interesting year for NASA as the 2011 calendar brought about the retirement of the iconic Space Shuttle fleet, the completion of the USOS segment of the International Space Station, the launch of three new planetary missions, and the ongoing scientific endeavors of NASA’s fleet of planetary probes. In all, 2011 proved a banner year for NASA’s unmanned explorers in our solar system. Click here. (12/27)
In Skies Over Iran, a Battle for Control of Satellite TV (Source: Wall Street Journal)
Shohreh, a 37-year-old Iranian nurse, sat down with her husband and parents one night in September to watch a documentary about Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, scheduled to be shown on the British Broadcasting Corp.'s BBC Persian channel.
But when the Tehran family settled on the couch with a bowl of pistachios and switched on the television, all they saw was scrambled imagery. The satellite signal was being jammed. "We were very disappointed that we couldn't see the film," said Shohreh, who declined to let her last name be used. (12/27)
Annus Horribilis: Space in 2011 (Source: Air & Space)
A long established year-end tradition – for good or ill – is a review and analysis of the preceding twelve months. Who am I to fight this trend? Being that I am a “the glass is not only half-empty, but chipped and cracked down the middle” space policy town crier, be fairly warned as I conclude this year’s blogging with a look back at 2011. Click here. (12/27)
Garneau Eyes Run at Liberal Leadership in Canada (Source: CBC)
Liberal MP Marc Garneau is keeping the door open to a potential run at his party's leadership, but says he would also be willing to support a younger candidate who could revive the Grits. In a year-end interview, the MP for the Montreal riding of Westmount—Ville-Marie signalled interest in succeeding Michael Ignatieff as the next permanent Liberal leader.
Garneau acknowledged he is relatively new to politics, having only been elected to Parliament in 2008 after serving as president of the Canadian Space Agency from 2001 to 2006. But the former astronaut and naval captain said he's ready to step up his contribution to his country yet again. (12/27)
Siberian Homeowner Fixes Roof Amid Compensation Snag (Source: RIA Novosti)
A Siberian homeowner who escaped serious injury when a fragment of a Russian communication satellite crashed through the roof of his house had to fix it himself as the authorities wrangle over compensation. A titanium ball of about five kilograms, crashed through the roof of the single-family home in the Ordyn district. The homeowner, Andrei Krivorukov, had gone out to the yard to fetch firewood minutes before impact.
The village administration promised to do repairs at its own expense but did not. Novosibirsk Region Governor Vasily Yurchenko said on Tuesday the compensation should be paid by the Federal Space Agency Roscosmos whose satellite and booster rocket had caused the damage. More than 10 satellite fragments were found in an area some 100 kilometers from the city of Novosibirsk. (12/27)
NASA: No Impact Expected From Latest Soyuz Mishap (Source: Florida Today)
NASA officials say a Soyuz 2.1b rocket crash today should not impact International Space Station operations because its failed third stage is significant different than the third stage engine on Soyuz FG rockets and Soyuz U rockets that launch crews and cargo, respectively, to the outpost. "The Russian Soyuz 2.1b booster that was lost on Dec. 23 has a different third stage engine than the Soyuz boosters used for launching Progress cargo vehicles or Soyuz capsules," a NASA spokesman said. (12/27)
Space Policy Not Likely to Change if GOP Candidate Elected (Source: FSU News)
After the space shuttle's retirement this year, frustration over the decline in the nation's human spaceflight capability may leave President Barack Obama open to attack in the 2012 campaign. But experts say the Republicans vying to replace Obama are unlikely to seek big changes to NASA's post-shuttle transition, which relies on Russia to deliver U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station until the commercial sector is ready to take over the job.
Obama's signature space policy shift — privatizing astronaut flights to the space station — is a conservative one, and tight NASA budgets in the coming years will limit flexibility to change course. "His image on space is vulnerable; I think his policies are less vulnerable," said Howard McCurdy, a professor of public affairs at American University. "Since the White House has already embraced the commercial approach, it's hard for a Republican to get on the other side of that position." Click here. (12/26)
December 26, 2011
Soyuz Fails... Again (Source: Tea Party in Space)
Another Russian Soyuz rocket has failed again. Thankfully, it was carrying a Russian communications satillite and not Astronauts or Cosmonauts. This now brings the total number of failures to THREE in the last FIVE months. This is the same system NASA and Congress told us we could use to ferry our brave astronauts to the space station.
Just so everyone is clear: The quickest way to stop depending on Russia for rides into space is to fully fund the Commercial Crew program utilizing Space Act Agreements (SAAs). We have been saying this for how long? Because the congress inadiquately funded Commercial Crew, NASA was forced to use SAA's. It was a blessing in disguise. We can only hope that Russia figures out it's quality control problem and gets flying soon. (12/26)
Namibian Space Ball Identified as Ariane Hydrazine Tank (Source: The Australian)
The great mystery of the space ball has been solved. We can now rest easy in the knowledge aliens aren't pelting random space junk at Earth. There was wide speculation after a bizarre object, made from a “metal alloy known to man”, fell out of the sky on to remote grassland in Namibia. Authorities were so baffled by the find NASA and the European Space Agency were called in to investigate.
It seems this was totally unnecessary when you have the power of the internet. After the investigation went public, a commentator on tech site Gawker identified the ball as a piece of an unmanned rocket. "For anyone wondering what it actually is, it's likely a 39-litre hydrazine bladder tank (based on its apparent size; there are also much larger hydrazine tanks). They're used on unmanned rockets for satellite launches, which would explain why they're falling down in such a specific geographic footprint."
The European space company Astrium told Gawker the tanks are found in the Ariane 5 rocket, which are frequently used by the European Space Agency to launch satellites. The sphere was discovered mid-November, with forensic police conducting tests before announcing the find. Authorities remained baffled, but they did conclude the sphere did not pose any danger. Several such balls have also dropped in southern Africa, Australia and Latin America in the past 20 years. (12/26)
India 2011: Year of Satisfactory Space Missions (Source: Indo-Asian News Service)
Nine satellite launches, a policy for managing remote sensing data and commissioning of the country's fastest supercomputer- India's space agency can look back at 2011 with a fair sense of satisfaction, though the scrapping of a controversial spectrum deal with a private company remains a blemish on its yearly report card.
During 2011, the Indian Space and Research Organisation (ISRO) launched eight satellites using its own rocket Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and one communication satellite GSAT-8 through Ariane 5 from Kourou, French Guiana. Though launch of two more remote sensing satellites were announced before the year-end, they did not happen. (12/26)
Launch of Russian Proton-M Rocket Postponed (Source: RIA Novosti)
The launch of a Russian Proton-M carrier rocket with a Dutch telecommunications satellite SES-4 (NSS-14) onboard was called off on Monday due to "technical problems", a spokesman for the Khrunichev State Research and Production Center said. He said the new date for launch was being discussed. He did not elaborate on the cause of the delay. The launch would have been the 70th commercial launch of a Proton carrier rocket since 1995 and the 10th launch of this type of carrier rocket this year. (12/26)
2011 - Year in Review (Source: Space KSC)
When the Soyuz TMA-03M docked on December 23 at the International Space Station, its arrival put the punctuation mark to the end of an historic year in spaceflight. "Historic" can mean good or bad depending on your perspective. For many, 2011 means a year that the Space Shuttle came to an end, and thousands of workers lost their jobs — seven years after President George W. Bush announced in January 2004 that the Shuttle program would end once the International Space Station was completed.
