Space for Daily Use

Earth contamination?

Genesis mission ended unsuccessfully early this month in Utah desert, when the canister carrying tiny particles from the solar wind crashed. The canister parachute failed to deploy and the treasured samples were severely damaged by the high-speed impact at 320 km/h. Analysts are trying to rescue some solar wind samples, which have survived the crash and will come with preliminary conclusions in the coming weeks.

Scientists wonder the consequences for a crash of the Martian probe coming back with microbial life, able to contaminate Earth’s atmosphere.

To watch Genesis landing, download here

Is it worth Mr. Branson ?

Since the first private funded spaceflight - SpaceShipOne, June 2004 - enthusiasm for space trips has risen and businessmen have been foreseeing new ventures opportunities. Richard Branson, multibillionaire adventurer, plans to commercialize 5 Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne spacecrafts to offer the world’s first passenger service to space.

For £ 110,000, passengers will experiment 2-day on ground space training, 2-hour flight, and 2-minute real 0-gravity at 130 km height. In 2001, US entrepreneur Dennis Tito flew almost 8 days on the International Space Station at about 350 km, after a Soyuz launch and a 900-hour on ground space training for £ 14 million. Richard Branson’s business model offers a minute spent in outer space at a price 45 times more expensive than the Soyuz-ISS model.

Although the first Virgin’s spaceflight is scheduled for 2007, SpaceShipOne team has still to fix the jamming occurred during the pre-qualification flight and demonstrate the reliability required for manned flight.

Refueling on orbit

Check out the new concept of refueling geosynchronous satellites on orbit. This interesting solution is being developed by Orbital Recovery Corporation and consists in docking an autonomous ADCS system, called CX OLEV, ConeXpress Orbital Life Extension Vehicle, to a end-of-life satellite. Equipped with a “rendez-vous” technology, CX OLEV can reach the satellite orbital position after launcher separation, dock into the satellite LAE and provide for few more years a function of control of attitude and orbit.

CX OLEX could also be used to rescue satellites located on an incorrect orbit. To know more, click here

India’s access to outer space

On September 20th 2004, India Space Research Organization has successfully launched Edusat, GEO satellite dedicated exclusively to educational purposes, with the first operational GSLV-F01 (Geosynchronous Satellites Launch Vehicle). For it third launch, the launcher GSLV put the nearly 2 tone Edusat at 180 km altitude on a 19.2 degree inclination GTO orbit.

The 49-meter tall GSLV is a 3 stage vehicle: the first stage is a 140 tone solid propellant motors, the second is a 40 tone liquid propellant and the third stage is a 12 tone cryogenic stage. For Edusat launch, GSLV was equipped with 4 additional 40 tone hypergolic liquid propellants.

Edusat will broadcast educational multi-media material to more than 200 remote and rural schools, with 6 Ku-band and 6 C-band transponders.

September 20th 2004 was the birth of the Indian space independancy.

Athens Olympic Sites from above

Visit SPOT Image Website and have a look at the 6 Olympic Sites from above.