The hair-raising 7-min. descent and high-precision landing of NASA's Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars last week (p. 24) provided a much-needed reinvigoration to a space agency that is struggling to stay relevant after last year's retirement of the space shuttle fleet.
MORPHEUS DOWN: NASA’s experimental Project Morpheus lander crashed and exploded during a free flight at Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Fla., Aug. 9. The vehicle “lifted off the ground and then experienced a hardware component failure, which prevented it from maintaining stable flight,” NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs said. “No one was injured and the resulting fire was extinguished by KSC fire personnel.
LOS ANGELES — Spacecraft component and control system specialist Moog remains on the acquisition trail after completing the purchase of American Pacific Corp.’s In-Space Propulsion (ISP) unit. “Our intent is to move up to providing complete systems, and that’s difficult if you don’t have engines,” says Moog Space and Defense Group President Jay Hennig. The In-Space Propulsion business, which Moog bought for $46 million, makes liquid propulsion systems and parts for satellites and missiles at sites in the U.S. as well as Ireland and the U.K.
ATLANTA — Orbital Sciences Corp. says it is “two to three weeks” away from officially taking possession of the launch pad at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Va., which will give the company the green light to complete preparations for the first demonstration flight of its Antares rocket.
Europe’s Meteosat Second Generation-3 spacecraft, launched July 5, has generated the first image of the Earth using its primary instrumentation. The first results from the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (Seviri) mark a milestone in the six-month commissioning process, the European Space Agency announced Aug. 7.
PARED PROJECTIONS: A little more than one year after its KA-SAT broadband satellite entered service, fleet operator Eutelsat is lowering its revenue expectations. The Paris-based company says the all-Ka-band spacecraft is still expected to generate €100 million ($122 million) in new business, but not until 2015, one year later than projected. In its first year of the satellite’s service, Eutelsat’s Tooway satellite broadband business had generated €49.9 million in revenue as of June 30.
PASADENA, Calif. — Scientists and engineers on the Mars Science Lab mission are pleased with their “Sol 0” position on the planet’s surface, as checkout and early science of the planned two-year exploration mission begins.
NEW DELHI — With NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory having just touched down at Gale Crater on Mars, the Indian government now has given the final green light for its first orbiter mission to the red planet in November 2013. In December 2011, India’s Space Commission gave its approval for the project, which is estimated to cost around 4.5 billion rupees ($80.7 million). The government has allocated 1.25 billion rupees for the initial phase of the mission for India’s current fiscal year, which ends March 31, 2013.
NASA’s Human Research Program and its nonprofit external research affiliate, the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, are soliciting independent research proposals in a dozen topic areas affecting astronaut physical and mental health on long-duration missions, including recent findings that some space travelers experience blurred vision and return to Earth with lingering symptoms.
The Senate quietly approved two last-minute changes to the defense spending bill for fiscal 2013 aimed at boosting space-launch industries in California and Alabama. The amendments were approved as part of a package and were not publicly debated, but neither involved government funding.
NASA plans to spread $1.1 billion in seed money among Boeing, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corp. to continue the development of commercial spacecraft to launch crews to the International Space Station as early as 2017.
PUSHED OUT: The NROL-36 mission to launch a classified satellite from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., for the National Reconnaissance Office has been pushed back to no earlier than Aug. 14. Col. Nina Armagno, commander of the U.S. Air Force’s 30th Space Wing, says additional time is needed to address a range instrumentation issue that prompted a launch scrub on Aug. 2. Originally, the Air Force expected to be ready to launch as early as Aug. 4. There are no problems with either the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket or the NROL-36 payload.
HOUSTON — A NASA-funded biomedical institute is helping small Maryland and Florida companies develop better methods of wound healing and rehydration for astronauts. The non-profit National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) is making the $100,000 matching awards to assist the companies in moving specialized health care products between the Earth and space under its Space Medicine and Related Technologies Commercialization Assistance Program, or Smartcap, competition.
