SB&T From Around The World Updates

[menellom]

It's pretty obvious that in the back of their minds they're building this in the hope that they'll get invited to join the "ISS Club" and can just 'slap' it onto the space station.

3 launches over 4 years is better than their previous rate of 1 launch ever 2-3 years... but not much. One accident and more than likely China will scatter their space program like a baby scattering building blocks after losing one of the pieces.

 

[EarthlingX]

Maybe before, but now i doubt it. It's a big card to hold.

We will see in any case.

 

[Zipi]

Kourou Soyuz-ST launch site: (1080p HD, official Roscosmos video)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0NEAxZM2W8[/youtube]

Part 2:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDp5BWTflIo[/youtube]

 

[EarthlingX]

Related to the above video - launch site in Guiana :

(Soyuz in Guiana )
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0F0xRNx_TY[/youtube]

Video made with Orbiter, showing launch preparations, which differ from operations at Baikonur.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq6jpN19o9U[/youtube]

 

[JonClarke]

Cmon, that's 4 launches more than most countries

More important is, they are putting together a station, very likely with Russian docking mechanism, or at least compatible to some extent.

Yes, but.... they are using the Russian designed androgynous system developed for the Buran and later used for the Shuttle-Mir dockings.

This is different from the standard Russian docking mechanism.

 

[JonClarke]

It's pretty obvious that in the back of their minds they're building this in the hope that they'll get invited to join the "ISS Club" and can just 'slap' it onto the space station.

We will see. They have shown that they can reach the ISS orientation and altitude. But their station program is not predicated on the assumption that they will participate.

3 launches over 4 years is better than their previous rate of 1 launch ever 2-3 years... but not much. One accident and more than likely China will scatter their space program like a baby scattering building blocks after losing one of the pieces.

China has made up to 11 launches a year using the Long March family, for a total of 123 to date. Of these 115 were successful No sign of any tantrum after those failures (the last was 14 years ago).

There is not the slightest evidence that China would behave in such a childish fashion. Your statement is insulting to the Chinese space program in the extreme.

 

[Zipi]

Video made with Orbiter, showing launch preparations, which differ from operations at Baikonur.

Nice video, but it has at least one flaw... Payload is not attached to Soyuz when it is rolled out to the pad. Payload container will be added inside that large mobile gantry. This is how Kourou's operations differ from Russian ones.

 

[JonClarke]

Almost un-noticed in the media, Chinese officials outlined their future space plans at the October IAC meeting in Seoul. It is in the first video presentation. Highlights include a Shenzhou-derived space freighter, plans for the Tiangong small space station in 2011, a three-module 60-tonne space station after 2015, and eventual studies for manned lunar missions. There will be a further lunar orbiter, then a lander and rover (2012), and finally sample return mission (2016). The Chang’e orbiter bus is being studied as the basis of a possible Mars orbiting spacecraft for 2013. Enjoy!

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/hyper ... .html#more

 

[EarthlingX]

http://www.euronews.net : World Expo 2010 opens in China’s Shanghai

The world’s biggest ever Expo has opened in China. After years of preparation Shanghai 2010 kicked off with a lavish show of fireworks and lights.

Seen as further proof of the Chinese dragons growing power, President Hu Jintao was on hand to get proceedings underway.

Almost 200 countries are in Shanghai to showcase their culture. Many of which are housed in pavilions, frequently featuring eyepoping architecture.

The theme of this year’s multi-billion euro event is sustainable development. A timely issue in a country increasingly aware of the environmental cost of industrialisation.

Wiki : Expo 2010

Official site : http://en.expo2010.cn/

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb3OGlpMzPA[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfMdfXUduMA[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t02giLzaj4w[/youtube]

 

[EarthlingX]

Expo 2010, by Astro_Soichi

Shanghai night. Congratulations for the grand opening of the World Expo 2010!

