AMOS-5: Amos-5 manufacturer Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has devised a workaround for a power anomaly that prevented the operation of some of the satellite’s engines via its power supply 2. IAI says that “alternative activation methods” should allow all eight of the engines to be operated with power supply 2, according to a statement from Amos-5 operator Spacecom. IAI also has determined that the satellite’s original service lifetime of 15 years will not be affected by the problem.
HOUSTON — Three International Space Station astronauts reparked their Soyuz crew transport capsule on Nov. 1, opening a docking port on the orbiting science lab for the anticipated arrival next week of U.S., Russian and Japanese crewmembers. The 21-min. Soyuz TMA-09M maneuver concluded at 4:54 a.m. EDT, as ISS commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, U.S. astronaut Karen Nyberg and the European Space Agency’s Luca Parmitano redocked at the Russian segment Zvezda module.
A Senate panel on aviation led by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) convenes this week to discuss how to keep aviation manufacturing in the U.S. competitive. But competition in the increasingly global airline and aerospace industries is in the eye of the beholder. U.S. unionized pilots and flight attendants are scrutinizing how Norwegian Air Shuttle proceeds with its latest round of contract negotiations. The contract talks represent a test case for the U.S.-EU Open Skies agreement in 2010, which allows more European flights into the U.S.
President Barack Obama entered office pledging to improve the nation's relations with key allies. But with ongoing UAV strikes, revelations of National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance of allies' leaders and continued detentions of terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay prison, even Obama's supporters concede his image campaign hasn't worked out. “The level of support for the U.S. is back to where it was in the [George W.] Bush administration,” says Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.).
Biologists tell us complex eyeballs first appeared in the Cambrian era, more than 500 million years ago, as the evolutionary value of making sense of the light waves bouncing around in the atmosphere began to manifest in the relatively primitive creatures alive then. Over time, experts say, the eye has evolved as many as 100 different times, demonstrating the persistent importance of sight as a tool for survival.
As the hard-won progress in hypersonic propulsion technology can attest, the road to sustained air-breathing engines that can operate above Mach 5 is littered with five decades worth of failed tests, some more dramatic than others.
Hundreds of applications for aircraft operations and repair stations are held up, stymied by the FAA's inefficient certification processes, a government watchdog finds. FAA is juggling 1,029 such applications, Jeffrey Guzzetti of the Transportation Department's Inspector General's office, recently told Congress. The situation is so bad, one applicant has been in limbo since August 2006. And it is about to get worse, as requests from NextGen technologies and unmanned aircraft flow into the system.
NEW DELHI — India’s space agency on Oct. 31 carried out a launch simulation for its first Mars orbiter to validate the mission’s flight readiness before its scheduled liftoff next week, a senior space scientist says. The 8 1/2-hr. simulation, which was conducted at the first launch pad in Sriharikota in south India, included satellite battery checkup, withdrawal of the mobile service tower and testing of electrical systems, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Chairman K. Radhakrishnan says.
NASA’s Kepler extrasolar-planet finder has discovered its first Earth-sized planet orbiting a distant star, but don’t crank up the interstellar spacecraft yet. While its composition is rocky like Earth’s, its 8.5-hr. orbit means it is far too warm to lie in the “Goldilocks zone.” That is the name scientists give to the habitable zone around stars, where the temperature is “just right” to sustain water in its liquid state, and perhaps life that would need liquid water to survive.
Hoping to gain entry into a potential U.S. market for non-toxic “green” satellite thrusters, the Swedish National Space Board will permit NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center to ground test environmentally friendly propulsion technology already flight tested on a European spacecraft.
Ukraine, eager to push the commercialization of its Soviet-heritage space industry, will begin bilateral talks with NASA on possible cooperation in civil space exploration, including lightweight radiation shielding and a possible liquid-fuel upper stage for Orbital Sciences Corp.’s Antares launch vehicle.
HOUSTON — The Association of Space Explorers (ASE), a nonprofit that represents experienced space travelers from 35 countries, is urging the international community to launch an asteroid deflection demonstration mission through the United Nations within a decade. The group is also recommending steps to deal with the threat posed by small, undetected — but still destructive — near-Earth objects (NEOs).
The Sirius FM-6 satellite is performing post-launch orbit-raising maneuvers as planned following its Oct. 26 launch aboard a Proton M Breeze M from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. On Oct. 27, the satellite, built by Space Systems/Loral (SSL) for Sirius XM radio, began the first of several thruster firings to propel itself from geostationary transfer orbit to its final geostationary orbit at 116.15 deg. W. Long.
HOUSTON — After departing the International Space Station (ISS) early Oct. 28, the European Space Agency’s ATV-4 has embarked on five days of solo flight to set up an atmospheric re-entry that will be documented by station astronauts. The European space freighter, christened Albert Einstein, undocked from the station’s Russian segment Zvezda module at 4:55 a.m. EDT, ending a 4 1/2-month stay.
Julie Robinson, who oversees U.S.-side science on the International Space Station (ISS), names a one-time dark horse as her No. 1 research result to date from the orbiting laboratory. Medical researchers started running experiments in space more than a decade ago to see if working in microgravity would make it possible to encapsulate cancer drugs in tiny bubbles that could be targeted on specific tumors in the body. It turns out that it was, as the crew of ISS Expedition 5 discovered in 2002.
The Center for New American Security (CNAS) recently released a report entitled “Game Changers: Disruptive Technology and U.S. Defense Strategy.” That study considered additive manufacturing (3-D printers), autonomous vehicles, directed energy, cyber capabilities, human performance modification and other emerging technologies that the center believes need to be factored into U.S. security policy and planning.
PARIS — The potentially faulty component that caused the launch of Europe’s €940 million ($1.25 billion) Gaia star-mapper to be postponed will also need to be replaced on the BepiColombo Mercury probe ahead of a planned 2015 launch, the European Space Agency (ESA) says.
HOUSTON — Human space travelers may have more than rising intraocular pressures to be concerned about when it comes to their eyesight, according to a NASA-funded study of mice that revealed profound changes in eye structure and gene expression after just 13 days in space.
