Tim's Space Diary. Straight and to the point

29-31 July (31 July 2008)

The USA, Britain, Canada, Italy, Japan and South Africa have signed a landmark agreement to carry out lunar exploration. NASA’s planetary science division director James Green likened the beginning of the agreement to a “beautiful friendship, like the end of the film Casablanca”. Wow!

Russia’s long awaited 9.5 billion rouble Angara launch facility at Plesestk is slowly progressing, featuring a 27m deep launch pad with 5.4kms of underground corridors and 1,000km of pipelines.

Russia’s Lavochikin made a R11.4 net profit ($489,270) in 2007, 14.6% over 2006. Revenues increased by 44.7% over 2006. Meanwhile, NPO plans to launch 10-12 Fregat and Fregat SB upper stages on commercial launches of Soyuz boosters from Kourou starting in 2009.

The STS 126 Endeavour flight to the International Space Station later this year will likely carry an additional 1,750lb of stowage on the Leonardo Multi-Purpose Logisitics Module.

The Space-X Falcon 1 booster will be launched between 1 to 5 August. Meanwhile, ESA is looking for a payload to fly on the second Vega booster in 2010.

The flight of NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will be delayed into next year to accommodate the launch of an Atlas 5 carrying the US Air Force X-37B experimental subscale spaceplane.


40 years ago
30 July 1968

The Soviet Union launched a Voskhod booster from Baikonur carrying Cosmos 234, a Zenit 4 recoverable spy satellite, into a 51deg inclination, 208-288km orbit. The Voskhod-based film capsule was recovered six days later.

50 years ago
29 July 1958
President Dwight Eisenhower established a national space agency, NASA based on the earlier National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, NACA. The initial budget for NASA was $125 million.
 

 

23-28 July (28 July 2008)

NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander’s robotic arm collected three cubic centimetre icy soil using its robotic arm one of the craft’s ovens will need to be adjusted for future collections as very little of the icy soil actually got into the oven. Most of the material stuck to the robotic arm scoop.

Russia launched a Soyuz 2-1b booster from Plesetsk, carrying Kosmos 2441 on 27 July. The satellite was the first of a new generation of sun-synchronous reconnaissance satellites called Persona. The launch was the fifth of the Soyuz 2 family and the second 1b variant.

China’s Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CAST) aims to gain 10% of the international commercial satellite market and 15% of the satellite launch business by 2015.

NASA SpaceFlight.com reports that the Ares 1-X booster needs to be strengthened due to red line risk with thrust oscillation towards the end of the first stage burn. Although the maiden test launch is still scheduled for spring 2009 there are multiple issues and concerns. It is quite obvious that trying to return to the moon totally under-funded is sheer folly. It will never make it. Buzz Aldrin says he is planning to head a review of the whole Constellation project and has proposed a new rocket called Direct 2.0 based on the Space Shuttle ET. NASA is not impressed with Aldrin’s ideas. “We have already completed a comprehensive look at possible systems”, said NASA.

Meanwhile, There are reports that Barack Obama and John McCain might delay the Constellation project for five years or cancel it altogether. Meanwhile, the first drop test of a drogue parachute for the Ares 1 rocket Space Shuttle SRB-based first stage, called the “The Stick” has been completed.

NASA says that the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and its piggyback the Lunar Crater Observation Sensing Satellite may be delayed until after President Bush leaves

Boeing’s Network and Space Systems division accumulated $2.8 billion in the second quarter with $237 million profit, compared with $257 million on $2.9 billion in the same quarter of 2007. The overall company figures were $1.25 billion on revenues of about $17 billion is the same quarter.

George Nield, the chief of the space tourism unit of the FAA has warned that the plans represent a very different level of risk and neglecting safety (also making passengers perfectly aware of the risks) and could end commercial human spaceflight before the it has a chance to get up and running.

The long-awaited merger of XM and Sirius was formally agreed by the Federal Communications Commission. The merger plans have been thwarted for various reasons since February 2007. The joint venture has 18 million customers.

Research by five Time History of Events and Macroscale Interaction during Substorms satellites, THEMIS indicates that an explosion of magnetic energy a third of the a third of the way to the moon powers substorms – the aurora borealis. Is this actually new news?

Delays in the delivery of equipment from Russia will put back the launch of South Korea’s KLSV until 2009.