 

[EarthlingX]

http://www.federalspace.ru : Russia Offers Bolivia to Build a Space Port

:: 03.05.2010

Russian Ambassador in Bolivia Leonid Golubev offered the country to help with building its national space port.
«We’ve been discussing space cooperation within several months… Due to its geographical position, Bolivia has perfect opportunity to launch satellites for different purposes. However Bolivia has not been considering our cooperation so far”, Golubev said.
Bolivia is located in the Andes,4,000km over the sea level, thus suggesting a great opportunity to save propellant during rocket launch sequence, Golubev stated.
Bolivia has its own space agency established in early 2010, Infox.ru informs.

That was after :

en.rian.ru : Bolivia creates own space agency

05:3011/02/2010

Bolivian President Evo Morales has signed a decree establishing a national space agency to oversee a satellite project scheduled to be completed by 2013, the Latin American Herald Tribune said.

The document, signed by the Bolivian president on Wednesday, stipulates that the Bolivian Space Agency "will promote technology transfer, human-resource development and the application of satellite-communications programs to education, defense, medicine and meteorology."

The new government body will also manage the implementation of the Tupac Katari satellite project, named after the leader of an Indian rebellion against the Spanish colony in the 18th century.

The agency will have an initial budget of $1 million and will be financed through government funding, donations and foreign loans, the Latin American Herald Tribune said, citing the country's Public Works Minister Walter Delgadillo Terceros.

Mexico has a new space agency too :
Wiki : Agencia Espacial Mexicana

The Mexican Space Agency (in Spanish: Agencia Espacial Mexicana, AEXA) is a space agency, created on April 20 2010 after being approved by the Chamber of Deputies (208 voted yes, 2 no and 4 absentees),[1] after receiving a significant vote of confidence on April 26, 2006.[2] It will be proclamated by President Felipe Calderón in the following days.[1]

 

[EarthlingX]

http://www.newscientist.com : What would it take to put a walking robot on the moon?

03:34 04 May 2010
by Wendy Zukerman

A humanoid robot could be walking on the moon – and drawing the Japanese flag on its surface – by 2015, according to a plan proposed by a group of Japanese companies. Experts say wheeled or many-legged robots would be easier to operate on the moon's uneven terrain, but backers of the proposal say a two-legged android would make a bigger splash in the public imagination.

The plan was announced last week by a small cooperative of companies in Osaka called Astro-Technology SOHLA (Google translated : SOHLA) , which launched a small satellite called Maido-1 to study lightning in January 2009.

The group hopes that its robot, dubbed Maido-kun, could hitch a ride to the moon with a robotic mission set to be launched by the Japanese space agency JAXA in about five years, according to the Daily Yomiuri newspaper.

The newspaper said that JAXA had previously opted against sending a bipedal robot to the moon because its footing would not be steady on the sandy lunar surface. But SOHLA president Hideo Sugimoto countered that a walking robot would be more inspiring than a wheeled rover, adding that Maido-kun would draw the Japanese flag on the moon's surface.

Robotic missions "re-ignite dreams and enthusiasm about space among the Japanese people", says Hideo Sugimoto, head of a group of companies that aims to land a walking robot on the moon around 2015 (Illustration: Astro-Technology SOHLA)

SDC : Japan Could Put a Human(oid) on the Moon by 2015

By SPACE.com Staff

posted: 04 May 2010
06:00 pm ET

A group of engineers in Japan have begun planning a two-legged humanoid robot designed to walk to the surface of the moon, according to Japanese press reports.

"We decided on a human-like robot because it's more fascinating and stimulating for us," said association director Hideo Sugimoto to the Daily Yomiuri newspaper. "We'll make an attractive robot to carry our dreams to the universe."

