Comet Ison is providing the world’s astronomers and planetary scientists with a scientific bonanza as it makes a much-anticipated sweep around the Sun on Nov. 28, which is Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. Whether it provides as much of a spectacle for backyard stargazers in the Northern Hemisphere remains a mystery.
NASA’s Ames Research Center and Ball Aerospace think they have found a way to resume the Kepler Space telescope’s search for Earth-like exo-planets. In May, the spacecraft lost the ability to point precisely in the direction of the new worlds it is trying to locate when the second of four of its reaction wheels failed.
HOUSTON — NASA and startup Planetary Resources, Inc. have formed the first public/private partnership under the space agency’s Asteroid Grand Challenge (AGC) initiative to accelerate the search for near-Earth objects (NEOs) that pose a collision threat by using government sky surveys and crowdsourced algorithms. The Solar System’s population of known asteroids is 620,000, but that is estimated to be less than 1% of the actual total.
NASA has engaged in “a number of questionable practices” in the organization’s long-running use of award fees to motivate its contractor ranks to improve the quality of their performance, according to the agency’s inspector general.
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has postponed the Falcon 9 v1.1’s first mission to geostationary transfer orbit until Nov. 28, as mission managers sort out a liquid-oxygen pressurization issue on the rocket’s first stage. The planned Nov. 25 mission was to carry the Orbital Sciences Corp.-built SES-8 satellite to a supersynchronous transfer orbit of 295 km x 80,000 km altitude and an inclination of 20.75 deg. for Luxembourg-based SES, the world’s second-largest commercial fleet operator by revenue.
HOUSTON — NASA’s recently concluded Asteroid Initiative Idea Synthesis workshop is providing the agency’s Asteroid Retrieval Mission (ARM) planners with new momentum for the agency’s two-phase strategy to resume U.S. human deep-space exploration while demonstrating capabilities to find and deflect asteroids that pose an impact threat.
NEW DELHI — India’s Mars probe, currently orbiting Earth before it embarks on a nine-month journey to the red planet, has activated its Mars Color Camera (MCC) and sent back its first images. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has shared a single image of India and the surrounding region taken on Nov. 19 at 13:50 (IST) at a resolution of 3.53 km from an altitude of 67,975 km. The photo clearly shows India, the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, the Himalayas and the Indo-Gangetic plain.
HIGH THROUGHPUT: Euroconsult says 33 High Throughput Satellite (HTS) systems will be launched between 2014 and 2016, compared to the total 31 HTS systems that were launched over the last decade. “The growing popularity of HTS systems will bring the total cumulative investment to over $12 billion,” the consultancy says. Euroconsult predicts global HTS capacity supply will nearly triple over the next three years to reach 1,400 Gbps in 2016.
HOUSTON — Russia’s unpiloted Progress 53 cargo capsule will test upgraded rendezvous system hardware over a four-day journey to the International Space Station that began Nov. 25 with a liftoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The automated linkup with the station’s Russia segment Zvezda service module is expected on Nov. 29 at 5:28 p.m. EST.
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) founder Elon Musk says he expects the company’s new Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket to force greater competition and innovation in the launch industry as it captures market share. Musk’s comments came the day before the Falcon 9 v1.1 was due to launch its first commercial payload to supersynchronous transfer orbit on Nov. 25 from SpaceX’s Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla.
The European Space Agency (ESA) and its industrial partners need more time to reduce the weight of the service module they are developing to fly on NASA’s Orion multipurpose crew exploration vehicle in 2017, a delay that will see the project’s preliminary design review (PDR) slip nearly one year, to May 2014.
HOUSTON — The capture phase of NASA’s proposed Asteroid Retrieval Mission (ARM) sparked great interest during a Nov. 21 workshop in Houston, with outside experts saying they want to shape a grand strategy to find and corral a 5- to 10-meter, 500-metric-ton near-Earth object for a journey to a stable orbit around the Moon, where it could be accessed by future U.S. astronauts.
Frozen igniter fluid lines were to blame for the failure of an upper-stage restart during the first Falcon 9 v1.1 launch on Sept. 29. Officials at Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), manufacturer of the rocket, did not detect the problem during ground tests because “ambient air kept the lines warm,” says Emily Shanklin, a spokeswoman for the company. It is unclear whether thermal testing was conducted. “We’ve added insulation and made sure that cold oxygen can’t impinge on the lines” in future missions, she says.
DARMSTADT, Germany — The European Space Agency (ESA) orbited its Swarm Earth-observation mission atop a Russian Rockot launcher Nov. 22, sending a trio of research satellites 500 km (300 mi.) above the planet’s surface to study the magnetic field that protects it from cosmic radiation and charged particles in the solar wind.
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.
