Universe Today

Surveyor Finds Magnetic Stripes on Mars

Mars Global Surveyor has found formations of magnetic rock on Mars that closely resemble magnetic streaks on Earth. Although it’s now geologically a dead planet, these formations indicate the Mars could have had plate tectonics in the past.

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New Space Shuttle Cockpit Installed

NASA recently unveiled a completely new Space Shuttle cockpit for Atlantis. Similar to a Boeing 777, the instrument panels are now LCD display screens which give the pilots much easier access to the Shuttle’s many functions.

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Milstar Satellite Failure

Officials announced that the latest Air Force launch has ended in complete failure. The Defense Department’s Milstar satellite, launched on a Titan Four-B rocket was stranded in a lopsided orbit, 15,000 miles too low. The $1.2 Billion cost for the satellite and rocket was completely wasted.

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NASA Unveils X-34 Space Plane

NASA’s new X-34 robotic space plane was unveiled on Friday. Designed as a testbed for new technologies, the X-34 will launch from an airliner and travel 8 times the speed of sound, and rise to an altitude of 76 kilometers. There are 27 flights planned for the first year of operations.

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IKONOS Never Made it to Orbit

Telemetry from the recent launch of the IKONOS 1 space imaging satellite indicates that it was never placed into orbit, and likely burned up in the atmosphere, or crashed into the South Pacific Ocean. This is the first unsuccessful launch of an Athena II rocket since they were first operational in 1997.

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Weather Satellite Preparing for Launch

The latest Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GEOS) is being prepared for a May 15th launch from Cape Canaveral. Designed to provide forecasters with advance warning of weather conditions, the satellite will act as a backup for the two GEOS already in orbit.

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New Evidence Shows Galactic Collisions More Common

A new imaging technique has allowed astronomers to discover a greater number of galactic collisions than was previously known. Astronomers believe that spiral galaxies with thick bars of stars are formed from these hits (and near misses).

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Congress Considers Launch Insurance Coverage

Commercial launch companies are currently required to pay several hundred million dollars of insurance in case there’s an accident on launch – the government extends this with an additional $1.5 billion of coverage. Congress is considering how long to continue this coverage, if at all.

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Businessman May Pay for Mir Flight

To help cover maintenance costs, Russian officials have agreed to let a British businessman pay $100 million for a week-long trip on the Mir spacestation. There is some confusion about the status of the deal, though, and it could have been prematurely announced by eager Russian dealmakers.

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IKONOS Goes Missing

Technicians lost contact with the IKONOS high-resolution imaging satellite shortly after liftoff. The satellite, built by Lockheed Martin, was launched from Vandenberg Air Base on an Athena II rocket, and it’s unknown whether the satellite made it to orbit intact.

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Chandra Delay Announced

Because it was designed to use the same Inertial Upper Stage as the Air Force’s misplaced satellite, NASA has decided to delay the launch of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory until a detailed investigation has been completed. Chandra was originally planned for launch July 9th.

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Next Delta Launch Attempt Scheduled

In the ongoing soap opera of launch attempts to get the Orion 3 satellite into orbit, Boeing has rescheduled the Cape Canaveral facility for May 3rd. This will be their 4th attempt to loft the satellite – a software glitch aborted the Delta III rocket from firing last time.

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High-Resolution Satellite to Launch

The first commercial high-resolution imaging satellite it due to launch tomorrow. Launching on a Lockheed Martin Athena II four-stage booster, the IKONOS will be capable of resolving images down to 1 square meter. With its polar orbit, the IKONOS will revisit the same territory every 3 days.

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Mir’s Staying Up, Service Module Complete

Following its announcement of raising Mir’s orbit, and synched up with the completion of the International Space Station service module, Russian officials have confirmed that the space station will stay in space. Work on the ISS has been delayed 18 months due to Russian financial difficulties.

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Spaceports Looking for Construction Locations

Entrepreneurs are vying for a chance to build the commercial hub for the next century – a spaceport. With over 1,700 satellites planned for launch in the next 10 years, developers are eyeing many US sites for future spaceports.

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Japanese Space Station Module Named

The Japan National Space Development Agency has found a name for its addition to the International Space Station. Previously the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM), it has been renamed to “Kibo”, the Japanese word for “Hope”.

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Blanket Could be Blocking Surveyor’s Hinge

Engineers are trying to determine what’s causing the malfunctioning hinge on the Mars Global Surveyor – the latest suspect is a thermal blanket that could be restricting the hinge’s movement. Whether or not they fix the problem, Surveyor will start a mapping mission of Mars next week.

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Mir Moving to Higher Orbit

Plans are being drawn up by Russian space officials to move Mir to a higher orbit. This indicates Russia’s willingness to continue operating the ancient spacestation, even though NASA is pressuring them to abandon it, and focus development on the International Space Station.

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Scientists Search for Extreme Life

Scientists are travelling to Antarctica to find life living in extreme conditions around our South Pole – such as creatures that dwell in thermal vents, 4 miles under the surface of the ocean. The research study is part of the National Science Foundation’s “Life in Extreme Environments” (LExEn) program.

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May Will Bring Mars Closest in 9 Years

A rare astronomical event will occur in May – Mars will be the closest it ever gets, only 52.8 million miles. In addition, the Red Planet is in opposition, which means its face is completely lit up by the Sun. Amateur astronomers will be able to see normally obscure features like the polar caps and canyons.

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Delta III Launch Aborted

The Boeing Delta III continues to disappoint, after the latest launch attempt of the Orion 3 satellite was aborted when the rocket’s engine failed to start. Engineers will wait at least another 48 hours before trying again – their fifth attempt.