 

[EarthlingX]

Expo 2010, Shanghai :

Visitors experience video :
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/vide...ng.china.expo.ticket.world.cnn?iref=allsearch

older :
Shanghai rolls out record world's expo
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/04/30/china.shanghai.world.expo/index.html

From Miranda Leitsinger and Jo Kent, CNN
April 30, 2010 -- Updated 1649 GMT (0049 HKT)

Aljazeera TV (link by Wiki) about Expo 2010 :

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGJg0_XdhjA[/youtube]

World Expo 2010, Shanghai, Patrick Zachmann's photo diary :

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2010/05/04/GA2010050402349.html

 

[EarthlingX]

http://www.esa.int : Soyuz Consultation Committee sets inaugural launch for fourth quarter of 2010

11 May 2010



The Soyuz Consultation Committee, comprising representatives of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, the European Space Agency (ESA), the French space agency CNES and Arianespace, met on Tuesday, 11 May in French Guiana. It confirmed that the inaugural launch of Soyuz from the Guiana Space Centre would take place during the fourth quarter of 2010.

The meeting was called to take note of actual work progress on the Soyuz launch pad at the Guiana Space Centre, and to approve the overall timetable for assembly and testing leading up to the inaugural launch.

Nearly all Russian and European systems are now undergoing qualification. The first Soyuz launcher to lift off from the Guiana Space Centre is already assembled in the Preparation and Testing Building.

 

[EarthlingX]

news.discovery.com : Air Force Wants Its Rockets Back

By Irene Klotz

Tue May 18, 2010 07:00 AM ET


THE GIST

• The Air Force is looking to develop a prototype reusable rocket that could fly itself back to the launch site.
• Military satellites now ride into space on one-time-use expendable rockets.
• A prototype is intended to test turn-around maneuvers and could fly in 2013.

The U.S. Air Force has a vision of the future that includes rockets that are not only reusable, but also able to fly back to Earth and land autonomously on a runway.

Currently, most military satellites are launched on one-time-use rockets, such as the Atlas 5 and Delta 4 vehicles. The best-known reusable boosters are flown on the space shuttles, but recycling them is no easy task. The solid-fuel rockets, which are jettisoned two minutes after liftoff, parachute down into the ocean where they are retrieved by ship. Getting them ready to fly again is labor-intensive and expensive.

Hoping to spark some technological innovation, the Air Force Research Laboratory is rolling out a $33-million pathfinder program to develop a prototype booster that can glide or fly itself back to the launch site. The first step of the program likely would be aimed at demonstrating a turn-around maneuver known as "rocket-back," whereby a rocket would use its own engines to fly back to the launch site and glide in for landing.

The first test flights are targeted for 2013.

The Air Force estimates a reusable, fly-back booster could cut launch costs by 50 percent.

 

[Zipi]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgFBPBlRFqE[/youtube]

 

[EarthlingX]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D56vRfv71OA[/youtube]

 

[EarthlingX]

I think that this one includes correct animation of Soyuz launch vehicle integration.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCa_fkQfIo4[/youtube]

 

[EarthlingX]

en.rian.ru : Japan draws plans to build research center on moon

13:45 26/05/2010

Japan is developing a program to build a scientific research base on the moon, Yomiuri Shimbun reported on Wednesday.

The Japanese government plans to invest some 200 billion yen ($2.2 bln) on lunar research up to 2020, and will include robots operating on the moon's surface, according to the news agency.

Japan's strategy for exploring the moon's surface will be carried out in two phases. The first phase of sending a mobile robot to the moon is to be completed by 2015. The robot is to send video images of the surface as well as conduct seismographic research on the moon's composition.

The following five years, according to the program, the Japanese plan to build a scientific research center on the moon's South Pole in order to study the surface within a 100-kilometer radius. The station will be able to produce its own electricity and take surface samples. Some samples will then be sent back to Earth for further study.

 

[EarthlingX]

www.universetoday.com : Japan Shoots for Robotic Moon Base by 2020

May 27th, 2010

Written by Nancy Atkinson

These ARE the droids we've been looking for. The Japanese space agency, JAXA, has plans to build a base on the Moon by 2020. Not for humans, but for robots, and built by robots, too. A panel authorized by Japan's prime minister has drawn up preliminary plans of how humanoid and rover robots will begin surveying the moon by 2015, and then begin construction of a base near the south pole of the moon. The robots and the base will run on solar power, with total costs about $2.2 billion USD, according to the panel chaired by Waseda University President Katsuhiko Shirai.

