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.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), were presented with a challenge at the start of 2012: get their parties to agree to cut $1.2 trillion from the budget and deal with a series of tax extensions. Failing meant a likely recession caused by inaction, and election-year inertia only raised the stakes.
Astronomers using NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (Sofia), a highly modified Boeing 747SP that carries a 100-in.-dia. IR telescope, have created a series of multiple exposures revealing a ring of gas and dust created in a burst of energy 4-6 million years ago at the center of the Milky Way.
NEW DELHI — India is on track to launch its first Mars orbiter in November of this year, a senior scientist in charge of the mission says. The unmanned satellite, christened “Maangalyaan,” will study the thin Martian atmosphere to determine the existence and sustainability of life and focus on climate, geology, origin and evolution of the planet, the scientist at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) said Jan. 10.
MUOS DELIVERY: Lockheed Martin has finally delivered the waveform needed to fully utilize the Wideband Code Division Multiple Access capabilities offered by the new Mobile User Objective System narrowband communications satellites. The waveform, which is roughly one year late, is needed to allow soldiers, including those on the move, to access voice, data and video communications from various terminals. Though the waveform has been delivered, the capability will not be deployed until the terminals, which are late, are approved for use by the National Security Agency.
With enough money, NASA plans to begin flying its astronauts to the International Space Station before the end of 2017, but nongovernment test pilots may make the trip in one or more of the commercial crew vehicles in development before then. Those private pilots could wind up training their NASA customers to operate the orbital spaceflight vehicles now in development with government backing, as the U.S. space agency moves to hand over post-shuttle access to low Earth orbit to commercial operators.
PARIS — Russia’s Yamal 402 telecommunications satellite has successfully passed in-orbit checkout and is ready to begin operational service in its final location at 54.9 deg. E. Long., nearly a month after the premature shutdown of a Briz M upper stage on Dec. 9 left the Ku-band spacecraft in the wrong orbit.
PARIS — European launch services provider Arianespace says it generated sales of €1.3 billion ($1.7 billion) spread across 10 launches in 2012, a 30% increase over 2011 and a record that will see the company break even for the year, with the help of annual price supports financed by the European Space Agency (ESA) to keep the commercial launch consortium from operating at a loss.
BEIJING — China has declared its Beidou satellite navigation system fully operational, although the service remains limited to most of the Asia-Pacific region. The operating office says it is “accelerating” construction of the system, but repeats its longstanding commitment to achieve global coverage by about 2020; no earlier possibility is mentioned.
Final prelaunch tests will begin Jan. 11 for NASA’s Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) mission now that Lockheed Martin Space Systems has completed integrating the science instruments with the spacecraft at its Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto, Calif.
HOUSTON — U.S. and Russian medical experts will draw from seven broad areas as they establish a research agenda in early 2013 for a one-year mission aboard the International Space Station flown by NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko, test cosmonaut from RSC Energia. The ISS veterans were selected in late November by the U.S. and Russian space agencies to train for the long flight expected to launch in March 2015 and potentially reveal health or performance concerns for future human deep space exploration.
planet candidates: NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has discovered 461 new planet candidates, NASA announced Jan. 7. Four are less than twice the size of Earth and orbit in their respective stars’ “habitable zone” in which liquid water can exist on the surface, the agency says. The observations, gathered from May 2009 to March 2011, “show a steady increase in the number of smaller-size planet candidates and the number of stars with more than one candidate,” NASA says.
A new “block buy” deal for the U.S. Air Force to buy the next two satellites designed by Lockheed Martin to provide nuclear-hardened communications for the president and military commanders is estimated to save the government almost $1.5 billion. But the cost of each Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellite, used for routine secure communications globally as well as presidential command and control of nuclear forces, still exceeds the $1 billion mark.
HOUSTON — Robonaut 2, a NASA and General Motors collaboration to develop an astronaut-friendly humanoid, is due a pair of legs and a battery backpack later this year to give it more mobility inside and eventually outside the International Space Station. The two-armed, camera and force-sensor-laced torso launched to the station aboard a February 2011 space shuttle mission. It has been restrained to a stanchion in the station’s U.S. Destiny laboratory since it was awakened electronically for the first time late the following August.
HOUSTON — Astronauts assigned to multi-month or multi-year missions to near-Earth asteroids and Mars may face an accelerated onset of Alzheimer’s-like symptoms from cosmic radiation exposure, according to a NASA-funded study by researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) that used mice as subjects.
Hurricane Sandy came and went in late 2012, as did many of the startup issues at Virginia’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), elevating the prospects that Orbital Sciences Corp. will complete its NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems program milestones in the new year and begin lucrative cargo deliveries to the International Space Station.
