Tim's Space Diary. Straight and to the point
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March 2008
28-29 August (29 August 2009)
The number of operational Russian satellites in orbit will increase to 100 before 2015 says the space agency Roskosmos. Sixteen new satellites will have been orbited by the end of 2009. The first launch of a Russian Soyuz booster from Kourou, in French Guiana has been delayed until 2010.
The European Space Agency has entered an agreement with the Republic of Cyprus for a “step forward in space technology”.
Mark Bauman, NASA’s deputy director of manned space flight says that an international team would be involved a manned Mars mission led by NASA and Roskosmos. “Today it is considered almost irrefutable that even though the natural environment on Mars significantly differs from that of Earth, it is still closer to Earth's environment than any other planet in the solar system. In essence, Mars is still the only planet with prospects for human habitation, but by all estimates, only in the distant future.”
Space Shuttle STS 128 Discovery on its 37th mission was launched from the KSC on 28 August en route to the International Space Station with the Leonardo Multi-Purpose Logistics Module. The mission is the 3oth mission dedicated to the assembly and maintenance. The crew is led by commander Rick Sturckow, with pilot Kevin Ford. The mission specialists are Patrick Forrester, Jose Hernandez, Danny Olivas, Christer Fuglesang and Nicole Stott, who will replace Tim Kopra aboard ISS. The rookies on the mission, Ford, Hernandez and Nicole Stott are the joint 500th space travellers.
50 years ago
27 August 1959
The satellite tracking station in Woomera, Australia successfully photographed NASA’s Explorer 6 at a distance of 14,000 miles.
40 years ago
26 August 1969
Charles Sheldon of the Library of Congress said that Russia may launch the first cosmonauts around the moon within two months.
25-26 August (26 August 2009)
The Space Shuttle Discovery was grounded by bad weather on 25th August and it was planned to launch on 26th but was thwarted by a suspect hydrogen fill-and-drain valve on the orbiter. The launch has been pushed to Friday at the earliest.
Whatever happens to the Ares programme, the $350 million two-minute flight of the 327ft Ares 1-X will continue as a demonstration for valuable experience for engineers, says NASA. The launch is planned for 31 October.
In the first eight months of 2009, Russia has launched 20 missions.
South Korea launched its first satellite on 25 August from the Naro Space Center aboard the 108ft long, 140 ton Korea Space Launch Vehicle, Naro with a RD-191 Russian first stage. The 219lb STSAT 2 was reported to have apparently reached a 932-186 miles orbit. However, it was revealed that the satellite was lost after the payload fairing failed to separate properly. Debris fell close to Darwin in Australia. The satellite carried a microwave radiometer to measure radiation and a laser reflector to allow ground stations to precisely track its orbit. South Korea had hoped to become the 10th country to launch a satellite into orbit. Ten South Korea satellites have been launched into orbit since 1992, using overseas rockets. The nation plans to develop a wholly domestic satellite-carrying rocket by 2018 and send a probe to orbit the moon by 2020.
NASA’s $79 million Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) has spent 140kg of fuel to maintain the spacecraft’s orientation. The Centaur second stage that sent LCROSS into space is planned to impact into the moon on 9 October but the propellant margins are perilously close to margins.
Russia has allocated R82 billion to support rocket-and space industry.
40 years ago
26 August 1969
NASA launched a Pioneer satellite aboard a Delta booster from Cape Canaveral heading for solar orbit but the rocket was destroyed at T+383s.
21-24 August (24 August 2009)
Russia plans to launch a new Resurs-P 1m resolution Earth observation satellite in 2010 into a 475km orbit, to complement a similar satellite, which will soon be taken out of service.
Arianespace launched an Ariane 5 ECA booster from Kourou on 23 August, carrying JCSAT 12 and Optus D3 satellites with a combined worth of 7,655kg. The Lockheed Martin-built JCSAT 12 weighed 4,000kg, with 30 Ku and 12 C-band transponders. The 2,500kg Optus D3 was built by Orbital Sciences, with 32 Ku-band transponders. The launch was the 190th of the series of all Ariane boosters. The next of the seven planned Ariane 5 flights of the year will carry Amazonas 2 and a Germany GMS relay platform.
