BEIJING — China estimates it will account for about 30% of the world’s space launches for the rest of the decade, more than doubling its recent launch pace, according to national space group CASC.
HOUSTON — The International Space Station program is looking to a late March launch of a Russian Soyuz capsule with three crew as its first opportunity to demonstrate a much-abbreviated, four-orbit crew transfer to the orbiting science laboratory, NASA ISS Program Manager Mike Suffredini said Jan. 17. The planned March 27 launch of the Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft would carry NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin.
BEIJING — China will have the capacity to build six to eight large spacecraft a year, including space station modules and big reconnaissance satellites, at an assembly and test plant due for completion in August 2014.
PARIS — Ankara is planning development of a national satellite launch system capable of delivering military and civil spacecraft to orbit, according to Turkish Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz. Following a Jan. 3 meeting of Turkey’s Defense Industry Executive Committee, Yilmaz said the government will enter negotiations with Turkish weapons builder Roketsan Inc. for the early concept design phase of a new launch system “to ensure that military and civilian satellites can be sent into space,” according to a Jan. 3 statement.
SATELLITE EXPORT: The U.S. Export-Import Bank has authorized an $87.1 million loan guarantee to facilitate the assembly and sale of an Orbital Sciences Corp. Ku-band satellite to Hispasat Canarias, a subsidiary of the Madrid-based Hispasat. The Amazonas-4A satellite is expected to launch in 2014 and occupy Hispasat’s orbital slot over Brazil to provide high-definition television broadcasts to the Americas.
EDWARDS AFB, Calif. — NASA is preparing to flight test a scaled version of a towed-glider air-launch concept that it believes has the potential to “dramatically” reduce the cost of launching payloads into orbit.
Engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center have test-fired a gas generator built from parts originally manufactured for the F-1 first-stage engine that sent men to the Moon on the Saturn V. One reason for the tests is to learn if the old technology can help the planned Space Launch System (SLS) heavy lifter get off the pad for missions beyond low Earth orbit. Some of the engineers on the test series had not been born when the 40-year-old hardware was machined by North American Aviation's Rocketdyne Div.
NASA will pay Bigelow Aerospace $17.8 million to test this subscale inflatable habitat module at the International Space Station, using instruments and station crewmembers to study whether the technology will allow the housing of astronauts and their gear on their way to Mars.
HOUSTON — NASA’s Orion project will pursue an aggressive strategy to reduce the mass of the four-person capsule that serves as a centerpiece of U.S. efforts to develop a new human deep space exploration capability, according to participants in the first phase of a long-running integrated systems definition review of the multi-element initiative that kicked off this week.
Jesco von Puttkamer, a protégé of Wernher von Braun whose NASA career ranged from the Apollo manned lunar landing project to the International Space Station, died Dec. 27 of a flu-like illness. He was 79. At his death he was still active at the U.S. space agency, producing a daily online rundown of activities on the ISS.
LOS ANGELES — NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity is poised to begin drilling on the planet’s surface for the first time following the selection of an area of flat rock containing a target-rich environment of fractures, veins and mineral concentrations. Drilling will provide samples that will be used to obtain detailed data about the mineral and chemical composition of the rocks as part of Curiosity’s main mission to investigate whether Mars ever offered an environment suitable for life.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee since 2009, does not plan to run for re-election in 2014. That will leave the committee with an open spot at the top, just after the departure of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), who resigned at the end of the 112th Congress. Rockefeller was a strong advocate for rural airports, resisting efforts by Republicans to scrap the Essential Air Service program.
Jesco von Puttkamer, a protege of Wernher von Braun whose NASA career ranged from the Apollo manned lunar landing project to the International Space Station, died Dec. 27, of a flu-like illness at home in Alexandria, Va. He was 79. At his death, von Puttkamer was still active at the U.S. space agency, producing a daily online rundown of activities on the International Space Station.
