KOUROU, French Guiana — The European Space Agency’s (ESA) fourth Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV-4) launched atop an Ariane 5 ES heavy-lift rocket from the Guiana Space Center here June 5, sending more than 20,000 kg (44,000 lb.) of cargo and fuel to resupply the International Space Station (ISS).
MOONWARD: The Republican chairman of the House Space subcommittee is doubling down on his preference for NASA to prioritize returning astronauts to the Moon, even as the embattled agency continues promoting its asteroid-capture plans. Rep. Steven Palazzo (Miss.) told the ABA Forum on Air and Space Law in Washington June 6 that while the ultimate goal is landing humans on Mars, returning to the Moon is the logical next step. Why? “We have other countries that are aggressively pursuing space exploration programs, and the Moon is one of their specific destinations,” he says.
An Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL air-launched rocket is in final preparation to send a NASA scientific satellite into polar orbit to study a poorly understood region of the Sun’s atmosphere in unprecedented detail. The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (Iris) will combine an ultraviolet telescope and a multi-channel imaging spectrograph to study the interface region between the visible surface of the Sun and its upper atmosphere, which is the source of most of the Sun’s UV radiation.
KOUROU, French Guiana — French space agency CNES and the European Space Agency (ESA) are evaluating near-term options for boosting the payload capacity of the Ariane 5 ECA through hardware improvements that officials say could quickly enhance the launch vehicle’s performance ahead of a planned midlife upgrade already underway.
International Launch Services (ILS) successfully placed the SES-6 satellite into a super-synchronous transfer orbit (SSTO) atop a Russian Proton launch vehicle June 3. The Proton lifted off from Pad 39 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan carrying the Astrium-bult SES-6, which weighed over 6 metric tons at liftoff. After a 15-hr., 31-min. mission, the satellite was placed into the target orbit by the Proton launcher. The launch marks the Reston, Va.-based company’s second SSTO mission with the Proton vehicle.
SATS BANKROLLED: The Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) has authorized a $343.3 million direct loan to Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co. Ltd. (AsiaSat) to finance the purchase of two Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) communications satellites, plus launch services. SS/L is building AsiaSat 6, a C-band satellite, and AsiaSat 8, a mixed Ku/Ka-band satellite, under a contract announced in November 2011. The launches, to be carried out by SpaceX, are planned for the first half of 2014.
Boeing’s seven-person CST-100 spacecraft has completed integrated wind-tunnel testing of scaled versions of the capsule and United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V launch vehicle as well as oxygen flow assessments for the two-engine Centaur upper stage.
Gravity-mapping data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (Grail) orbiters and the computer simulation of millions of years of lunar cooling have given planetary scientists a better understanding of the variations in the Moon’s gravity that can throw lunar orbiters off course.
CROWD SOURCING: Planetary Resources, which has been busy developing an initial prototype of its prospective space telescope, the Arkyd-100, is going public with a pitch for so-called crowd-sourcing of its project — i.e., public donations. The group has unveiled a $1 million fund-raising campaign to launch the telescope, set up a user interface system, “cover fulfillment costs for all of the products and services in the pledge levels,” and fund the “immersive” education program the company is promising.
John C. Bierwirth, who led the Grumman Corp. in the 1970s and '80s through the development of the U.S. Navy's F-14 fighter and other military aircraft, NASA space shuttle and space station work, and various diversification efforts, died May 26 in a hospice on Long Island, N.Y., of congestive heart failure. He was 89.
The International Space Station (ISS) returned to a six-person crew May 28 with a second Soyuz “express” mission. The Russian capsule docked with the orbiting science lab at 10:10 p.m. EDT—less than 6 hr. after lifting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan (shown)—delivering veteran cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg and the European Space Agency's (ESA) Luca Parmitano of Italy.
The 50th Paris air show will offer French space agency CNES an opportunity to detail engineering tradeoffs being weighed as it designs a leaner, more cost-effective successor to Europe's Ariane 5 heavy-lift rocket. The new launcher is expected to fly in 2020, assuming European Space Agency (ESA) governments approve the estimated €4 billion ($5.2 billion) project at a meeting of ESA ministers slated for 2014.
A micrometeoroid might be the culprit for an abrupt attitude problem that halted the flow of critical weather-prediction data for the U.S. East Coast from a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite.
Globally, aerospace and defense merger and acquisition activity has been slow for quite awhile, but Curtis Reusser and Mike Dumais have had plenty to do. They have been heading integration teams for the exception to that rule—the new business unit created by United Technologies' $18.4 billion purchase of Goodrich Aerospace last September.
LAUNCH SURVEY: The U.S. Air Force is surveying industry bidders on their near- and long-term plans to offer national security launch services, as well as what companies see as critical issues in providing this capability, recommendations for changes to Pentagon policy — especially in helping to lower launch costs — and how Defense Department acquisitions could help stabilize the industrial base. Comments are sought by June 21 for the ongoing strategic National Security Space Launch Assessment, according to a May 29 notice in the Federal Register.
With just more than 2 1/2 half years remaining for teams in the Google Lunar X-Prize (GLXP) contest to successfully land on the Moon and claim up to $30 million in prizes, organizers say a group of leading contenders is starting to emerge.
