October 27
China Launches Domestic Remote Sensing Satellite
BEIJING (AP) -- China launched a satellite on Sunday that would provide data for urban planning and environmental protection, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
The satellite was launched on a Long March IV-B carrier rocket from the Taiyuan Launching Center in the northern Shanxi province at 11:17 a.m. (0317 GMT), Xinhua said. A satellite of the same type was launched in September 2000 and is still operating in space, Xinhua said.
The skies were sunny Sunday and after 10 minutes, the 45-meter (148-foot) rocket and satellite were separated. The satellite was in good condition and operating smoothly, Xinhua said, citing the Satellite Monitoring Center in Xi'an, in the northwestern Shaanxi province.
It will be used for territorial survey, environment monitoring and protection, urban planning, crop yield assessment and disaster monitoring, the news agency said.
In May, China successfully launched a marine exploratory satellite and a meteorological satellite.
October 25
Europa: Lava Lamp of Life?Drag out that boxed up lava lamp from the 1960s. Plug it in. Turn down the lights. Nowthink Europa.
The oozing qualities of a lava lamp may help appreciate Jupiter's moon Europa as a potential abode for life. That's the thought of University of Colorado at Boulder planetary scientist, Robert Pappalardo. He's a leader in studying the frozen-faced moon and the prospects of life within its ice-topped ocean.
Pappalardo has eyed numbers of up-close Europa images taken by the Galileo and Voyager spacecraft. There is evidence of surface warping -- including domes and reddish spots -- showing that material from the moon's ocean percolates up and down.
"Europa acts like a planetary lava lamp, carrying material from near the surface down to the ocean, and, if they exit, potentially transporting organisms from the ocean up toward the surface," Pappalardo explains.
Pappalardo and his research group at CU-Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics are attempting to tie together pieces of an elaborate puzzle to assemble a comprehensive model of how Europa functions. The results of their work are being reported at the Geological Society of America's annual meeting being held in Denver next week.
-- Leonard David
Mini-Astronote: Reset Your Clocks Sunday
Daylight Saving Time ends Sunday morning at 2 a.m., so remember to set your clocks, watches and Space Age pocket phones and pda devices back 1 hour (the really good ones do it on their own).
October 24
Integral Spacecraft in Orbit and in Good Health
After a successful launch Oct. 17, the Integral spacecraft is in very good health and orbiting Earth, officials said today. The observatory will study high-energy gamma rays that emanate from black holes and other mysterious phenomena.
Engineers with the European Space Agency, which operates the craft, said all systems check out and four maneuvers were executed as planned. Some test observations have yielded initial data, indicating that science operations should soon begin as planned.
About the craft-- Robert Roy Britt
NASA/JPL Team with Air Force for Mars Sample Return Experiment
Mars planners are delving into techniques and technologies to assist in planning future Mars return sample missions. NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) are joining a partnership with the Air Force to try out search and rendezvous strategies in Earth orbit.
Under JPL's New Millennium Program, a Space Technology 6 project makes use of the Air Force Research Laboratory's XSS-11 Microsat to evaluate space autonomous rendezvous in low-Earth orbit. To be flown in 2004,
XSS-11's high-precision autonomous rendezvous system allows two spacecraft to approach and meet each other in close proximity.
For civilian use, this technology could significantly enhance in-space rendezvous for future sample return missions. Such a test is not quite the same as demonstrating search and rendezvous of hardware around the red planet, NASA's Mars exploration chief, Orlando Figueroa told SPACE.com, "but certainly brings us a lot closer than not doing anything."
Close-up inspections of foreign spacecraft using this same technology is of keen interest by the U.S. Air Force for space control purposes.
Meanwhile, the Air Force's XSS-10 micro-satellite is slated for a November 7 liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The tiny craft is hitching a ride aboard an Air Force Delta 2 rocket. The booster carries a primary payload - a Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite. The XSS-10 -- once ejected from the Delta 2's second stage -- is slated to scoot around the spent stage in autonomous inspection mode, transmitting live video to the ground.
-- Leonard David
Black Hole Eats Star, Grad Student Watches in Amazement
Graduate student Feng Ma of the University of Texas at Austin didn't expect to see a black hole swallow a star when he pointed a telescope at the next quasar on a list of about 60 hes studying. Ma is examining these bright galaxies, anchored by black holes, to see how they change over time.
When he later looked at the data (sorry, theres no picture) it revealed a cloud of material rushing toward him at 13.4 million mph (6,000 kilometers per second). The stuff wasnt there in observations taken a decade ago.
"This leads me to think it's the signature of a star that's been ripped apart by the black hole's gravity," Ma said. "Half of the star's matter fell into the black hole, and the other half was ejected in a gravitational sling-shot."
The observation was made with the Harlan J. Smith Telescope at the McDonald Observatory.
