SSI News
China’s Long March 3B/E rocket launches Chinasat 11 comsat successfully
The communications satellite Chinasat 11 (aka Zhongxing 11) has been launched from the Xichang launch site in China by a Long March 3B/E (CZ-B/E) launch vehicle at 1606GMT on 1 March. The satellite which weighed in at circa 5,400kg is designed to operate from Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) for 15 years. The satellite uses the DFH 4 bus design built by the Dongfanghong Satellite Company which is an offshoot of the Chinese Academy of Space Technology (CAST).
On a lighter note: Pentagon sheepishly admits to using Chinese satellite (updated)
As China flexes its financial,military and political might and continues to make border and island incursions into the disputed terrotories held by its neighbours (India, Vietnam, Japan. Philippines, Taiwan etc), fears remain that China may one day resort to full blown military action, especially if China’s own prosperity or political stability ever falters. In being viewed as a potential enemy to USA and its allies, China is thus currently banned from receiving US miltary and space technology.
NASA buys six more Soyuz “seats” for rides to International Space Station
NASA has decided to fork out more cash to buy extra Soyuz seats to take its crews to the International Space Station. The deal signed with Roscosmos is valued at $424 million is for six “seats” and training and adds to an earlier deal to carry NASA astronauts until 2016. The new deal extension equates to a per seat price of $70.7 million – an increase of $10 million over the previous NASA Soyuz seat buy. NASA found itself forced into this position as its commercial crew capability will now not be ready until 2017 at the earliest and NASA needed to book these seats to cover itself until mid-2017.
There looks to be a little wing rock on SpaceShipTwo
Virgin Galactic has released some video of its SpaceShipTwo making its engine firing and then going supersonic. And it is apparent from the footage that the design still has a slight wing rocking issue as afflicted its predecessor SpaceShipOne though it seems to be much less serious.
Something strange? While Antares 110 hit its mark most of its payloads are no longer in orbit
While Orbital Sciences Corp was rightly congratulated for the successful launch of its Antares 110 launch vehicle, there is something strange about the fate of its satellite payloads – or more specifically – that four out of the five (the Cygnus Mass Simulator, the Dove 1 test cubesat, and Phonesat 1.0-1. and 1.0-2) had re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere within six days of their launch on 21 April.
Orbital Sciences awarded $50 million NASA contact for ICON science mission
Orbital Sciences Corporation has been selected by NASA to design built and test a spacecraft for the Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) mission . Orbital will provide its LEOStar-2 spacecraft platform for the two-year mission under a contract valued at $50 million. The mission, which will be led by the University of California at Berkeley, is currently planned for launch in 2017.
Sea Launch failure cause confirmed: it was the steering pressurisation pump
The Zenit 3-SL (Sea Launch) launch failure which caused the total loss of the Intelsat 27 communications satellite was caused by a fault in the rocket’s steering system. A failure investigation, whose conclusions were confirmed by a Failure Review Oversight Board (FROB), found that first stage hydraulic power supply unit (BIM) used to pressurize the RD-171M main engine gimbal actuators had failed approximately 3.9 seconds into the flight. This was due to abnormal performance of the pump whose function is to pressurize the hydraulic oil supplied to the RD-171M main engine gimbal actuators.
Herschel Space Observatory mission over as it runs out of helium coolant
The mission of the Herschel Space Observatory was formally declared over after liquid helium coolant ran out. After some engineering tests the spacecraft will be moved off L2 and placed into a solar orbit.
SpaceShipTwo makes first engine-on flight
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo has fired its engine in flight for the first time, a huge and long-awaited milestone. The engine, fueled by liquid nitrous oxide and oxydized by solid hydroxl-terminated polybutediene (HTPB), is built by Sierra Nevada (which also builds...
All contact is lost with “smart phone in orbit” Strand 1
All contact with the experimental cubesat Strand 1 has been lost since late March. The exact cause of the failure has not been disclosed, Launched on 25 February as one of the payloads on board an Indian PSLV C Series CA (Core Alone) launch vehicle, the Strand1 (Surrey Training Research adn Nanosatellite Demonstrator 1) satellite was built by Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) in conjunction with the University of Surrey. Its mission was to test out Android software as well as the GPS and camera systems of modern mobile Google Nexus 1 smartphone to see if such a phone could be used in space as a communications system, computer, camera, acelerometer and magnetometer. The 3U cubesat satellite of 4kg mass also tested out water/alcohol resistojet, pulsed plasma thruster technologies.
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