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Lost Russian Communications Satellite Found in Wrong OrbitBy Peter B. de Selding, Space News Staff Writer Updated at 4:15 p.m. EST PONTE VEDRA, Fla. — A $300 million Russian telecommunications satellite launched Aug. 18 disappeared from the view of ground controllers and the U.S. space surveillance network along with the rocket upper stage that carried it into orbit, according to industry officials and the Russian space agency, Roscosmos. More than 24 hours after the 5,800-kilogram Express-AM4 satellite separated from the Proton rocket's Breeze-M upper stage, neither object could be found, officials said. The U.S. Space Surveillance Network of ground radars...

A stream of dusty fragments from a comet born in the outermost reaches of the solar system has hit the Earth on a path that leads astronomers to conclude the comet itself could be "potentially hazardous" if it crashes into the planet. The comet's location is unknown, making it difficult to say when it will approach Earth, but "the orbits of the dust trail tells us that the comet is on a path that could eventually hit us," said Peter Jenniskens, an astronomer at the SETI Institute and the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View. "It's very unlikely," he...

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran says it has sent the country's first space capsule that is able to sustain life into orbit as a test for a future mission that may carry a live animal. The state IRNA news agency says the capsule was carried by a rocket dubbed Kavoshgar-4 - or Explorer-4 in Farsi - some 75 miles (120 kilometers) into orbit. The launch of the capsule is a part of Iran's ambitious space program. Thursday's report provides no other details about the "life capsule" but said it was launched on Tuesday. Last year, Iran sent its first domestically...

The Sahara, the world's largest desert, was once fertile grassland. This fact has been common knowledge in the scientific community for some time, but scientists are still grappling with historic data to determine whether that transition took place abruptly or gradually. At the European Geosciences Union General Assembly held in Vienna, Austria earlier this year, researchers presented new evidence showing that the eastern region of the Sahara desert, particularly the area near Lake Yoa in Chad, dried up slowly and progressively since the mid-Holocene period.

Since the 1970s, a number of geostationary satellites have been placed in the so called "graveyard orbit," an orbit just above the GEO altitude, roughly 100 to 300 km. The sole purpose of this "burial" location is to remove expired satellites from the highly-congested GEO ring about the equator. Although most GEO satellite operators have not taken advantage of removing their old spacecraft, there are over 100 already there. This number will continue to grow, because some 20 GEO birds expire each year, and some of these will be sent to the graveyard. Thus, the total number of graveyard residents...

Every now and again someone raises a stern warning about the amount of space junk orbiting Earth. Those warnings are usually met with general indifference, as very few of us own satellites or travel regularly to low Earth orbit. But the DoD's assessment of the space junk problem finds that perhaps we should be paying attention: space junk has reached a critical tipping point that could result in a cataclysmic chain reaction that brings everyday life on Earth to a grinding halt. Our reliance on satellites goes beyond the obvious. We depend on them for television signals, the evening weather...

In the movie “Space Cowboys,” Clint Eastwood plays a test pilot/engineer who leads a group of aging astronauts on a mission to retrieve a nuclear-armed satellite, which had been put into space by a Soviet Union that then ceased to exist. It was, at least in small part, a case of art imitating life. During the Cold War, both superpowers contemplated the deployment of nuclear weapons in space. However, Moscow did more than contemplate. During the 1960s, the USSR had an operational system ready to go into orbit to attack the United States. This weapon was a combined low-flying missile...

Germany’s five SAR-Lupe radar reconnaissance satellites in 2009 faced more than 800 close encounters with orbital junk or other operating satellites, including 32 passes at less than one kilometer from another SAR-Lupe spacecraft and one that required a collision-avoidance maneuver, the head of the new German Space Situational Awareness Center (GSSAC) said. Controllers of France’s Helios optical reconnaissance spacecraft, which operate in a different orbit, also were obliged to perform an avoidance maneuver in 2009 following an imminent-collision warning by the U.S. Space Surveillance Network, a French government official said. The vulnerability of SAR-Lupe is one reason why the German...

Canada’s MDA Corp., which has a well-established record in space robotics, is designing a satellite-servicing demonstration to refuel spacecraft in orbit and, when necessary, to push dead satellites into graveyard orbits, an MDA official said March 3. The company is prepared to finance the first mission at least in part on its own. MDA has signed an option with an unidentified satellite fleet operator that has agreed to provide an aging telecommunications spacecraft for a refueling operation as the inaugural customer, according to Logan Duffield, vice president for strategic business development of MDA Information Systems. Richmond, British Columbia-based MacDonald, Dettwiler...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The bathroom lines just got a lot longer at the linked space shuttle and space station. One of the two toilets on the international space station malfunctioned Sunday morning. The pump separator apparently flooded. Mission Control advised the astronauts to hang an "out of service" sign on the toilet, until it can be fixed. In the meantime, the six space station residents will have to get in line to use their one good toilet. And Endeavour's seven astronauts will be restricted to the shuttle bathroom. There have never been so many people — 13 — together...