For many others, 2011 will be remembered as the year that commercial cargo and crew programs inched closer to a new chapter in human spaceflight — saving the ISS from a projected shutdown in 2015, and unleashing new technologies that promise to bring down the cost of access to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Click here. (12/26)
Canadian Astronauts Could be Grounded for Years After Next Mission (Source: Winnipeg Free Press)
Canadian astronauts could be stuck on the ground for years following Chris Hadfield's space mission scheduled for 2012. That six-month visit to the International Space Station, which begins next November when Hadfield blasts off in a Russian spacecraft, will mark the end of a busy era for Canadian space travel. It's not clear when another Canadian will leave the planet, says an official at the national space agency. (12/26)
The 12 Most Anticipated Space Missions of 2012 (Source: Space.com)
The space shuttle program is over, but that won't mean a lack of launches in 2012. Between commercial and government spaceflight, manned and robotic, there's a lot on next year's spaceflight docket. For NASA, this year will bring the first private space cargo missions to the International Space Station, while China plans to launch its first crew to a brand-new space laboratory in orbit. Meanwhile, new NASA probes are due to arrive at the moon and Mars,among other places. Click here for a look at the 12 most anticipated space missions of 2012 (12/26)
Balloons to the Edge of Space (Source: New Scientist)
Several companies hope to make their fortune by opening up space travel to people with the right stuff - money, in this case. Almost all the firms plan to do so using rockets, though, and rockets are dangerous. Of the 500-odd people launched into space so far, 18 have died. For some people, the risk is surely part of the attraction. But what if you wanted the serene experience of looking at the blue marble without the risk of meeting a sticky end? José Mariano López-Urdiales thinks he has the answer: space ballooning.
The company he founded, Zero2Infinity, based in Barcelona, Spain, hopes to start taking people up to near-space as early as 2013. Balloons cannot go as high as rockets, but in theory at least they should be far safer, since passengers won't be sitting on tons of explosives. Their environmental impact is also far lower than that of smoke-belching rockets. There is no doubt that it is possible, because it has been done many times before.
In the 1950s and 1960s, more than a dozen crewed balloons journeyed to near-space. In 1957, for instance, Joe Kittinger of the US air force ascended to a height of 29 kilometres in a capsule attached to a helium balloon. He enjoyed the ride so much that when ordered to descend, he replied: "Come and get me." Click here. (12/26)
Another Russian Soyuz rocket has failed again. Thankfully, it was carrying a Russian communications satillite and not Astronauts or Cosmonauts. This now brings the total number of failures to THREE in the last FIVE months. This is the same system NASA and Congress told us we could use to ferry our brave astronauts to the space station.
Just so everyone is clear: The quickest way to stop depending on Russia for rides into space is to fully fund the Commercial Crew program utilizing Space Act Agreements (SAAs). We have been saying this for how long? Because the congress inadiquately funded Commercial Crew, NASA was forced to use SAA's. It was a blessing in disguise. We can only hope that Russia figures out it's quality control problem and gets flying soon. (12/26)
Namibian Space Ball Identified as Ariane Hydrazine Tank (Source: The Australian)
The great mystery of the space ball has been solved. We can now rest easy in the knowledge aliens aren't pelting random space junk at Earth. There was wide speculation after a bizarre object, made from a “metal alloy known to man”, fell out of the sky on to remote grassland in Namibia. Authorities were so baffled by the find NASA and the European Space Agency were called in to investigate.
It seems this was totally unnecessary when you have the power of the internet. After the investigation went public, a commentator on tech site Gawker identified the ball as a piece of an unmanned rocket. "For anyone wondering what it actually is, it's likely a 39-litre hydrazine bladder tank (based on its apparent size; there are also much larger hydrazine tanks). They're used on unmanned rockets for satellite launches, which would explain why they're falling down in such a specific geographic footprint."
The European space company Astrium told Gawker the tanks are found in the Ariane 5 rocket, which are frequently used by the European Space Agency to launch satellites. The sphere was discovered mid-November, with forensic police conducting tests before announcing the find. Authorities remained baffled, but they did conclude the sphere did not pose any danger. Several such balls have also dropped in southern Africa, Australia and Latin America in the past 20 years. (12/26)
India 2011: Year of Satisfactory Space Missions (Source: Indo-Asian News Service)
Nine satellite launches, a policy for managing remote sensing data and commissioning of the country's fastest supercomputer- India's space agency can look back at 2011 with a fair sense of satisfaction, though the scrapping of a controversial spectrum deal with a private company remains a blemish on its yearly report card.
During 2011, the Indian Space and Research Organisation (ISRO) launched eight satellites using its own rocket Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and one communication satellite GSAT-8 through Ariane 5 from Kourou, French Guiana. Though launch of two more remote sensing satellites were announced before the year-end, they did not happen. (12/26)
Launch of Russian Proton-M Rocket Postponed (Source: RIA Novosti)
The launch of a Russian Proton-M carrier rocket with a Dutch telecommunications satellite SES-4 (NSS-14) onboard was called off on Monday due to "technical problems", a spokesman for the Khrunichev State Research and Production Center said. He said the new date for launch was being discussed. He did not elaborate on the cause of the delay. The launch would have been the 70th commercial launch of a Proton carrier rocket since 1995 and the 10th launch of this type of carrier rocket this year. (12/26)
2011 - Year in Review (Source: Space KSC)
When the Soyuz TMA-03M docked on December 23 at the International Space Station, its arrival put the punctuation mark to the end of an historic year in spaceflight. "Historic" can mean good or bad depending on your perspective. For many, 2011 means a year that the Space Shuttle came to an end, and thousands of workers lost their jobs — seven years after President George W. Bush announced in January 2004 that the Shuttle program would end once the International Space Station was completed.
For many others, 2011 will be remembered as the year that commercial cargo and crew programs inched closer to a new chapter in human spaceflight — saving the ISS from a projected shutdown in 2015, and unleashing new technologies that promise to bring down the cost of access to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Click here. (12/26)
Canadian Astronauts Could be Grounded for Years After Next Mission (Source: Winnipeg Free Press)
Canadian astronauts could be stuck on the ground for years following Chris Hadfield's space mission scheduled for 2012. That six-month visit to the International Space Station, which begins next November when Hadfield blasts off in a Russian spacecraft, will mark the end of a busy era for Canadian space travel. It's not clear when another Canadian will leave the planet, says an official at the national space agency. (12/26)
The 12 Most Anticipated Space Missions of 2012 (Source: Space.com)
The space shuttle program is over, but that won't mean a lack of launches in 2012. Between commercial and government spaceflight, manned and robotic, there's a lot on next year's spaceflight docket. For NASA, this year will bring the first private space cargo missions to the International Space Station, while China plans to launch its first crew to a brand-new space laboratory in orbit. Meanwhile, new NASA probes are due to arrive at the moon and Mars,among other places. Click here for a look at the 12 most anticipated space missions of 2012 (12/26)
Balloons to the Edge of Space (Source: New Scientist)
Several companies hope to make their fortune by opening up space travel to people with the right stuff - money, in this case. Almost all the firms plan to do so using rockets, though, and rockets are dangerous. Of the 500-odd people launched into space so far, 18 have died. For some people, the risk is surely part of the attraction. But what if you wanted the serene experience of looking at the blue marble without the risk of meeting a sticky end? José Mariano López-Urdiales thinks he has the answer: space ballooning.
The company he founded, Zero2Infinity, based in Barcelona, Spain, hopes to start taking people up to near-space as early as 2013. Balloons cannot go as high as rockets, but in theory at least they should be far safer, since passengers won't be sitting on tons of explosives. Their environmental impact is also far lower than that of smoke-belching rockets. There is no doubt that it is possible, because it has been done many times before.