Lockheed Martin Space Division recorded a $268 million on sales of $2.2 billion in the second quarter, compared with $214 million on $2.07 million.

Ed Mitchell, 77, the Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 14, with commander Al Shepard is back on his “alien” patch, says that UFO visits to Earth have been covered up by 60 years. The aliens are little people with large heads and eyes and are not hostile because if they were we would not be here anymore. Oh dear.

The first solar system object in the outer solar system to class as a “dwarf planet” has been named 136472 Makemake – the Polynesian creator of humanity and god of fertility. It joins Pluto, Eris and asteroid Ceres as “dwarf planets”.

The first Soyuz ST booster to be launched from the Ariane launch base at Kourou, in French Guiana will fly in early 2009.

Eumetsat and Arianespace have signed the contract to launch the Meteosat MSG 4 satellite.

Kazakhstan will spend $6 million up to 2020 says the country’s space agency, with 70% of the amount provided by Government. Meanwhile, The Kazakh-Russia satellite booster to be developed under the name of the Bayterek could be flying from Baikonur by the end of 2012.


50 years ago

23 July 1958
A Thor Able booster carried a re-entry test vehicle on a 6,000 mile suborbital flight, with a nose cone containing a mouse. The nosecone was not recovered.

26 July 1958
DARPA’s Explorer 4 satellite was launched aboard a Jupiter C booster from Cape Canaveral to continue the investigations the of van Allen radiation belt around the Earth. The satellite decayed from orbit 454 days later.

The legendary “pin-up” test pilot US Air Force Ivan Kincheloe, who flew to 126,000ft altitude on 7 September 1956 as was dubbed the first “spaceman”, was killed in a crash of an F-104 at Edwards Air Force Base. Kincheloe was earmarked to fly the planned X-15.

Commanders Ross and Lewis ventured into the stratosphere for Strato Lab High III mission on July 26–27, reaching  82,000 feet and remained aloft for 34-1⁄2 hours.   
 

22 July (22 July 2008)

The European Space Agency (ESA) plans a second-phase Automated Transfer Vehicle, leading to a possible crewed vehicle flying by 2020. ESA’s 20,000kg ATV will be first complemented by a recoverable EADS Astrium 15,000kg spacecraft, in 2015 with an abort escape system, returning 1,500kg of cargo using ESA’s 1998 Atmospheric Re-entry Demonstrator technology. A crewed vehicle would follow using the technologies utilised by earlier vehicles, by 2020 at the earliest.

Astronomers surveying the Orion nebula in the “sword” of the mythological figure  have found that fewer that 10% of the nebula had enough surrounding dust to make Jupiter-size planets. Extrasolar “planets” cannot be seen but by looking for a wobble in a star’s motion caused by the slight gravitational pull of a theoretical “planet”. So, don’t get so excited by those OTT artists’ impressions in the popular press! 

XM Satellite Radio Holdings added 322,000 subscribers in the 2008 second quarter, reaching 9,653,000 subscribers, a 17% increase in a year.

A Russian 3M booster was launched from Plesetsk on 22 July, carrying the German SAR-Lupe 5 X-band radar system. The first satellite was launched in December 2006. SAR-Lupe is part of an intelligence sharing agreement with France.

The European Space Agency, NASA and other national space agencies are aiming to launch a Mars sample return mission in 2020-22.

NASA denies the report that Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicles have been selected as cargo supply spacecraft in place of potential US COTS cargo ships. 

 
 
 

19-21 July (21 July 2008)

John Longsdon, director of space policy at George Washington University has confirmed what many observers have thought about the totally under-funded Ares 1 and Orion project.  Thrust oscillation on Ares 1 – which will not fly until at least 2013 - has yet to be overcome. The first manned test flight of Orion will be now earlier that 2015, two years late. The idea of NASA flying astronauts to the moon by 2020 seems like a pipedream. Apollo was a national programme to beat the Soviet Union in the Cold War but now it just does not have the impetus. NASA Watch reports that the Constellation project is already $80 million over budget.

The Indian cabinet has approved funding for six Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle flights costing US$299 million.

Orbital Sciences Corporation reports second quarter revenues and profits of $26.5 million on $301.2 million in the second quarter of 2008, compared with $20.9 million and $261.2 million in 2007.

