European last ATV-type cargo supply spacecraft sunk in Pacific

Fragments of the European final cargo supply spaceship of the ATV series, Georges Lemaitre, that undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday have sunk in the Pacific, a spokesman for the European Space Agency told TASS on Sunday.
"The spaceship’s elements sunk in an unnavigable section of the Pacific," the spokesman said, adding that the ship had been docked to the ISS since August 2014.

The European unmanned cargo resupply spacecraft Georges Lemaitre is the final cargo supply spaceship of the ATV /Automated Transfer Vehicle/ series. The first one, the Jules Verne, was launched to the ISS in 2008. Along with Russia’s Progress spacecraft, ATV-type spaceships were capable of docking to the ISS in an automated mode. Other spacecraft are docked with the help of automated manipulator.

The European Space Agency has spent about 2.5 billion euro to fiance the ATV spacecraft project, which gave jobs to 3,000 people and about 300 companies and research institutions, including Russian. Each spaceship cost some 450 million euro.

The European Space Agency however plans to use ATV project technologies in other projects. Thus, they will be used at NASA’s manned Orion spaceship due to be blasted off in 2017. Europeans will supply engine units, electric power, water and air supply systems.

It is not ruled out that the European Space Agency will use ATV technologies to build an automated space garbage collector.

• From now on, Russian-made Progress cargo supply spacecraft and spaceships of U.S. private companies - SpaceX’s Dragon and Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus - will be used to deliver cargos to the International Space Station.

The next launch of a Progress ship to the International Space Station is scheduled for February 17 from the Baikonur space centre.
  http://tass.ru/en/non-political/777761
15/2/15
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Related:

• Europäischer Raumtransporter wird verglühen... Er versorgte Astronauten mit Ausrüstung, Lebensmittel und Wasser - nun soll "Georges Lemaitre" am Sonntag in der Erdatmosphäre verglühen.

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Related:

• SpaceX launches deep space weather observatory 

• Le cargo américain Dragon se sépare de l'ISS (video)

• US Dragon Spacecraft Blasts Off to ISS, Falcon 9 Rocket Landing Fails

• The American cargo spacecraft Dragon that was launched last Saturday from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to the International Space Station (ISS) is to dock with the orbiting station on Monday...

NASA spacecraft seeks answers to lost water in Mars. (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution/MAVEN)

A NASA spacecraft designed to investigate how Mars lost its water is expected to put itself into orbit around the Red Planet today after a 10-month journey....

After traveling 711 million km from Earth, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, probe faces a do-or-die burn of its six braking rockets beginning.
If successful, the thruster burns will trim enough speed for MAVEN to be captured by Mars' gravity and fall into a looping orbit.

Over the next six weeks, as engineers check MAVEN's nine science instruments, the spacecraft will maneuver itself into an operational orbit that comes as close as 150 km and as far away as 6,200 km from Mars' surface.

• Unlike previous Mars orbiters, landers and rovers, MAVEN will focus on the planet's atmosphere, which scientists suspect was once far thicker than the puny envelope of mostly carbon dioxide gas that surrounds it today.

Denser air would be needed for water to pool on the surface. While no water appears there today, Mars is covered with ancient river channels, lakebeds and chemical evidence of a warmer, wetter past.

• "Where did the water go? Where did the CO2 (carbon dioxide) go from that early environment?" MAVEN lead science Bruce Jakosky, of the University of Colorado, asked reporters this week. "It can go two places: down in the crust or up to the top of the atmosphere where it can be lost to space," he said.

• MAVEN's focus is the latter. The spacecraft, built by Lockheed Martin, will spend a year monitoring what happens when the solar wind and other charged particles hit the upper layers of Mars' atmosphere, stripping it away.

By studying the atmosphere today, scientists expect to learn about the processes involved and then use computer models to extrapolate back in time. Ultimately, scientists want to learn if Mars had the right conditions for life to evolve.
MAVEN, said Jakosky, will tell them "the boundary conditions that surround the potential for life."
MAVEN will join a fleet of two US orbiters, two US rovers and a European orbiter currently working at Mars. India's first Mars probe is due to arrive on Wednesday.
buenosairesherald.com
21/9/14
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• NASA rover discovers lake on Mars(10/12/14)

• NASA to Look at Climate Change - On Mars (18/11/13)

 

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Roscosmos suggests starting the creation of moon base elements and exploration robots

MOSCOW, August 11, /ITAR-TASS/. Russia's moon exploration plans have found reflection in a draft Federal Space Programme (FSP) for a 2016-2025 period, worked by the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos). The draft FSP envisions that already in 2018 work will be started to develop the elements of a moon base and special-purpose technology that will be required for building it, the newspaper Izvestia writes referring to the document a copy of which it has available.

Izvestia quotes the draft Programme as pointing out that "The 'Manned Flights' avenue of research includes projects to bring into being an on-ground development complex as the prototype of a first-phase moon base consisting of four modules (habitation, laboratory, power, and modernised node) for comprehensive linkage and verification of the adopted architectural and technical solutions".

The draft Programme also presupposes that a mobile manipulator crane, a grader, an excavator, a cablelayer, and a mobile robot for lunar surface exploration will be created and tested for building a luna base.

