HOUSTON — The latest suspected source of the worrisome water leak into the helmet of European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano during a July 16 spacewalk is a potentially clogged tube in the suit’s humidity removal system.
PARIS — The European Space Agency (ESA) has completed the flight model of the Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) instrument slated to fly aboard NASA’s next flagship astronomy mission, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Built by EADS Astrium GmbH of Ottobrun, Germany, NIRSpec will be shipped later this month to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., where the 200-kg (440-lb.) spectrograph will undergo additional testing prior to integration with the JWST spacecraft’s payload module.
New technology can be surprisingly inexpensive. In the U.S., the Pentagon and the intelligence community spend billions of taxpayer dollars pushing the envelope on creative new hardware and software concepts that may never emerge from behind the black curtain of secrecy. That is probably a good thing for bombs and bullets, but it keeps a lot of potential dual-use technology out of the economy. Fortunately, there are means for innovation at the other end of the funding scale that can drive economic growth with actual, and significant, return on investment.
LOS ANGELES — Powered flight tests of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo (SS2) suborbital spaceplane resumed on Sept. 5 with a supersonic sortie over Mojave, Calif., that included the use of the tail-plane feathering re-entry system.
HOUSTON — Houston is poised to seek a commercial spaceport license from FAA to establish a runway-based complex supporting reusable launch vehicles, spacecraft assembly and flight training, as well as aerospace research and education. The proposed spaceport would occupy 439 acres of Ellington Airport property close to NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
Golden Spike, the private U.S. startup established to create a human transportation service to the surface of the Moon, is gaining confidence it can make its business plan work as it wraps up initial engineering studies.
HOUSTON — A pair of NASA research aircraft — a P-3B turboprop and B200 King Air — take to the skies over Houston on Sept. 4 for a month-long state and federally sponsored campaign to refine the development of future satellite sensors capable of continuous air quality measurements from geosynchronous orbit.
DRIVER’s SEAT: NASA supporters may not like the limited funding being proposed by the Republicans who control the House, but space fans would be wise to study them, according to an ex-official of the embattled agency. Scott Pace, a former NASA associate administrator, says that by at least marking up their annual spending bill and a new NASA authorization bill within the constraints of spending limits mandated by the 2011 Budget Control Act, House Republicans have put themselves in the driver’s seat.
A classified U.S. National Reconnaissance Office KH-11 “Keyhole” satellite was successfully launched into low Earth orbit from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., on Aug. 28 by a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy.
Many of us have enjoyed spectacular video of rocket launches from the rocket's point of view, with the launch pad receding rapidly and strap-on boosters falling away as the black sky of space shows up around Earth's curve. The “RocketCam” videos are a staple on YouTube, but they have a value that far exceeds entertainment. In the high-stakes spaceflight business, video shots of rockets and other space hardware in action give engineers a much better view of system performance than even the most detailed numeric telemetry.
NEW DELHI — India expects to make another attempt to launch the GSAT-14 communications satellite aboard its Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) in December, a senior space scientist says. Plans to loft GSLV-D5 were scrubbed on Aug. 19 just hours before the scheduled liftoff from the launch pad in south India, due to a fuel leak in the second stage of the rocket engine.
New findings from India’s 2008-09 Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter mission point to an internal source of water on the Moon detected in magmatic deposits at an equatorial crater peak, according to NASA-funded research led by scientists from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).
BEIJING — China’s lunar exploration program will meet its long-standing target to launch the Chang’e 3 sample-return mission this year, but only just, according to a statement from a government authority with oversight of space activities. The mission will go ahead at the end of the year, says the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.
HOUSTON — Japan looks upon a 2014 opportunity to have a national representative command the International Space Station as a chance to demonstrate the country’s growing capabilities in the field of human spaceflight, according to the astronaut who will shoulder the task. “It means a lot to Japan, especially after becoming a reliable partner in the program,” said Koichi Wakata, a veteran Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut, to an Aug. 28 NASA news briefing.
When it came time to make the 2014 budget request, Pentagon planners made large cuts to major U.S. Air Force airlift programs compared to spending estimates in the 2013 budget plan. In the 2014 request, lines for the C-130J, MC-130J, C-17A and C-5 programs were all cut more than 40% when compared to the 2013 plan for the 2014 outyear. However, two modification lines for the C-130 airframe got big increases. (See charts pp. 6-11.)
HOUSTON — Investigators assisted by astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) are entering the next phase of troubleshooting of the July 16 spacesuit water leak that brought all NASA-sponsored spacewalks outside the six-person orbiting science laboratory to a halt.
MOBILE SATELLITE: The active Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) terminal base grew at a compound annual rate of 10% over the past five years, with more than 2.9 million active MSS terminals deployed on a global basis in 2012, according to Euroconsult. Revenues generated by the six active MSS operators reached $1.5 billion. “The industry remains very concentrated with the leading three operators, Inmarsat, Iridium and Thuraya still accounting for close to 90% and Inmarsat alone having a market share of 55%,” Euroconsult says.
Gregory Johnson, the former NASA astronaut and retired U.S. Air Force colonel, will become executive director of the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (Casis), the Florida-based nonprofit selected two years ago by the space agency to manage research across the U.S. National Laboratory elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The appointment is effective Sept. 1, according to an Aug. 26 Casis announcement.
Aerospace and defense companies large and small plan to hire in 2013. While much of the hiring will replace workers leaving for retirement or a new opportunity, the numbers also include some all-new jobs and new skills.
As a war-weary nation grapples with how to cut military spending and a dysfunctional Congress allows meat-ax budget cuts to fall on the Defense Department and NASA, one might expect that the U.S. aerospace and defense (A&D) industry's best and brightest talent would be heading for the exits. Indeed, one-in-five A&D professionals under the age of 35 submitted resignations in 2012, up from 12% the year before. The good news: most left to go work for another aerospace company.
When a spacecraft is bound for another planet, examining it up close and personal is a rare opportunity. Senior Editor Frank Morring, Jr. (left) and Los Angeles Bureau Chief Guy Norris did just that with the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft during its final stages of integration at Lockheed Martin's facility in Littleton, Colo. Now in preflight preparation at Kennedy Space Center, Maven is scheduled for launch in a 20-day window that opens Nov. 18.
