SINGAPORE — Arianespace Chairman and CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall dismisses talk of consolidation among satellite makers. “In Europe there used to only be two main manufacturers of satellites,” Le Gall told Aviation Week June 19. “A few years ago people were wondering ‘When will they merge?’ The thinking was that it was better to have one rather than two, but then we ended up with three in Europe.”
PARIS — After several nail-biting weeks, the cross-shaped south solar array on the Intelsat 19 telecommunications satellite deployed on June 12. “We also deployed the communication payload antennas,” said Intelsat Chief Technology Officer Thierry Guilleman in an interview. “We are in good shape to enter into the in-orbit testing phase right now,” a process that will take 2-3 weeks, he says. The deployment occurred following four apogee maneuver firings on June 11.
NRO A GO: United Launch Alliance and the U.S. Air Force are preparing to launch the National Reconnaissance Office’s classified NROL-38 satellite at 8:28 a.m. EDT June 20 from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. Launch was set for June 18 but was pushed back to allow the replacement of an environmental control system duct, which required the Atlas V rocket to be rolled back from the pad. Forecasters showed a 70% chance of favorable weather conditions for launch.
Upcoming U.S. commercial human spaceflights will be licensed by FAA for launch and reentry, but until private companies start sending their own crews and paying customers into orbit, NASA will decide if their vehicles are safe enough for astronauts. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and acting FAA Administrator Michael Huerta announced an agreement between their agencies June 18, outlining roles and responsibilities as NASA advances its plans to buy transportation for U.S., Canadian, European and Japanese astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).
LOS ANGELES — The U.S. Air Force’s second X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-2) has landed after 469 days in space, more than double the time clocked by the OTV-1. As with the first OTV flight, the Air Force remains secretive about the mission, saying only that the Boeing-built X-37B conducted “on-orbit experiments.” In a short statement, it says the vehicle provides “return capability” that allows the Air Force to test new technologies without the same risk faced by other programs.
Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Virgin Galactic are working under U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) contracts to design air-launch systems that can orbit sub-100-lb. payloads for $1 million, including range costs. “Previous attempts at air launch did not focus enough on the rocket side,” says Mitchell Burnside Clapp, Darpa’s Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (Alasa) program manager. “They over-invested in an aircraft that could only do one thing—support the launch.”
NASA plans to launch an exterior Earth-observation platform to the International Space Station under a cooperative agreement with Teledyne Brown Engineering, Inc., which builds the flight releasable attachment mechanism (FRAM) manufactured by the Huntsville, Ala.-based subsidiary of Teledyne Technologies Inc.
Spacecraft engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) hope to land the Mars Curiosity rover closer to its target than originally planned, moving the “sky crane” touchdown about 4 mi. nearer the base of the mountain where scientists seek to explore layers of sedimentary rock for evidence that a wetter Mars could have supported life.
PARIS — The European Space Agency (ESA) will negotiate a late 2013 launch window for the first Sentinel Earth observation satellite and continue funding the joint Euro-Russian ExoMars program through the end of this year, according to ESA officials. During a June 13-14 meeting of the ESA ruling council here, the 19-member agency was told it could secure a three-month launch window for the Sentinel 1A satellite beginning in October 2013, despite uncertainty over funding for the spacecraft’s operations.
Technicians at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center soon will begin integrating the first instrument received there for the James Webb Space Telescope. The Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), assembled by the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the U.K., will cover wavelengths of 5-28 microns from the Webb’s planned perch at the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrangian point.
NUSTAR FLIES: NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) is in orbit and sending back signals following its June 13 air-launch over the central Pacific Ocean aboard an Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL rocket dropped from the belly of an L-1011 Stargazer aircraft that took off from Kwajalein Atoll. Ignition took place at approximately 12 p.m. EDT. NuSTAR separated 13 min. later, and the first signals from the spacecraft were received by NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System at 12:14 p.m.
HOUSTON — The enthusiasm for a Mars sample return mission remains high in Europe as well as in the U.S., but it can only be realized if the brightest minds in the global planetary science community can marshal the resources to overcome the technical and political obstacles, according to space agency officials who gathered here June 12 for a NASA-sponsored workshop.
Has rescheduled liftoff of the MSG-3 meteorological spacecraft to July 5 from June 19 to give satellite fleet operator Hughes Network Systems time to conduct additional checks of its EchoStar 17.
HOUSTON — A growing collaborative effort between NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) and the Houston Technology Center (HTC) to establish high-tech startups by leveraging the skills of laid-off shuttle and Constellation program workers as well as other active professionals is beginning to take advantage of synergies with the region’s other economic strong suits: energy, medicine, information technology and emergent nanotechnology.
NUSTAR: NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuStar) high-energy X-ray observatory is on track for an 11:30 a.m. EDT launch June 13 by an Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL rocket dropped from a converted L-1011 commercial jet south of the Kwajalein atoll. During a teleconference from Kwajalein, NASA Launch Director Omar Baez said the drop, at 3:30 a.m. local time, will take place in a 120-mi. square “box” south of Kwajalein from an altitude of 41,000 ft.
HOUSTON — NASA’s Science Mission Directorate is canceling the over-budget Gravity and Extreme Magnetism Small Explorer (GEMS) astrophysics mission, following the denial this week of an appeal from the Goddard Space Flight Center-led science team, the agency announced June 7. Congress is being formally notified that the 2009 mission selection, capped at $119 million, not counting launch costs, is being canceled, says Paul Hertz, NASA’s astrophysics division director.
HOUSTON — A multinational crew of four is scheduled to evaluate a range of asteroid exploration strategies following a June 11 descent to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Aquarius Reef Base undersea habitat off Key Largo, Fla., for a 12-day stay.
