02 September 2011
NASA Needs Strategic Plan to Manage Orbital Debris Efforts
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02 September 2011
Japan Appoints New Space Minister
Newly elected Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda unveiled his cabinet appointments Sept. 2, naming 44-year-old Motohisa Furukawa as Japan’s latest state minister for space development. In addition to space development, Furakawa will also serve as national strategy minister and state minister for economic and fiscal policy.
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01 September 2011
Mission extended for three space station residents
Two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut living aboard the International Space Station are scheduled to return to Earth on Sept. 16, leaving the outpost with a three-person crew until Russia can resume crewed launches of the grounded Soyuz rocket.
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01 September 2011
China reschedules launch of unmanned space module
Chinese scientists have decided to reschedule the launch of the Tiangong-1, an unmanned space module, due to the failed launch of an experimental orbiter, a spokesperson with the project said Thursday.
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01 September 2011
Russian Firm Unveils Plan for Space Tourism
Orbital Technologies, a Russian firm has unveiled its plans for an orbital hotel by 2016 and space tours to Mars by 2030. The news comes as Russia has grounded its Soyuz rockets after an unmanned cargo vessel, bound for the International Space Station, failed to launch into orbit.
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01 September 2011
Orbital Receives License for Taurus II COTS Demonstration Mission
Orbital Sciences has received a Commercial Space Transportation Launch License from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to conduct the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program demonstration mission in early 2012. An expanded license covering the test flight of the company's Taurus II rocket in late 2011 is expected to be granted in the near future.
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31 August 2011
Russia considering unmanned space station: official
"Perhaps in the future, we will not need a constant manned presence in the lower Earth orbit," Roskosmos deputy director Vitaly Davydov told journalists in Moscow. "We don't exclude the possibility of returning to the concept of DOS (long-term orbital) stations that we had before stations with constant human presence," he said.
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30 August 2011
SpaceX Lobbyist Bitterman Resigns
Mark Bitterman, the veteran lobbyist who in June left Orbital Sciences Corp. to work for rival rocket builder Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX), has resigned from SpaceX. Bitterman, who formally joined SpaceX in July, resigned “for personal reasons.
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30 August 2011
Chang'e-2 moon orbiter travels around L2 in outer space
China's second moon orbiter, the Chang'e-2, has arrived in outer space about 1.5 million km away from Earth and is now orbiting the second Lagrange Point (L2), where gravity from the sun and Earth balances the orbital motion of a satellite, Chinese scientists said Tuesday.
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29 August 2011
Shannon to review options for deep space exploration
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has asked outgoing space shuttle Program Manager John Shannon to carry out an independent assessment of competing options for eventual manned missions beyond low-Earth orbit, officials say. The review will include extensive input from NASA's international partners to align "our efforts with the international space community," Bolden said in a letter to senior NASA managers.
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29 August 2011
Russian Launch Failure Likely To Delay Sept. Manned Mission
The recent launch failure of a Russian Soyuz-U rocket carrying a Progress capsule likely will postpone the planned Sept. 22 launch of the Soyuz TMA-22 manned spacecraft until late October, according to an Interfax report quoting a well-informed source at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
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26 August 2011
Thales Alenia Space's Cygnus PCM shipped to United States
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26 August 2011
NASA: James Webb Telescope Expected To Cost $8.7 Billion
“NASA has completed a JWST replan that assumes a revised life-cycle-cost of about $8.7 billion and a launch readiness date of October 2018,” agency spokesman Trent Perrotto said in an Aug. 26 email to Space News. “The $8.7 billion life-cycle-cost includes development, launch, and five years of operations and science costs.”
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25 August 2011
Neil Armstrong urges return to the Moon
Neil Armstrong has urged a return to the Moon to train for missions to Mars as the United States contemplates the future of its space programme following the end of the shuttle era. The first man to walk on the Moon is due to address the US Congress on new directions for NASA in coming weeks.
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25 August 2011
African space research: Dreaming of a manned shuttle
It would be easy to laugh at Chris Nsamba, founder of the African Space Research Programme.
For a start, his research centre is based in his back garden where there's not much evidence of the type of sophisticated tools and machinery I'd imagine you need for this kind of work. When I was there, most of the engineers were equipped with just sandpaper and paint brushes.
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23 August 2011
Robonaut successfully passes first test on ISS
NASA astronaut Mike Fossum switched on Robonaut, which got its first commands from Earth, and was able to open its eyes - cameras. The first view through the robot's eyes was a complicated panel of cables, dials and instruments. Robonaut will make its first movement on September 1.
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23 August 2011
Russian, European space agencies to team up for Mars mission
With just months to go before the end of a Moscow-based simulated journey to Mars, the European Space Agency (ESA) head said on Wednesday a joint mission with Russia to the Red Planet was in the pipeline. Speaking to reporters at an air show near Moscow on Wednesday, ESA head Jean-Jacques Dordain said ESA and Russia's Roskosmos space agency would "carry out the first flight to Mars together."
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23 August 2011
Chinese scientists come up with plan to save Earth from asteroid hit
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23 August 2011
Auditors to NASA: Don't trust your own cost estimates
NASA's internal cost assumptions for developing a colossal heavy-lift Space Launch System and multi-purpose spacecraft are too optimistic should not be fully trusted, according to an independent analysis by Booz Allen Hamilton.
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FOR FURTHER READING
29 August 2011
Armstrong relives historic Moon landing
The Apollo 11 commander, now aged 81, relived the 1969 mission that enthralled the world as he watched Google's new high-definition images of the Moon in Australia last week.
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29 August 2011
Russia enters the era of space realism
The recent string of spaceflight accidents in Russia is the symptom of a deep crisis in the nation's aerospace industry. Experts say it's time to tone down the rhetoric about Russia being a "great space power." Russia must overcome possible new setbacks and work hard in order to return to the level of quality of 20 years ago.
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29 August 2011
Resilient, disaggregated, and mixed constellations
US military space programs are facing a vicious cycle of cost, complexity, and requirements that is no longer sustainable. Thomas Taverney proposes that large, exquisite systems should be replaced by constellations that mix big spacecraft with smaller, less expensive ones.
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29 August 2011
Worrying about a lack of Progress
The International Space Station program suffered a setback last week when a Progress cargo spacecraft failed to each orbit. Jeff Foust reports on the effect the failure will have on access to the station for cargo and crews as well as its role in the ongoing political debate about NASA’s future.
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29 August 2011
Exploration initiatives from the private sector
Prospects for human space exploration seem uncertain at best, given limited direction and funding concerns. Lou Friedman sees some hope, though, in the form on new initiatives from the private sector.
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29 August 2011
The Grey Ghost, fading
The USS Hornet earned a place in history by serving as the recovery ship for Apollo 11. Dwayne Day describes how the carrier, now a museum, is quietly sitting in an abandoned port in the San Francisco Bay area, rusting away.
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29 August 2011
The Mars Consortium 2011
THow can governments win public support for funding human expeditions to Mars? Frank Stratford argues they may have to be pushed to do so by private initiatives.
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