In the 1950s and 1960s, more than a dozen crewed balloons journeyed to near-space. In 1957, for instance, Joe Kittinger of the US air force ascended to a height of 29 kilometres in a capsule attached to a helium balloon. He enjoyed the ride so much that when ordered to descend, he replied: "Come and get me." Click here. (12/26)
December 25, 2011
We Should Scour the Moon for Ancient Traces of Aliens, Say Scientists (Source: Guardian)
Hundreds of thousands of pictures of the moon will be examined for telltale signs that aliens once visited our cosmic neighbourhood if plans put forward by scientists go ahead. Passing extraterrestrials might have left messages, scientific instruments, heaps of rubbish or evidence of mining on the dusty lunar surface that could be spotted by human telescopes and orbiting spacecraft.
Though the chances of finding the handiwork of long-gone aliens are exceptionally remote, scientists argue that a computerized search of lunar images, or a crowd-sourced analysis by amateur enthusiasts, would be cheap enough to justify given the importance of a potential discovery.
Prof Paul Davies and Robert Wagner at Arizona State University argue that images of the moon and other information collected by scientists for their research should be scoured for signs of alien intervention. The proposal aims to complement other hunts for alien life, such as the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), which draws on data from radiotelescopes to scour the heavens for messages beamed into space by alien civilisations. (12/25)
Newt's 'Zany' Space Policy (Source: PJ Media)
His recent criticism of Newt Gingrich's recent space comments is another flip flop for Romney, who seemed quite supportive of lunar activities in his previous run for the presidency, when he offered some remarks at the Kennedy Space Center after a tour of the Shuttle: "...Clearly, as I’ve said before, I support the NASA program, the president’s vision program, which consists of a manned space mission back to the moon, as well as an ongoing mission to Mars..."
The “president’s vision program” actually consisted of more than a “manned space mission back to the moon.” Though it was being disastrously implemented by NASA at the time, it was actually a program to establish a human lunar base there, one of whose purposes was to “mine minerals” (specifically, water with which to make rocket propellant and help with life support to reduce the costs of space operations). In other words, pretty much what he has been ridiculing Newt for supporting for the past week and a half.
In 2009, when President Obama came out with a new space policy that emphasized competitive commercial services for crew delivery to orbit, and the development of new technologies that would make human spaceflight beyond earth orbit much more affordable, Gingich was one of the few Republicans to come out in support of it (Bob Walker and Dana Rohrabacher were others). ... What would a Romney space policy look like? Given that you’ve elevated the topic in the campaign, I think that those of us to whom space is important deserve to know. (12/25)
NASA Still Lacks Priorities and Direction for Future (Source: Florida Today)
Three years since President Obama decided to change course, the nation's space policy remains paralyzed and overanalyzed. That’s not the president’s fault alone. Congress is equally to blame. The White House spent more than a year deciding what to do differently. Since then, it’s not been able to get a buy-in from Congress. As the fight over details continues and the nation operates yet another year without a real federal budget, national space policy remains foggy.
The people in Washington need to set a course, fund that plan and hold NASA and its contractors fully accountable for implementing it. As things stand, not even space program leaders seem to know their priorities. Notice, more money wasn’t the wish. The nation needs to set priorities and then allocate whatever money is available for NASA to the priorities. That might mean less gets spent on space exploration, but the funds should be targeted to the most important priorities, and other space projects that are not essential ought to be dropped. (12/25)
Siberian Man Unharmed as Satellite Debris Crashes Through Roof (Source: RIA Novosti)
A Siberian resident miraculously escaped serious injury or even death when a fragment of a Russian communication satellite crashed through the roof of his house. A Meridian satellite that was launched on Friday from the Plesetsk space center in northern Russia on board a Soyuz-2 carrier rocket crashed near the Siberian city of Tobolsk minutes after liftoff.
Eight satellite fragments were found in an area some 100 kilometers from the city of Novosibirsk. One, a titanium ball of about five kilograms, fell on to the roof of a village house in the Ordyn district. The house owner, Andrei Krivorukov, had gone out to the yard to fetch firewood minutes before the crash. The village administration promised to do repairs at its own expense. (12/25)
The Strange Case of the Christmas Burst (Source: Scientific American)
How did the Christmas gamma-ray burst explode? No, it’s not a geeky Christmas cracker joke, it’s a real question scientists have been trying to answer since Christmas day last year, when a gamma-ray burst called GRB 101225A first lit up the sky. The Christmas burst, as its come to be known, exhibted some rather unusual characteristics.
Gamma-ray bursts are short-lived flashes of gamma rays, made up of light that is more energetic than x-rays. Most are thought to be the result of massive stellar explosions in distant galaxies. Bursts can be over in milliseconds or last for several minutes, but no longer than that. After they finish they leave behind a longer-lived afterglow that can survive into weeks and months. While they last, they are the brightest objects in the known universe. (12/25)
Hundreds of thousands of pictures of the moon will be examined for telltale signs that aliens once visited our cosmic neighbourhood if plans put forward by scientists go ahead. Passing extraterrestrials might have left messages, scientific instruments, heaps of rubbish or evidence of mining on the dusty lunar surface that could be spotted by human telescopes and orbiting spacecraft.
Though the chances of finding the handiwork of long-gone aliens are exceptionally remote, scientists argue that a computerized search of lunar images, or a crowd-sourced analysis by amateur enthusiasts, would be cheap enough to justify given the importance of a potential discovery.
Prof Paul Davies and Robert Wagner at Arizona State University argue that images of the moon and other information collected by scientists for their research should be scoured for signs of alien intervention. The proposal aims to complement other hunts for alien life, such as the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), which draws on data from radiotelescopes to scour the heavens for messages beamed into space by alien civilisations. (12/25)
Newt's 'Zany' Space Policy (Source: PJ Media)
His recent criticism of Newt Gingrich's recent space comments is another flip flop for Romney, who seemed quite supportive of lunar activities in his previous run for the presidency, when he offered some remarks at the Kennedy Space Center after a tour of the Shuttle: "...Clearly, as I’ve said before, I support the NASA program, the president’s vision program, which consists of a manned space mission back to the moon, as well as an ongoing mission to Mars..."
The “president’s vision program” actually consisted of more than a “manned space mission back to the moon.” Though it was being disastrously implemented by NASA at the time, it was actually a program to establish a human lunar base there, one of whose purposes was to “mine minerals” (specifically, water with which to make rocket propellant and help with life support to reduce the costs of space operations). In other words, pretty much what he has been ridiculing Newt for supporting for the past week and a half.
In 2009, when President Obama came out with a new space policy that emphasized competitive commercial services for crew delivery to orbit, and the development of new technologies that would make human spaceflight beyond earth orbit much more affordable, Gingich was one of the few Republicans to come out in support of it (Bob Walker and Dana Rohrabacher were others). ... What would a Romney space policy look like? Given that you’ve elevated the topic in the campaign, I think that those of us to whom space is important deserve to know. (12/25)
NASA Still Lacks Priorities and Direction for Future (Source: Florida Today)
Three years since President Obama decided to change course, the nation's space policy remains paralyzed and overanalyzed. That’s not the president’s fault alone. Congress is equally to blame. The White House spent more than a year deciding what to do differently. Since then, it’s not been able to get a buy-in from Congress. As the fight over details continues and the nation operates yet another year without a real federal budget, national space policy remains foggy.
The people in Washington need to set a course, fund that plan and hold NASA and its contractors fully accountable for implementing it. As things stand, not even space program leaders seem to know their priorities. Notice, more money wasn’t the wish. The nation needs to set priorities and then allocate whatever money is available for NASA to the priorities. That might mean less gets spent on space exploration, but the funds should be targeted to the most important priorities, and other space projects that are not essential ought to be dropped. (12/25)
Siberian Man Unharmed as Satellite Debris Crashes Through Roof (Source: RIA Novosti)
A Siberian resident miraculously escaped serious injury or even death when a fragment of a Russian communication satellite crashed through the roof of his house. A Meridian satellite that was launched on Friday from the Plesetsk space center in northern Russia on board a Soyuz-2 carrier rocket crashed near the Siberian city of Tobolsk minutes after liftoff.
