Arianespace in trouble
Expensive and therefore not as competitive for market share as it could be, Arianespace is now facing a second year of losses and further competition from a variety of other rocket companies.
Category: Points of Information
Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
Most distant galaxy ever seen
Using a deep field image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers at the European Southern Observatory have identified one galaxy in that image as the most distant ever seen, with a record-setting redshift of 8.6 and thus an rough distance of about 13 billion light years, only about 600 million years after the Big Bang.
Whoops! Last sentence corrected, thanks to my readers.
Father of fractals dies
Benoit Mandelbrot, the mathematician who discovered fractals, has died at 85.
Engineers to replace seals on shuttle
Unsure of the cause of yesterday’s fuel line leak on the space shuttle Discovery, engineers plan to replace a set of seals this week. Whether this will delay the November 1 launch remains unknown at this time.
Bigelow has made deals with six nations to provide orbital station modules
The private space station company, Bigelow Aerospace, has signed agreements with six different nations — Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden, Australia and the United Kingdom — to provide them space on its next orbiting station.
Damaged Soyuz descent module being replaced
Because of damage sustained during the railroad trip from Russia to Kazakhstan, the Russians are flying in a replacement descent module for the Soyuz capsule scheduled for launch to ISS on December 13.
Chinese embargo of rare earth minerals expands
China is expanding its embargo on exporting rare earth minerals, blocking shipments to Japan, Europe and the United States. Key quote:
China mines 95 percent of the world’s rare earth elements, which have broad commercial and military applications, and are vital to the manufacture of products as diverse as cellphones, large wind turbines and guided missiles. Any curtailment of Chinese supplies of rare earths is likely to be greeted with alarm in Western capitals, particularly because Western companies are believed to keep much smaller stockpiles of rare earths than Japanese companies.
Fuel leak on Discovery plugged
It appears that the fuel leak on the space shuttle Discovery has stopped.
Dead Sea scrolls going digital on Internet
The custodian of the Dead Sea Scrolls is working with Google to put them on line for all to view.
Bigelow Aerospace Begins Testing Life Support Systems with Crew
The private space station company Bigelow is beginning the testing of its station life support systems, using human subjects.
Bankrupty for TerreStar?
It ain’t just the government in financial trouble: With $1 billion in debt, the satellite wireless company TerreStar is rumored to be considering bankruptcy.
Halfway to Pluto
The New Horizons space probe has now passed the halfway mark on its journey to Pluto.