It looks highly likely that NASA will opt for the Japanese H-2 Transfer Vehicle (HTV) as the unmanned cargo transfer spacecraft to replace the Space Shuttle’s role for cargo deliveries. The HTV can carry six tonnes but would only fly once a year. It seems that the potential US contenders have been rejected because they will take longer to develop. Also ESA’s ATV seems to have been sidelined, although it will be used for European supplies. Its payload capability is also less than the HTV.
 

17-18 July (18 July 2008)

Russia’s Audit Chamber Board concludes that joint space projects with foreign companies do not make a profit. Despite multimillion turnovers of foreign companies, Russia receives practically 10-15% for their work contribution and co-operation on projects. The Khrunichev company’s contracts for Proton launches made a loss of $68.63 million and Rokot launches lost $25.65 million.

Stewart Powell of the Houston Chronicle reports that Houston Republican Representive, John Culberson says that NASA has “failed miserably” and “wastes a vast amount of money and needs a revolutionary change, reports the Houston Chronicle. Aviation Week reported that former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich agreed with Culberson. However, several Democratic representatives defended NASA. The United Space Alliance says that NASA’s technology advances have created several industries, spawning millions of jobs.

Astrium has been awarded a contract to build the Astra 1N for SES Astra to be launched in 2011, with 55 Ku transponders and based on the Eurostar E3000 platform, 11 of which are in orbit and 13 have been ordered. The satellite will be located at 19.2deg, replacing Astra 1G.  

International Space Station member stats are mulling over the problem with supplying crews and cargo to the orbiting space base after the grounding on the Space Shuttle. Russia plans to provide several Soyuz TMA and Progress tankers, with the Soyuz being used until at least 2014. Cargo craft will include the workhorse Progress, together with Japan’s H-II Transfer Vehicle and the European Space Agency’s ATV. NASA’s administrator Mike Griffin believes that the ISS will continue to operate for many years, even being used as a test-bed for future co-operation for lunar and Mars mission. The debris from an exploded Electronic Ocean Reconnaissance Satellite, EORSAT in March could pos a hazard the ISS, reports Jonathan McDowell from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

The dates for the launches of Space Shuttle STS 125 and 126 missions could be brought forward to 2 October and 4 November. Meanwhile, another Space Shuttle crew has been selected. STS 128 Atlantis, scheduled for July 2009 carrying  a Multiple Purpose Logistics Module, will be commanded by Rick Sturkow, with rookie pilot Kevin Ford. Mission specialists will be John Olivas, Patrick Forrester, Jose Hernandez and Sweden’s Christer Fuglesang. Nicole Scott will be the next Expedition Crew member on the ISS, replacing Tim Kopra.

Data from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter indicates that liquid water was on early Mars and could have lasted at least thousands of years, the magazine Nature.

40 years ago
18 July 1968

The Soviet Union launched a Kosmos booster from Plesetsk, carrying Cosmos 233 defence research satellite, weighing 325kg into a 81deg inclination, 196-1,514km orbit.


50 years ago
17 July 1958

A US Air Force Jupiter missile AM-6B was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida on the first flight test of the complete inertial guidance system of the vehicle. The missile reached 555km altitude and impacted on the predicted target and its nose cone was successfully recovered less than two hours after lift-off.


 

16 July (16 July 2008)

Sea Launch flew a Zenit 2 booster from the Odyssey platform in the Pacific Ocean early on 16 July, carrying the EchoStar 11 communications satellite, built by Space Systems/Loral, equipped with a 20kW payload.

Astrium has taken 81% control of Spot Image, the French Space Agency, CNES project. Spot Image will remain an independent operation but will be part of Astrium Services business plan to enhance geo-information services.

The Indian government plans to cancel planned launch of two Israeli satellites due to issues in relations with Iran. India launched Israel’s TecSar satellite to spy on Iran in January.

The Russian Space Agency reported at the Farnborough Air Show that it plans to develop a manned spacecraft capable of carrying five tourists and a pilot cosmonaut. Originally, the plan was to use the Soyuz TMA with one pilot and two tourists, which is quite likely to continue while the new Soyuz is developed or a spacecraft could be purchased from another supplier.

Meanwhile, International Space Station cosmonauts, Sergei Volkov and Oleg Komonenko conducted their second EVA on 16 July, installing a docking target to prepare for the arrival of a Russian mini Research Module, at one point each riding each end of a boom, resembling a seesaw. The 5hr 54min EVA ended with the installation of a new science experiment.