Eight satellite fragments were found in an area some 100 kilometers from the city of Novosibirsk. One, a titanium ball of about five kilograms, fell on to the roof of a village house in the Ordyn district. The house owner, Andrei Krivorukov, had gone out to the yard to fetch firewood minutes before the crash. The village administration promised to do repairs at its own expense. (12/25)
The Strange Case of the Christmas Burst (Source: Scientific American)
How did the Christmas gamma-ray burst explode? No, it’s not a geeky Christmas cracker joke, it’s a real question scientists have been trying to answer since Christmas day last year, when a gamma-ray burst called GRB 101225A first lit up the sky. The Christmas burst, as its come to be known, exhibted some rather unusual characteristics.
Gamma-ray bursts are short-lived flashes of gamma rays, made up of light that is more energetic than x-rays. Most are thought to be the result of massive stellar explosions in distant galaxies. Bursts can be over in milliseconds or last for several minutes, but no longer than that. After they finish they leave behind a longer-lived afterglow that can survive into weeks and months. While they last, they are the brightest objects in the known universe. (12/25)
December 24, 2011
Mysterious ’Space Ball’ Found in Namibia is a Really Serious Problem (Source: Smart Planet)
Uh oh… it looks like NASA might have dropped something — again. Or perhaps the strange object that suddenly came down from the heavens is the property of another Space Agency. Either way, somebody probably wants it back. Authorities in Namibia have alerted NASA and the European Space Agency of a mysterious piece of space junk that crash-landed in a remote area of Namibia.
The metallic sphere-shaped ball looks to be about the size of a basketball and weighs around 13 pounds and appears to be man-made. The “space ball” was initially discovered in November, a few days after residents living in a nearby village reported hearing a series of explosions, which were likely the sounds of a sonic boom as the plummeting debris broke through the sound barrier. The impact generated such great force that it created a hole 33 centimeter deep and 3.8 meters wide. The ball was found 60 feet from the crash site. (12/24)
Meridian Debris Falls in Russian Neighborhood (Source: Russian Space Web)
According to initial reports, the remnants of the spacecraft were expected to crash near Tobolsk in the Tyumen Region of Russia. However within three hours after the accident, Interfax news agency reported that fragments of the spacecraft were found near Ordynskoe in Novosibirsk Region.
Soon, a report came that a fragment from the failed mission crashed into the residential house in the village of Vagaitsevo, some three kilometers from the Ordynskoe regional center in Novosibirsk Region. Ironically, what was described as a 50-centimeter sperical gas tank hit the roof of the house along Cosmonauts Street. Fortunately, nobody was hurt in the incident, Russian media said. Click here. (12/24)
Commission Investigating Meridian Satellite’s Abortive Launch (Source: Itar-Tass)
The third stage of the Soyuz-2 launch vehicle, which was carrying the Meridian satellite to orbit on Friday, failed. “An accident occurred at the 421st second of the Meridian satellite launch from the Plesetsk spaceport in the off-normal work of the propulsion unit of the third stage of the launch vehicle. The satellite failed to reach a low orbit,” said an official.
“A state commission is investigating causes of the accident,” he remarked. “If the accident occurred when the third stage was working, fragments of the orbiting unit might have fallen over northern parts of Siberia,” a source in the Russian aerospace industry told Itar-Tass. (12/23)
Cape Canaveral Air Force Capt. Named Space Award Winner (Source: Florida Today)
Capt. Steve Nielson from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station is the recipient of the 2011 Florida National Defense Space Award, the National Space Club of Florida announced. Nielson, the GPS Division Chief at the Air Force Station, began his Air Force career as an Avionics Systems Engineer and then served as Flight Test Engineer and Systems Engineer on various programs. He was then assigned to the 45th Launch Support Squadron at Cape Canaveral. (12/24)
Russia Space Chief: Industry in 'Crisis' After Latest Failure (Source: RIA Novosti)
Russia's space industry needs an influx of new faces to overcome its current crisis, the head of the Roscosmos agency said on Friday, hours after a satellite crashed in southern Siberia. “The space branch is suffering a crisis. We must resolve this situation and give way to the youth...Perhaps it's time for reshuffle,” agency chief Vladimir Popovkin said. (12/24)
Could Starships Use Cold Fusion Propulsion? (Source: Discovery)
Voyager 1 is now leaving solar system, making it the first manmade probe to enter interstellar space. That's quite an achievement, and it only took 30+ years. But if we're going to get serious about boldly going where no man has gone before, and send humans beyond the solar system, we're gonna need a cheap and plentiful energy source to help us get there.
Exactly how much energy are we talking about? Well, back in January, a paper appeared on the arXiv by Marc Millis, a former head of NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project, calculating the costs -- in terms of energy -- of a truly interstellar manned space mission. And it wasn't good news.
For one scenario, he assumed a 500-person space ship on a one-way trip to establish a human colony on some distant exoplanet. That would require an exajoule of energy, or 1018 J, i.e., just about the same amount of energy consumed by everyone on Earth in one year. (12/24)
Proton-M Booster with Dutch Telecom Satellite put on Launching Pad (Source: Itar-Tass)
The Proton-M booster with the Dutch telecommunications satellite NSS-14 was put on a launching pad at the Baikonur spaceport, a Roscosmos source said on Saturday. The works of the first start-up day began as scheduled at the spaceport. The launch is scheduled for December 26. (12/24)
Soyuz Docks with Space Station (Source: CBS)
Amid word of yet another Russian space failure -- the fifth this year -- a Russian Soyuz ferry craft glided to a problem-free docking with the International Space Station Friday, boosting the lab's crew back to a full complement of six after an August launch failure that disrupted crew rotation flights. Soyuz TMA-03M commander Oleg Kononenko monitored an automated approach from the spacecraft's center seat, flanked by European astronaut Andre Kuipers on his left and American Donald Pettit to his right. (12/24)
Uh oh… it looks like NASA might have dropped something — again. Or perhaps the strange object that suddenly came down from the heavens is the property of another Space Agency. Either way, somebody probably wants it back. Authorities in Namibia have alerted NASA and the European Space Agency of a mysterious piece of space junk that crash-landed in a remote area of Namibia.
The metallic sphere-shaped ball looks to be about the size of a basketball and weighs around 13 pounds and appears to be man-made. The “space ball” was initially discovered in November, a few days after residents living in a nearby village reported hearing a series of explosions, which were likely the sounds of a sonic boom as the plummeting debris broke through the sound barrier. The impact generated such great force that it created a hole 33 centimeter deep and 3.8 meters wide. The ball was found 60 feet from the crash site. (12/24)
Meridian Debris Falls in Russian Neighborhood (Source: Russian Space Web)
According to initial reports, the remnants of the spacecraft were expected to crash near Tobolsk in the Tyumen Region of Russia. However within three hours after the accident, Interfax news agency reported that fragments of the spacecraft were found near Ordynskoe in Novosibirsk Region.
Soon, a report came that a fragment from the failed mission crashed into the residential house in the village of Vagaitsevo, some three kilometers from the Ordynskoe regional center in Novosibirsk Region. Ironically, what was described as a 50-centimeter sperical gas tank hit the roof of the house along Cosmonauts Street. Fortunately, nobody was hurt in the incident, Russian media said. Click here. (12/24)
Commission Investigating Meridian Satellite’s Abortive Launch (Source: Itar-Tass)
The third stage of the Soyuz-2 launch vehicle, which was carrying the Meridian satellite to orbit on Friday, failed. “An accident occurred at the 421st second of the Meridian satellite launch from the Plesetsk spaceport in the off-normal work of the propulsion unit of the third stage of the launch vehicle. The satellite failed to reach a low orbit,” said an official.
