Space Industry Analysis
Apr 04, 2012
Now armed with additional information, the Obama administration and Congress are revisiting whether LightSquared should be able to build its 4G broadband communications network.
Apr 03, 2012
SUPERCOMPUTING: Rice University, partnered with IBM, is looking to a May start-up for a P-series Blue Gene supercomputer for collaborative research in the engineering disciplines, including aerospace, astronomy, particle physics, climate modeling, geophysics and medicine. “We are open to collaborations with government, industry and academia,” says Jade Boyd, a Rice spokesperson.
Apr 03, 2012
Flight control teams in Moscow and Toulouse combed through International Space Station electrical data on April 2 in a bid to pinpoint the cause of a Russian power system failure that nearly prompted a premature jettison of the European Space Agency’s recently docked Automated Transfer Vehicle-3.
Apr 02, 2012
SWEDISH SCANDAL: Swedish Defense Minister Sten Tolgfors has resigned over a Defense Research Agency program to build a weapons plant in Saudi Arabia. The secrecy of the deal has been highly controversial in Sweden since the effort became known.
Apr 02, 2012
APOLLO 11 SALVAGE: Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos may try to recover one or more of the F-1 rocket engines that powered Apollo 11 on its historic mission to the Moon in 1969. The engines were located with advanced sonar 14,000 ft. down in the Atlantic, where they fell with the Saturn V first stage that they powered, and Bezos hopes to raise them for restoration and display in a museum.
Apr 02, 2012
KOUROU, French Guiana — With three of the Automated Transfer Vehicle’s (ATV) five missions to the International Space Station (ISS) now behind it, the European Space Agency (ESA) is looking for an opportunity to advance the already cutting-edge platform—along with a means to pay for it.
Apr 02, 2012
Three robotic probes are returning a wealth of data on impact craters for scientists, who are studying the craters in the same way that biologists study tree rings – for clues to the history of the objects they’re investigating.
Apr 02, 2012
CLASSIFIED SCRUB: The U.S. Air Force has delayed the launch of the latest classified surveillance satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office to allow engineers more time to investigate an issue with the United Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket’s upper stage that was discovered during closeout inspections. Liftoff for NROL-25 is now set for April 2 at 4:04 p.m. PDT from Vandenberg AFB, Calif. The launch originally was scheduled for March 29.