05 March 2011
2011 NASA Lunar Workshops for Educators
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04 March 2011
NASA Budget Outlook Relegates Flagship Probes to Back Burner
NASA and the science community are being forced to scale back their planetary exploration ambitions due to budgetary pressures that have pushed proposed new starts on flagship-class probes, including high-priority missions to collect martian soil samples and orbit Jupiter’s ice-covered moon Europa, beyond the agency’s five-year planning horizon.
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03 March 2011
Obama calls to say 'proud' of astronauts
US President Barack Obama made a phone call to the 12 astronauts at the orbiting International Space Station on Thursday to tell them he was proud of them.
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03 March 2011
Russia Lacks Enough Carrier Rockets To Fulfill 2011 Launch Plans
"We have a number of spacecraft that should be launched this year, but we do not have [enough carrier] rockets," Roscosmos chief Anatoly Perminov said in an interview with the Voice of Russia radio station.
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related:
28 February 2011
Russia slams 'childish' space agency errors
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03 March 2011
China planning powerful carrier rocket for manned moon landing
China is studying the feasibility of designing a powerful carrier rocket for making a manned moon landing and exploring deep space, Liang Xiaohong, vice head of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, told Xinhua Thursday.
The rocket is envisaged to have a payload of 130 tonnes, five times larger than that of China's current largest rocket, said Liang, who is attending the annual session of National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China's top political advisory body.
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03 March 2011
China to launch first space lab by 2016
A Chinese senior space technology expert said Thursday that China is expected to launch its first space laboratory before 2016.
"With the technological program ready, the lab's research and development are going smoothly," Qi Faren, former chief designer of Shenzhou spaceships, told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.
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03 March 2011
Chinese Rocket Plant Would be World's Biggest
China is building what one Chinese space official called the largest rocket design, production and test facility in the world, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. The story quotes Liang Xiaohong, deputy head of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, as saying the first phase of the construction project currently underway in the northern part of the country will be completed this year.
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03 March 2011
China's Tiangong-1 to be launched by modified Long March II-F rocket
The unmanned space module Tiangong-1 that China plans to launch this year will be sent into space by a modified Long March II-F carrier rocket, an expert told Xinhua Thursday. The 8.5-tonne Tiangong-1, or Heavenly Palace 1, is expected to be launched into space in the second half of this year to perform the nation's first space docking. It will dock with the unmanned Shenzhou-8 spacecraft, which will be launched two month's after Tiangong-1.
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02 March 2011
China likely to launch first probe to explore Mars' surface in 2013: chief scientist
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02 March 2011
China expects to launch fifth lunar probe Chang'e-5 in 2017
China is expected to launch its fifth lunar probe, Chang'e-5, in 2017 to send back a moon rock sample to earth, a top Chinese space scientist told Xinhua Wednesday. A lunar landing probe, lunar surface patrol device and other equipment would be carried by Chang'e-5, said Ye Peijian, chief designer of Chang'e-1, the country's first moon probe, and chief commander of the Chang'e-2 and Chang'e-3 missions.
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02 March 2011
US must be 'unafraid' of private spaceflight: NASA
NASA's chief said Wednesday that America must be "unafraid" of a new future in spaceflight and vowed full confidence that private business can come up with a solution to replace the space shuttle.
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02 March 2011
India Space Budget Gets 35 Percent Hike
The Human Space Flight programme of ISRO was allocated Rs 98.81 crore (US$21 million) as against the token amount of Rs 14.71 (US$3.2 million) crore last year, while the sequel to India's maiden moon mission got Rs 80 crore (US$18 million) as against Rs 25 crore (US$5.5 million) the previous year.
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02 March 2011
Virgin Galactic To Fly Scientists To Space
Virgin Galactic has signed the first commercial contracts to fly scientists into space for the purpose of conducting research experiments.
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02 March 2011
SwRI Signs Up For 8 Reusable Suborbital Launches
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) will send three scientists as payload specialists aboard eight suborbital flights - some to altitudes greater than 350,000 feet, above the internationally recognized boundary of space.
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02 March 2011
NASA Launches 2011 Nationwide Technology Space Competition
A do-it-yourself technology space competition sponsored by NASA's Emerging Commercialization Space Office (ECSO) has kicked off. Make Magazine, a do-it-yourself publication for technology, is partnering with Teachers in Space to help develop space science kits that high-school teachers can build and fly on suborbital flights.
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02 March 2011
NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Phase I Solicitation
NASA's Office of Chief Technologist has announced the "NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC)" Phase I Solicitation is now open. The NIAC Program seeks to inspire and nurture revolutionary concepts that could transform future aerospace endeavors. NIAC will fund early studies of visionary, long term concepts - aerospace architectures, systems, or missions (not focused technologies). The goal of NIAC is to give visionary ideas a chance.
If you have a revolutionary concept that NASA should consider, you are encouraged to submit a NIAC proposal.
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01 March 2011
XCOR Announces Global Network
At the commencement of the 2011 Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC) being held in Orlando, Florida, XCOR Aerospace announced its initial team of suborbital payload integration specialists who will begin taking orders and facilitating experiment development and integration for commercial, educational and government suborbital research missions aboard XCOR's Lynx reusable suborbital launch vehicle.