The Space Shuttle Discovery is scheduled for launch on 25 August to the International Space Station.
Russia plans to launch 30 more Gonets low Earth orbit communications satellites to add to six already in space. Three new satellites will be launch this year and six next year.
50 years ago
21 August 1959
A prototype Mercury capsule planned to be launched by a Little Joe booster from Wallops Island, Virginia to test the launch- escape and recovery system for the programme experienced a premature emergency escape system firing 30 minutes before launch.
24 August
The US Air Force launched an Atlas C booster flew from Cape Canaveral 5,000 miles over the Atlantic Ocean with a recoverable nose cone camera which photographed one sixth of the Earth from 700 miles altitude, over Ascension Island.
40 years ago
21 August 1969
Apollo 11 Command Module Pilot Mike Collins said he would not fly another mission, although he would have likely to have been a lunar landing commander…only one of NASA’s scientists astronauts would fly to make a moon landing, geologist Jack Schmitt….Rumours abound that President Nixon will cancel several later Apollo landing and that Mars manned landings in the 1980s will be too expensive…. The European Launching Development Organisation (ELDO) asked NASA to help to find the cause of the failure of the Europa F8 rocket on July 3…Apollo Lunar Rovers will cost two million pounds… July…Tranquillity Base rocks date back to 3,500 million years say scientists (based on a theory of the Big Bang)…
22 August
The Soviet Union launched a Kosmos 2 booster from Plesesk carrying the 716lb Cosmos 295, a DS-P1-Yu s/n 29, 716lb military target satellite into a 71deg inclination orbit for air defence.
23 August
A US Air Force Titan 3B/Agena booster was launched from Vandenberg AFB, California carrying a NRO/US Air Force KH-8 satellite into a 108deg inclination orbit. A film capsule was returned to Earth on 7 September.
19-20 August (20 August 2009)
Norman Augustine, the former CEO of Lockheed Martin and the head of the panel appointed by President Obama to review the future of manned space exploration says that the group has “given the White House a dilemma…the planned human space flight programme isn’t really executable with the money. Either we have to do something with the current program that's not going to be very successful, I'm afraid, or spend a nontrivial sum more than that to have something that's really exciting and workable, and that's the challenge the White House is going to have, is to sort that out." The only viable project is the International Space Station which is likely to be scrapped in 2020 at the latest, if not earlier. Currently, transporting crews to the ISS using the Space Shuttle will stop in 2010, with Russian Soyuz TMA being the only manned transport before the Orion manned transporter, if it is ever developed. A manned 260-day round-trip to Mars is just a dream. “We have lived an illusion for five years”, said a space consultant. Meanwhile,
Lockheed Martin will cut 800 space jobs mainly from Denver and Sunneyvale - 4.5% of its workforce - this year.
STS 128 Discovery has been cleared for launch on 25 August for its mission to the International Space Station.
The launch of South Korea’s Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute’s KSLV 1 was cancelled on 19 August.
Russia’s Excalibur Almaz Limited with the assistance of the NPO and NPOM agencies plans to create a commercial agency to offer orbital spaceflight services for global private space companies as early as 2013 with the support of US, European and Japanese agencies. The spacecraft will be based on the Almaz manned military space station.
Pakistan plans to launch its first satellite in April 2011 to monitor mineral and agricultural resources.
Russia’s Energia says that if NASA will not launch he MIM 1 small research module to the International Space Station aboard a Space Shuttle, a “ serious modification of the laboratory will be required. Russia has already cut funding for its part of the ISS several times by 30-40%. Russia says that parts of the country’s ISS elements might be detached to form a nucleus Russian station - before the retirement of the ISS - by 2015 after the launch of a small lab in 2012, a central module in 2013 an two research and energy modules, NEM 1 and 2 in 2014-2015. Three cosmonauts will work aboard the new station. Russia hopes to launch spacecraft to the moon and Mars is preparation for manned launches to the moon and Mars.
