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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.

Houston — Dec 05, ‘07 — On August 07, 2008, after 20 years of hype, disappointment, blunders, triumphs and peerless glittering vistas of space and time, and four years after NASA decided to leave the Hubble Space Telescope to die in orbit, setting off public and Congressional outrage, a group of astronauts will ride to the telescope aboard the space shuttle Atlantis with wrenches in hand. Says NYTimes.

That, at least, is the plan.

Servicing Mission 4
NASA managers officially are targeting August 7, 2008, for the launch of the fifth and final space shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. During the 11-day flight, Atlantis’ seven astronauts will repair and improve the observatory’s capabilities through 2013.

Mission planners have been working since last fall, when the flight was announced, to determine the best time in the shuttle manifest to support the needs of Hubble while minimizing the impact to International Space Station assembly. NASA also will support a “launch on need” flight during the Hubble mission. In the unlikely event a rescue flight becomes necessary, shuttle Endeavour currently is planned to lift off from Launch Pad 39-B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Fla. However, managers constantly are evaluating the manifest to determine the best mission options.

Shuttle missions beyond the Hubble flight, designated STS-125, still are being assessed. Shuttle and station program officials will continue to consider options for the remainder of the shuttle flights to complete construction of the space station by 2010, when the fleet will be retired. Those target launch dates are subject to change.

More at NASA, NYTimes.

WASHINGTON — Dec 03, ‘07 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — As the agency commemorates its 50th anniversary, NASA has launched “NASA.gov 5.0,” the first major redesign of its primary Web site in more than four years.

The new design goes beyond a cosmetic facelift. It features a new level of interactivity and customization, and provides the opportunity to comment on selected NASA stories, create personal playlists of favorite NASA videosand share agency content with social bookmarking sites on the Internet.

While adding new features, the site’s overall focus remains on providing the latest news, which is prominently displayed at the top of the page. Also, NASA imagery and videos have been given more prominence.

Visitors will notice a new navigation interface, with 10 topic areas covering the depth and breadth of NASA programs replacing three outdated
and overly broad categories. Web editors from around the agency will be able to contribute content.

Web managers have improved the new site’s search capability using Google’s Customer Search Engine to provide visitors with the same search
results they would get from Google’s public site. NASA has tools to apply “crowd wisdom” to search results by weighting findings according to how many previous searchers clicked on a particular link.

NASA revamped the customized “myNASA” feature to allow users to collect their favorite NASA Web content, including videos and news feeds, all in one location. NASA.

BRUSSELS, Belgium — Nov 30, ‘07 — EU governments agreed Friday to jointly complete the development of the much-delayed Galileo satellite navigation project after mollifying Spain, which had demanded a bigger stake in the venture, the AP reported.

Spain was the lone holdout in a 26-1 vote at an EU meeting on moving ahead with the $5 billion undertaking.

In seeking unanimity, the EU later won Spain’s approval with a deal that said a secondary ground station - planned for Spain to monitor emergency services on Galileo channels - may one day be a full-blown ground control station if Spain pays for that upgrade.

The European Commission set a Dec. 31 deadline for final approval of the satellite program. When completed, by 2013, it is expected to rival the American global positioning system, which also is satellite-based.

On Nov 23, EU governments agreed to a taxpayer bailout for the project, several months after a consortium of private companies walked away from it in a financing dispute. Most of the €2.4 billion ($3.56 billion) needed to complete the project will come from unspent funds originally earmarked for agriculture

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.

BRUSSELS, Belgium — Nov 23, ‘07 — The European Union’s troubled Galileo satellite navigation system will be financed from leftover EU funds, EU ministers decided Friday, after Germany and three other countries that had opposed the arrangement relented.

Most of the €2.4 billion ($3.56 billion) the EU says is needed to complete the project will come from unspent funds originally earmarked for agriculture, officials said. Some €300 million (US$445 million) was also earmarked to launch the EU’s new technology and innovation institute, meant to rival the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The decision means Galileo — which nearly folded after a consortium of private companies tasked with developing it failed to make progress — will be completed. It is to give Europe its own satellite navigation, ending its dependency on the U.S.-run Global Positioning System.

Germany got on board after the EU’s executive Commission proposed new tender rules meant to ensure the multibillion-euro project is not dominated by a single company.

In Berlin, a German Transport Ministry spokesman welcomed the Commission proposal, saying it would secure competition and could lead to benefits for German companies.

A source close to EU Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot said the project segments would include satellites, launchers, ground mission infrastructure and control, system software, and other tasks.

There would be the possibility of two tenders to build 26 satellites that make up the system, which is expected to have 30 satellites in total. “The bidder will have to put an offer for all 26, but then we will contract only for a first batch of 10, for example,” the source said.

BAIKONUR COSMODROME, Kazakhstan –BUSINESS WIRE– Nov 18, ‘07 — A Proton launch vehicle successfully lifted the SIRIUS 4 satellite into orbit today, marking the fourth mission of the year for International Launch Services (ILS).

The Proton Breeze M vehicle, built by ILS partner Khrunichev Space Center of Moscow, lifted off from Pad 39 at the cosmodrome at 4:39 a.m. today local time (5:39 p.m. EST Saturday, 22:39 GMT Saturday). After a 9-hour-13-minute mission, the launcher released the satellite into geostationary transfer orbit.

The SIRIUS 4 satellite is expected to go into service at the beginning of January at 5 degrees East longitude, where it will deliver broadcast and broadband services across Europe and parts of Africa for SES SIRIUS of Sweden.

Lockheed Martin built the SIRIUS 4 spacecraft using its A2100 platform. This was the 10th Proton mission with this type of spacecraft.

International Launch Services is the U.S.-Russian joint venture between Space Transport Inc. and Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center with RSC Energia. ILS has the exclusive rights for worldwide commercial sales and mission management of satellite launches on Russia’s premier vehicle, the Proton, and the future Angara vehicle. ILS is incorporated in Delaware in the United States, and is headquartered in McLean, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C.

Nov 09, ‘07 — The UK is due to continue the upgrade to its military satellite communications system with the launch of a new spacecraft on Friday.

The Skynet 5B platform will ride into orbit atop an Ariane 5 rocket from the Kourou spaceport, in French Guiana. It will join the 5A satellite lofted successfully in March and which is already handling secure traffic for UK forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The £3.6bn Skynet project represents the UK’s single biggest space venture. Skynet 5 will allow the Army, Royal Navy and RAF to pass much more data, faster between command centres. The bandwidth capacity is two-and-a-half times that of the previous satellite constellation, Skynet 4.

The spacecraft have also been “hardened” to withstand any interference - attempts to disable or take control of the satellites - and any efforts to eavesdrop on their sensitive communications. They each have advanced receive antennas that enable the spacecraft to selectively listen to signals and filter out attempts to “jam” them. They will also resist attempts to disrupt them with high-powered lasers. More at BBCNews.

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