28 December 2003
Science
Mars Explorer Arrives - No Answer from Beagle 2
NASA Awards
Boeing Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter Contract Extension
Technology
Ion
Engine Design Passes Key NASA Test
Launches
GPS 2R-10
Amos 2
Launch Schedule
Business
Loral Space & Communications Class Action Filed
Satellite Enterprises Corp Acquires World Wide Rights to Satellite
Newspaper Kiosk
Verestar to Reorganise Under Chapter 11 Protection
Mars
Explorer Arrives - No
Answer from Beagle 2
(27 December 2003) ESA's Mars Explorer has
successfully entered orbit around Mars, but the Beagle 2 lander it released a
few days ago has not been heard of since it entered the Martian atmosphere for
a landing close to the planet's equator.
On Christmas
Day morning, after a journey lasting 205 days and covering 400 million km, the
European Mars Express space probe fired its main engine for a 37-minute burn in
order to enter an orbit around the Mars. This firing gave the probe a boost so
that it could match the higher speed of the planet on its orbit around the Sun
and be captured by its gravity field. This orbit insertion manoeuvre was a
complete success.
At approximately the same time, the Beagle 2 lander,
protected by a thermal shield, entered the Martian atmosphere at high velocity
and is expected to have reached the surface at about 03:52 CET. However,
attempts to communicate with Beagle 2, beginning three hours after landing, via
NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter and later using the 76 m Jodrell Bank radio
telescope, did not establish radio contact.
The tiny lander was
released from the orbiter six days earlier on a collision course towards the
planet. Before separation, its onboard computer was programmed to operate the
lander as from its arrival on the surface, by late afternoon (Martian time).
According to the schedule, the solar panels must deploy to recharge the onboard
batteries before sunset. The same sequence also tells Beagle 2 to emit a signal
in a specific frequency.
In the course of the coming week, the orbit
of Mars Express will be gradually adjusted in order to prepare for its
scientific mission. Mars Express is currently several thousand kilometres away
from Mars, in a very elongated equatorial orbit. On 30 December, ESA's ground
control team will send commands to fire the spacecraft's engines and place it
in a polar, less elongated orbit (about 300 km pericenter, 10000 apocenter,
86° inclination). From there, ESA's spacecraft will perform detailed
studies of the planet's surface, subsurface structures and atmosphere.
Commissioning of some of the onboard scientific instruments will begin towards
mid-January and the first scientific data are expected later in the month.
Although no signal has yet been received from Beagle 2, the lander has not
yet been written off. The best chance of hearing from the probe will come in
early January when Mars Express reaches its final orbit and will be available
to begin operating as a relay station for Beagle 2.
In the next few
weeks two NASA landers are due to arrive at Mars, beginning with Spirit on
January 3.
(source: ESA)
NASA
Awards Boeing Jupiter
Icy Moons Orbiter Contract Extension
(23 December 2003) NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
(JPL) has extended a contract to a Boeing-led team to study development of a
deep space exploration vehicle for the proposed Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter
(JIMO) mission, scheduled to launch no earlier than 2011.
JIMO could be the first space science mission in NASA's
Project Prometheus, the Nuclear Systems Program, part of the space agency's
initiative to develop space nuclear power and electric propulsion technologies
with the potential to revolutionise space exploration.
The space
agency exercised an option, through July 2004, to provide an additional US$ 5
million for further conceptual design activities. NASA had previously awarded
Boeing and two other contractor teams US$ 6 million for trade studies that ran
through fall 2003.
The Boeing Phantom Works-led engineering team that
includes Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp and BWX Technologies Inc, is
studying technology options for the reactor, power conversion, electric
propulsion and other subsystems of the JIMO spacecraft meant to explore the
Jovian moons Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. NASA plans to select an industry
prime contractor in fall 2004 to work with JPL to develop, launch and operate
the spacecraft.
(source: Boeing)
Ion
Engine Design Passes
Key NASA Test
(23
December 2003) A team of engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
successfully tested a new ion propulsion engine design, one of several
candidate propulsion technologies under study by NASA's Project Prometheus.
The event marked the first performance test of the Nuclear
Electric Xenon Ion System (NEXIS) engine at the high-efficiency, high-power,
and high-thrust operating conditions needed for use in large-scale nuclear
electric propulsion applications.
The NEXIS engine was powered using
commercial electrical power. Ion engines used on NASA's proposed Jupiter Icy
Moons Orbiter (JIMO) will draw power from an onboard nuclear reactor. The ion
engines, or electric thrusters, would propel the orbiter around three of the
icy moons orbiting Jupiter, Ganymede, Callisto and Europa, to conduct
extensive, close-range examinations and to determine their potential for
sustaining life.
The test was conducted December 12. It used the same
vacuum chamber, where the Deep Space 1 ion thruster set the all time endurance
record of 30,352 hours (nearly 3.5 years) of continuous operation. The NEXIS
engine operated at more than 20 kilowatts, nearly 10 times that of the Deep
Space 1 thruster. It is designed to process two metric tons of propellant, 10
times the capability of Deep Space 1, and operate for 10 years, two to three
times the Deep Space 1 thruster life.