“A state commission is investigating causes of the accident,” he remarked. “If the accident occurred when the third stage was working, fragments of the orbiting unit might have fallen over northern parts of Siberia,” a source in the Russian aerospace industry told Itar-Tass. (12/23)
Cape Canaveral Air Force Capt. Named Space Award Winner (Source: Florida Today)
Capt. Steve Nielson from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station is the recipient of the 2011 Florida National Defense Space Award, the National Space Club of Florida announced. Nielson, the GPS Division Chief at the Air Force Station, began his Air Force career as an Avionics Systems Engineer and then served as Flight Test Engineer and Systems Engineer on various programs. He was then assigned to the 45th Launch Support Squadron at Cape Canaveral. (12/24)
Russia Space Chief: Industry in 'Crisis' After Latest Failure (Source: RIA Novosti)
Russia's space industry needs an influx of new faces to overcome its current crisis, the head of the Roscosmos agency said on Friday, hours after a satellite crashed in southern Siberia. “The space branch is suffering a crisis. We must resolve this situation and give way to the youth...Perhaps it's time for reshuffle,” agency chief Vladimir Popovkin said. (12/24)
Could Starships Use Cold Fusion Propulsion? (Source: Discovery)
Voyager 1 is now leaving solar system, making it the first manmade probe to enter interstellar space. That's quite an achievement, and it only took 30+ years. But if we're going to get serious about boldly going where no man has gone before, and send humans beyond the solar system, we're gonna need a cheap and plentiful energy source to help us get there.
Exactly how much energy are we talking about? Well, back in January, a paper appeared on the arXiv by Marc Millis, a former head of NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project, calculating the costs -- in terms of energy -- of a truly interstellar manned space mission. And it wasn't good news.
For one scenario, he assumed a 500-person space ship on a one-way trip to establish a human colony on some distant exoplanet. That would require an exajoule of energy, or 1018 J, i.e., just about the same amount of energy consumed by everyone on Earth in one year. (12/24)
Proton-M Booster with Dutch Telecom Satellite put on Launching Pad (Source: Itar-Tass)
The Proton-M booster with the Dutch telecommunications satellite NSS-14 was put on a launching pad at the Baikonur spaceport, a Roscosmos source said on Saturday. The works of the first start-up day began as scheduled at the spaceport. The launch is scheduled for December 26. (12/24)
Soyuz Docks with Space Station (Source: CBS)
Amid word of yet another Russian space failure -- the fifth this year -- a Russian Soyuz ferry craft glided to a problem-free docking with the International Space Station Friday, boosting the lab's crew back to a full complement of six after an August launch failure that disrupted crew rotation flights. Soyuz TMA-03M commander Oleg Kononenko monitored an automated approach from the spacecraft's center seat, flanked by European astronaut Andre Kuipers on his left and American Donald Pettit to his right. (12/24)
December 23, 2011
Russian Communications Satellite Falls After Launch (Sources: Reuters, SpaceFlightNow.com)
A Russian communications satellite fell to the ground on Friday soon after it was launched, adding to a string of disasters that have haunted the country's space industry. The agencies said the Meridian satellite, which can have both military and civilian use, did not reach its orbit and fell to the ground near the city of Tobolsk in Siberia, about 2,300 km from Moscow.
The sources blamed the accident on a failure of the Soyuz carrier rocket's third state, about seven minutes after launching from the Plesetsk spaceport. A source said the Meridian failure could delay the launch of Progress cargo craft, due in January. (12/23)
Variable Dark Energy Could Explain Old Galaxy Clusters (Source: New Scientist)
Does dark energy change over time? An alternative model of the as yet undetected entity that is thought to be accelerating the universe's expansion could explain some puzzling observations of galaxy clusters. But it will have to jump many more hurdles to compete with the simplest and so far most successful model of the elusive entity.
That model, called the cosmological constant, holds that there is a certain amount of repulsive energy in every cubic centimeter of space, and that amount stays the same over time. As the universe expands, more space exists, and so the expansion accelerates. (12/23)
Fundraising Lags to Complete Space Monuments in Titusville (Source: Florida Today)
For Mark Gaedcke of Titusville, a longtime veteran of the space shuttle program, the fleet’s retirement this summer meant the end of his job at United Space Alliance. Before he left, his co-workers threw him a surprise party and then gave him a second surprise. They chipped in to buy him a nameplate that will be part of a monument paying tribute to the hundreds of thousands of workers who played a role in the 30-year shuttle program.
But it may be a while before Gaedcke and others see completion of the monument at Space View Park in downtown Titusville. Fundraising is lagging, organizers say. Only about $120,000 of the estimated $300,000 project cost has been raised so far, said Charlie Mars, president of the U.S. Space Walk of Fame Foundation and Space Museum in Titusville.
Mars’ organization coordinated fundraising for monuments to the three earlier major U.S. manned space programs — Mercury, Gemini and Apollo — and is doing the same for the shuttle program. In all, about 500 people have paid $100 apiece for a black-granite nameplate that will include their name and employer, raising $50,000 for the project. That’s about a quarter of a percent of the 200,000 people Mars estimates have worked for NASA and its contractors on the shuttle program during the past three decades. (12/23)
NASA Completes Testing of Mirrors for Webb Telescope (Source: Huntsville Times)
NASA has successfully completed the testing of mirrors for the James Webb Space Telescope, it says. The telescope features 21 mirrors, which were tested in a deep-freeze chamber in Huntsville, Ala. "Mirrors need to be cold so their own heat does not drown out the very faint infrared images," said Lee Feinberg, NASA Optical Telescope Element manager for the Webb telescope. (12/23)
Earth Has Two 'Moons' Right Now, Theorists Say (Source: Space.com)
Earth has two moons, a group of scientists. One is that waxing and waning nightlight we all know and love. The other is a tiny asteroid, no bigger than a Smart Car, making huge doughnuts around Earth for a while before it zips off into the distance and is replaced by another. That's the scenario posited by the scientists who argue that there is a space rock at least 1 meter (3.3 feet) wide orbiting Earth at any given time, though it's not always the same rock. Click here. (12/23)
Final Chinese Launch Tally Surpasses U.S. Rocket Fleet (Source: SpaceFlightNow.com)
For the first time since the dawn of the space age, China's Long March rocket family eclipsed the annual flight rate of the U.S. fleet of space launchers Thursday with the successful deployment of a high-resolution mapping satellite. Chinese officials said the mission was flawless, marking the country's 18th successful space launch in 19 tries this year. The United States is 17-for-18 with flights of the space shuttle and the Atlas, Delta, Taurus and Minotaur rocket systems.