Raytheon is heading an industry team to deliver an Indian Space Research Organisation and Airports Authority of Indian global navigation satellites systems to complete the Global Positioning Satellite-Aided Geosynchronous Augmented Navigation System (GAGAN).

Spaceref.com reports that the first crewed mission of the Ares 1/Orion - to the International Space Station is now scheduled for January 2014. This mission will be preceded by five unmanned flights, starting in 2010, including a sub-orbital Ares 1-Y test flight in 2013 and an Orion 1 unmanned orbital mission in March 2014.


40 years ago
16 July 1968

The Soviet Union launched Cosmos 232 aboard a Voskhod booster from Plesetsk into a 65deg inclination, 189-348km orbit on an eight-day mission carrying a recoverable Zenit 4 reconnaissance satellite with a recoverable capsule.

Pete Knight flew the X-15 1 on a technology-aeronomy mission to a maximum altitude of 67km at a maximum speed of 5,442kph.
 

 


 

15 July (15 July 2008)

NASA’s Cassini Saturn orbiter has found “what may be the strongest evidence that the moon Enceladus has an ocean under its icy surface, leading to the inevitable “past or present extraterrestrial life” stories. The dynamic moon vents geysers of water-ice.

The Astrobiology magazine reports that the oldest rocks identified on the Earth are half a billion years younger that the planet itself. May be the Earth is a lot younger that these scientists think.

Yet another British “space minister” turned up at the Farnborough Air Show. There seems to be a new “space minister” every year. Ian Pearson, the minister of Science and Innovation, with the British National Space Centre, announced the six finalists from schools have been selected to compete to fly an experiment aboard a Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSYL) company satellite in 2010. Each school has proposed a different experiment. The schools are Helston Community College, Cornwall; Langton Star Centre, Canterbury, Kent; Schome Park Project; Shrewsbury School, Shropshire; UK High Altitude Society, Hampshire and St George’s College, Adlestone. 

NASA Spaceflight.com reports that during the launch of STS 124 there were several debris events, including thousands of bricks blown out of the flame trench, with some being projected higher than the launch platform.

Reporting that Russia’s space budget will double in 2009, space officials at the Farnborough Air Show introduced new derivatives of the Soyuz booster. Meanwhile, a Russian Dnepr booster will launch the Thailand Earth Observation System, THEOS from Dombarovskiy in Orenberg region.

Flight International reports NASA’s Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle’s weight could increase as a result of the probable need to increase the size of the heatshield by 20%, despite the need for the spacecraft’s weight to remain at 66,000lb.

Space presence at the Farnborough Air Show seems to decrease each year as aeronautics and military dominate, leaving space to the Paris Air Show and ILA Berlin. NASA is at Farnborough in a little cabin but some UK space companies are present, including the faithful Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd.

NASA’s Phoenix lander has had a good poke into the surface of the Red Planet using an instrument like a fork and used a microscope to investigate. The Thermal and Electrical Conductivity Probe comprises of four prongs.

 
 

12-14 July (14 July 2008)

The European Commission has started the Galileo navigation GPS satellite programme in earnest, aiming to have a constellation of 30 satellites in orbit costing 3.4 billion Euros by 2013. The project became a commercial project in 1999.

Eutelsat W5 communications satellite has lost four of its transponders.

Astrobiology Magazine is getting a bit too excitable again. Up to 40 “super Earths” have been “detected” – not actually seen – using measurements of the host star’s gravity variations but astrophysicists are already assuming that pre-biotic molecules could be trapped inside minerals on these “bodies”. Mars is still the “holy grail”. A molecule basic to life could be detected in Martian mineral on a future mission, says the magazine.

Thales Alenia Space is ready to deliver the high-resolution optical imaging instrument for integration on the first Pleiades Earth observation satellite, which is part of the ORFEO Franco-Italian Earth Observation satellite which will have a 70cm resolution. Two Pleiades satellites will be launched in 2010-11.

The Russian Federal Space Agency has approved plans for a cosmodrome at Vostochny in the Amur Region.

The Solid Rocket Boosters being prepared for the STS 125 Atlantis mission on the final Hubble Space Telescope servicing flight have been fitted with a new frangible nut crossover system on the hold-down bolts and posts, to prevent aft-skirt “stud hang ups” at lift off, reports NASA Spaceflight.com.

