A Japanese H-IIA rocket orbited two remote-sensing satellites May 17, one of them a South Korean spacecraft that marked Japan’s first international commercial customer. Liftoff from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launch site on Tanegashima Island in Southeast Japan came on time at 12:39 p.m. EDT, and the spacecraft separated as planned.
KOUROU, French Guiana — Sky Perfect JSAT Corp. of Japan, which says it is Asia’s largest satellite operator, plans to sign contracts this year to buy more satellites. Osamu Inoue, president of the company’s satellite and space business group, says Lockheed Martin and Sky Perfect are discussing a purchase.
Congressional language directing NASA to pick a single commercial crew vehicle to back during development threatens to boost the cost of commercial crew operations if it is adopted, according to a member of the presidential panel that recommended using commercial vehicles to transport U.S. astronauts to low Earth orbit.
Satellite operators in Vietnam and Japan will take on-orbit deliveries in June and July, respectively, of Lockheed Martin communications satellites launched in tandem on an Ariane V ECA Tuesday evening. Vinasat-2 and JCSAT-13, both based on Lockheed Martin’s A2100 satellite bus, lifted off from Kourou, French Guiana, on time at 6:13 p.m. EDT May 15, and returned their first signals from geostationary transfer orbits by 7:20 p.m. EDT, according to the satellite manufacturer.
A May 16 story incorrectly identified the communication unit that was replaced aboard the International Space Station in anticipation of the upcoming arrival of the SpaceX Dragon capsule. The unit is the Space Integrated GPS Inertial Navigation System, or SIGI, which is a piece of NASA hardware.
PARIS — The European Space Agency (ESA) is considering a plan to launch its next large-class science mission atop a Russian Proton rocket rather than an Ariane 5 to reap savings that would help the agency pay for its troubled ExoMars campaign.
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has confirmed that one of the largest objects in the Main Asteroid Belt is actually a tiny planet-like body that formed around a molten interior.
ITT Exelis says it is making rapid progress in deploying the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) network in the U.S., with more than 60% of the required ground stations now completed. The manufacturer tells Aviation Week that it has constructed 428 ADS-B radio stations. The current plan is for 700 stations: 647 in the continental U.S., 41 in Alaska, nine in Hawaii, and one each in Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
HOUSTON — International Space Station astronauts Don Pettit of NASA and Andre Kuipers of the European Space Agency have replaced a UHF communications unit aboard the station that will be required for the upcoming berthing of the unpiloted SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule. The Dragon is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., atop a Falcon 9 rocket on May 19 at 4:55 a.m. EDT, initiating the first U.S. commercial resupply mission to the orbiting science lab.
NEW FALCON: NASA has modified its NASA Launch Services (NLS) II contract with SpaceX to add an additional configuration of the company’s Falcon 9 rocket to its fleet. The SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1 “will be available to the agency’s Launch Services Program to use for future missions in accordancea with the on-ramp provision of NLS II,” NASA says in an announcement.
SINGAPORE — Belgium will be able to take advantage of some of Luxembourg’s allocation in the U.S. military’s Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) constellation.
NEW DELHI — India’s efforts to develop heavier rockets received a boost with a recent test of its indigenously built, super-cooled cryogenic engine, which will be used to place a communications satellite into geosynchronous orbit later this year. The cryogenic engine is slated to fly on the country’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) as early as September, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) chief K. Radhakrishnan says. India started developing cryogenic rocket engine technology in 1993.
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency is seeking bids to provide four small satellites to demonstrate its fractionated spacecraft architecture in orbit.
Three Apollo commanders put their weight behind legislation that would force NASA to move quickly to choose a single commercial crew vehicle to elicit public support. Neil Armstrong, Eugene Cernan and James Lovell, commanders of Apollo 11, 17 and 13, respectively, told Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee that funds the space agency, that they endorse his panel's approach to commercial crew vehicle development that passed the House last week.
As the U.S. looks for ways to reduce an immense budget deficit, planners in the military and intelligence communities appear to be questioning whether they really need two commercial imagery providers to supplement the super-capable government spacecraft. And that has set off a messy dance between two publicly traded satellite operators, DigitalGlobe and GeoEye, about whether they should merge and on what terms.
For most air travelers, access to high-speed Internet at 30,000 ft. is neither easy nor cheap. It's not that inflight broadband is unavailable to commercial and business jet passengers—a number of airlines are gradually adding connectivity options to their fleets. But despite the uptick in broadband-enabled tablets and smartphones in recent years, WiFi in the sky has been slow to gain traction in the broader airline community, where it can be sluggish, spotty and expensive.
Congress and the White House are headed for a funding brawl over the expensive robotic spacecraft known as flagship planetary-science missions. Flagship missions are rare, because they cost $2-3 billion, and they may become rarer. In its spending request for fiscal 2013, NASA pulled back from work on a peer-reviewed flagship mission to return samples from the surface of Mars, and left it unclear if there will be any more flagship flights to explore elsewhere in the Solar System.
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has helped to block airline consolidation in the past, and now he has set his sights on the proposed union of US Airways and American Airlines. Schumer, a leading Democrat in the Senate, met last week with US Airways CEO Douglas Parker. Shortly after, Schumer followed up with a letter to the airline executive expressing his concerns about the merger's potential to disrupt airline service in upstate N.Y. Schumer is also asking whether a merger would derail American's plan to expand its hub at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
When Republicans talk about reducing the deficit, they don't mean reducing defense spending. House lawmakers last week passed a bill that would prevent massive budget reductions from taking place at the Pentagon next year by instead cutting funding for food stamps and other social programs. “This plan ensures that we maintain our fiscal discipline and commitment to reducing out-of-control government spending, while making sure our top priority is national security,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said after the bill passed.
If only the court system worked faster. A judge last week dismissed drunken driving charges against former FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt after watching video of the incident and concluding Babbitt should not have been pulled over in the first place. And although his legal record and now his reputation are restored, the decision will not allow him to return to his old job. His former deputy, Michael Huerta, has been nominated by the president to replace him and is awaiting Senate confirmation.
Singapore – The Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) constellation will have 10 satellites and the U.S. foresees having more nations join the program, a senior U.S. Air Force official says. “Ten satellites is the official program level,” David Steare, lead at the U.S. Air Force’s milsatcom international engagement, space and cyberspace division, told delegates at the MilSatCom Asia conference in Singapore. He says this is the first time the total number of satellites planned for the program has been publicly disclosed.