No more space launchings are scheduled from China or the U.S. this year. China's mark of 19 satellite blastoffs also sets a record for the Chinese space program. The previous high for Chinese launches in a year was set last year with 15 flights. Russian and Ukrainian launchers have lifted off 33 times this year, but three ended in at least partial failures. Those numbers include two Soyuz flights from the European-owned spaceport in French Guiana, and a Zenit rocket mission from the commercial U.S.-based Sea Launch platform in the Pacific Ocean. (12/23)
The End of the Space Shuttle (Source: Daily Press)
Engineers from NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton helped design the Space Shuttle. They also helped diagnose what went wrong after two accidents — Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003 — killed 14 astronauts. The shuttle was a drain a NASA finances, costing an estimated $175 billion through 2010. Many of the hundreds at Langley who watched the last launch said they were disappointed that NASA would temporarily rely on Russia to send astronauts into space. (12/23)
Space.Travel Announces Partnership with SpaceWed (Source: Space.Travel)
Space.Travel, the destination website for outer space, is pleased to announce a marketing partnership with SpaceWed. SpaceWed will offer Space.Travel members a ten percent discount on their space wedding rings. Space Wedding Rings offers a unique and sentimental way for regular people to be connected to space. This fits well with our website’s goal of sharing space experiences,” says Kenneth Schweitzer, founder of Space.Travel. (12/23)
How the Pentagon Will Create Space Travel Profits (Source: Market Oracle)
The mainstream media was all over Paul Allen's recent announcement proclaiming he intends to "transform" the space industry. But they missed the real story - one that will make a few savvy investors a small fortune. If you want big profits from the next generation of space travel, keep an eye on new developments at DARPA.
DARPA wants to create a whole "new space system." Don't get me wrong. I believe Allen's investment is an important vote of confidence in for-profit space travel. But hold on to your wallets folks, because I'd be surprised if he or any investors ever turn a profit from Allen's new venture. After reading about Allen's foray into outer space you might have been tempted to jump into some obvious industry stocks.
I believe a recent announcement by DARPA will become an investment bonanza. It didn't get much play in the major media because it's hard to see the profit potential in recycling dead satellites still orbiting earth. Under its Phoenix program, the agency wants to find ways to harvest parts from old satellites. To do so, DARPA intends to transform the nation's space system. I have followed this field for years and I firmly believe DARPA's interest will help lay the foundation for a whole new era of space travel. Click here. (12/23)
Self-Healing Electronic Chip Tests May Aid Space Travel (Source: BBC)
Self-repairing electronic chips are one step closer, according to a team of US researchers. The group has created a circuit that heals itself when cracked thanks to the release of liquid metal which restores conductivity. The process takes less than an eye blink to bring the circuit back to use.
The researchers said that their work could eventually lead to longer-lasting gadgets as well as solving one of the big problems of interplanetary travel. The process works by exploiting the stress that causes the initial damage in the chips to break open tiny reservoirs of a healing material that fills in the resulting gaps, restoring electrical flow. (12/23)
Japan: Space Strategy Office Would Promote Better Policy Coordination (Source: Yomiuri Shimbun)
The government plans to establish a space strategy office in the Cabinet Office to promote space development, Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura announced at a press conference Thursday morning. In a move to integrate national space policy, the government intends to give the strategy office authority to coordinate space-related policy measures currently handed by various government entities.
"We're considering setting up a space strategy office, which will be positioned as the headquarters for national space policy," Fujimura said. "We'd like to submit bills [necessary to establish the office] at the next ordinary Diet session." The government aims to launch the strategy office in April and will submit related bills, including one to revise the Aerospace Basic Law, at the Diet session in January. (12/23)
A Russian communications satellite fell to the ground on Friday soon after it was launched, adding to a string of disasters that have haunted the country's space industry. The agencies said the Meridian satellite, which can have both military and civilian use, did not reach its orbit and fell to the ground near the city of Tobolsk in Siberia, about 2,300 km from Moscow.
The sources blamed the accident on a failure of the Soyuz carrier rocket's third state, about seven minutes after launching from the Plesetsk spaceport. A source said the Meridian failure could delay the launch of Progress cargo craft, due in January. (12/23)
Variable Dark Energy Could Explain Old Galaxy Clusters (Source: New Scientist)
Does dark energy change over time? An alternative model of the as yet undetected entity that is thought to be accelerating the universe's expansion could explain some puzzling observations of galaxy clusters. But it will have to jump many more hurdles to compete with the simplest and so far most successful model of the elusive entity.
That model, called the cosmological constant, holds that there is a certain amount of repulsive energy in every cubic centimeter of space, and that amount stays the same over time. As the universe expands, more space exists, and so the expansion accelerates. (12/23)
Fundraising Lags to Complete Space Monuments in Titusville (Source: Florida Today)
For Mark Gaedcke of Titusville, a longtime veteran of the space shuttle program, the fleet’s retirement this summer meant the end of his job at United Space Alliance. Before he left, his co-workers threw him a surprise party and then gave him a second surprise. They chipped in to buy him a nameplate that will be part of a monument paying tribute to the hundreds of thousands of workers who played a role in the 30-year shuttle program.
But it may be a while before Gaedcke and others see completion of the monument at Space View Park in downtown Titusville. Fundraising is lagging, organizers say. Only about $120,000 of the estimated $300,000 project cost has been raised so far, said Charlie Mars, president of the U.S. Space Walk of Fame Foundation and Space Museum in Titusville.
Mars’ organization coordinated fundraising for monuments to the three earlier major U.S. manned space programs — Mercury, Gemini and Apollo — and is doing the same for the shuttle program. In all, about 500 people have paid $100 apiece for a black-granite nameplate that will include their name and employer, raising $50,000 for the project. That’s about a quarter of a percent of the 200,000 people Mars estimates have worked for NASA and its contractors on the shuttle program during the past three decades. (12/23)
NASA Completes Testing of Mirrors for Webb Telescope (Source: Huntsville Times)
NASA has successfully completed the testing of mirrors for the James Webb Space Telescope, it says. The telescope features 21 mirrors, which were tested in a deep-freeze chamber in Huntsville, Ala. "Mirrors need to be cold so their own heat does not drown out the very faint infrared images," said Lee Feinberg, NASA Optical Telescope Element manager for the Webb telescope. (12/23)
Earth Has Two 'Moons' Right Now, Theorists Say (Source: Space.com)
Earth has two moons, a group of scientists. One is that waxing and waning nightlight we all know and love. The other is a tiny asteroid, no bigger than a Smart Car, making huge doughnuts around Earth for a while before it zips off into the distance and is replaced by another. That's the scenario posited by the scientists who argue that there is a space rock at least 1 meter (3.3 feet) wide orbiting Earth at any given time, though it's not always the same rock. Click here. (12/23)
Final Chinese Launch Tally Surpasses U.S. Rocket Fleet (Source: SpaceFlightNow.com)
For the first time since the dawn of the space age, China's Long March rocket family eclipsed the annual flight rate of the U.S. fleet of space launchers Thursday with the successful deployment of a high-resolution mapping satellite. Chinese officials said the mission was flawless, marking the country's 18th successful space launch in 19 tries this year. The United States is 17-for-18 with flights of the space shuttle and the Atlas, Delta, Taurus and Minotaur rocket systems.
No more space launchings are scheduled from China or the U.S. this year. China's mark of 19 satellite blastoffs also sets a record for the Chinese space program. The previous high for Chinese launches in a year was set last year with 15 flights. Russian and Ukrainian launchers have lifted off 33 times this year, but three ended in at least partial failures. Those numbers include two Soyuz flights from the European-owned spaceport in French Guiana, and a Zenit rocket mission from the commercial U.S.-based Sea Launch platform in the Pacific Ocean. (12/23)
The End of the Space Shuttle (Source: Daily Press)
Engineers from NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton helped design the Space Shuttle. They also helped diagnose what went wrong after two accidents — Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003 — killed 14 astronauts. The shuttle was a drain a NASA finances, costing an estimated $175 billion through 2010. Many of the hundreds at Langley who watched the last launch said they were disappointed that NASA would temporarily rely on Russia to send astronauts into space. (12/23)
Space.Travel Announces Partnership with SpaceWed (Source: Space.Travel)
Space.Travel, the destination website for outer space, is pleased to announce a marketing partnership with SpaceWed. SpaceWed will offer Space.Travel members a ten percent discount on their space wedding rings. Space Wedding Rings offers a unique and sentimental way for regular people to be connected to space. This fits well with our website’s goal of sharing space experiences,” says Kenneth Schweitzer, founder of Space.Travel. (12/23)
How the Pentagon Will Create Space Travel Profits (Source: Market Oracle)
The mainstream media was all over Paul Allen's recent announcement proclaiming he intends to "transform" the space industry. But they missed the real story - one that will make a few savvy investors a small fortune. If you want big profits from the next generation of space travel, keep an eye on new developments at DARPA.
