NASA DETERMINES CAUSE OF CRACKS - NASA said Tuesday that it had figured out what caused the cracking in the fuel tank of the space shuttle Discovery, which has been grounded repeatedly because of technical problems. John Shannon, the shuttle program manager, said Tuesday that inferior material and assembly problems were to blame for the trouble, which included cracks in five aluminum alloy struts in the center of the tank. Those have been patched, NASA said, and technicians will reinforce the dozens of remaining struts as a precaution. More (Source: New York Times - Jan 13)
NASA DELAYS LAUNCH OF SHUTTLE DISCOVERY AGAIN FOR MORE REPAIRS - NASA has delayed the launch of space shuttle Discovery's final flight yet again in order to allow more time repair the spacecraft's beleaguered fuel tank, the space agency announced late Thursday (Jan. 6). The decision came after a meeting of top space shuttle program managers earlier in the day to evaluate the progress of Discovery's fuel tank repairs. From their analysis, the officials opted to push the next launch attempt further back from the previously scheduled Feb. 3 liftoff. More (Source: Space.com - Jan 9)
TURKEY PUSHED FOR ITS OWN ASTRONAUT ON SPACE SHUTTLE - In exchange for buying Boeing jets, Turkey wanted a Turkish astronaut to fly on a NASA space shuttle, according to a classified U.S. State Department message recently released by the organization WikiLeaks. The leaked cable, published by the New York Times, was written in January 2010 by James Jeffrey while he was U.S. ambassador to Turkey. Jeffrey (now ambassador to Iraq) was apparently urging Turkish Airlines, which is partly owned by the Turkish government, to purchase planes from Boeing rather than its European competitor Airbus. More (Source: Space.com - Jan 6)
NIGERIA'S SATELLITE PASSES PRE-LAUNCH TEST - The replaced Nigerian satellite, NIGCOMSAT-1R, has undergone and passed a major performance test and activities are in top gear for its launch in 2011, an official has said. Timasaniyu Ahmed-Rufai, the managing director of NIGCOMSAT told a management and media dinner on Thursday in Abuja that the satellite had undergone vibration tests while a simulation of the outer space had been used to test its ability to survive the harshness of the outer space. More (Source: Space Daily - Jan 5)
SPACE SYSTEMS/LORAL-BUILT SATELLITE FOR HISPASAT GROUP SUCCESSFULLY PERFORMS POST-LAUNCH MANEUVERS - Space Systems/Loral (SS/L), the leading provider of commercial satellites, today announced that the Hispasat 1E satellite, designed and built for the HISPASAT Group, is performing post-launch maneuvers according to plan. The satellite deployed its solar arrays Wednesday afternoon, following its successful launch from the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana aboard an Ariane 5 rocket. Later today, it will fire its main thruster in order to begin maneuvering into geosynchronous orbit. More (Source: Space Ref - Jan 4)
FINAL DISCOVERY MISSION SUFFERS YET ANOTHER SETBACK - NASA officials ordered additional repairs to Space Shuttle Discovery on Friday--a move which could further delay the vehicle's final mission, according to various news outlets. According to the U.S. space agency's website, X-rays taken as part of an ongoing probe into cracks in Discovery's external fuel tank revealed "four additional small cracks on three stringers on the opposite side of the tank from Discovery, and managers elected to repair those cracks in a similar fashion to repairs made on cracks discovered after the Nov. 5 launch attempt." More (Source: RedOrbit - Jan 1)
ZOMBIE SATELLITE BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE - A “zombie satellite” reset itself after months adrift in space following an unexplained breakdown earlier this year. The satellite, Galaxy 15, lost contact with flight control on April 5, but continued to send out signals over the next 8 months. The telecommunication broadcast package remained in operation, which left a risk of interfering with signals of neighboring satellites. More (Source: ThirdAge - Jan 1)
RUSSIAN OFFICIALS PUNISHED FOR BOTCHED SATELLITE LAUNCH - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has formally reprimanded the chief of his country's national space agency and fired two other high-ranking space officials over the loss of three state-of-the-art navigation satellites in a botched rocket launch earlier this month. The decision, announced by the Kremlin on Wednesday, comes after an investigation into the Dec. 5 launch failure of a Russian-built Proton rocket carrying three new Glonass-M navigation satellites. The satellites never reached orbit. Instead, they plunged back to Earth and crashed in the Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii. More (Source: MSNBC - Dec 30)
2010 CONCLUDES WITH ARIANE ROCKET'S 199TH LAUNCH - Two commercial satellites for the expansion of communications services from space were launched atop an Ariane 5 rocket today, capping another successful year for the booster that saw a dozen payloads deployed in 2010. The hydrogen-fueled main engine roared to life at 2127 GMT (4:27 p.m. EST), followed seven seconds later by ignition of the twin solid rocket motors to begin thundering out of the Guiana Space Center in Kourou on the northeastern coast of South America. The heavy-lift launcher, making its 55th flight, climbed steeply through the late afternoon sky and headed downrange for a half-hour trek into geosynchronous transfer orbit to deliver the Spanish Hispasat 1E and South Korea's Koreasat 6 spacecraft. More (Source: Space Flight Now - Dec 30)
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