Tactical Satellite-3 supports Haiti and Chile earthquake relief efforts

Tactical Satellite-3 supports Haiti and Chile earthquake relief efforts

(Air Force) March 30, 2010, By Michael Kleiman

When the United States Southern Command requested for imaging collection to assist with rebuilding and humanitarian relief efforts after an earthquake struck Haiti and Chile, the Tactical Satellite-3 program team here and at Hanscom AFB, Mass. answered the call. Employing the spacecraft's primary payload, the Advanced Responsive Tactically-Effective Military Imaging Spectrometer project has provided 30 -plus data collects to the Miami - based Unified Combatant Command. The UCC is responsible for U.S. military operations in the Caribbean, as well as in Central and South America.

Africa bids to host mega radio telescope

Africa bids to host mega radio telescope

(Reuters) March 30, 2010, By Wendell Roelf

Africa stands a good chance of beating Australia in a race to host the world's most powerful radio telescope able to peer back billions of years in time, a South African minister said on Tuesday. An international panel is expected to announce the winner from the two shortlisted continents in 2012, enabling the victor to host the 1.5 billion euro Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope, which will be 50 times more sensitive and 10,000 times faster than any other radio imaging telescope built. "It is a huge endeavor we are undertaking," Naledi Pandor, South Africa's minister of science and technology, said at the Northern Cape location identified as the core site for the new telescope if the African bid succeeds.

Watch this empty space

Watch this empty space

(The Australian) March 31, 2010, By Cheryl Jones

NASA's Honeysuckle Creek tracking station near Canberra received the world's first images of the Apollo 11 moonwalk in 1969, but staff at nearby Orroral Valley tracking station enjoyed a private viewing of the event. They swung their 26m dish antenna on to the moon and got their own pictures, according to a former staff member. "We weren't actually tracking anything, so we had a look at it," Philip Clark tells the HES. He was an electronics and radio communications technician at Orroral, 50km south of Canberra in Namadgi national park, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took their first steps outside the lunar module.

India plans to launch 10 satellites every year

India plans to launch 10 satellites every year

(Deccan Herald India) March 31, 2010

Indian space scientists and engineers are bracing up to launch an average of 10 satellites per year to meet the rising demand for various space applications, including communications and remote sensing, a top space scientist said. "We are planning to launch 10 satellites per year, beginning fiscal 2010-11. We have a series of satellites and launch vehicles at various stages of preparation," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman K. Radhakrishnan told reporters. Though this fiscal (2009-10), it could launch only three -- Oceansat-2, Risat-2 (radar imaging satellite) in association with Israeli Aerospace Industries, and Anusat, a micro-satellite.

Kids look beyond blockaded Gaza and into the heavens

Kids look beyond blockaded Gaza and into the heavens

(Arizona Daily Star) March 28, 2010, By Karin Laub

Suleiman Baraka's journey could be measured in light-years: the eldest of 14 children of a butcher, he rose from humble beginnings in violence-wracked Gaza to become an astrophysicist, space weather expert and researcher for NASA, the U.S. space agency. Now, at 45, he is back home with a new mission - to teach kids to look up from their blockaded, beaten-down surroundings and into the limitless beauty of the universe. He has procured the first known telescope in Gaza, a donation from the International Astronomical Union, and plans to introduce astronomy in Gaza's three universities.

Singapore to have 1st locally-built satellite in space

Singapore to have 1st locally-built satellite in space

(Xinhua) March 29, 2010

Singapore will have its first self-made satellite sent to the space in the middle of this year, local media reported on Monday. According to local English newspaper the Straits Times, the X-Sat, a 120 kg micro-satellite about the size of a refrigerator, will be launched in June or July from India's Satish Dhawan Space Center in Andhra Pradesh, 100 km north of Chennai. The estimated cost of the satellite is about 40 million Singapore dollars (about 29 million U.S. dollars). The newspaper said that Singapore is believed to be the first Southeast Asian country that will have its own locally built satellite in space with the launch of the satellite.

Vietnam to build national space centre

Vietnam to build national space centre
(Nhan Dan Vietnam) March 25, 2010
Vietnam will build a National Space Centre to maximize the application of space technology in service of the nation’s socio-economic development. With Japan ’s assistance in design, construction of the US$400 million facility will start within this year at Hanoi ’s Hoa Lac Hi-tech Zone, according to the Vietnam Science and Technology Academy , which oversees the project. By its completion in 2018, the centre will entail a satellite assembly, integration and test facility, a satellite signal transmission station, a research center, a space museum and an observatory, said the project manager, Dr. Pham Anh Tuan.

Military sites could help launch SA into space

Military sites could help launch SA into space
(South Africa Times) March 21, 2010, By Bobby Jordan
The government is considering reopening apartheid-era space rocket launch sites to fast-track a national space programme. The move coincides with a major breakthrough for the country's space science industry - the first detailed images from the national space satellite launched last year and now orbiting 500km above the earth. Naledi Pandor, the minister of science and technology, this week told the Sunday Times that the aim of the programme was to turn South Africa into a regional space hub. Recommissioning old launch sites would be a major step forward for the country's space ambitions, she said.