More Black Hole NewsOctober 23
X Prize Entrant Takes to the Air?
Word is that aircraft designer Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites, LLC, has started flight testing a novel craft built to snag the $10 million X Prize purse. The vehicle is likely to be evolved from the super-slick Proteus, a high-altitude aircraft unveiled in 1998 that has flown to over 60,000 feet, setting records for this class of vehicle. The newer plane carries a specially designed suborbital passenger capsule and is undergoing flight tests at Scaled Composites Mojave, California desert site.
The X Prize hopes to jumpstart the space tourism industry through competition between entrepreneurs and rocket experts in the world. The $10 million bucks will be awarded to the first team that privately finances, builds & launches a spaceship able to carry three people to 62.5 miles (100 kilometers); returns safely to Earth; and repeats the launch with the same ship within two weeks.
-- Leonard David
JPL Captures Central America in all its Topographic Glory
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., has completed the first comprehensive high-resolution topographic map of Central America, a region where persistent cloud cover had made high-quality satellite imagery difficult to obtain.
The image depicts all of Central America-Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama-plus southern Mexico and portions of Cuba and Jamaica. Home to 37 million people, Central America comprises just one-half percent of Earth's land mass, yet houses seven percent of Earth's animal species.
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The dominant topographic feature of northern Central America is the Sierra Madre Range, spreading east from Mexico between the narrow Pacific coastal plain and the limestone lowland of the Yucatan Peninsula. Parallel hill ranges sweep across Honduras and extend south, past the Caribbean Mosquito Coast to lakes Managua and Nicaragua. The Cordillera Central Mountains rise to the south, gradually descending to Lake Gatun and the Isthmus of Panama. A highly active volcanic belt runs along the Pacific seaboard from Mexico to Costa Rica.
"Central America is a unique geographic region dominated by rugged mountains, heavy vegetation and influenced by two major oceans," said Dr. Michael Kobrick, Shuttle Radar Topography Mission project scientist at JPL. "Its proximity to Earth's equator and the Pacific and Caribbean results in frequent cloud cover, which makes traditional satellite imagery difficult. The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission's synthetic aperture imaging radar was able to penetrate that cloud cover, allowing the region to be mapped more precisely than ever before."
October 22
Russia Suspends Molniya-M Launch Preparations
MOSCOW. Oct 21 (Interfax) - The headquarters of the Russian Space Forces has made a decision to suspend preparations for the launch of a Molniya-M rocket with a military satellite aboard from the Plesetsk space center in the Arkhangelsk region.
The launch was originally scheduled for the end of October, the press service of the Space Forces told Interfax.
The decision on the date for the launch will be made after a commission investigating the recent accident of a Soyuz-U rocket completes its work, the press service said.
The crash of the Soyuz-U, which was carrying the international Photon-M satellite, occurred while it was being launched from the Plesetsk space center on October 15.
Texas Universities kick off new NASA institute
COLLEGE STATION (AP)_ A collection of six Texas universities and NASA, joined by U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, announced the formation of a new research institute.
NASA and the schools are forming the Texas Institute for Intelligent Bio-Nano Materials and Structures for Aerospace Vehicles, or TiiMS for short.
"Through projects such as TiiMS, we are rekindling interest in bringing young people in and having NASA associate with our universities," said Hutchison, a Texas Republican. "We will be encouraging more people to go into science and engineering.
The institute will be administered by the Texas Engineering Experiment Station and funded with $15 million from NASA over the next five years.
The academic team comprises Texas A&M University, the University of Houston, Rice University, Prairie View A&M University, Texas Southern University and the University of Texas-Arlington.
Six other university teams around the country have been chosen to lead different NASA institutes.
October 21
Cosmonaut Who Survived Space Mishaps Dies at 70
MOSCOW (AP) _ Cosmonaut Nikolai Rukavishnikov, whose three trips into outer space for the Soviet Union encountered hair-raising problems twice, died Saturday of an apparent heart attack, Russian media reported. He was 70.
Rukavishnikov's first space voyage was in 1971 aboard the Soyuz 10, which was to have delivered the first humans to the orbiting Salyut-1 space station. The craft docked with the space station, but the crew were unable to gain access, reportedly due to a faulty hatch, and the mission was aborted, lasting less than two days. In 1974, he made his next flight aboard the Soyuz 16, staying in space for nearly six days in a mission that was part of the U.S.-Soviet Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.
His last mission was Soyuz 33 in 1979, which turned into a white-knuckle space drama.
The craft was to dock with the Salyut-6 station, but an engine failure left it unable to maneuver. The same engine was to have sent the spacecraft back to Earth. Rukavishnikov was able to fire up a backup engine, which also didn't work properly but was sufficient to return him and Bulgarian comrade Georgi Ivanov safely. The ITAR-Tass news agency said this was the first time a spacecraft had been landed under manual control.
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