Commercial opportunities along with military and humanitarian demands driving the need for sustainable space and satellite programmes across the Middle East will be in focus at the Global Space and Satellite Forum (GSSF) 2011.
Insurance issues relating to the space industry will take centre stage at an international conference to be held in Abu Dhabi in May, when experts from across the world will discuss market conditions for the sector's future at the Global Space & Satellite Forum (GSSF).
The flying of the space shuttle involves complex choreography of man (or woman) and machine. With five shuttle missions under his belt and a stint as the chief of NASA’s Astronaut Office, U.S. Navy Capt. (ret.) Robert L. “Hoot” Gibson is among the most qualified to explain what must be done to make a flight a success. In an exclusive Aviation Week pilot report, he describes what transpires from launch through landing from the commander’s point of view.
The loss of two shuttle orbiters and 14 brave astronauts gave NASA and the nation several textbooks worth of painful lessons about launching humans into space, including how easy it is to forget those lessons. The Challenger accident scuttled forever the notion that the space shuttle was an operational vehicle that could take humans to orbit as a matter of “routine.” Columbia’s loss underscored that schooling, and killed the shuttle program.
As new competitors enter the commercial aircraft market, Boeing and Airbus face big decisions about how to keep their products on the leading edge. Should they make incremental upgrades now, or wait until game-changing technologies are ready? Boeing Chairman, President and CEO Jim McNerney sat down at the company’s Chicago headquarters with AW&ST Senior Business Editor Joseph C. Anselmo to discuss the options the company is mulling and why he thinks China will become the industry’s next big power.
A second observation satellite funded by the Dubai government is likely to orbit the Earth in the second half of 2012. And there are plans to develop two more, according to the Emirates Institute for Advanced Science and Technology (EIAST).
Space tourism in the Middle East came a step closer this week after Virgin Galactic's successful test flight of its new spaceship over the Mojave desert in California.
Arabsat-5A - the first, in a series of fifth-generation satellites for Arabsat, one of the Arab world's leading satellite services providers - is being checked out at Arianespace in French Guiana ahead of its launch on an Ariane 5 ECA launcher in April.
Leading regional and international space industry experts are meeting in Abu Dhabi today at the region's leading platform for space and satellite technology.
DubaiSat-1, the UAE's first Earth Observation Satellite, has transmitted its first images of the UAE from orbit, including a photograph of the Palm Jebel Ali.
By Steve Nichols. DubaiSat-1 was successfully launched into space on July 29 from Baikonour in Kazakhstan, reports the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science & Technology (EIAST).
Trials about to start on a small engine stand in rural Oxfordshire, England, could open the door to full-scale development of a hybrid air-breathing rocket engine for single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) reusable launch vehicles.
The first images from the U.S. Air Force's new spacecborne strategic missile warning system are so far making good on the military's promise that they would surpass the quality provided by the decades-old Defense Support Program constellation.
The third time is anything but a charm for the Air Force, which has notified Congress--again--it needs more money for its next-generation missile early-warning system. Originally expected to cost about $4 billion, the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) High is now expected to total well beyond $10 billion. But needing more cash is not the only problem: Officials don't know just how much they need. The final amount is expected to be at least $1.5 billion, although officials say it could exceed $2.5 billion.
Restructuring in the U.S. satellite industry is generating new opportunities for fast-growing SES Global to mesh together its far-flung network of operating companies and to mold it into an efficient worldwide system.
NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center plans to conduct follow-on testing of a wing design that achieved supersonic natural laminar flow over more than 80% of a test article during initial flights.
NASA/Boeing collaboration will demonstrate 41 advanced technologies for reusable launch vehicles NASA and Boeing's recent signing of a four-year agreement to build and fly a single X-37 reusable vehicle in orbit clears the way for demonstrating a wide range of technologies that eventually could cut the cost of accessing space from $10,000 to $1,000/lb.
The Paris-based Economic and Social Council plans to issue a report to the French government calling for closer integration of French and European space activities and in particular the creation of a new high-level European body to define common space strategy. The council is an independent organization that serves as a forum for discussion of public policy and a source of recommendations to the French government.
The appointment of a former U.S. Air Force chief of staff as board chairman of Pioneer RocketPlane Corp. is expected to accelerate financing and elevate the credibility of the start-up company's air-refuelable space launch vehicle program.
The launch of an advanced version of the KH-11 imaging reconnaissance satellite on a Titan 4 from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., Dec. 20, completes a new three-spacecraft constellation that uses an uprated model of the optical spacecraft operated by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).
The Russian Mars 96 mission with an orbiter, four landers and participants from more than 20 countries is scheduled to be en route to Mars this week after a tortuous eight-year development that spanned the collapse of the Soviet Union.