Team members working on the
NEXIS engine also helped develop the first ion engine ever flown on NASA's
highly successful Deep Space 1 mission. It validated 12 high-risk advanced
technologies, among them the use of the first ion engine in space.
Unlike the short, high-thrust burns of most chemical rocket engines, the ion
engine emits only a faint blue glow of electrically charged atoms of xenon, the
same gas found in photo flash tubes and in many lighthouse bulbs. The thrust
from the engine is as gentle as the force exerted by a sheet of paper held in
the palm of your hand. However, over the long haul, the engine can deliver 20
times as much thrust per kilogram of fuel than traditional rockets.
NASA's Project Prometheus is making strategic investments in space nuclear
fission power and electric propulsion technologies. The technology may enable a
new class of missions to the outer Solar System, with capabilities far beyond
those possible with current power and propulsion systems. The JIMO mission
could launch during the next decade and provide NASA significantly improved
scientific and telecommunications capabilities and mission design options.
Instead of generating only hundreds of watts of electricity like the Cassini or
Galileo missions, which used radioisotope thermoelectric generators, JIMO could
have up to tens of thousands of watts of power, increasing the potential
science return many times over.
(source: Jet Propulsion
Laboratory)
GPS
2R-10
Launched: 21 ember 2003
Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida
Launcher: Delta 2
Orbit: LEO, apogee: 20,300 km, perigee: 20,100 km: inclination: 55.0°
International Number: 2003-058A
Name: GPS 2R-10
Owner: US Air Force
Space Command
Contractor: Lockheed Martin Navigation Systems
GPS
2R-10 is a US Air Force navigation satellite which will join the existing GPS
constellation of 26 satellites.
Amos
2
Launched: 28 December 2003
Site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Launcher: Soyuz FG / Fregat
Orbit: GEO: 4° W
International Number: 2003-059A
Name: Amos 2
Owner: Spacecom
Amos 2 is an Israeli commercial communications
satellite owned and operated by Spacecom. It carries 22 Ku band transponders
with a coverage area of Europe, the Middle East, the eastern USA and part of
Canada. It has a design life of 11 years.
Loral Space & Communications Class Action Filed
(24 December 2003) On
December 8, 2003, a class action lawsuit was filed in the United States
District Court for the Southern District of New York, on behalf of all persons
who purchased or acquired the securities of Loral Space & Communications
Ltd between July 31, 2002, through June 29, 2003, inclusive, against defendant
Bernard Schwartz, the Company's Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the
Board, and Richard J. Townsend, the Company's Chief Financial Officer, during
the Class Period.
The complaint alleges that during the
Class Period, the defendants, among other things, materially misrepresented the
Company's financial performance and condition by inflating the Company's
revenues and net income, and by underreporting expenses. These
misrepresentations of the Company's financial performance included: (a) failing
to timely account for the obsolescence of its inventory; (b) inappropriately
accounting for general and administrative costs ("G&A costs") in the second
and third quarters of 2002; and (c) improperly recognising revenue from its
Telstar 18/Apstar V contract with APT Satellite Company Ltd. The Company
finally recognised these improprieties in its financial report filed on Form
10-Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") on November 13, 2003,
months after the July 15, 2003 bankruptcy. The complaint was filed by the law
firms of Bernstein Liebhard & Lifshitz, Chitwood & Harley, and Wolf
Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP.
(source: Wolf Haldenstein
Adler Freeman & Herz LLP)
Satellite Enterprises Corp Acquires World Wide Rights to Satellite Newspaper
Kiosk
(22 December
2003) Satellite Enterprises Corp has signed an agreement to acquire Satellite
Newspapers Suisse.
With this transaction, Satellite
Enterprises Corp acquires the Worldwide Rights for the distribution of the
Satellite Newspaper Kiosk and its content throughout the world. Previously,
Satellite Enterprises Corp only had the North, Central and South American
rights to the kiosk and its content.
Satellite Enterprises Corp holds
the North, Central and South American rights for automated digital kiosks. The
Satellite Newspaper Kiosk prints on demand, the latest editions of 138 plus
(and growing) major syndicated newspaper titles from around the world.
After selection of the desired newspaper through the user friendly touch
screen, the user will be entertained by targeted advertising videos displayed
on the kiosk screen while the Digital Kiosk quickly prints and delivers through
a slot, the complete newspaper.
(source: Satellite Enterprises
Corp)
Verestar to Reorganise Under Chapter 11 Protection
(22 December 2003)
Verestar Inc, a global provider of end-to-end satellite and fibre network
solutions, has filed a voluntary petition for Chapter 11 relief in the United
States Bankruptcy Court of the Southern District of New York, as part of its
efforts to restructure and reorganise its business. Chapter 11 allows a company
to continue operating in the ordinary course of business while it develops and
implements its reorganisation plan.
Verestar chose to
file Chapter 11 as a result of an unprofitable acquisition in 2000 and its
associated long-term space commitments, along with the financial impact of
customer bankruptcies due to the overall decline in the telecommunications
industry.
In September 2003, SkyTerra Communications Inc announced a
definitive agreement to acquire a majority interest in Verestar. SkyTerra has
now terminated that agreement, but is engaged in negotiations with Verestar to
acquire the Company's business, subject to definitive documentation and
bankruptcy court approval.
(source: Verestar)