50 years ago
19 August 1959
The US Air Force launch a Thor Hustler rocket from Vandenberg AFB, California carrying Discoverer 6 into Earth orbit but the recoverable photo capsule was lost.
40 years ago
19 August 1969
The Soviet Union launched a Voskhod booster from Plesetsk carrying Cosmos 294 with a Zenit recoverable high resolution reconnaissance film capsule which returned from its 65deg inclination eight days later.
Apollo 11 Command Module Pilot Mike Collins retired from NASA to spend more time with his family, while commander Neil Armstrong said that the Americans could be on Mars by 1981.
15-18 August (18 August 2009)
India and Russia have completed the design of a second unmanned lunar orbiter to be launched in 2011-12. Chandrayaan 2 will deploy a small soft-lander and rover which will collect lunar samples which will be analysed and data sent to Earth.
The introduction of CDMA frequency will increase the accuracy of the new Russian Glonass K navigation satellite system.
A 50 ton manned asteroid mission using two Orion spacecraft docked nose-to-nose is being studied as an alternative to lunar landing missions. An unmanned single Orion spacecraft could also be used for servicing the International Space Station.
A Canadian Black Brant 9 sounding rocket carried a NASA 10ft aeroshel, Inflatable Re-entry Vehicle Experiment to a height of 130 miles.
For the first time in 25 years a new space vehicle is situated in NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre Vehicle Assembly Building. The 327ft Ares 1-X rocket and its simulated crew module have been placed on a mobile launch platform in preparation for launch on 31 October from Complex 39.
The 48th successful and final Air Force Delta II GPS satellite, R21 was launched on 17 August. The first launch of a Navstar GPS was made on 14 February 1989.
Russia’s Energia is producing the research modules MRM-1 and MRM-2 for the International Space Station (ISS).
MRM-1 will be launch to the ISS in May 2010 aboard a Space Shuttle. A European manipulator ERA elbow element will be installed on MRM-1. The MRM-2 will fly first in 2009 aboard a Progress cargo space vehicle.
Hyping up the possibility of “life in space” , NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre says that the comet Wild 2 shows glycine, the simplest amino acid. "Our discovery supports the theory that some of life's ingredients formed in space and were delivered to Earth long ago by meteorite and comet impacts," says NASA.
50 years ago
16 August
The first Nike-ASP sounding rocket was launched from Wallops Island to provide geophysical data on wind activity between 50 to 150 miles altitude.
40 years ago
16 August
The Soviet Union launched a Zenit 2M booster from Baikonur carrying Cosmos 293, into a 51deg inclination orbit carrying a Zenit 2M reconnaissance satellite which returned a film capsule on 28 August.
12-14 August (14 August 2009)
Russia launched a Proton booster from Baikonur carrying the Hong Kong-based Asia Satellite Telecommications Company, AsiaSat 5 heading for a 100.5deg station in geostationary orbit. The Space Systems/Loral-built spacecraft is equipped with 14-Ku and 26 C-band transponders to replace AsiaSat 2. The launch was the sixt by a Proton this year.
The Netherland’s veteran astronaut, Andre Kuipers has been selected to fly aboard the International Space Station for a six-month mission in 2011-2012, following his 11-day visit to the ISS in April 2004.
The Ukraine plans to fly its first communications satellite, Lybid aboard a Zenit 3 booster in 2011.
The Augustine Committee presidential panel reviewing options for future US manned space flight operations delivered “a grim assessment”. NASA's current plan to retire the Space Shuttle, complete the Space Station and return to the moon by the early 2020s “is not even remotely feasible without a significant restoration of previously cut funding”. In the absence of a major spending increase, "our view is that it will be difficult with the current budget to do anything that's terribly inspiring in the human spaceflight area," said Norman Augustine. Amen.