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Argentine Craters Could Be Russian Satellite Crashsite

Argentine officials are investigating a set of small craters (4 meters across), which could be the remains of a crashed Russian space probe. Officials are concerned, as the probe was carrying 200 grams of highly-radioactive plutonium.

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Possible Cause Found for Air Force Satellite Glitch

Investigators suspect that a malfunctioning nozzle on the second stage of the Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) probably caused the misplaced Air Force Defense Support Program satellite. It’s also unlikely that the satellite can be recovered, and is locked in a useless orbit.

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Oldest Known Map of the Moon Uncovered

A Canadian researcher has discovered what he believes is the oldest known map of the moon, carved into the rock at a Neolithic site in Ireland. Believed to be over 5,000 years old, the carving predates any other drawing of the moon by 4,500 years.

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Hubble Gyro Fails

Known to be on its last legs for almost 3 months, an ailing Hubble gyro has finally failed completely. This leaves Hubble with three functioning gyros – the minimum it requires to point accurately. Astronauts on the Space Shuttle will replace all the gyroscopes in a planned service mission in October.

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First Converted ICBM Satellite Launch

Surrey Satellite Technology’s latest microsatellite, the UoSAT-12, was launched today on a de-militarized Russian ICBM SS18 (inter-continental ballistic missile). This is the first launch of this repurposed cold war weapon, which easily lifted the 350kg payload into a 650km orbit.

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Delta III Launch Rescheduled

Boeing has announced that it will make another attempt to launch the Lockheed Martin-built Orion 3 telecommunications satellite on board a Delta III rocket on Wednesday. This will be the second Delta III launch – the first exploded just over a minute into its flight.

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Mars Surveyor 2001 to Carry Sundial

Inscribed with the motto “Two Worlds, One Sun”, a sundial carried by the Mars Surveyor 2001 will be landed on the surface of Mars in early 2002. Images of the sundial, which was designed with ideas submitted by children to NASA, will be transmitted back to Earth, and available on the Internet.

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Surveyor Transmitting, But Still Not Fixed

Unable to fix the malfunctioning hinge on the Mars Global Surveyor’s high-gain boom antenna, engineers have turned the entire spacecraft to face Earth. The probe has been pulled out of “contingency mode” and NASA engineers will attempt to restore the hinge later this week.

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Hubble Views Images of Io

Recent photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope have shown images of Io, one of Jupiter’s moons crossing the surface of the planet. Another image shows a volcano spewing from the surface of the Jovian moon.

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Artistic Satellite will be Launched on 50,000 Year Journey

Developed to symbolize mankind’s passion for art, a French artist is creating a unique spacecraft, which will travel on a 50,000 year journey orbiting the Earth, and then reenter our atmosphere. On board will be a CD-ROM containing messages from people interested in the project. (Hope they have CD-ROMs in 50,000 years).

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Light-Powered Saucer a Reality

Professor Leik Myrabo is working on what he believes will be the next wave of spacecraft design – a saucer that rises to orbit powered by a laser beam. If his theories are correct, it may reduce the cost of launching into orbit by a factor of 1,000.

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Hubble Captures Images of the Moon

Designed to catch light from the dimmest stars, the immense light-gathering power of the Hubble Space Telescope was used to capture images from a target much closer to home – the Moon. Hubble was aimed at a 93km wide impact crater, where it produced photographs of crisp detail.

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Darwinian Principles Applied to Space Exploration

The current opinion of NASA – that hordes of small space probes are more cost-effective than larger, expensive spacecraft – could be under serious criticism, thanks to a new evolutionary computer program designed to breed spacecraft designs to determine the most cost effective probes.

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NASA Approves Gore’s Satellite Idea

NASA has approved the development of a controversial satellite called Triana, designed to provide ongoing footage of the Earth from one of the Lagrange points. The controversy stems from the fact that the idea for this $75 Million satellite was provided by Vice-President Gore – even though there have been many recent NASA budget cuts.

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Cassini Suffers Renewed Backlash

The atomic-powered Cassini spacecraft is back for a gravity boost from the Earth before it speeds its way onto Saturn. This concerns nuclear activists, who fear that the spacecraft may collide with the Earth and spray us with radioactivity.

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Astronauts Complete Partially Successful Mir Spacewalk

Russian cosmonaut Viktor Afanasyev and French astronaut Jean-Pierre Heignere spent six hours “spacewalking” outside of the Mir spacestation on Friday. Their goal was to repair some holes in the hull and perform a few experiments, but they ran out of time and had to return before completing their mission.

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Global Surveyor Suffers Antenna Glitch

The Mars Global Surveyor was attempting to deploy its high-gain antenna boom to point at Earth when it developed a problem with one of its hinges. The spacecraft was put into “contingency mode” while JPL and Lockheed Martin engineers attempt to determine the problem.

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Team Delays Mercury Capsule Salvage

Suffering problems with its equipment, the team planning to retrieve the Mercury space capsule delayed its operation at least a day – they expect to head out Monday. The team is looking for the Mercury capsule that almost drowned astronaut Gus Grissom when an emergency hatch blew open after splashdown in 1961.

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Air Force Plans Investigation into NASA Launch Problems

Thanks to the recent botched launch of the Defense Support Program satellite, the US Air Force is investigating the upper-stage motor that apparently caused the satellite to enter an incorrect orbit. This investigation will probably delay the launch of the Chandra X-ray telescope that is planning to use the same motor.

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