DARPA wants to create a whole "new space system." Don't get me wrong. I believe Allen's investment is an important vote of confidence in for-profit space travel. But hold on to your wallets folks, because I'd be surprised if he or any investors ever turn a profit from Allen's new venture. After reading about Allen's foray into outer space you might have been tempted to jump into some obvious industry stocks.
I believe a recent announcement by DARPA will become an investment bonanza. It didn't get much play in the major media because it's hard to see the profit potential in recycling dead satellites still orbiting earth. Under its Phoenix program, the agency wants to find ways to harvest parts from old satellites. To do so, DARPA intends to transform the nation's space system. I have followed this field for years and I firmly believe DARPA's interest will help lay the foundation for a whole new era of space travel. Click here. (12/23)
Self-Healing Electronic Chip Tests May Aid Space Travel (Source: BBC)
Self-repairing electronic chips are one step closer, according to a team of US researchers. The group has created a circuit that heals itself when cracked thanks to the release of liquid metal which restores conductivity. The process takes less than an eye blink to bring the circuit back to use.
The researchers said that their work could eventually lead to longer-lasting gadgets as well as solving one of the big problems of interplanetary travel. The process works by exploiting the stress that causes the initial damage in the chips to break open tiny reservoirs of a healing material that fills in the resulting gaps, restoring electrical flow. (12/23)
Japan: Space Strategy Office Would Promote Better Policy Coordination (Source: Yomiuri Shimbun)
The government plans to establish a space strategy office in the Cabinet Office to promote space development, Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura announced at a press conference Thursday morning. In a move to integrate national space policy, the government intends to give the strategy office authority to coordinate space-related policy measures currently handed by various government entities.
"We're considering setting up a space strategy office, which will be positioned as the headquarters for national space policy," Fujimura said. "We'd like to submit bills [necessary to establish the office] at the next ordinary Diet session." The government aims to launch the strategy office in April and will submit related bills, including one to revise the Aerospace Basic Law, at the Diet session in January. (12/23)
December 22, 2011
Pluto's Blushing Complexion Riddle Solved (Source: The Register)
Boffins using the new Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) on the Hubble telescope have figured out what makes Pluto the color it is. The Southwest Research Institute's eggheads discovered a strong ultraviolet-wavelength absorber on the dwarf planet's surface, which suggests that there are complex hydrocarbon and nitrile molecules strewn on the ground. The molecules could be produced by sunlight or cosmic rays interacting with the ices on Pluto, which are made of methane, carbon monoxide and nitrogen.
"This is an exciting finding because complex Plutonian hydrocarbons and other molecules that could be responsible for the ultraviolet spectral features we found with Hubble may, among other things, be responsible for giving Pluto its ruddy colour," project leader Alan Stern said. "The discovery reminds us that even more exciting discoveries about Pluto's composition and surface evolution are likely to be in store when NASA's New Horizons spacecraft arrives at Pluto in 2015," he added. (12/22)
Arianespace, CNES Award Nearly $1 Billion in Spaceport Contracts (Source: Space News)
Europe’s Arianespace launch services consortium and the French space agency, CNES, concluded new five-year contracts totaling 700 million euros ($940 million) with the major companies performing operations and maintenance work at the Guiana Space Center spaceport in French Guiana. Arianespace and CNES both said the contracts’ overall cost will permit them to realize substantial synergies as they spread many of the fixed costs of the launch base over three vehicles starting in 2012. (12/22)
NMSU Class Works Spaceport America Landscaping Challenge (Source: Las Cruces Sun-News)
Laurie Abbott's rangeland restoration ecology class at New Mexico State University had been asked to put her class to work solving a special problem for Spaceport America that she said actually falls somewhere between traditional rangeland restoration and desert landscaping. Abbott was working with Chad Rabon, the general operations manager of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority and an NMSU alumnus with a bachelor's in agricultural economics and agricultural business.
When he realized the project needed help making things grow around the spaceport's Terminal Hangar Facility, he naturally looked to his alma mater for assistance. In contrast to the terminal's wall of glass that faces east toward the runway, the northwest and southwest sides of the building have sloping earthen berms integrated into the overall design. From the west, the structure is designed to blend in with the terrain, so the slopes need to be covered with native vegetation. (12/22)
Eighth WGS Communications Satellite Ordered by Military (Source: SpaceFlightNow.com)
As anticipated, the U.S. Air Force has followed through with plans to purchase an eighth military communications satellite for its Wideband Global SATCOM program from Boeing. Three of the spacecraft have successfully been deployed into operations 22,300 miles above Earth in geosynchronous orbit and a fourth is being readied at Cape Canaveral for blastoff atop a United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket on Jan. 19.
Production of the latest satellite in the series is valued at $354 million in total, including long-lead parts that were ordered for $58 million in August and now the $296 million authorization to proceed with full construction, launch and on-orbit activation. (12/22)
Planet Skeletons Orbit Dead Star (Source: Astronomy Now)
A tightly orbiting pair of smaller than Earth-sized planets has been discovered orbiting a star that has already passed through its red giant phase, providing insight into what might become of our own Solar System. The planets, detected by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, orbit the star at less than one percent of the Earth-Sun system, a distance that sees them reach temperatures of over 8,000 degrees Celsius.
Had they begun their doomed lives at this distance, they would not have survived the red giant phase of their sun’s evolution, suggesting an alternative pathway for how they came to be residing around a hot subdwarf star of just 18 million years in age. One explanation is that they formed some considerable distance away from the star, and as it swelled into a red giant they were dragged into its inflated atmosphere. Such an event would have ripped the atmospheres from the planets, exposing a bare iron-rock core, as well as accelerated the demise of the star itself. (12/22)
Astronomers Discover Rare Galaxy at Dawn of Time (Source: UC Riverside)
Astronomers, including the University of California, Riverside’s Bahram Mobasher and his graduate student Hooshang Nayyeri, have discovered that one of the most distant galaxies known is churning out stars at a shockingly high rate. The researchers made the discovery using NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes. The blob-shaped galaxy, called GN-108036, is the brightest galaxy found to date at such great distances.
The galaxy, which was discovered and confirmed using ground-based telescopes, is 12.9 billion light-years away. Data from Spitzer and Hubble were used to measure the galaxy's high star production rate, equivalent to about 100 suns per year. For reference, our Milky Way galaxy is about five times larger and 100 times more massive than GN-108036, but makes roughly 30 times fewer stars per year. (12/22)
Why We Have to Leave Our Cradle ... and Get to Mars (Source: MSNBC)
Mars has teased the imagination since early astronomers discovered that it doesn’t flicker. It glows red as it moves forward and backward in odd, yet predictable, patterns. It was noted in the records of Babylonian, Chinese and Mayan stargazers, and it has figured prominently in ancient mythology. Galileo developed the science of astronomy with his invention of the telescope, and as knowledge of our planetary neighbor grew, Mars appeared to bear a strange kinship to Earth.
