Startup World View Enterprises Inc. envisions a commercial high-altitude balloon experience for luxury-minded passengers and scientific researchers that will strive to deliver many of the prolonged experiences of spaceflight without the confinement, cost, risks or health limitations associated with rocket launches.
PARIS — The European Space Agency (ESA) has postponed the launch of its €940 million ($1.25 billion) Gaia star-mapping mission by at least one month after the spacecraft’s manufacturer identified a technical problem with a component flying on another satellite already in orbit, the agency said Oct. 23. “Gaia shares some of the components involved in this technical issue and prompt notification of this problem has allowed engineers working on the final preparations for Gaia’s launch to take additional precautionary measures,” ESA said.
NEW DELHI — The launch of India’s first Mars orbiter, which was postponed due to inclement weather in the Pacific, has been rescheduled for Nov. 5. The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) will be boosted by a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), which was also used for the Chandrayaan-1 Moon mission, on Nov. 5 at 2:36 p.m. local time from the Sriharikota spaceport in south India, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Chairman K. Radhakrishnan says.
The launch of India’s first Mars orbiter, scheduled for Oct. 28, has been postponed for a week due to rough weather in the Pacific Ocean, a senior space scientist says. “The weather in the south Pacific Ocean has slowed things down as movement of two Indian ships, carrying terminals on board to track the rocket after it is launched, was delayed due to bad meteorological conditions,” Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Chairman K. Radhakrishnan says.
The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (Casis) issued a request for proposals Oct. 17 for potential remote-sensing missions that could fly aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The nonprofit group tasked with managing research on the orbiting outpost’s U.S. national lab segment says it expects to award $1.5 million in grants to selected Earth-observation projects proposed in response to the request for proposals.
HOUSTON — Workers eagerly returned to their jobs at NASA’s Johnson Space Center Oct. 17, following a 16-day furlough, though many remained apprehensive about future budget clashes. The 3,200 civil servants among Johnson’s 14,000-member workforce have been assured by Congress they will be paid for the interlude, potentially along with their next scheduled paycheck on Oct. 25.
Europe’s Rosetta comet probe remains in a deep sleep as it winds through the coldest part of its trajectory through the Solar System to a year-long encounter with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, but ground crews are getting ready for its awakening next January, as it begins to move back toward the Sun.
The next two Falcon 9 v 1.1 launches must perform flawlessly for upstart rocket provider Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) to be eligible for certification to carry critical U.S. national security payloads as planned in its cooperative research and development agreement with the U.S. Air Force. The agreement calls for SpaceX to execute three successful Falcon 9 v1.1 launches, two of which are to be consecutive. The service also is assessing certain engineering and process data for the company to verify compliance with certification criteria.
Italian space agency ASI has awarded Thales Alenia Space of Rome and Compagnia Generale per lo Spazio (CGS) of Milan a contract to build the Multi-Element Telescope for Imaging and Spectroscopy (Metis) instrument, slated to fly on the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Solar Orbiter mission in 2017.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has awarded EADS-Astrium three contracts valued at a combined €414 million ($560 million) through 2014 for continued work on a midlife upgrade of the Ariane 5 rocket and to begin designing its successor, the Ariane 6. The first two contracts cover the continued development of the Ariane 5 Midlife Evolution (€106 million) and the sub-assemblies common to it and Ariane 6 (€278 million).
NEW DELHI — Indian space officials say the country’s first Mars orbiter is still on track for launch on Oct. 28 and will not be affected by the U.S. government shutdown, which has forced mission partner NASA to halt most of its operations. “We are going ahead with the Mars Orbiter Mission as planned. There is no delay,” D.P. Karnik of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) tells Aviation Week. “The launch window will remain open till Nov. 19.”
The European Space Agency (ESA) and SES have signed a contract to design Europe’s first all-electric satellite platform, the Luxembourg-based fleet operator announced Oct. 15. Under the terms of the agreement, SES will serve as prime contractor for ESA’s Electra project, working with satellite builder OHB System AG of Bremen, Germany, to develop the small- to medium-sized spacecraft bus.
Top officials of China’s human spaceflight organization met counterparts from Europe, Russia and Canada during the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Beijing last month, pushing their agenda of international cooperation and receiving at least friendly hearings from some of the major space powers.
SAFELY UNSAFED: NASA’s Jupiter-bound Juno probe exited safe mode Oct. 11, according to a statement from the Southwest Research Institute (SWRI) of San Antonio, the institutional home to the principal investigator for the $1.1 billion NASA-funded mission to study the atmosphere, origins and evolution of Jupiter. “The spacecraft is currently operating nominally and all systems are fully functional,” SWRI reported. The spacecraft swung by Earth Oct. 9 as part of a gravity assist strategy to reach Jupiter on July 4, 2016.
Ad Astra Rocket Co., developers of the Vasimr commercial solar-electric propulsion (SEP) system, is proposing launching a Space Plasma Laboratory (SPL) to the International Space Station that would address fundamental questions of solar physics while flight-qualifying SEP technologies to advance human exploration and take on other deep-space roles.
The second American to orbit the Earth, Mercury astronaut M. Scott Carpenter, died Oct. 10 in Denver of complications following a stroke. He was 88. A naval aviator during the Korean War who went on to become a test pilot at NAS Patuxent River, Md., Carpenter conducted some of the first scientific experiments in space and ate some of the first solid food consumed there.
It wasn't exactly a happy birthday. After 55 years of pushing humankind to places we have never been before—including literally out of the Solar System—NASA's staff got to celebrate the Oct. 1 anniversary of their agency's founding on furlough, sent home without pay while the nation's leaders postured for prime time. Even more upsetting was just how many of them there were, compared to their colleagues at other agencies.
Hobbled by the government's partial shutdown, the National Transportation Safety Board is standing down, except for the most pressing cases. “The agency can engage in those activities necessary to address imminent threats to safety of human life or for the protection of property,” the board said Oct. 10. Though it is clear investigators would be recalled for a major transportation disaster, how the NTSB is defining other “imminent threats” is murkier.
Among advanced developments hindered by the ongoing budget saga on Capitol Hill is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's proposed XS-1 experimental spaceplane. Darpa is polling industry for interest in developing a reusable hypersonic vehicle with expendable upper stages that can put as much as 5,000 lb. in space up to 10 times over 10 days. But Boeing, which has a lot of relevant technology in its X-37 spaceplane, isn't ready to commit. There is some uncertainty about what is and isn't going to be funded, Muilenburg says.
One way to try to escape cataclysmic budget uncertainty is to cover all the bases. Consider EADS's Lakota Light Utility Helicopter, one of the programs that fared poorly in President Barack Obama's long-term budget plans. The Army asked for just 10 this year and no more after that. But members of Congress appear to be persuaded by EADS's pitch of a low-cost, robust platform that delivers on time and is entrenched in the U.S. industrial base. The House's spending committee added funding to procure 31 Lakotas, and its Senate counterpart funded 20.
Gregory Johnson, the newly named president and executive director of the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (Casis), hopes the International Space Station (ISS) can be a proving ground for a new type of commercial spaceflight just getting underway.
