News & Events in Space Technology (Jan. 2, 2012)

GRAIL twins successfully arrive in Lunar Orbit

January 1st, 2012 by William Graham, Chris Bergin NASA’s two Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft have successfully completed their planned main engine burn and have arrived in lunar orbit. GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B will study the moon to yield a better understanding of the internal structure and thermal evolution. This will allow scientists to formulate a model of the Moon’s formation which can also be applied to terrestrial planets. More

Arianespace launch accomplishments 2011

Arianespace said it lofted a total of 29 payloads using the Ariane 5 and Soyuz members of its launcher family in 2011.In the past 12 months, Arianespace orbited eight telecommunications spacecraft for world-wide customers; deployed 12 second-generation satellites for the U.S.-based Globalstar; launched Europe's second Automated Transfer Vehicle to service the International Space Station; lofted two In-Orbit Validation platforms for the European Galileo satellite navigation service; orbited the Pléiades 1 and SSOT multi-role civilian/defence imaging spacecraft for France and Chile, respectively; and carried four French-developed ELISA demonstrators for defence-related electronic intelligence gathering.
The nine missions conducted in 2011 carried a total combined payload mass of more than 63,000 kg, and involved numerous launch services milestones. This included Soyuz' historic introduction at the Spaceport in French Guiana, bringing the Russian-built medium-lift workhorse into Arianespace's launcher family with a pair of highly accurate missions performed just two months apart: the inaugural launch in October, and a follow-on flight earlier this month.
Soyuz is now operational for commercial flights from the Spaceport alongside the heavy-lift Ariane 5, with Arianespace's launcher family at French Guiana to be completed by the 2012 introduction of its lightweight Vega. This trio of vehicles will enable Arianespace to accommodate a full range of payloads on a variety of flight and mission profiles.
Other Arianespace milestones during 2011 involved the heavy-lift Ariane 5. Its February mission with the Automated Transfer Vehicle lofted a record payload of more than 20 metric tons into low Earth orbit; which was followed in April by another record-setting flight that delivered a lift performance of 10,064 kg, while carrying the Yahsat Y1A and Intelsat New Dawn telecommunications satellites into geostationary transfer orbit. The five Ariane 5 flights performed by Arianespace in 2011 also brought the launcher's consecutive successful missions to 46.
Arianespace planned to carry out six launches in 2011 but managed only five, partially because of a delay of more than one month in summer. However, that alone does not explain the gap in commercial launches that stretches from September 2011 until at least April 2012. According to earlier reports, Arianespace is facing growing problems finding matching satellite pairs to fit with their dual launch strategy.

The introduction of the Soyuz may turn out to be a rather mixed blessing. On the one hand, it may offer some customers the opportunity to get their satellites up rather soon instead of having to wait until a matching partner turns up for an Ariane 5 dual launch. On the other hand, this could leave satellites that won't fit on a Soyuz waiting even longer for an Ariane 5 launch partner.    Source: Arianespace PR 

Roskosmos to report on space failures by 25 January

Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin ordered Roskosmos head Vladimir Popovkin to finalise an analysis of the accidents in the space and to present a corresponding report by 25 January .

Along with the report, Mr Rogozin expects to receive a list of immediate measures to correct the situation.
"We have instructed a veteran of the space sector, Mr Koptev, to conduct research of these problems," he said. Yury Koptev was director of Roskosmos' predecessor, Rosaviakosmos, from its creation in 1992 until 2004.
Mr. Popovkin said that a detailed plan for improvement of the sector will include the introduction of control by the agency, due from January.
Both agreed to create a personnel reserve for the national space industry.
"The creation of a personnel reserve, including that of Roskosmos, is a question that we decided on today," Mr Rogozin was quoted as saying. He pointed to a shortage of personnel in the space industry: "There are young people and there are veterans, but middle-aged people in the space industry are few."

Source: Itar-Tass

Rover thinks for itself on Mars
Program that lets device collect its own data wins NASA award.Software that allows the Mars rover Opportunity to perform autonomous data collection and research on portions of the Martian surface recently was named NASA’s “Software of the Year” for 2011. The award was a cause of celebration for several local JPL techies who worked for years on the
software’s algorithms. More