SSI News
The wrong stuff: No more jutt-jawed test pilot heroes are needed by NASA
The most recent update of NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) programme (and its CCiCap follow-on) had one interesting point: all three of the leading commercial firms involved, Boeing, Sierra Nevada and SpaceX, plan to have their own test-pilot astronauts fly the initial suborbial and later initial orbital manned launches of their spacecraft: the CST-100, the Dreamchaser and Dragon respectively. These should take place in the 2015-16 time frame.
MDA gets construction-to-delivery in orbit order for three Radarsat Constellation Mission satellites
While it has been in receipt of a concept design order for over six years, the official confirmation of a construction order for three Radarsat Constellation Mission satellites has finally been received by the Canadian spacecraft manufacturer MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd (MDA). The contract worth $706 million contract was signed with the Canadian Space Agency to build, launch and provide initial operations for the three satellite Radarsat Constellation Mission (RCM).
Mars One plans pioneering manned Martian settlement – but it is a one way trip (Corrected)
While Elon Musk and his SpaceX outfit are planning their own Martian settlement having thousands of inhabitants, another firm, Mars One, is considering doing the same thing, albeit on a much smaller scale. It is inviting applications to become one of these pioneers and offers a flight to the planet once a Mars rover and cargo has been landed first and a communications relay satellite has been put into Martian orbit. The first four “colonists” will be landed in 2023. The only downside is that it is a one-way trip. The mission is to be funded as a “media event” with live (albeit delayed) day-to-day reality television coverage beamed back to Earth.
Video: Sunita’s most excellent tour of the International Space Station
While Hyperbola still rates NASA’s Skylab space station of the 1970s as probably the best so far, (it was the most cost effective in using Saturn V hardware and had the a diameter so large that astronauts could stretch out without touching the walls) it has to be noted that the International Space Station is very impressive as well (even it it was very costly to build). Equating roughly to a bunch of caravans attached to each other in space, its 3D maze-like interior gives it feel of being a cross between a multi-roomed small house and a submarine.
Golden Spike orders lunar lander studies from the experts: Northrop Grumman
Northrop Grumman, the manufacturer in its Grumman-guise of the world’s only proven manned lunar lander, the Apollo programme’s lunar excursion module (LEM), has been awarded a contract to provide design studies for another lunar lander – this time from the commercial lunar tourism firm, Golden Spike.
COROT mission is killed off by South Atlantic Anomaly days after mission extension
Hopes are fading for the French COROT payload was no longer in communication with the spacecraft’s main computer and was thus no longer returning data. The failure of this primary communications chain in November was in March 2009. This time, the failure was on the back-up communicaitons chain and was assumed to be to due to radiation damage incurred each time the spacecraft passed through the so called “South Atlantic Anomaly” – an area which is subject to high radiation/high energy charged particles due to the Van Allen belts being located very close to Earth at that location.
Launch order for VNREDSat-1A goes to Arianespace’s Vega rocket
On 4 January, Arianespace and Astrium signed the launch contract for the VNREDSat-1A Earth observation satellite, on behalf of the Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology for whom Astrium is building the spacecraft..
Opinion: It is déjà vu with space ITAR as US unwinds yet another counterproductive security policy
President Barack Obama has signed a law that, for most countries, takes US-made satellite technology and information off the list defining it as a munition subject to draconian International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) that control the export and import of defense-related articles and information.This long awaited move has been welcomed by US space companies who have complained for several years that their efforts at making space exports had been hobbled by ITAR.
Space Year Review 2012: Launch vehicles – Falcon 9, Delta IV and Soyuz show robustness in mishaps but not so for Safir or Proton
According to the Flightglobal SpaceTrak database, at 78 orbital launch attempts in 2012, there were six less launches than in the previous year. With 139 spacecraft on these flights (Shenzhou 9’s orbital module is counted as an autonomous spacecraft) there were two more launched in the year compared to 2011.This increase is mainly as a result of an increase in the number of small satellites of under 100kg (38 in 2012 compared to 23 in 2011) which were often launched as multiple payloads.
Soyuz TMA-07M docks with International Space Station
Having been launched on a Soyuz FG rocket at 1212 GMT from the Baikonur launch site, near Tyuratam, Kazakhstan on 19 December 2012, the Soyuz TMA-07M/ISS-33S spacecraft docked with the Rassvet module of the International Space Station at 1409 GMT on 21 December. Aboard the craft were: Roman Romanenko of Russia, Chris Hadfield of Canada, and Tom Marshburn of NASA (USA).
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