September 24 News Items

UAE to Launch First Earth Observation Satellite Late This Year (Source: Xinhua)
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) will launch the country's first earth observation satellite late this year. The Emirates Institute for Advanced Science and Technology (EIAST) was quoted as confirming that the satellite named DubaiSat-1 is all set to launch. DubaiSat-1 was developed by Satrec Initiative of South Korea together with UAE engineers of EIAST. The satellite will be launched by a Russian rocket of the Moscow-based International Space Company Kosmotras. (9/24)

AIA Celebrates NASA's 50th with America in Spaceflight Timeline (Source: AIA)
Visit AIA's Web site at http://www.aia-aerospace.org to see the 50 Years of America in Spaceflight Timeline. Featuring 50 milestones in U.S. space history, the time line includes accomplishments of NASA, the Defense Department and national security agencies, commercial ventures, treaties and an array of space facts. (9/24)

China Technically Capable of Training Foreign Astronauts (Source: Xinhua)
China is technically capable of training foreign astronauts and aims to do so, said an official with the China Astronaut Research and Training Center. China's two successful manned space missions so far showed the country's technical ability of independently training astronauts and it was one of the center's goals to train international astronauts in future, the center's director. "International cooperation is an inevitable trend in manned space flights, which are large-scale projects with complex technologies and huge investment," he said. (9/24)

Russian Technicians to Aid China's Spacewalk (Source: AP)
Russian technicians will help direct China's first-ever spacewalk this week, setting the stage for expanded cooperation between the sides, a spokesman for China's space program said. Two Chinese astronauts will don spacesuits for the maneuver, one of them a Russian-made Orlan model. The two will be "supported by Russian experts throughout the mission," said a Chinese official. China says its secretive military-backed space program has relied overwhelmingly on domestic technology and know-how, and cooperation with Russia has been highly limited. Some Chinese astronauts, sometimes called "taikonauts" for the Chinese word for space, are believed to have trained in Russia early on, but all now undergo preparations in facilities in China. (9/24)

NASA Clears Hurdle on Soyuz (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin on Tuesday won the approval of a key Senate committee in his battle to buy Russian spacecraft as a four-year replacement for the space shuttle. But the fight is far from over. And Griffin has less than two weeks to persuade the rest of Congress to allow the use of Soyuz spacecraft to take U.S. astronauts to the international space station after the space shuttle's planned retirement in 2010. "This is just the first step in the process," said U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, the Florida Democrat who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which approved the NASA request. "I think we can get it moving, but any one person in the Senate can hold it up." NASA is seeking a waiver from an arms-control law that forbids the Soyuz purchase because Russia sells nuclear material to Iran. (9/24)

Sea Launch Successfully Delivers Galaxy 19 to Orbit (Source: Sea Launch)
Early this morning, the Sea Launch Company successfully delivered the Galaxy 19 satellite to orbit from its ocean-based platform on the Equator. This is the international company's fifth successful launch from sea in 2008. A Zenit-3SL rocket lifted off from the Odyssey Launch Platform and inserted the 4,690 kg (10,340 lb) Galaxy 19 satellite into geosynchronous transfer orbit. A ground station in South Africa acquired the spacecraft's first signals from orbit shortly after spacecraft separation. All systems performed nominally throughout the mission. (9/24)