NASA’s much-vaunted Phoenix Mars lander has turned out to be rather delicate machine. The next sample collection and its placement in its “laboratory” may be its last, which will be a pity since it is the only instrument to detect carbon. The robotic arm scoop tried to chip ice but none could be placed into the scoop. Some researchers may now have no role in the three-month project.
 

11 July (11 July 2008)

GeoEye Inc’s GeoEye 1 satellite has arrived at Vandenberg, AFB, California for its planned 22 August launch from Vandenberg AFB, California.

The third manned spaceflight by China will be made in October, aboard Shenzhou 7 with three crew, featuring the first spacewalk by one of the crew, with a second crewman in a pressurised suit to assist in the airlock.

The Russian equipment for the new Soyuz launch pad at Kourou, French Guiana is en route to the South American launch base.

The latest EVA made from the International Space Station was made on 10 July, featuring two Russian crewmen, Expedition commander Sergei Volkov and flight engineer Oleg Kononenko, lasting 6hr 18min, while third Expedition Crew member, the American Gregory Chamitoff assisting in the attached Soyuz TMA 12 space ferry. The spacewalkers had to remove one of two explosive bolts in one of the five connectors holding the Soyuz propulsion and instrumentation module. The two previous Soyuz TMA re-entries featured separation problems during re-entry. TMA 12 will return to Earth in late October. The EVA was the 113th made from the ISS, and clocked up 712 hours of EVA operataions. 

The next Sea Launch flight from the Odyssey Pacific-based launch platform will feature EchoStar 11, a direct broadcast satellite for the DISH Network Corporation. 


40 years ago
11 July 1968

An Atlas F booster was launched from Vandenberg AFB, California, carrying two OV1 satellites, to monitor the magnetosphere and atmospheric and solar radiation, weighing 470kg and 600kg respectively. The second was named Cannonball, studying the ionosphere. The orbital parameters were approximately, 153-1,800km at 89deg and 145-556km, 89deg inclination. 

 

 

 

10 July (10 July 2008)

The Ukraine will manufacture 10 to 12 Zenit 2 boosters to accommodate planned Sea Launch and Land Launch satellite launches.

NASA has appreciated the move by Congress to increase the budget for the Constellation programme but even with the extra money, the project’s manager Jerry Hanley doubts that Orion spacecraft is likely to meet its 2014 deadline and will have to depend on Russian Soyuz TMA ferry flights for many more years. The first Ares 1 rocket launch is planned for 2009 at the earliest.

Space-X’s first Dragon spacecraft planned to provide NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transport Service (COTS) to the International Space Station in 2009 on possibly the fourth flight of the Falcon 9.

Space Systems/Loral has been awarded a contract to build Spain’s Hispasat 1E communications satellite, to provide Fixed and Broadcast services to be launched in 2010, based on a 1300 satellite bus with 53 Ku-band transponders.

Brown University-led team has discovered evidence of water deep within the moon, suggesting that water has been part of the moon since its “early existence”. It is assumed but not proved that the moon was created by a collision between the “early Earth” and a Mars-sized object about 4.5 billion years. Of course, it could be quite simply that the moon was created and always had water, like the Earth. The assumption of the great age of the universe is just another theory. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will search for water ice at the moon’s south pole later this year.  


40 years ago
10 July 1968

The Soviet Union launched a Voskhod booster from Baikonur carrying a Voskhod-based recoverable Zenit 2 reconnaissance satellite, Cosmos 231 on an 8-day mission in a 64deg inclination, 206-311km orbit.
 



 

8-9 July (9 July 2008)

The Czech Republic has become the first post-communist country to become a member of the European Space Agency.

NASA has awarded Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems a one-year extension valued at $42 million to provide integrated services for cargo delivery to and from the International Space Station.

Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution, Washington says that the Earth is “one special planet”, reports Space-com. It has liquid water, plate tectonics and an atmosphere that shelters it from the sun’s deadly radiation. It is the only planet where we know there is life and life in abundance and extraordinary variety. It is the only planet known to support life. The fact that Earth hosts not just life but intelligent life makes it doubly unique. Does Boss have to say anything else? “In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth!”.

Logica has been awarded a contract by the European Space Agency to define the security measures for the Payload Data Ground Segment for the Global Monitoring for the Environment and Security (GMES) missions.

Michael Robinson, assistant professor of history at Hillyer College, University of Hartford says that before we send a man to Mars we should remember the wasted efforts finding the north pole of our own planet, including Walter Wellman’s ill-fated expeditions in the 1890s and his attempt to fly over the pole in a giant airship.