Astronomers determined that it had close to a 24-hour day and the appearance of an atmosphere, and some even speculated that it harbored intelligent life. As telescopes improved, observers learned that Mars had two moons, a polar cap and a curious array of surface features — the notorious canali, described by Italy's Giovanni Schiaparelli in 1877. Click here. (12/22)
A Year of Outer-Space Farewells (Source: MSNBC)
During 2011, NASA said goodbye to the Spirit Mars rover and the space shuttle program — but there's hope that during 2012, new players will strut their stuff on the space effort's huge stage, stretching from Cape Canaveral to the Red Planet. This is my 15th annual "Year in Space" roundup, and in all those years I can't think of a starker time of transition between the year that's past and the year to come.
The space shuttles are being readied for museums, and work hasn't yet started on the big rocket that NASA says it will need for the next era of human space exploration. The space agency's plans for commercializing operations in low Earth orbit could well be tied up in budgetary knots, and there are questions about how much farther its robotic Mars exploration program can go. Click here. (12/22)
2011 Recap: Space Setbacks and Best Launch Photos (Source: Space.com)
The plain truth: Getting into space is hard. Rockets have been launching people, robots and satellites into space for more than 50 years. But major failures still occur, highlighting just how hard it is to escape the bonds of Earth on a rocketship bound for orbit. The year 2011 saw its share of launch and mission failures; thankfully, none of them involved astronauts. Click here for a recap of the biggest space disappointments of the year. And click here for a collection of the best launch photos of 2011. (12/22)
Boffins using the new Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) on the Hubble telescope have figured out what makes Pluto the color it is. The Southwest Research Institute's eggheads discovered a strong ultraviolet-wavelength absorber on the dwarf planet's surface, which suggests that there are complex hydrocarbon and nitrile molecules strewn on the ground. The molecules could be produced by sunlight or cosmic rays interacting with the ices on Pluto, which are made of methane, carbon monoxide and nitrogen.
"This is an exciting finding because complex Plutonian hydrocarbons and other molecules that could be responsible for the ultraviolet spectral features we found with Hubble may, among other things, be responsible for giving Pluto its ruddy colour," project leader Alan Stern said. "The discovery reminds us that even more exciting discoveries about Pluto's composition and surface evolution are likely to be in store when NASA's New Horizons spacecraft arrives at Pluto in 2015," he added. (12/22)
Arianespace, CNES Award Nearly $1 Billion in Spaceport Contracts (Source: Space News)
Europe’s Arianespace launch services consortium and the French space agency, CNES, concluded new five-year contracts totaling 700 million euros ($940 million) with the major companies performing operations and maintenance work at the Guiana Space Center spaceport in French Guiana. Arianespace and CNES both said the contracts’ overall cost will permit them to realize substantial synergies as they spread many of the fixed costs of the launch base over three vehicles starting in 2012. (12/22)
NMSU Class Works Spaceport America Landscaping Challenge (Source: Las Cruces Sun-News)
Laurie Abbott's rangeland restoration ecology class at New Mexico State University had been asked to put her class to work solving a special problem for Spaceport America that she said actually falls somewhere between traditional rangeland restoration and desert landscaping. Abbott was working with Chad Rabon, the general operations manager of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority and an NMSU alumnus with a bachelor's in agricultural economics and agricultural business.
When he realized the project needed help making things grow around the spaceport's Terminal Hangar Facility, he naturally looked to his alma mater for assistance. In contrast to the terminal's wall of glass that faces east toward the runway, the northwest and southwest sides of the building have sloping earthen berms integrated into the overall design. From the west, the structure is designed to blend in with the terrain, so the slopes need to be covered with native vegetation. (12/22)
Eighth WGS Communications Satellite Ordered by Military (Source: SpaceFlightNow.com)
As anticipated, the U.S. Air Force has followed through with plans to purchase an eighth military communications satellite for its Wideband Global SATCOM program from Boeing. Three of the spacecraft have successfully been deployed into operations 22,300 miles above Earth in geosynchronous orbit and a fourth is being readied at Cape Canaveral for blastoff atop a United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket on Jan. 19.
Production of the latest satellite in the series is valued at $354 million in total, including long-lead parts that were ordered for $58 million in August and now the $296 million authorization to proceed with full construction, launch and on-orbit activation. (12/22)
Planet Skeletons Orbit Dead Star (Source: Astronomy Now)
A tightly orbiting pair of smaller than Earth-sized planets has been discovered orbiting a star that has already passed through its red giant phase, providing insight into what might become of our own Solar System. The planets, detected by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, orbit the star at less than one percent of the Earth-Sun system, a distance that sees them reach temperatures of over 8,000 degrees Celsius.
Had they begun their doomed lives at this distance, they would not have survived the red giant phase of their sun’s evolution, suggesting an alternative pathway for how they came to be residing around a hot subdwarf star of just 18 million years in age. One explanation is that they formed some considerable distance away from the star, and as it swelled into a red giant they were dragged into its inflated atmosphere. Such an event would have ripped the atmospheres from the planets, exposing a bare iron-rock core, as well as accelerated the demise of the star itself. (12/22)
Astronomers Discover Rare Galaxy at Dawn of Time (Source: UC Riverside)
Astronomers, including the University of California, Riverside’s Bahram Mobasher and his graduate student Hooshang Nayyeri, have discovered that one of the most distant galaxies known is churning out stars at a shockingly high rate. The researchers made the discovery using NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes. The blob-shaped galaxy, called GN-108036, is the brightest galaxy found to date at such great distances.
The galaxy, which was discovered and confirmed using ground-based telescopes, is 12.9 billion light-years away. Data from Spitzer and Hubble were used to measure the galaxy's high star production rate, equivalent to about 100 suns per year. For reference, our Milky Way galaxy is about five times larger and 100 times more massive than GN-108036, but makes roughly 30 times fewer stars per year. (12/22)
Why We Have to Leave Our Cradle ... and Get to Mars (Source: MSNBC)
Mars has teased the imagination since early astronomers discovered that it doesn’t flicker. It glows red as it moves forward and backward in odd, yet predictable, patterns. It was noted in the records of Babylonian, Chinese and Mayan stargazers, and it has figured prominently in ancient mythology. Galileo developed the science of astronomy with his invention of the telescope, and as knowledge of our planetary neighbor grew, Mars appeared to bear a strange kinship to Earth.
Astronomers determined that it had close to a 24-hour day and the appearance of an atmosphere, and some even speculated that it harbored intelligent life. As telescopes improved, observers learned that Mars had two moons, a polar cap and a curious array of surface features — the notorious canali, described by Italy's Giovanni Schiaparelli in 1877. Click here. (12/22)
A Year of Outer-Space Farewells (Source: MSNBC)
During 2011, NASA said goodbye to the Spirit Mars rover and the space shuttle program — but there's hope that during 2012, new players will strut their stuff on the space effort's huge stage, stretching from Cape Canaveral to the Red Planet. This is my 15th annual "Year in Space" roundup, and in all those years I can't think of a starker time of transition between the year that's past and the year to come.
The space shuttles are being readied for museums, and work hasn't yet started on the big rocket that NASA says it will need for the next era of human space exploration. The space agency's plans for commercializing operations in low Earth orbit could well be tied up in budgetary knots, and there are questions about how much farther its robotic Mars exploration program can go. Click here. (12/22)
2011 Recap: Space Setbacks and Best Launch Photos (Source: Space.com)
The plain truth: Getting into space is hard. Rockets have been launching people, robots and satellites into space for more than 50 years. But major failures still occur, highlighting just how hard it is to escape the bonds of Earth on a rocketship bound for orbit. The year 2011 saw its share of launch and mission failures; thankfully, none of them involved astronauts. Click here for a recap of the biggest space disappointments of the year. And click here for a collection of the best launch photos of 2011. (12/22)
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