The ever-optimistic British Colin Pillinger, whose Beagle 2 Mars lander was lost six years ago, hopes to fly a magnetic mass spectrometer aboard as a piggyback instrument on co-operative future mission. Meanwhile, Canada’s MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates plans an Odyssey Moon, to be launched in 2012 at the earliest and Pillinger hopes that a follow-up mission could be a “Lunar Beagle”. Odyssey Moon is one of 16 competitors for Lunar X Prize. The launcher could be a Minotaur V or a Space-X Falcon 9.
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has found “evidence” of a high-speed collision between two potential planets around a young star. Apparently, the bodies are the size of the moon and Mercury and are 100 light years away, which is 1005878499812499 miles away, which puts things into perspective.
Landsat 5 tumbled out of control and power was at a critical level in the early morning of 13 August, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
The Planck space telescope has begun to collect light left over from the Big Bang explosion that created our universe say scientists. The mission, which is led by the European Space Agency with important participation from NASA, will help answer the most fundamental of questions: How did space itself pop into existence and expand to become the universe we live in today? Most scientists think the answer is hidden in ancient light, called the cosmic microwave background, which has travelled more than 13 billion years to reach us. Planck “will measure tiny variations in this light with the best precision to date”. The actual answer is far more simple: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth”. Genesis 1.1. “When it comes to considering evidence for the existence of God, you have to look beyond the sinlpe childhood reading of the well-known stories in the Bible as literature, to seeing it as God’s message to us. There are two strands of evidence for God’s existence. We see His creation - from a planet made just right for us to live on (the only one so far discovered in the mind-boggling vast universe), to the function of every cell in out bodies. We can see God’d plan of salvation to rescue us from sin, by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s a matter of using the right glasses or looking in the right places. Anyone will find God if they look for Him rather than looking for a theoretical Big Bang. There are many-man-made myths such as evolution, the Big Bang, Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy and moon conspiracy theories, which, by examination of the facts, are proven false. (John Bellis).
50 years ago
13 August 1959
The US Air Force Discoverer 5 was launched by a Thor Agena A carrying a re-entry capsule with relatively high resolution of military targets. However, the capsule was not recovered.
14 August
The US Army and the JPL launched a Juno 2 from Cape Canaveral carrying a Project Beacon satellite but the booster failed.
NASA’s Explorer 6 succeeded is taking the first image of the Earth from orbit from an altitude of 17,000 miles. The crude image covered an area of 20,000 sq miles of the north central Pacific Ocean.
40 years ago
13 August 1969
The Soviet Union launched a Kosmos 3 booster from Plesetsk, carrying a military Tsyklon navigation satellite into a 74deg inclination orbit.
The Apollo 11 crew was treated to a New York ticker-tape welcome and were later honoured by President Nixon.
8-11 August (11 August 2009)
NASA will assist the development of commercial manned and cargo spacecraft with $50 million and has already pledged to use cargo craft to supply the International Space Station. The first companies are Space-X and Orbital Sciences which will paid $1.6 billion for 12 flights and $1.9 for eight flights for $1.9 billion through to 2016.
NASA’s Kepler space telescope has transmitted “precision images” of the earlier discovered “a hot Jupter” planet around a star, called HAT-P-7-B, 1,000 light years away. (10005878499812499 miles away).
The Augustine panel has come up with a menu of possible scenarios of future manned space exploration options but no decisions have been made. The scenarios include the original Ares 1-Ares V configuration, swopping the Ares 1 with a human-rated Delta IV, Falcon 9 and Taurus 2, dropping the International Space Station by 2015, using manned Soyuz transporters, using Ares V-Lite for manned missions to lunar orbit and later. Larger budgets could allow using Shuttle-based heavy lifter for moon outposts. The ISS could be extended to 2020 and Ares rockets could be replaced by Soyuz and commercial LEO boosters. Several Ares boosters could be used for in-space fuelling to support moon missions using Mars hardware instead of using the moon as a step to Mars. Arianespace has offered supply missions to the ISS and further afield. Even the members of the panels admitted that the options were not particular “clear cut”. This is a start but it is really a copy of previous plans. NASA doesn’t know what to do.