India and France have signed a data sharing agreement to for the distribution of data from the Megha Tropiques satellite to be launched in 2009 and a new project, Satellite with Argos and Altika, SARAL carrying a Ka band altimeter for receiving data from Argo floats deployed over the oceans.

Arianespace successfully launched another Ariane 5 from Kourou, French Guiana on 7 July carrying a satellite for the Bermuda-based ProtoStar, to be placed at 98.5degE providing direct-to-home (DTH). The satellite is based on a Space Systems/Loral 1300 platform with 32 C-band and 16 Ku-band transponders. The second payload was the EADS Astrium and Thales Alenia Space-produced Arabsat BADR-6 satellite to be placed at 26deg in geostationary orbit. It is equipped with 24 C-band and 20 Ku-band transponders. The next Ariane 5 launch, in August will be Japan’s Superbird and American AMC 21 satellites.

NASA has released its manifest for the remaining 10 Space Shuttle missions to the end of 2010. STS 125 Atlantis will be launched in October on the final mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope, featuring five EVAs. STS 126 Endeavour will fly to the International Space Station (ISS) to add two more Solar Array Rotary Joints in November. STS 119 Discovery will kick of 2009 with a mission to attach the final ISS solar arrays in February. In May, STS 127 will carry Japan’s Kibo laboratory’s exposed facility. STS 128 Atlantis will fly in July carrying a Multi-Purpose Logistics Module and will be followed by STS 129 Discovery on 15 October, with two External Logistics Carriers carrying various payloads that will be used later in ISS operations. The final 2009 flight in December, featuring STS 130 Endeavour, will carry the final Node and the Cupola robotic control station. During what is planned to be the final year of the Space Shuttle programme - unlikely, given time for inevitable delays which could extend operations into 2011 - there will be three flights. STS 131 Atlantis will be launched in February 2009 carrying a Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, STS 132 Discovery will fly in April carrying a Russian Mini-Research Module attached to the Zarya module. The busy mission will also include several other components. STS 133 - the final flight as things stand at the moment - will be Endeavour STS 133 with two S-band communications antennae and other components. NASA says all missions are subject to change on processing and other launch vehicle schedules.

The crews of STS 126, 119 and 127 missions have been selected by NASA. STS 126 will be under the command of Christopher Ferguson, with pilot Eric Boe. Mission specialists will be Stephen Bowen, Robert Kimbrough, Sandy Magnus, Donald Pettit and Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper. Magnus will replace ISS Expedition Crew member Greg Chamitoff. STS 119 Discovery will be crewed by commander Lee Archambault with pilot Tony Antonelli. Mission specialists are John Phillips, Steve Swanson, Joseph Acaba, Richard Arnold and Japanese mission specialist, veteran Koichi Wakata. STS 127 will be commanded by Mark Polansky with his pilot Doug Hurley. The mission specialists will be Christopher Cassidy, Tom Marshburn, Dave Wolf, Tim Kopra and Canadian astronaut Julie Payette, who will replace Wakata.


50 years ago
9 July 1958

The US Air Force launches the second Thor Able re-entry test vehicle on a flight of 6,000 miles.
 

5-7 July (7 July 2008)

NASA Spaceflight.com reports that during the ascent of STS 124 Discovery the right hand SRB “tailed off” sooner than the left causing the orbiter to counter using “greater than typical steering commands”.

Astronomers has measured an effect predicted by Albert Einstein’s theory of General relativity within an extremely strong gravity of two super-dense neutron stars.

Russia’s Federal Space Agency has agreed to clear 50 years worth of over 400 fragments shed during launches from Baikonur over the Republic of Altay. The clearance budget has increased 50% to R15 million, for search, evacuation and recycling of 150 tonnes of rocket stages.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has imaged a delicate ribbon of gas floating within our galaxy, seemingly the remnant of a supernova explosion and which is expanding at a rate of 10 million km per hour, 7,000 light years away. 

The European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft launched in March 2004 and en route to the comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko in March 2014, depositing a lander on the comet’s surface in November 2014, will pass asteroid Steins in September and Lutetia in June 2010.

