A NASA-backed team is at work on advanced space-telescope technology that may allow researchers to measure the atmospheric composition of extra solar planets directly, by blocking the instrument-blinding direct light of a target star. NASA and Orbital Sciences Corp. are developing a spacecraft, set for launch in 2017, that is designed to add to the catalogue of exoplanets generated by NASA’s Kepler space telescope and by ground-based instruments.
Airbus Defense and Space and Intelsat have signed a multiyear Ku-band maritime mobile capacity agreement to bridge the satellite fleet operator’s existing service to its new, high-throughput Epic platform slated to enter service in 2016.
NASA, working in partnership with Planetary Resources, Inc., will offer $35,000 in awards as part of an Asteroid Data Hunter competition intended to improve the detection of near Earth objects that could pose an impact threat or provide future space resources.
The Senate on March 6 confirmed Kathryn Sullivan, an Earth scientist and oceanographer who was one of the first women chosen as a NASA astronaut, to be the next undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
An increase in funding of almost 5% is being sought for the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) in Fiscal 2015 as several programs enter the hardware demonstration phase. The Pentagon is requesting $2.92 billion for Darpa in 2015, up from $2.78 billion in 2014—which was an increase of almost 8% over the $2.58 billion provided in 2013.
Japanese engineers have ground tested a turbojet in conditions equivalent to Mach 4, which they believe is the highest simulated speed at which a turbine engine has operated. The February round of tests was a step toward building an engine that, unlike ramjets, has the thrust and efficiency advantages of mechanical compression and the ability to propel an aircraft from takeoff to Mach 5.
NASA still wants to build the heavy-lift Space Launch System, and as long as Sen. Richard Shelby is alive, it will. The U.S. space agency needs the Alabama Republican, who is the ranking member of his party on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and he needs the SLS to keep his constituents at the Marshall Space Flight Center happy. So the fairly level funding of $1.3 billion for the big rocket, plus some extra advanced-technology money, in the agency's fiscal 2015 budget request is no surprise.
Two retired NASA astronauts died recently—Dale A. Gardner, who helped capture two satellites in orbit and return them to Earth in 1984, and William R. Pogue, who logged 84 days on the first U.S. space station, Skylab, in 1973-74. Gardner, who died Feb. 19 in Colorado Springs, was 65. Pogue, who was 84 and died March 4, had been living in Cocoa Beach, Fla. The causes of the deaths were not disclosed.
The caption with a graphic depicting satellites and debris in Earth orbit accompanying an article in the March 3 edition (page 22) on a new U.S. satellite system to monitor other spacecraft incorrectly described a dense ring of objects. The region described was low Earth orbit, not geosynchronous orbit.
Launch schedule issues at Cape Canaveral, including launch of a classified U.S. government spacecraft known as Clio, may force NASA to delay its long-planned first flight of the Orion deep-space crew capsule from mid-September into October. The agency says Orion prime contractor Lockheed Martin still could meet the earlier launch date, currently listed as Sept. 18.
The U.S. Air Force is expected to offer half of the 14 launches it had anticipated would be suitable for competition from 2015-2017, limiting the near-term opportunities for Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) to duel with rival United Launch Alliance. The service inked a deal in January with ULA for 36-50 Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) cores over the next five years; 36 of them are guaranteed, and 14 were considered potentially open for bids.
GREENBELT, Md. — The discovery of water geysers over the south pole of Jupiter’s moon Europa has spurred NASA managers to begin working in earnest toward a New Frontiers-class flyby mission there in the 2020s.
BEIJING — Japan’s proposed H-X rocket program is moving ahead, with country’s space agency calling for a private company to develop, build and operate the family of space launchers. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, prime contractor and operator of the current H-IIA and H-IIB launchers, is the only conceivable supplier for the H-X, which will presumably be given the permanent name H-III when full-scale development begins.
HOUSTON — NASA’s $886 million portion of President Obama’s $56 billion, government-wide Opportunity, Growth and Security (OGS) initiative would be spread across seven areas — most notably the agency’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) to restore domestic human launch capability to the International Space Station (ISS). Split equally between defense and non-defense programs, OGS could raise NASA’s proposed $17.5 billion stay-the-course budget for 2015 by 5%, or to a level the agency would not otherwise approach until 2019.
NASA is not planning for a disruption in the U.S.-Russian partnership that controls the International Space Station, despite the continuing military confrontation between Russia and the Ukraine over control of the Crimean Peninsula. Bolden noted that the ISS partnership has persisted through difficult times before during 13 years of joint operation and occupancy of the station, including the tense confrontation in 2008 between Russia and the U.S. over the former Soviet republic of Georgia, which resisted an invasion by Russian forces.
PARIS — The success of back-to-back launches of commercial communications satellites on Space Exploration Technologies’ (SpaceX) Falcon 9 rockets in December and January has drawn barbs from competitors in the commercial launch industry. Stephan Israel, chairman and CEO of European launch service provider Arianespace, has repeatedly criticized Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX for charging its U.S. government customers roughly twice the cost of a commercial Falcon 9 launch, which the company advertises for $56.5 million.
The news is in the details of NASA’s $17.5 billion, stay-the-course budget request for fiscal 2015. The request tries to maintain pace on all of the agency’s major priorities: the James Webb Space Telescope, Space Launch System and Orion crew capsule, along with the International Space Station (now extended until 2024) and commercial crew access to it.
A seven-camera video system has confirmed deployment of a 9-meter mesh antenna on the Sirius FM-9 satellite-radio spacecraft, setting the Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) platform for service from geostationary orbit. Designed and delivered by Ecliptic Enterprises Corp., a Pasadena, Calif.-based company that manufactures in-space video systems for spacecraft and launch vehicles, the cameras verified that the reflector and boom hinges on the large antenna deployed correctly, followed by the large, unfurlable mesh reflector.