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related
23 February 2011
Watch Out Virgin Galactic and Space Adventures Here Comes The Lynx
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01 March 2011
Leonardo permanently attached to Space Station
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01 March 2011
Russia rejects historic photo shoot at ISS
NASA announced on Tuesday that an historic fly-around photo session of the International Space Station will not go ahead. The photo-shoot, which was proposed two weeks ago, would have provided unique images of the nearly-completed station.
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01 March 2011
China to launch unmanned module in 2nd half of 2011 for maiden space docking: expert
China plans to launch an unmanned space module, Tiangong-1, in the second half of 2011 for the nation's first space docking, an expert told Xinhua Tuesday. The 8.5-tonne Tiangong-1, or Heavenly Palace 1, is expected to dock with the unmanned Shenzhou-8 spacecraft, which will be sent into space after the launch of Tiangong-1, said Qi Faren, former chief designer of Shenzhou spaceships.
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(The Chinese are obviously getting better in PR. And just as another news: China's first jumbo jet to take off in 2014: designer )
25 February 2011
Sotheby's To Auction Soviet Space Capsule
Sotheby's auction house announced on Thursday that it will auction a 1961 Soviet space capsule on April 12, the 50th anniversary of the first manned mission to space. The Vostok 3KA-2 spacecraft is the twin of the Vostok 3KA-3, which carried Yuri Gagarin into space.
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25 February 2011
Europe's ATV Supply Ship Docks Safely With ISS
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24 February 2011
Olympic Flame May Be Sent To ISS
The Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos is positive about a recently advanced idea to send Olympic Flame to the International Space Station (ISS) and back to Earth as a part of the preparations for the 2014 Winter Olympics, Stats Secretary Vitaly Davydov said on Wednesday.
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24 February 2011
Boeing Offers India Significant Space Cooperation
Boeing has offered to partner with India on manned space missions, including on the very significant "composite cryogenic tanks" for the launch and propulsion control of rockets.
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23 February 2011
Mid East At Forefront Of $7.5 Billion Space Tourism Industry
Space and satellite forum to highlight regional business opportunities for private and public sector investors - tourists will fly into space for $25,000 by 2030 The plethora of opportunities for private and public sector investors throughout the region that exist in the commercial space and satellite industry will be examined during the third annual Global Space and Satellite Forum (GSSF), in Abu Dhabi on 9-11 May.
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22 February 2011
Google Lunar X Prize Roster Reaches 29 Teams
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FOR FURTHER READING
07 March 2011
A dark future for exploration
The Planetary Sciences Decadal Survey is due out Monday, identifying the highest priority planetary science missions for the next decade. Lou Friedman warns, though, that tight budgets could jeopardize both those missions and future exploration in general.
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07 March 2011
Debating a code of conduct for space
The new national security space policy does not directly endorse a proposed EU code of conduct for outer space activities, but it does support some of its underlying concepts. Jeff Foust reports on what some observers see as particular issues with the EU code, and the path ahead.
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07 March 2011
Six answers to 37 senators
Last month nearly 40 US senators signed a letter to the secretary of state, asking questions about US interest in a code of conduct for outer space activities. Yousaf Butt adresses the issues raised by the senators in their letter.
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07 March 2011
What future for intelligent life in space?
A joint DARPA/NASA study is examining what technologies it would take to send a spacecraft to another star in a hundred years. Stephen Ashworth argues that ultimate human exploration beyond our solar system will first require a firm grounding in living and working within it.
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07 March 2011
Review: Once Before Time
The universe started with the Big Bang, but what, if anything, came before that? Jeff Foust reviews a book by a cosmologist that offers a model that suggests this universe was not the first.
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03 March 2011
China's "Fantastic Four" Moon Plan
It's been a long time since we had any substantial updates on China's Chang'e lunar program, which is exploring the Moon with robotic space probes. Months have passed without any real news. Now the drought has broken.
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28 February 2011
Suborbital back out of the shadows
In the last couple years commercial suborbital spaceflight has been overshadowed by growing interest in, and debate about, commercial orbital human spaceflight. Jeff Foust reports that vehicle developments and growing customer interest could soon thrust suborbital back into the spotlight.
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28 February 2011
When will our Martian future get here?
The grand human expeditions into the solar system predicted decades ago have failed to come to pass, like any number of other predictions about life in the 21st century. Andre Bormanis wonders if the future of space exploration will, in fact, be more virtual as those technologies become increasingly capable.
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28 February 2011
Russia, revolutions, and the Red Planet
The concept of using rovers to explore the surface of Mars has been successfully demonstrated by NASA, but it wasn’t that long ago that the agency had no plans for such missions. Lou Friedman recalls how it was Russian interest, carried on even as the Soviet Union collapsed, that influenced present-day Martian exploration.
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28 February 2011
Tough little spinner
Communications satellites, inelegant boxy contraptions today, were once spinning drum-shaped spacecraft. Dwayne Day describes one such spinner that lives on ot this day, owned by an obscure satellite operator.
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28 February 2011
Review: John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon
Among the major 50th anniversaries in spaceflight being celebrated this year is John F. Kennedy’s speech calling for a human mission to the Moon by the end of the 1960s. Jeff Foust reviews a book by that reexamines Kennedy’s influence on the early space program.
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22 February 2011
The Patterns Of Life Are Universal
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last but not least...
22 February 2011
Russian Cosmonauts To Get New Uniform, Anna Chapman Not Involved
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