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HUNTSVILLE, Ala — Dec 17, `07 — In December, NASA will begin testing core components of a rocket engine from the Apollo era. Data from the tests will help NASA build the next generation engine that will power the nation’s new Ares launch vehicles on voyages that will send humans to the moon.

NASA will test the engine’s powerpack, a gas generator and turbopumps that perform the rocket engine’s major pumping and combustion work. These components originally delivered propellants to the Apollo-era J-2 engine that fueled the second stage of the Saturn V rockets.

NASA is using these heritage parts to develop a new engine, known as the J2-X, to power the upper stages of both the Ares I crew launch vehicle and the Ares V cargo launch vehicle. Results from the tests will help engineers modify the machinery to meet the higher performance requirements of these two next-generation rockets.

The powerpack tests will be conducted at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Miss., where the components were installed in late September 2007.

The Ares rockets support NASA’s goal of providing safe, reliable, affordable transportation to support sustainable, long-term exploration. The Ares I is an in-line, two-stage rocket that will transport the Orion crew vehicle to low Earth orbit.

Orion will accommodate as many as six astronauts on missions to the International Space Station or as many as four crew members on lunar missions. The Ares V, a heavy-lift launch vehicle, will enable NASA to launch a variety of science and exploration payloads and key components needed to go to the moon. More at NASA.

Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle; Ares V Cargo Launch Vehicle

Cape Canaveral, Florida — Dec 17, `07 — The fifth in a series of eight modernized Global Positioning System Block IIR (GPS IIR-M) satellites built by Lockheed Martin for the US Air Force is ready for launch aboard a Delta II rocket on Dec 20, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

The spacecraft, designated GPS IIR-18M, is a modernized version of the Block IIR series designed to enhance the GPS constellation for military and civilian GPS users around the globe. The modernized series delivers increased signal power to receivers on the ground, two new military signals for improved accuracy, enhanced encryption and anti-jamming capabilities for the military, and a second civil signal to provide users with an open access signal on a different frequency.

The GPS constellation provides critical situational awareness and precision weapon guidance for the military and supports a wide range of civil, scientific and commercial functions – from air traffic control to the Internet – with precision location and timing information.

The Global Positioning System enables properly equipped users to determine precise time and velocity and worldwide latitude, longitude and altitude to within a few meters. Air Force Space Command’s 2nd Space Operations Squadron (2SOPS), based at Schriever Air Force Base, Colo., manages and operates the GPS constellation for both civil and military users. More at Lockheed Martin.

On Friday, Nov 23, ESA and London based Inmarsat Global Ltd announced  in Paris the formal signature of the contract for Alphasat satellite, one of the world’s largest telecommunications satellites.

The six-tonne satellite will deliver high-bandwidth services, such as mobile internet, to Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa.It will have five times the capacity of current space platforms.

Inmarsat will use Alphasat I-XL to support its huge I-4 satellites, which deliver the company’s global broadband network, BGan.

The spacecraft allow people to set up virtual offices anywhere around the world - on land or at sea. Users get half-a-megabit connections through small, laptop-sized terminals. Customers include business travellers, disaster relief workers, journalists, and people in the petrochemical and maritime industries.

The Alphabus Alphasat programme represents an expenditure of $649 million (€ 440 mln) by 16 ESA Member States. Under the development schedule, Alphasat will be available for launch in 2012.

Positioned at 25 degrees East, providing extended coverage to Africa, Europe, the Middle-East and parts of Asia , Alphasat will supplement the existing Inmarsat satellite constellation and offer the opportunity for new and advanced services.

Alphasat I-XL features a 12m aperture antenna reflector. It will have an electrical power of 12kW and a design lifetime of 15 years. The Alphabus model, though, allows for even bigger spacecraft to be made in the future, supporting missions that have a launch mass of more than eight tonnes and 18kW payload power.

One of the world’s most powerful rockets will be needed to launch a satellite of I-XL’s size - something comparable to a bus or small truck. As a flagship European mission, the task of lofting Alphasat I-XL may well fall to the European bloc’s premier launch vehicle, the Ariane 5 ECA. More at ESA.

MOSCOW — On November 21 Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree authorizing construction of a new launch facility on Russian  territory to reduce the nation’s dependency on the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, First Deputy Premier Sergei Ivanov told reporters,  Space.com reports.

The site further writes, “The cosmodrome will be built in the Amur region in Russia’s Far East and will serve the nation’s human and robotic space exploration programs, according to Ivanov.

Ivanov said the cosmodrome will be named Vostochny, or Eastern, and that a feasibility study will be completed by 2010 to pinpoint the exact location. The cosmodrome will be built from 2010 to 2018 with the first launch scheduled to take place in 2018.” More at Space.com

Moscow–October 26, ‘07–Less than two months after its failure, the Proton rocket returned to flight, successfully delivering a trio of satellites for the Russian global navigation system, GLONASS.

The Proton-K rocket equipped with Block DM upper stage and carrying three Uragan-M (GLONASS-M No. 18, 19, 20) satellites lifted off from Pad 24 at Site 81 in Baikonur Cosmodrome at 11:35:24 Moscow Time. According to a representative of the Russian space agency, Roskosmos, the upper stage successfully delivered all three spacecraft to its nominal orbit with the altitude 19,100 kilometers above the Earth surface and the inclination 64.8 degrees toward the Equator.

At 15:07 Moscow Time, satellites successfully separated from the Block DM upper stage. Ground control then conducted two communication sessions with the spacecraft at 15:15 and 15:40 Moscow Time.

While Global Position System, GPS, has been one of the most recognizable symbols of space applications around the world, much less known was the fact that Russia also attempted to build a parallel network of satellites designed to provide accurate navigation.

As its American counterpart, the Russian satellite navigation system, known as GLONASS, was born at the height of the Cold War for primarily military purposes. The GLONASS network could be used to determine coordinates and the speed of an aircraft, a vessel or any other vehicle across the globe.

GLONASS network:  A fully completed GLONASS system should contain 21 active and three spare satellites spread over three orbital planes at the altitude of 19,100 kilometers and inclination 64.8 degrees toward the Equator.

The Proton rocket equipped with Block D or Breeze M upper stage is capable of delivering a trio of satellites into orbit, from which two satellites later maneuver themselves into final orbits.

When completed, the GLONASS constellation is designed to provide 100 meters accuracy with its “standard precision” C/A signals, which are deliberately degraded, and 10-20 meter accuracy with its P “high-precision” signals, originally available exclusively to the military. At the end of 2004, the head of the Federal Space Agency, FKA, called the separation between military and civilian frequencies in the GLONASS system, “awkward” and promised to provide the access to the high-precision navigation data to all users.

Russia’s GLONASS system, which uses Soviet Cold War-era military technology, is designed to compete with the Global Positioning System, or GPS, and is being jointly developed with India. GLONASS satellite launches had been put on hold after September’s rocket failure. More at RussianSpaceWeb here and here