ASTEROID ALTERNATIVES: The chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology is criticizing the Obama administration for continuing to “push” its proposed Asteroid Retrieval Mission, “without any connection to a larger exploration road map and absent support from the scientific community or NASA’s own advisory bodies.” Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) points instead to a “promising” proposal for a flyby mission to Mars and Venus in 2021 that his committee recently heard testimony on.
BEIJING — Full-scale development of Japan’s next major space launcher will begin on April 1, following the formal, and expected, selection of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) as prime contractor.
The recently launched joint U.S./Japanese Global Precipitation Mission (GPM) spacecraft has transmitted early imagery that distinguishes between rain and snowfall associated with an extra tropical cyclone over the northwest Pacific Ocean, signaling a steady stream of improved data for global weather and climate models. GPM data is expected to enhance the forecasting of hurricanes, flooding, landslides and droughts.
New details about communications between the missing Malaysia Airlines 777-200 and an Inmarsat satellite show an additional, “partial ping” occurred 8 min. after the final hourly contact between the aircraft and spacecraft. Using an analysis of satellite data furnished by London-based Inmarsat, Britain’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) says evidence of the final, partial signal between the MH370’s L-band terminal and Inmarsat’s gateway Earth station occurred March 8, when the plane vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
A functioning U.S. lunar base could be operating at one of the Moon’s poles in a decade, given the decision to build it and the resources to follow through, lunar-exploration experts say.
A bipartisan group of 30 House lawmakers is urging President Barack Obama to “chart and clearly state a vision and timeline for the nation in deep-space exploration,” based on the heavy-lift Space Launch System and Orion crew capsule spelled out in authorization and funding legislation for NASA.
New details about communications between the missing Malaysia Airlines 777-200 and an Inmarsat satellite show an additional, “partial ping” occurred 8 min. after the final hourly contact between the aircraft and spacecraft. Using an analysis of satellite data furnished by London-based Inmarsat, Britain’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) says evidence of the final, partial signal between the MH370’s L-band terminal and Inmarsat’s gateway Earth station occurred March 8, when the plane vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Tight budgets and a different threat environment make it both necessary and possible to save taxpayer money on expensive military space hardware, particularly if commercial practices can be applied to some aspects of milspace procurement, according to industry and government representatives who helped draft a new Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) report on the subject.
ORION SLIP: The first spaceflight of NASA’s Orion crew capsule, with an instrumented prototype riding atop a Delta IV Heavy, may not come until December. Originally scheduled for September, the Experimental Test Flight-1 (EFT-1) mission first was first bumped to October by range-scheduling issues at Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla. Now it has slipped to Dec. 4, according to Orion prime Lockheed Martin, with a “protect date” in October in case the logjam clears.
Science, human-exploration and technology managers at NASA are casting a wide net for input into the agency’s proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), issuing a broad area announcement for concept studies that include using commercial space vehicles to capture a near-Earth space rock and deploying secondary payloads as far afield as the moons of Mars for mineral prospecting as well as planetary science.
“USAF Prepares Industry for Cutbacks,” warned an Aviation Week & Space Technology headline, followed by a story that discussed the death of aircraft companies, shuttering of facilities, a Pentagon briefing to industry leaders with “a blunt warning of things to come” and a diminished role for manned aircraft in national defense. That article didn't appear recently, however. It was written in 1957—the first time the Laureate awards were presented.
Even as the Obama administration pushes to have the FAA fund itself with the traveler-paid Airport and Airway Trust Fund, the White House predicts the fund's balance will grow steadily over the next decade. White House budget documents lay out a road map to wean FAA from general-fund contributions. As of 2015, the FAA budget request would have the trust fund cover 93% of FAA's operations, as well as its Airport Improvement Program, facilities and equipment, and research, engineering and development accounts.
SpaceX delayed its third commercial cargo flight to the international space station (ISS) because of “payload contamination” problems in the unpressurized “trunk” of its Dragon spacecraft, but don't try to find out what those problems are. “We've had some issues with payload contamination that we will be addressing,” says Sam Scimemi, ISS program director at NASA headquarters, during a March 14 Space Transportation Association presentation. “We're going to have to assess that and replace some parts and get the rocket ready for launch again.
The U.S. decision to extend operational funding for the International Space Station (ISS) until 2024 is increasing the odds there will be some significant return on the $100 billion orbiting investment. So is a growing awareness of its unique utility for industrial and academic research, and some long-delayed traction for the commercial-space incubator NASA set up to promote U.S. National Laboratory assets on the station.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's move to annex the Crimean Peninsula is a “wake-up call,” says NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who urged Europe to increase defense spending—particularly in the missile defense, cyber and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance arenas. “Developments in Ukraine are a stark reminder that security in Europe cannot be taken for granted,” he said last week. Russia's actions must have consequences, he warned.
The aerospace industry is replete with innovators, but occasionally there comes someone whose ideas and accomplishments make the term “innovator” seem not broad enough. Harold Rosen is that sort of innovator. A team led by Rosen produced breakthroughs that kick-started an entire sector of the aerospace industry. That sector remains the most important commercial application of space technology. More than anyone, Rosen deserves to be called the father of the communications satellite.
Jean-Yves Le Gall, the newly named president of France's Centre Nationale d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), is Aviation Week's 2014 Laureate for Space, based on his work as chairman and CEO of Arianespace. Named to the helm of Europe's world-beating launch service provider in 2007, Le Gall turned around the performance of the Ariane 5 during his tenure at the company. Under his leadership, Arianespace accomplished 54 consecutive successful missions.
HOUSTON — Significant cost uncertainty and seemingly optimistic scheduling are just two of the concerns raised over NASA’s proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) by members of the near-Earth object (NEO) community in a new report. The report is the result of the Target NEO 2: Open Community Workshop organized last year in response to the exploration initiative unveiled by the space agency in April 2013.
SOLAR ORBITER: NASA has negotiated a $172.7 million contract with United Launch Services LLC, the contracting arm of United Launch Alliance, to prepare and launch the U.S./European Solar Orbiter Collaboration mission in 2017 on an Atlas V. Under the deal, the company will handle spacecraft processing, payload integration, launch and related services for the mission, which will study the Sun and its outer atmosphere with high-resolution imagery and in-situ measurements in orbit. The mission will use an Atlas V 411 flying from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral.
NASA’s planned Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (Wfirst) would be greatly enhanced with optical systems donated by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), although such upgrades will introduce greater complexity and cost, according to a National Research Council (NRC) assessment. Wfirst is a flagship-level mission intended to follow the James Webb Space Telescope for studies of dark energy, planetary architectures of other solar systems and stellar evolution.
Commercial remote-sensing-services provider DigitalGlobe has confirmed that the satellite images it provided to Australian search-and-rescue authorities in the hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 were captured on March 16 by its WorldView-2 satellite at a panchromatic resolution of approximately 50 cm. “Working with our customers, DigitalGlobe continues to task our satellites to collect imagery of a wide area that includes the waters around where the possible debris was identified yesterday,” the company said in a March 20 statement.
India is making headway toward launching Astrosat, the country’s first satellite devoted to astronomy, which will look at the universe in X-ray, ultraviolet and visible light bands, a senior space scientist says. Astrosat, a multi-wave-length observatory in space, will be launched with six instruments aboard India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Chairman K. Radhakrishnan says. “It is getting ready now,” Radhakrishnan says. “It will be integrated by 2015.”