Concept drawing of a robotic lunar base. Credit: JAXA

 

[EarthlingX]

en.rian.ru : Russia, U.S. to create first joint satellite navigation venture

12:29 31/05/2010

The Russian Space Systems corporation and the U.S. Trimble Navigation Group have signed an agreement to create a joint satellite navigation venture in Russia, the Russian company has said.

Each of the companies will hold a 50% stake in the Rusnavgeoset company, which will produce Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) geodetic network infrastructure systems, a statement posted on Russian Space Systems' website said.

"This high-technology, innovative sphere of activities directly contributes to the commercializing of GLONASS," the statement said.

 

[EarthlingX]

www.federalspace.ru : An Endorsement for Chinese ISS Participation from ESA Director General

:: 03.06.2010

China's Xinhuanet.com quotes Jean-Jacques Dordain, director general of the European Space Agency, as saying he favors China's inclusion in the international space station (ISS) partnership, which now consists of the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan and Russia.
"'I am really willing to support the extension of the partnership of the ISS to China and South Korea. Obviously, this should be a decision by all partners, not the decision by one partner,' [Dordain] said."

Credit: SpaceNews

 

[EarthlingX]

SDC : High-Tech Space Planes Taking Shape in Italy, Russia

By Jeremy Hsu
SPACE.com Senior Writer
posted: 03 June 2010
10:18 am ET



The U.S. Air Force's secretive X-37B space plane may eventually get some company in low-Earth orbit as other countries such as Italy and Russia push forward with plans for their own reusable winged spaceships.

Italy's prototype space plane, named Pollux, successfully carried out high-speed maneuvers that slowed it down from a falling speed of Mach 1.2 during a test flight in April. More recently, Russia has begun considering whether to revive a Cold War era, air-launched mini-shuttle in response to the U.S. X-37B space plane debut.

Such efforts may not immediately lead to full-fledged operational flights. But in the case of the Italian Center for Aerospace Research (CIRA) in Capua, Italy, aerospace engineers hope to provide crucial lessons for future space planes, such as how to pull off autonomous re-entry and survive the return trip through Earth's atmosphere.

"Everybody knows about the unmanned X-37B flight, but nobody knows if it will re-enter with an autonomous modality," said Gennaro Russo, CIRA's Space Programs lead and USV (Unmanned Space Vehicles) program manager. [Video: X-37B space plane spotted.]

The Russian MAKS system represents a more complete space plane system that's not unlike the X-37B. But there's no word as to how or when a resurrected MAKS mini-shuttle might fly.

 

[EarthlingX]

www.federalspace.ru : Global Network to Appear in Space

:: 07.06.2010

Roscosmos plans to develop united data network in space. The system is called Cosmonet, Roscosmos Deputy Head Anatoly Shilov told news media.
This is to be a single global data environment for ground, air and space. The project implies new-generation RF-link with electromagnetic field used for data transfer, as well as new satellite system for space internet.
The system will provide services for different users. Frequency limits are negligible here, so the system will be featured by high data transmission rate.
The project currently undergoes patent certification.

http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=365860&cid=10

 

[EarthlingX]

An article with a lots of images :

http://www.universetoday.com : Japanese Firm Designing Futuristic Space Mega-Projects

June 9th, 2010

Written by Nancy Atkinson


The Luna Ring, a belt of solar collecting panels along the Moon's equator. Credit: Shimizu

Space based solar power? How about a Moon-based solar collector that would beam energy back to Earth. This is just one idea proposed by a 200-year-old Japanese construction company, Shimizu that prides itself in forward-thinking technology and structure development. For this "Luna Ring," an array of solar cells would extend like a belt along the entire 11,000 km lunar equator, and laser power transmission facilities would beam a high-energy-density laser towards receiving stations on Earth.

See more on the Luna Ring, plus plans for orbiting hotels, Moon bases, mega-pyramid cities, and more, below.

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Energy gather on the Moon would be beamed back to Earth. Credit: Shimizu.

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This video provides a look at some of the potential problems and hurdles to overcome for this type of structure:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu5b9rBdbVU[/youtube]

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