Amy Svitak (Beijing and Paris), David Hambling (London), David Eshel (Tel Aviv)
A growing number of satellite-based automatic identification systems (AIS) make it easier for maritime surveillance to tie ship-tracking data with high-resolution satellite imagery. Used with AIS, space-based synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and optical remote-sensing platforms determine not only the presence of ships, but their identity, position, speed, heading, load, size and type.
Dennis Tito, who originally believed he could send two humans on a Mars flyaround in 2018 with funds from his own fortune and the philanthropy of others, has concluded he needs NASA's heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) to do the job, with $100 million a year in upper-stage upgrades from public funds spread over seven years.
As defense manufacturers become accustomed to the prospect of lower Pentagon budgets, there is growing concern over the health of the supply chain, particularly the lower tiers and specifically small companies that may be the sole source of critical parts or a unique technology.
A U.K.-based non-profit organization set up to promote the use of space assets in British industry has some lessons that can be applied by the Center for the Advancement of Science In Space (Casis), the non-profit Congress established to promote use of the International Space Station (ISS) by private-sector researchers. The Satellite Applications Catapult and its predecessor organization have a little more time under their belts, and they are already passing it along to Casis as the U.S. operation begins to get some traction.
HOUSTON — Interrupted by the U.S. government shutdown in October, NASA’s Asteroid Initiative Idea Synthesis Workshop reconvened late Nov. 20 as a second opportunity to influence the agency’s efforts to resume U.S. human deep space exploration, while addressing the impact hazards posed by near-Earth objects.
BEIJING — China’s forthcoming DFH-4S satellite bus will introduce new technologies for the country’s spacecraft industry, including advances in avionics and batteries, and a plasma propulsion system (PPS).
Dennis Tito, the original space tourist who is staking a big chunk of his investment-fund fortune to send a man and woman on a hurry-up Mars fly-around in 2018, has concluded he needs NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) to do the job, with $100 million a year in upper-stage upgrades over seven years. Tito, who paid Russia for a Soyuz ride to the International Space Station in 2001, released the results of a mission-design study Nov. 20 that he said would keep the U.S. ahead of Moscow in what he couched as a potential race to Mars.
HOUSTON — Astronauts aboard the International Space Station launched three CubeSats early Nov. 19, using a deployment mechanism aboard the orbiting lab’s Kibo Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) that was successfully demonstrated last year. A fourth satellite is scheduled for release early Nov. 20. The first wave, ejected with the Small Satellite Orbital Satellite Deployer (SSOSD) from the Kibo exposed facility at 7:17 a.m. EST, included:
NEW DELHI — After the successful launch of India’s first Mars orbiter, scientists are planning the country’s next mission — this time to the Sun. On Nov. 18, solar physicists from across the country started three-day talks at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), based in the southern city of Bengaluru, to prepare for the country’s first solar mission, Aditya-1, which will carry equipment to study the Sun’s corona.
HOUSTON — Project Morpheus is returning to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center this week for several months of testing to demonstrate an autonomous, methane/liquid oxygen fueled precision planetary lander capability for future human as well as robotic missions. The first Morpheus lander was destroyed on Aug. 9, 2012, in a fiery crash within moments of lifting off from a Kennedy test area, cutting short an ambitious series of free flight tests.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s latest mission to Mars lifted off through scattered clouds Nov. 18, setting out on a 10-month voyage to discover what happened to the red planet’s water by literally sniffing its upper atmosphere. Liftoff of the Lockheed Martin-built Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (Maven) spacecraft from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral came at 1:28 p.m. EST, the opening of its 2-hr. launch window.
Engineering graduate and undergraduate students are displaying heightened interest in space-related studies as entrepreneurial space start-ups get ready to start flying, panelists discussing the role of academia in the burgeoning “New Space” movement said Nov. 15.
Phobos, the small irregularly shaped moon of Mars whose origins remain a mystery, may offer a repository for small amounts of soil and rock originating from the red planet, according to a study by Brown University scientists associated with Russia’s failed 2011 Phobos-Grunt sample return mission.
The U.S. Air Force’s upcoming Operationally Responsive Space-3 (ORS-3) demonstration, poised for launch Nov. 19 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Va., is aimed at demonstrating a bevy of new technologies, as well as “commercial-like” launch processes that could reduce the cost of future national security space missions.
To protect against a gap in U.S. weather satellite data collection, a team reviewing progress on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s (NOAA) satellite program is recommending the weather monitoring department rapidly purchase additional sensors.
Globalstar, Inc. will market a personal anti-theft device, SPOT Trace, designed for safeguarding vehicles or other valuables using satellite communications and global positioning technologies.
The partnership approach NASA used to spur development of two commercial cargo vehicles for International Space Station logistics can hold down the cost of future development, the agency and its commercial partners said in a ceremony marking the official end of the program Nov. 13. But the agency has no solid plans to apply it beyond the commercial crew development effort already underway, and that work is drawing fire.