The new attempt to launch the Space-X Falcon 1 rocket will feature a payload the size of the loaf of bread which will unfurl into a 100 sq ft sail called NanaSail developed by NASA’s Marshall and Ames centres and deployed by Poly Picosatellite Orbital Deployer, P-POD. 

NASA’s Voyager 2 – 31 years in space - has made the first direct observations of the solar wind termination shock wave.
 
MSNBC.com reports that the crew aboard the International Space Station will perform a potentially dangerous EVA to remove explosive bolts on the attached Soyuz TMA crew ferry. The failure of one of these bolts on the Soyuz TMA 11 caused a potentially fatal accident, which also occurred on TMA-10. The only difference was that on TMA 11, the craft entered an unplanned ballistic re-entry following an imperfect separation of the propulsion module due to faulty bolts.

Britain’s Science and Technology  Facilities Council has announced a 1.906 billion pounds sterling funding programme to maintain UK scientific leadership in physics and astronomy. The programme includes participation in the Atacama Large Millimetre Array, the Square Kilometre Array and the European Extremely Large Telescope. The UK is providing three instruments on the NASA James Webb Space Telescope, participating in the ESA ExoMars mission as part of the Aurora programme.

NASA plans to launch its first Ares rocket in spring 2009 to kick-start the Constellation programme to eventually land crews on the moon no earlier that 2020, using the Ares 5, Orion manned spacecraft, Earth departure stage and the Altair moon lander. The prototype Ares 1-X will start a programme of testing leading to a Ares 1 crew to fly to the International Space Station in 2015. Meanwhile, the US Congress has considered what is an obvious move - to fly the Space Shuttle way passed the 2010 retirement date.

40 years ago

5 July
The Soviet Union launched a Kosmos booster from Kapustin Yar, carrying Cosmos 230, a 367kg solar research satellite into a 48deg inclination, 287-546km orbit.

Meanwhile at Baikonur, a Molniya booster was launched carrying the Molniya 1-09, 1,600kg communications satellite into a 396-39,806km orbit. 
 

4 July (4 July 2008)

China is making good progress in the development of the new Long March 5 satellite launcher scheduled for a maiden flight in 2014. The rocket’s 120-tonne liquid oxygen-kerosene engine will be tested later this year. The rocket will launch heavy low Earth orbit and GEO missions, using four 120-tonne strap-on LOX-LH boosters, as the prime booster for 20 years. The LM5 will carry 25 tonne payloads to LEO and 14 tonnes to GEO. The cost of the project will be 657 million US dollars. China has launched 107 missions since its first satellite launch in 1970.

The Mars jinx has struck again. NASA’s Phoenix lander’s analysis of Martian soil in one of the test ovens failed to trace the building blocks of life. Despite the hype of “life on Mars” not all scientists believe that it exists. The test using the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyser will be tried for a second time but is likely to the last since a short circuit will stop more analysis with this particular instrument. One of the early problems was that the soil did not fit one of the eight single use the ovens.

Allied Techsystems has been awarded a seven-year contract to provide suborbital, soil-fuel rockets and related engineering and integration services, managed by the US Air Force Space and Missile Centre, Space Development Wing at Kirtland Air Force in New Mexico.

The future of Britain’s Jodrell Bank radio telescope in Cheshire, which was established in 1945 is being threatened by Government funding cuts. However, help is at hand. The Science and Technology Facilities Council have provided two million pounds for three years.

Data from NASA’s Messenger spacecraft indicates that the surface of Mercury seems to be shrinking – albeit rather slowly. The 2,400km diameter planet, the closest planet to the sun has shrunk 2km since its formation in a theoretical four billion years ago. Many scientists believe the solar system is much younger.


40 years ago
4 July 1968

NASA’s Explorer 38, 190kg radio astronomy satellite was launched by a Thor Delta from Vandenberg AFB, California into a 5,835-5,861km, 120deg inclination orbit. Explorer 38 also studied the Earth, solar and cosmic radio emission.



  


 





 








 

3 July (3 July 2008)

Galaxy 26 has lost more than half of its capacity after what seems to be a partial failure of its power system. The problem may similar to that experienced on Galaxy 27 in 2005.

ESA is challenging university students to develop a robotic vehicle that could operate in terrain than exists in the moon’s south pole. Eight university teams have been selected for the ESA Lunar Robotics Challenge.

Russia’s Federal Space Agency has signed an agreement with America’s Space Adventures to operate a Soyuz TMA fleet of space tourist vehicles flown by a pilot commander and two fare paying passengers by 2011.

