Fresh off delaying its human spaceflight program into the 2020s (news that India’s media barely seemed to notice), ISRO is now getting a lot of press for this much smaller, reusable test vehicle project. Although the science reporter in the video above compares this to the U.S. space shuttle, this is really a relatively small testbed for evaluating new technologies. This print report is a bit more accurate: The design […]
AUTHOR
Doug Messier
Overview of Major ESA Activities in 2012
Expected key events of the year
FEBRUARY
First launch of Vega
Europe’s family of launchers will welcome its smallest member, Vega.
Location: CSG, Europe’s Spaceport (French Guiana)
Date: 9 February
BepiColombo presentation to media
ESA’s mission to explore Mercury will undergo extensive testing in 2012. The complete launch stack configuration (Structural and Thermal Model), composed of the European and Japanese orbiters, the Transfer Module and the Sunshield, will be assembled for mechanical testing and presented to the media.
Location: ESTEC, Noordwijk, (The Netherlands)
Date: February
Early-bird registration for the Next-generation Suborbital Researchers Conference expires on Thursday, Jan. 12. Miss this deadline and you will have to pay full price. The conference is being held in Palo Alto, Calif., from Monday, February 27, 2012 through Wednesday, February 29, 2012. Organizer Alan Stern tells me: “Abstracts are up 25% from 2011, and we just signed on June Scobee Rogers (talking her desire to fly as an educator), […]
The National Space Society (NSS) is proud to announce that Lt. Col. Paul E. Damphousse USMC (Ret) has been named Executive Director effective January 1, 2012. The appointment of Lt. Col. Damphousse coincides with the 25th anniversary of the 1987 merger of the National Space Institute (NSI) and the L5 Society to form the National Space Society.
The Lurio Report FOR PRICING & SUBSCRIPTIONS: New Year Specials, Armadillo, SpaceX’s COTS Flight, Why Stratolaunch? Vol. 7, No. 1, January 9, 2012 Contents: – Special Items For the New Year – Subscribing Made Easier Book Note – “Chase for Space” by Nejc Trošt Quick Updates: “Stig A” Carries Armadillo to New Heights XCOR Photo Notes Dear Acquaintances, – A Perspective on SpaceX’s Combined COTS Test Flight – Plans and […]
This week on The Space Show with David Livingston…. 1. Monday, January 9, 2012: 2-3:30 PM PST: We welcome back Dr. Louis Friedman. Dr. Friedman is the Executive Director Emeritus of the Planetary Society and is the Program Director for The Planetary Society LightSail program which focuses on solar sails. 2. Tuesday, January 10, 2012, 7-8:30 PM PST: We welcome back Dr. Bruce Cordell with updates to his work with […]
Richard Branson waves to the crowd after landing at the $209 million spaceport that New Mexican taxpayers are building for him in 2010. From left to right are then-New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, and then-New Mexico Spaceport Authority Executive Director Rick Homans.
The Observer’s Richard Wachman asks an interesting question I’ve been wondering about a lot lately:
Virgin brands: What does Richard Branson really own?
The sprawling business empire that makes up Richard Branson’s Virgin investment group consists of about 400 operations, a tangled web of enterprises owned via a complicated series of offshore trusts and overseas holding companies.
Branson’s finances are difficult to penetrate because of their complexity and opaqueness, with few of his large companies wholly owned by Branson himself. His big-branded firms such as Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Money, Virgin Media and Virgin Trains have other major shareholders. In some cases, he simply licenses the brand to a company that has purchased a subsidiary from him, and these include Virgin Mobile USA, Virgin Mobile Australia, Virgin Radio and Virgin Music (now part of EMI). In return, as the licence holder of the Virgin brand, he receives annual or triennial fees that can amount to hundreds of millions over time.
By forging partnerships with cash-rich allies, Branson has established new businesses without depleting the group’s reserves and spending little to establish new ventures in sectors such as mobile telecoms. But initiatives come straight from Branson, who prides himself on his ability to spot a gap in the market. He is not a numbers or a details man and leaves the everyday running of his firms to a group of lieutenants.
Which brings us to Virgin Galactic. And the numbers there are really interesting.
Phobos-Grunt in orbit around the Earth. (Credit: Ralph Vandeberg -- used by permission)
The latest update from Roscosmos on its failed Mars mission’s arrival back at the home office:
“The Earth’s surface can reach the remains of the spacecraft from the heat-resistant materials in the amount of the order of 20-30 pieces and total weight not exceeding 200 kg. The components of the fuel burn of the spacecraft in the dense atmosphere of the Earth at an altitude of approximately 100 kilometers.
“Radioisotope source (cobalt-57), set in one of the scientific instruments, spacecraft – Mossbauer spectrometer has a mass not exceeding 10 micrograms, a small half-life and will not cause dangerous contamination.
“Many years of international statistics shows that when leaving the orbit, spacecraft are almost always completely burned in the dense atmosphere, and their residual fragments, as a rule, do no harm.”
Oh, re-entry is likely to occur between Jan. 10 and 21, probably the 15th give or take a day. And it will come down somewhere between 51.4 degrees south and 51.4 degrees north. I’m not an expert in such things, but that sounds like most anywhere.
I’ve reproduced the full press release below.
Well, it’s been a tough week here in my new home of Mojave. I’ve been battling a miserable head cold, struggling to finish a freelance assignment, working with one laptop that’s dying and another one born in the Peleoprocessilithic era, struggling with Internet connectivity problems, desperately trying to keep the post-holiday blues at bay, and uh….well, that’s about it. Actually, that’s just about enough.
Fortunately, things improved as the days passed. By week’s end, I had finished my assignment, reached some degree of equilibrium with my various technology malfunctions, and was feeling well enough to make it outside to enjoy some of the spring-like weather we were having in the desert before it disappears.
What? you ask. Spring-like weather in the desert? Isn’t it was always sunny and warm out there?
NO!
It’s the HIGH desert. We’re up over half a mile here (and God knows how many meters…maybe thousands!). It’s the dead of winter and, let me tell you something, winter’s been open for business. We’re talking subfreezing temps at night, snow in the mountains, gale force winds that knock over trucks, dogs and cats living together (’cause it’s too cold for them to roam free), and all sorts of other stuff I don’t even want to get into. This is the first real winter I’ve had since moving to California from Back East 9 years ago, and I’m experiencing it in the middle of the desert. What are the odds?
Former New Mexico Spaceport Authority Executive Director Rick Homans has found a new job in Florida. The Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corporation has hired him as its chief executive officer and president, starting on Jan. 17. Homans and the corporation are negotiating a 3-year contract. Homans had two stint running the NMSA, which oversees the construction and operations of the state’s $209 million Spaceport America facility. Republican Gov. Susana Martinez […]