RUSSIA'S SPACE PROGRAM IN CRISIS AFTER DECADES OF BRAIN DRAIN, NEGLECT - It might be the only country that can rocket humans into space, but Russia's once-great space program is being dragged back to Earth by decades of brain drain and financial hardship. "The Russian space industry is in an obvious state of crisis," said Asif Siddiqi, a professor at Fordham University in New York and an expert on Russia's space program. The latest sign that that the Kremlin's space program was creaking came on May 7, when a Progress M-27M unmanned spacecraft burned on re-entry over the Pacific. The incident put the International Space Station (ISS) at risk of being cut-off from Earth. The failure was not the worst in recent years: Russia has lost 15 spacecraft since 2010, with assembly mistakes blamed in most cases.    More
(Source: NBC News - Aug 24)

NASA TO BUILD HURRICANE-PROBING MICRO-SATELLITE FLEET - When Hurricane Katrina was bearing down on the Gulf Coast 10 years ago, forecasters had a good idea of where the storm would hit and how intense it would be. What was unexpected was how much flooding the hurricane would cause when it reached southeast Louisiana. Play Video The Difference Between a Typhoon and a Hurricane It's among the strongest storms ever recorded on the planet. Super Typhoon Haiyan slammed into the Philippines with winds touching 235 miles per hour. Scientists now know that in the 24 hours between the last Hurricane Hunters reconnaissance flights and the time the storm made landfall, an upper-level shear knocked the eyewall over, causing winds to spread out horizontally and setting the stage for a huge spike in water levels. More than 1,800 people died in the storm and flooding.   More
(Source: Discovery News - Aug 22)

ARIANE 5 ROCKET LIFTS OFF WITH TWO COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITES - Arianespace successfully sent two communications satellites into space on Thursday, Aug. 20, using the company’s Ariane 5 heavy launcher. Liftoff occurred at 4:34 p.m. EDT (5:34 local time; 20:34 GMT) from the Ariane Launch Complex No. 3 (ELA 3) at the Europe’s spaceport located in Kourou, French Guiana. Today was Arianespace’s 225th mission to date in the company’s history (VA225). It delivered the EUTELSAT 8 West B and Intelsat 34 comsats into a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO). The 180 ft. (55.9 m) tall rocket, during the first phase of the ascent, was powered by the Vulcain 2 main engine of the Core Stage and the two Solid Rocket Boosters which burned for two minutes and 24 seconds before separating from the launch vehicle. Then, the Vulcain 2 engine alone powered the vehicle will until the separation of the Payload Fairing three minutes and 21 seconds into the flight.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Insider - Aug 21)

ISRO'S GSAT-6 SATELLITE LAUNCH SCHEDULED FOR AUGUST 27 - The launch of Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) D6 carrying India's latest communication satellite GSAT-6 is scheduled for August 27, Indian Space Research Organisation said today. The launch of GSLV-D6 carrying GSAT-6 is scheduled at 1652 hours from Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, ISRO said. ISRO chairman A S Kiran Kumar had earlier said that the satellite would be for strategic application. "It will give you a capability with very small hand held device to communicate, so like a small mobile you can communicate directly through the satellite to any other part, because the antenna size is very large, so it has got a signal grasping power much larger," he had said.    More
(Source: Economic Times - Aug 20)

HISTORIC CHINA PAYLOAD TO FLY ON INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - NanoRacks, a Houston-based aerospace company, will fly the first Chinese commercial payload to the International Space Station. The company will partner with scientists from the Beijing Institute of Technology to study the effects of microgravity on DNA. This comes as no small feat given that China has been accused of hacking U.S. government agencies and pursuing a policy of military space dominance during the two years it took to negotiate the deal. Chinese scientists have been involved in NASA projects in the past, notably the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which was attached to the International Space Station during the final space shuttle mission. But a 2011 budgetary stipulation known as the Wolf Amendment has precluded NASA from cooperating with China or any Chinese-owned company on new space-related endeavors until the People’s Republic improves its human rights record and reduces espionage efforts against the U.S.    More
(Source: Fox News - Aug 20)

JAPAN LAUNCHES VITAL SUPPLIES (AND MICE) TOWARD INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - 31 Submit 117 Reddit A robotic Japanese cargo vessel launched toward the International Space Station this morning, embarking on a five-day journey to the orbiting lab to deliver tons of supplies and experiment gear, including a rodent crew of 12 mice. Japan's fifth H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-5) blasted off atop an HII-B rocket from Tanegashima Space Center today (Aug. 19) at 7:50 a.m. EDT (1150 GMT, 8:50 p.m. local Japanese time). NASA broadcast live video of the HTV-5 cargo ship launch direct from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, which built and launched the spacecraft.   More
(Source: Space.com - Aug 20)

ENORMOUS RED SPRITES SEEN FROM SPACE - This gorgeous photo, captured from the International Space Station on the night of Aug. 10, 2015, shows an orbital view of thunderstorms over the city lights of southern Mexico as a recumbent Orion rises over Earth’s limb. But wait, there’s more: along the right edge of the picture a cluster of bright red and purple streamers can be seen rising above a blue-white flash of lightning: it’s an enormous red sprite caught on camera! First photographed in 1989, red sprites are very brief flashes of optical activity that are associated with powerful lightning. So-called because of their elusive nature, sprites typically appear as branching red tendrils reaching up above the region of an exceptionally strong lightning flash.    More
(Source: Discovery News - Aug 19)

CHINA'S LARGEST-EVER ROCKET AIMS FOR SPACE STATION - China successfully tested the power system of its Long March 5 carrier rocket on Monday. The test marks the completion of the manufacturing phase for the rocket. A final ground test for maybe the most powerful satellite launcher in the country. The massive rocket is 5 meters in diameter. That's equivalent to a 20-story building and it has a capacity much bigger than the current level. "The capacity of the Long March 5 is twice the current capacity. It reached 25 tons to low earth orbit or 14 tons to geostationary transfer orbit," Lou Luliang, associate engineer of Long March 5, CASC, said.   More
(Source: CCTV - Aug 19)

INFLATABLE HABITATS: FROM THE SPACE STATION TO THE MOON AND MARS? - The upcoming launch of a private inflatable module toward the International Space Station could help pave the way for colonies on the moon and Mars. Bigelow Aerospace's Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) will blast off on SpaceX's next robotic cargo mission to the space station for NASA. That flight was originally scheduled for September, but the disintegration of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket during the company's last cargo run in late June will likely delay it. Whenever BEAM ends up reaching orbit, the module's addition to the International Space Station (ISS) will be a big milestone for inflatable spacecraft in general and Bigelow Aerospace in particular, company representatives said.    More
(Source: Space.com - Aug 19)

Previous Next