Flight International magazine reports exclusively details of a planned international Mars Sample Return mission architecture for a possible flight after 2018, featuring a Lander, Rover and Mars Ascent Vehicle. The spacecraft would cost 4,500kg, launched by a United Alliance Atlas V with five SRBs and a single Centaur stage. Just think, there were plans for a Mars sample return mission in the 1980s.
 

1-2 July (2 July 2008)

Russia’s Defence Ministry will launch RS20 rockets from the Dombarovskiy and   Baikonur carrying Thailand’s Theos and Germany’s Rapid Eye satellites.

A NASA giant of the Apollo days, Robert Seamans has died aged 89. He was the secretary of the Air Force during the Vietnam War and became NASA’s deputy administrator during the build up to the Apollo landings. After leaving NASA, he became the Secretary of the Air Force.

The UK’s Steve Bennett and his Starchaser Industries team at Salford University, Lancashire has unveiled the 58ft long Nova 2 booster that will start to fly space tourists by 2013. An unmanned test flight is planned for September. Twenty-minute flights will provide passengers three to four minutes of weightlessness at 3,500mph.

The French Government is taking the lead and planning moon and Mars missions managed by EU politicians rather than bureaucrats in order to decide priorities for the European Space Agency faster, to prevent Europe falling behind Japan, China and India. An unusual alliance of France and the UK has been formed to push the plan into action. France and the UK have similar views on how business should be encouraged, to develop commercial opportunities faster. The European Space Agency likes the status quo but it needs a direct political lead.

The European Commission, with ESA, is beginning the procurement of the eventual 30-satellite Galileo global navigation system, which, with EGNOS will cost Euro 3.4 billion between 2007 to 2013. An eight-company consortium of European companies was originally planned but collapsed and Germany, the biggest contributor wants Astrium to be the prime contractor. Now, the EU says there could no exclusion of American or indeed any other companies to bid.

The Pentagon plans to operate a Broad Area Surveillance Intelligence Capability (BASIC) satellite system costing up to $4 billion to complement earlier satellites. The National Reconnaissance Office believes its should head the programme. BASIC will fill in lost capabilities as a result of the cancellation of a major component of the Future Imagery Architecture, which had already cost $10 billion – over 50% over budget. Commercial imagery satellites operated by GeoEye and DigitalGlobe will continue to provide imagery and planned new satellites in 2013.

Japan and the long-grounded US Rocketplane have teamed to form First Advantage, a space tourist service to start in 2011 taking wedding parties into suborbital flights costing over $1 million.

Analysis of Martian soil from samples taken by the Phoenix lander “suggests” that there was once enough water in the planet’s atmosphere for a light drizzle or dew on the ground, rather than water that existed early in its history. US Berkley’s view is that chemistry of Mars soils is a mix of dust and rock accumulated over eons, combined with upwelling groundwater. This is exciting stuff but one hopes that these “findings” will not influence scientists and the media to go over the top regarding “life on Mars”. Too much hype in the media will just become a bore, without any evidence.    

Gene Cernan, the last man to leave the moon, in December 1972 recommends that the Space Shuttle continues to operate beyond 2010 in order to reduce the gap in US manned spaceflight until the Constellation project is up and running.

TerreStar Corporation says that the launch of its TerreStar satellite will be delayed six months.

A Russian team will visit South Africa to discuss the launch options for the Sumbabdila satellite either by a missile from a submarine or a launch from Baikonur.

A British Transient Oxygen and Radiation Monitor instrument weighing 1kg launched aboard a Space Shuttle in February as part of the exposed facility attached to the Columbus module at the International Space Station, to measure how x-rays, UV radiation, atomic oxygen and micrometeriods affect materials such as polymers. It’s such a pity that the instrument was just 1kg.

The long saga of the Russian Angara satellite launcher which has lasted longer that the TV show Dallas reaches a “milestone” on 15 July with a hot firing of its engine. Angara is also being considered as the first stage of a new Soyuz booster.

Russia plans to establish a new SIC PKP science comprising the Scientific Research Institute of Chemical Machine Building and other enterprises.

The launch of the Space-X Falcon has been delayed another month into late July due to a fault in a small component.


50 years ago
1 July 1958

A Japanese Kappa 6 two stage rocket flew to 20 miles altitude after launch from Michikawa Rocket Center.