40 years ago
9 August 1969
NASA launched a Thor Delta from Complex 17 at Cape Canaveral, carrying the 630lb Orbiting Solar Observatory 6 into a 303-344 mile, 32deg inclination orbit, with a secondary satellite, PAC 1, a satellite weighing 260lb testing gravity-gradiant technologies.
12 August
NASA launched the 1,809lb ATS 5 technology communications satellite into GEO at 108degW to demonstrate North-South station-keeping using an ion engine but the gravity-gradiant stabilisation failed. In 2007, it was at 111.70deg E. “New US Satellite May Assist Civil Aviation”. Oooops “Satellite Wobble” .
NASA launched Echo I, the world's first passive communications satellite, from Cape Canaveral on Aug. 12, 1960. "The principal use of the Echo satellite," Sky and Telescope said, "is in radio communication experiments, in which reflection from the 100 foot sphere is used to relay signals beyond the curve of the earth." Coated with a thin layer of aluminum, Sky and Telescope said the satellite had a "reflection of 98 percent for radio frequencies." Echo I carried two "11-ounce radio beacons to assist in locating and tracking the satellite," said "Satellite Handbook: A Record of NASA Space Missions; 1958-1960" (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/1981). The aluminum coating also reflected sunlight to the point that Sky and Telescope said the balloon shined brighter than Vega, "our fifth brightest star." Echo I was "readily visible to the unaided eye from nearly every part of the world." Several sources reported the satellite, viewed from Earth, might be the most-seen man-made object in space. During a holiday in August 1961 just aged 13, our family visited Venice during a camping holiday, where I managed to buy a copy of the Daily Express newspaper featuring the launch of another Soviet in space, Gherman Titov on 6 August. I read the report out loud to my family - who I am sure were very interested - while sitting in a gondola on a canal. Later we went to St Mark’s Square. It was getting a bit dark and many tourists were wandering around, enjoying the atmosphere. I looked up into the darkening sky and saw a bright star wandering across the sky. It was obvious to me that this was Echo 1, a satellite launched in August 1960 - a huge aluminised balloon,100ft in diameter which reflected the light very well. I pointed at it and said, “There’s Echo 1!” My family all looked up and pointed. Some people next me asked me what it was and I told them. They pointed at it and said something to the people next to them. The multilingual news spread across the square and it seemed hundreds of arms were pointing outstretched at the skies, with many voices saying the word “satellite” in various accents. What power I had that day! (Extract from Tim’s autobiography book “One Small Steppe” . 1948-1989. For sale at www.spaceport.co.uk)
5-7 August (7 August 2009)
Arianespace has made a very sensible proposal to NASA – forget about Ares and use the reliable Ariane 5, especially as heavier versions of the European booster are under development. Three plans for the Review of US Human Space Flight Plans Committee have emerged which fit into a projected $80 billion 2010-2020. Review chairman, Norman Augustine said, “there is no sense in proposing things that are dead on arrival”. He added that a heavy lift booster is imperative. The final report will be published on 31 August.
China’s first Mars probe has been delivered to Russia in preparation of its launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in October. The orbiting craft will reach Mars in September 2010.
India plans to launch a 12 Ku and 12 C band satellite, GSAT 10 within 20 months to replace Insat 2E and 3B.
50 years ago
7 August 1959
NASA launched a “paddlewheel satellite”, Explorer 6 aboard a Thor Able 3 booster from Cape Canaveral with 14 experiments, which also transmitted a crude picture of the Earth from 17,000 miles. The satellite was placed into a highly elliptical 26,000-156 miles orbit.
40 years ago
6 August 1969
The Soviet Union launched a Cyclone booster from Baikonur carrying Cosmos 291, an ASAT target into 89-340 miles, 62deg inclination orbit but the satellite failed to enter into the planned orbit, so the launch of the simulated ASAT intercept satellite was cancelled.