India Forestry satellite by 2013: Jairam Ramesh

Forestry satellite by 2013: Jairam Ramesh

(The Hindu) March 8, 2010, By A. D. Rangarajan

Union Minister for Environment and Forest Jairam Ramesh has announced that the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch a dedicated forestry satellite in all likelihood in the year 2013. Against the biennial exercise in vogue, the facility will help to continuously monitor the forest cover, health and diversity. Similarly, efforts are on to launch an indigenous satellite for monitoring greenhouse gases and aerosol emissions next year, which will place India on a rung occupied by a select few in the world. Speaking to journalists after inaugurating the Indian Climate Observatory Network (ICON) at the National Atmospheric Research Laboratory (NARL) campus near here on Sunday, Mr. Ramesh called the satellite a major afforestation initiative — a key player in tackling climate change issues.

UAE: Brush off your Failure folder and get innovative

Brush off your Failure folder and get innovative

(UAE National) March 7, 2010, By Rehan Khan

Being an innovator can be a risky endeavour. Sometimes you get it right, most times you get it wrong. For starters, I have created a folder on my hard drive called “Failure” and in it I’ve been serendipitously archiving all of the business failure stories I come across. My first entry was Teledesic, a programme in the 1990s to launch a constellation of 840 active satellites in a low earth orbit, with the ability to provide uplinks of as much as 100 megabytes per second and downlinks of up to 720MB/s anywhere on the planet. It was marketed as an internet in the sky and would be the end of all fixed-line telecommunications operators. It even attracted funding from such luminaries as Craig McCaw, Bill Gates and Paul Allen. The project was officially closed in 2002.

President-elect looks to boost Costa Rica into space

President-elect looks to boost Costa Rica into space

(Costa Rica Tico Times) March 8, 2010, By Chrissie Long

At the top of President-elect Laura Chinchilla's agenda for her meeting with United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on last Thursday was convincing her that Costa Rica's should be a part of international space programs. Costa Rica's own Franklin Chang, a retired NASA physicist and astronaut, is developing new plasma engines for space travel from a plant in Liberia, in the northwestern province of Guanacaste, and Chinchilla wants to ensure that his products are incorporated into worldwide projects. “We want recognition for Costa Rica, so the country can enter this special industry,” Chinchilla said, seeing in the space industry an opportunity to stimulate more high-paying jobs and international prestige for the Central American country. “We hope that Costa Rica is the first Latin American country (to enter the space industry.)”

South Korea: New Satellites to Improve Daily Life

New Satellites to Improve Daily Life

(Korea Times) March 8, 2010, By Kim Tong-hyung

The hit-or-miss weather forecasts are on everyone's list of the most annoying things in everyday life here. But Korea's space agency claims to have a remedy ready when about $314 million state-of-the-art meteorological satellite is launched next month. The Communication, Ocean and Meteorological Satellite (COMS-1), which will be strapped to a European rocket and blasted into geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) next month, is the first in a series of new Korean satellites to be launched from this year to 2013. The Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) said that the wealth of satellite images, data and communications functions provided by the new fleet of craft will have visible effects in science research, industry and the daily lives of people. This would also help establish the country as a provider of quality space data and contribute to finding a niche in the heated Asian space race.

Moon and beyond - India's space programme in take-off mode

Moon and beyond - India's space programme in take-off mode

(Earth Times) March 8, 2010

As the United States winds down its space shuttle programme, emerging economy India is developing its own reusable launch vehicle that it hopes will make it a space power. The Avatar, a reusable launch vehicle (RLV), would be capable of delivering a 500 to 1000-kilogramme payload into orbit at a fairly low cost. The Aerobic Vehicle for Hypersonic Aerospace Transportation (Avatar) is just one example of how far India's space programme has travelled since it first launched a sounding rocket in 1963 from a fishing village Thumba in southern Kerala. India's space scientists have, over four decades, slowly but steadily developed a mature capability despite small budgets and an embargo on high technology transfers because of its nuclear tests.

China Studies Moon Rocket

China Studies Moon Rocket

(Aviation Week) March 5, 2010, By Bradley Perrett

China is studying the design of a Moon rocket in the class of the Saturn V, as the Obama administration proposes canceling the U.S. successor to the Apollo launcher, Ares V. The country also is developing another new rocket, the “medium thrust” Long March 7, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology says. This new launcher joins the Long March 5 heavy rocket and the Long March 6, which was mentioned last year and is now defined as a “small-thrust” launcher. Long March 5, 6 and 7 will form a family of rockets, it says. Chinese space officials have said that the Long March 6 was based on the side boosters of the Long March 5.