New Delhi – India is awaiting assurances from its troubled partner Russia that it will be prepared for India’s second mission to the Moon, the Chandrayaan-2, in 2014, the country’s top scientist says. Russia, which is reviewing its space mission program after the recent failure of an interplanetary mission with China, will provide the lander while India will build the lunar orbiter and rover for Chandrayaan-2.
PARIS — French defense equipment agency DGA has ordered a pair of studies from private industry on developing a successor to the Syracuse 3 military communications satellite system, the results of which are expected to support defense program decisions as the administration of President Francois Hollande updates the country’s defense and security strategy in the coming months.
HOUSTON — NASA and SpaceX are working toward an Oct. 9-10 launch of the first Falcon 9/Dragon Commercial Re-Supply Services (CRS) cargo mission to the International Space Station, though the two would like to lift off several days earlier if the opportunity arises. NASA would like to start the mission as soon as Oct. 5 if the U.S. Air Force Eastern Range becomes available, to avoid any conflicts with the launching of Russia’s Soyuz 30 mission to the station on Oct. 15, says Mike Suffredini, NASA’s ISS program manager.
NEW DELHI — The 51-hr. countdown is underway for India’s latest Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C21) mission, which will orbit two foreign satellites. The PSLV-C21 will be launched from the Satish Dhawan space center at Sriharikota in south India at 9:51 a.m. local time on Sept. 9, an official at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) says. The countdown began Sept. 7. The launch will mark ISRO’s 100th mission into space.
CHILL TEST: Results of a cold-temperature hot-fire test have qualified a new fixed nozzle for ATK’s GEM-60 strap-on solid-fuel booster for the United Launch Alliance Delta IV, as ATK continues to upgrade the 12-year-old design. In a test Sept. 6 at the ATK facility in Promontory, Utah, the 53-ft.-long GEM-60 was chilled to a core temperature of 30F before the 90-sec. burn, which generated about 270,000 lb. of thrust. In addition to qualifying the new fixed nozzle for flight, the test results validated the low-temperature performance of the new nozzle insulation.
NASA’s Dawn probe broke free of the pull of gravity from the asteroid Vesta early Sept. 5 and re-entered orbit around the Sun as its low-thrust xenon-ion propulsion system moves it on to the dwarf planet Ceres. With the change in orbit, which came at 2:26 a.m. EDT, Dawn started a transit through the Asteroid Belt that will take it to Ceres early in 2015. The spacecraft entered orbit around Vesta — exceeded in mass within the main belt only by Ceres — in July 2011, and spent 13 months studying the giant asteroid.
CLUSTER DISCOVERY: Adding evidence to how diverse the universe is, NASA’s Kepler planet-hunting satellite has observed the first instance of multiple planets orbiting two suns, what astronomers call a circumbinary planetary system. The system, named Kepler-47, is 4,900 light years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. One star is the size of the Sun but only 84% as bright; the other star is diminutive. The inner planet, Kepler-47b, has a radius three times the size of Earth and orbits the two stars in just 50 days, making its surface too hot for life.
HOUSTON — Step by step, the overarching elements of a human mission to a near-Earth asteroid are coming together at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC), even though the needed hardware is still in development, timelines are hazy and budgets are uncertain.
HOUSTON — Astronauts Sunita Williams and Akihiko Hoshide will attempt to troubleshoot problems with an electrical unit outside the International Space Station during a Sept. 5 spacewalk organized over the U.S. Labor Day weekend.
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