According to the newspaper's data, the financing of a number of research and experimental design operations at the moon base is supposed to be started in 2018. In all, Roscosmos requests the allocation of 10.37 billion roubles within a period till 2025 inclusive for the implementation of the works.

Roscosmos staff prefer not to comment on the FSP, the paper specifies.

• It was Vice-Premier Dmitry Rogozin who stated in April of the current year that Russia, in prospect, intends to start the colonization of the Moon.

A source at the United Space Rocket Corporation told Izvestia that it is too early now to comment on detailed contents of the draft FSP, for the document is yet to be edited.
http://en.itar-tass.com/non-political/744354
11/8/14
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Related:
 

• Reusable moon lander

• Russia Designs New Spaceship

NASA to Look at Climate Change - On Mars

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The U.S. space agency, NASA, expects to launch its next mission to Mars on Monday, sending an orbiter to look at the red planet's upper atmosphere.

Scientists hope that MAVEN, which stands for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, can help them better understand what happened to cause Earth's neighbor to lose its surface water and its atmosphere to thin. The causes of the dramatic climate changes on Mars over billions of years - from warm with liquid water on its surface to today's cold and barren desert world - have not previously been studied.

The spacecraft is set to launch from Cape Canaveral at 13:28 EST. Weather forecasters say there is a 60 percent chance that conditions will be good for the launch.

MAVEN will not arrive at its Mars orbit until September 22, 2014. At that point, the 2.5-meter cube will extend its gull-wing-shaped solar panels and begin its data collection.
 voanews.com
18/11/13

Photo, Video: voanews.com

Russian satellite hit by remnants of destroyed Chinese spacecraft (VIDEO)

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A small Russian spacecraft in orbit appears to have been struck by remnants of a destroyed Chinese satellite. It’s just the second time in history that an active spacecraft has collided with an artificial object while in orbit.

The collision took place between Russia’s Ball Lens in the Space (BLITS) spacecraft and China’s Fengyun 1C satellite, according to the Center for Space Standards & Innovation (CSSI), based in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The collision appears to have occurred on January 22, although it took over a month to determine what exactly hit the craft.

The Chinese material is considered to be “space junk” left over from when the Chinese craft was destroyed in a 2007 anti-satellite demonstration when the Fengyun 1C was intentionally demolished after exceeding its service life. The debris has posed a threat to satellites and crewed spacecraft ever since, according to Space.com.

The space collision involving BLITS was first reported on February 4 by Russian scientists Vasiliy Yurasov and Andrew Nazarenko, of the Institute for Precision Instrument Engineering (IPIE) in Moscow. They reported a “significant change” in the orbit of the BLITS satellite to CSSI, as well as changes in the spacecraft’s spin velocity and altitude.

“As a result, an abrupt change occurred to the BLITS orbit parameters (a decrease of the orbiting period),” ILRS officials said. The BLITS spin period changed from 5.6 seconds before collision to 2.1 seconds after collision. The craft also experienced a sudden decrease of 120 meters in the semi-major axis of its orbit.

While the BLITS satellite weighs 7.5kg, the weight of the piece that struck it may only be around .08 grams. BLITS is a retroreflector demonstration satellite built for precision satellite laser-ranging experiments. It was launched in 2009 and expected to last five years in space.

It remains unclear whether the satellite is merely damaged or completely non-functioning.

The collision marks the second time that an active spacecraft has collided with another artificial object in space. In February 2009, a US communications satellite was hit by a defunct Russian military satellite, creating a large debris cloud in orbit.

.english.ruvr.ru 
9/3/13
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Related:

• Εν αναμονή του «φαινομένου του Κέσλερ»

 

Russia Designs New Spaceship

MOSCOW, December 26 (RIA Novosti) - Russian space rocket corporation Energia has completed the technical design of a new manned spacecraft whose flight tests are due to begin in 2017, Energia President Vitaly Lopota said on Wednesday.
“We have completed the technical design project taking into account the fact that the new spaceship is to fly to the Moon, among other places,” he said.
Energia won the spaceship design tender in April 2009.

Federal Space Agency Roscosmos head Vladimir Popovkin earlier said the new spaceship will be created by 2018 and will be able to fly not only to the International Space Station (ISS) but also to the Moon.
There will be several spacecraft modifications depending on whether the flight will use a terrestrial or lunar orbit, or carry out in-flight repair and maintenance of other spacecraft and the deorbiting of malfunctioning satellites and large fragments of space debris.
Earlier on Wednesday Lopota rejected as a “non-market” measure the idea of establishing an engine holding company in the domestic space industry.
Popovkin previously said Russia planned to create a single holding company for booster rocket production to integrate the country’s leading space vehicle producers Khrunichev and TsSKB Progress, and also an engine-building sub-holding company to include engine makers Energomash, the Khimavtomatiki design bureau, the Voronezh mechanical works, Proton PM and other firms.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev ordered the government in summer to work out a plan to improve Russia’s space industry organizations, after a string of mishaps that he said have compromised Russia’s image as a leading space power.
In the most recent failure on August 7 Russia’s Proton carrier rocket launched from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan failed to deliver two satellites onto their designated orbit because of a suspected mishap in the engines of its Briz-M booster.
.en.rian.ru
26/12/12