N. Korea marks month since 'satellite' launch SEOUL, May 7 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Thursday reiterated its claim to a successful satellite launch, marking a month of its purported "normal operation" in orbit. Pyongyang insists its April 5 rocket launch orbited a communications satellite, Kwangmyongsong-2, while outside monitors say no such object has entered space.

/begin my translation N. Korean Rocket Went Up 485km from Ground [JoongAng Ilbo] (S. Korean Aegis ship) King Sejong tracked it ... fell short of orbit due to lack of speed. It is confirmed now that the long-range rocket(Taepodong-2) N. Korea launched on Apr. 5 reached the maximum altitude of 485 km flying above Pacific. Intelligence sources said, "It is our understanding that, due to lack of propulsion, it fell short of reaching earth orbit, and failed." The sources added that Aegis ship King Sejong was also able to track it and determine its maximum altitude." Altitude of 485km above...

Big satellites collide 500 miles over Siberia CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Two big communications satellites collided in the first-ever crash of two intact spacecraft in orbit, shooting out a pair of massive debris clouds and posing a slight risk to the international space station

A computer virus is alive and well on the International Space Station (ISS). Nasa has confirmed that laptops carried to the ISS in July were infected with a virus known as Gammima.AG. The worm was first detected on Earth in August 2007 and lurks on infected machines waiting to steal login names for popular online games. Nasa said it was not the first time computer viruses had travelled into space and it was investigating how the machines were infected. [snip] The laptops carried by astronauts reportedly do not have any anti-virus software on them to prevent infection.

MOSCOW, Feb. 2 (UPI) -- U.S. and Russian officials changed the International Space Station's orbit to keep it clear of debris from a satellite destroyed by China, a report says. "We are diverting the orbit of the ISS to prevent a possible collision with large fragments of space debris, a decision the Russian Mission Control took together with the Johnson Space Center in Houston," a Russian Mission Control spokesman told Novosti Friday. The spokesman said the debris did not threaten the space station, and that an anti-meteorite system protected it from smaller fragments. China set off an international protest when...

Huge 'launch ring' to fling satellites into orbit 16:00 03 October 2006 NewScientist.com news service David Shiga A ring of superconducting magnets fires a projectile off a ramp at 8 kilometres per second, fast enough to reach orbit (Artist’s conception: J Fiske/LaunchPoint) A cone-shaped shell would protect the payload during its passage through the atmosphere into space, and includes a rocket at the back end to adjust its trajectory (Illustration: J Fiske/LaunchPoint Technologies) An enormous ring of superconducting magnets similar to a particle accelerator could fling satellites into space, or perhaps weapons around the world, suggest the findings of a...

PASADENA, Calif. - The most powerful spacecraft ever sent to Mars has settled into a nearly circular orbit, a move that allows scientists to begin studying the planet in unprecedented detail, NASA said Tuesday. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter fired its thrusters for 12 minutes Monday to adjust to its final position six months after it arrived at the planet. Its altitude ranges between 155 to 196 miles above the surface. "Getting to this point is a great achievement," said Dan Johnston, deputy mission manager at the space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the $720 million mission. Over the next...

Corkscrew Asteroid 06.09.2006 A tiny asteroid looping around Earth for the past seven years is about to leave the neighborhood. Asteroid 2003 YN107 is looping around our planet once a year. Measuring only 20 meters across, the asteroid is too small to see with the unaided eye—but it is there. This news, believe it or not, is seven years old. "2003 YN107 arrived in 1999," says Paul Chodas of NASA's Near Earth Object Program at JPL, "and it's been corkscrewing around Earth ever since." Because the asteroid is so small and poses no threat, it has attracted little public attention....

'Russia has left the western orbit' Missile deals with the 'axis of evil' are just the latest sign that Moscow is sick of kowtowing to the US and Europe, writes Tom Parfitt Thursday April 27, 2006 Moscow could be on the verge of clinching an arms deal with Syria or Iran that would send the US and Israel into pop-eyed rage. A few days ago a Russian arms manufacturer let slip at an arms fair in Kuala Lumpur that his state-run weapons design bureau was close to sealing a foreign sale of Iskander-E missiles. The destination of the hardware was...

When you're in orbit, which way is Mecca? 12:14 21 April 2006 NewScientist.com news service Kelly Young Dan Bursch, Yuri Onufrienko and Carl Walz pose with their Christmas tree aboard the International Space Station in 2001 (Image: NASA)Malaysia's National Space Agency is trying to determine how its astronaut candidates will practice Islam in space. Three of its four astronaut candidates are Muslim, and two will be selected for a future Russian space flight. Once in their orbiting spacecraft, they will circle the Earth once every 90 minutes. Traditionally, Muslims pray five times per day, at times connected to the position...