7 August
NASA’s planned Apollo Lunar Rover’s weight was restricted to 181kg due to restriction in the weight of the Apollo spacecraft stack.
The Soviet Union launched a Proton K from Baikonur carrying the 11,858lb Zond 7 on a circumlunar path around the moon in preparation for a manned Zond mission. The flight was the only Zond successful mission landing after a double-dip re-entry landing 50km away from the target area near Kustani.
NASA’s Mariner 7 Mars fly-by mission stirred up a“life on Mars” sensation due to the discovery of chemical compounds of methane and ammonia. British sensational headlines: “Hint of Past Life on Mars”. “Gases hint at life on Mars”. “Clue to Life on Mars – Scientists “excited by new discovery”. “The clues that say there is life on Mars”. “Mariner 7 finds clues to life on Mars”.
30-31 July to 1-4 August (4 August 2009)
Russia launched six small satellites aboard a Dnepr booster from Baikonur on 29 July, including the Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL) UK-DMC2 and the Spanish Deimos 1 to bolster the company’s Disaster Monitoring Constellation, which was launched in 2002. The other satellites were DubaiSat 1, AprizeSat 3 and 4 and Nanosat 1B.
The final Space Shuttle SSME engine was fired for 520s on 29 July as the John C. Stennis Space Centre gears up for test to support the J-2X engine for the planned Ares 1 booster, the Presidential Review Panel is considering cancelling the Ares 1 and going ahead with the Saturn 5-class Ares 5 heavy booster. Two boosters would launch Altair lunar landers and Earth departure stages but the $81.5 billion NASA exploration budget - $26.5 billion less than previous budget projections - would delay manned lunar landings to 2024-28 making the plan a mockery. Go for Mars now!
The STS 127 Endeavour mission to the International Space Station ended on 31 July after a 15d 16hr 44min 58s mission. Retuning on the Shuttle were commander Mark Polansky, pilot Doug Hurley, flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn, together with Space Station flight engineer, Japan’s Koichi Wakata who was replaced by Tim Kopra. Endeavour delivered the final piece of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo laboratory.
The Universal Rocket Module URM-1 for the planned Angara family of launch vehicles was successfully test-fired at the Rocket & Space Industry Research & Testing Centre, near Moscow on 31 July.
ProtoStar has secured finance from its incumbent lenders to allow it to finance costs.
South Korea has delayed the launch of its first satellite launcher. The Korea Space Launch Vehicle 1 (KSLV-1) will now be launched in a window from 11-18 August. The 33m high rocket, with a 100kg payload has been developed for US $412 million.
The Space Shuttle Discovery was moved to pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Centre on 3 August in preparation for the STS 128 mission to the International Space Station around 25 August with little contingency time. The crew is led by commander Rick Sturckow, with pilot Kevin Ford and mission specialists, Jose Hernandez, Danny Olivas, Patrick Forrester, ESA’s Swedish astronaut, Christer Fuglesang and Nicole Stott who will replace Tim Kopra. The mission is the last crew rotation flight planned for the Space Shuttle.
40 years ago
31 July 1969
NASA’s Mariner 6 flew passed the planet Mars returning approach images. Mariner 7 followed on 4 August. The spacecraft returned a total 143 images and 55 close up. British Headlines: “Riddle of life on Mars could be solved today”. “And this is now its looks on Mars”. “Mars - a red Moon”. “NASA Scientists investigating Mars are to go ahead with the search for life on the planet despite encouraging evidence”. “Confidence for 1973 Mars Landing”. “Life unlikely on Mars”. Life on Mars still in dispute”. “We are on our own”. “Mars dead as those old canals”. “Mars “canals” do exist” “Marvellous Mars”. “Life gases on Mars”. “Hint of Life”.
The US Air Force launched a Thorad Agena D booster from Vandenberg AFB, California carrying a National Reconnaissance Organisation Ferret satellite into a 75deg inclination orbit.
