PARIS and BERLIN — In the coming years, as the U.K. replaces Italy as the European Space Agency’s (ESA) third-largest contributor, the Astrium space division of EADS stands to benefit from Britain’s 25% increase in ESA spending approved last November. With major operations in the U.K., Astrium will take advantage of a funding boost targeted mainly at developing next-generation telecommunication satellite technologies and supporting Earth observation and meteorology programs.
NASA’s inspector general and the lawmaker who chairs the subcommittee that controls the agency’s purse strings in the House are reviewing the Space Act Agreements (SAAs) that have been the agency’s procurement vehicle of choice for support of the emerging “new space” industry, in part because they require less rigorous oversight than standard government purchases of goods and services.
TEL AVIV — Israeli officials are revealing new details of their national space program, including plans for a new spaceborne computer. During a recent international space conference, Menachem Kidron, manager of the Israeli Space Agency (ISA), said the computer should be operational in a few years. It will provide processing capabilities that are currently very hard to achieve in space, as a computer in space must withstand extreme cold and heat as well as powerful radiation. The computer’s development is budgeted at NIS 180 million ($45 million).
SINGAPORE — Satellite manufactures are responding to the challenge of tight fiscal budgets by adopting new business models, such as public-private partnerships, and looking further afield for partners.
Orbital Sciences Corp. hopes to launch its new Antares rocket on its first flight at the end of March or early in April, following a successful 29-sec. hot-fire test on its new launch pad at Wallops Flight Facility, Va. Orbital engineers believe they have dealt with a fairing-separation issue that cost NASA two Earth-observing satellites in back-to-back launch failures on the company’s Taurus XL rocket, and don’t expect similar problems with the frangible-joint separation mechanism on the much larger Antares fairing.
A new mission directorate at NASA headquarters, set up to give more emphasis to technology development for a wide range of potential missions, will be able to push technology readiness level (TRL) more efficiently than mission-oriented work, according to the engineer selected to head the new organization.
As if further evidence of its resolving power was needed, NASA’s Kepler planet finder has located a planet circling a star similar to the Sun that is only slightly larger than the Moon. Called Kepler-37b, it is the smallest planet yet observed, smaller than any in the Solar System and one of three circling a star about 210 light years from Earth. None are bigger than Mercury, all orbit their star, Kepler-37, closer than Mercury does to the Sun and all are outside the habitable zone where liquid water might support life.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has delayed the April launch of its fourth Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV-4) to the International Space Station (ISS) as it tests a replacement component on the cargo vessel’s Integrated Cargo Carrier (ICC). Previously slated to launch April 18, the Astrium-built ATV-4 was delivered in September to the European Spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana, where it is undergoing final integration and test prior to the mission. It is the fourth of five ATVs slated to launch to the ISS between 2008 and 2014.
The White House is adopting a tough public relations campaign against China and other online hackers believed to be carrying out what has been described as the greatest theft of intellectual property in history. On Feb.
In Washington nobody likes to talk about the “s-word” but as March 1, the deadline for the across-the-board budget cuts grows closer, conversations about sequestration are becoming all-consuming. “It is just occupying everyone's time,” says Pentagon industrial base chief Brett Lambert. Unless lawmakers pass a new agreement by the end of the month, $85 billion in across-the-board budget reductions will take place for fiscal 2013. It is the first increment in a 10-year, nearly $1 trillion package of spending cuts.
NASA's open-ended space technology push is receiving a bureaucratic boost with the creation of a new Space Technology Mission Directorate at the agency's Washington headquarters, joining Aeronautics, Human Exploration and Operations and Science as associate-administrator-level organizations. The new Space Technology associate administrator will be Michael Gazarik (at left in this photo with Deputy Administrator Lori Garver at Aurora Flight Sciences), formerly director of the Space Technology Program in the Office of the Chief Technologist.
Orbital Sciences Corp. hopes to launch its first Antares rocket next month, paving the way for a second commercial cargo service to the International Space Station (ISS) by summer. The plan assumes a successful on-pad hot-fire test of the liquid-fueled Ukrainian-built rocket, but it will not be delayed by inconclusive results from a NASA probe into the cause of a fairing-separation problem that destroyed the $388 million Glory atmospheric-research mission in 2011.
President Obama's crusade to increase a small sliver of taxes on the nation's wealthiest has long capitalized on a convenient symbol of privilege: the corporate jet. Those talking points are landing like stray arrows on the makers of business jets, and manufacturers are fuming.
Africa will get improved satellite coverage when Astrium's Alphasat is launched from French Guiana later this year - the programme has reached a major milestone this week with the successful completion of the major testing stage of the 1-XL programme.
Often faulted for failing to meet science project cost and schedule targets, NASA seems to be following an effective strategy with the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Project, or Maven. The $453 million mission, scheduled for launch Nov. 18, will study climate-influencing changes in the Martian upper atmosphere. If the mission is successful, Maven’s development could become a case study for other science mission projects, according to NASA’s inspector general (IG).
NASA’s Space Technology Program, upgraded this week into a full-fledged mission directorate at the agency’s headquarters, is funding development of an electric-thruster technology that holds promise both in propulsion for tiny cubesats and as a lightweight replacement for attitude-control and in-space propulsion systems on larger spacecraft.
