June 15

U.S. Postal Service To Recognize Space Memorabilia Show At NASA Center

The United States Postal Service (USPS) will issue a special pictorial stamp cancellation on June 17, in honor of the 2nd Annual Space Memorabilia Show at NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) in Cleveland, Ohio.

The ink cancellation, which appears in the current issue of the USPS Postal Bulletin, features an image of a spacewalking astronaut and the show's title.

The Space Memorabilia Show will feature items from the US space program as well as from programs throughout the world. Confirmed exhibitors include Countdown Enterprises, Boggs SpaceBooks, Nick Proach Models and Historic Space Systems. The show will also include a public tour of GRC's Zero-Gravity Facility and presentations by Neil Armstrong-biographer James R. Hansen.

USPS representatives will be present at the GRC Visitor Center on Saturday to apply the cancellation to visitor mail and commemorative envelopes. Those who cannot attend can send their mail to be canceled
with the special postmark via the Cleveland Post Office for up to 30 days after the event.

For more information and an image of the cancellation, see collectSPACE.com.

- Robert Z. Pearlman, collectSPACE.com

June 13

Oklahoma Spaceport Okayed

The Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) issued on June 12 a launch site operator license to the Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority (OSIDA).

That makes it the sixth spaceport in the United States, said James Stasny, AST spokesman.

The OSIDA-run spaceport would be based at the Clinton-Sherman Industrial Airpark, located adjacent to the town of Burns Flat, Oklahoma.

Since 1996, AST has issued site operator licenses to five other spaceports: California Spaceport at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Spaceport Florida at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the Virginia Space Flight Center at Wallops Island, Mojave Airport in California, and Kodiak Launch Complex on Kodiak Island, Alaska.

-- Leonard David

June 8

Opportunity Rover Rolls Onward

 

The Opportunity Mars rover is free and once again driving southward at Meridiani Planum.

 

Wheeling its way ever closer to the large Victoria Crater, the robot extracted itself from a wheel-stopping sand trap, now dubbed Jammerbugt.

 

“I honestly don’t know how difficult the driving is going to be between here and Victoria,” said Steve Squyres, lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Rover project. “The terrain we’re in right now has little exposed bedrock, and that makes it more treacherous than when there’s bedrock around. So we’re going to tread cautiously. But what lies farther ahead is difficult to say... we’ll find out as we go,” he told SPACE.com.

Squyres said that the main difference between Jammerbugt and Purgatory – a dune that snared Opportunity in April 2005 -- is that an onboard slip-check stopped the rover at Jammerbugt before it had dug in very far.

 

“This is why we use the slip-checks, to keep us from getting deeply embedded if something happens,” Squyres said. “And because we hadn’t dug in as badly as at Purgatory, we got out with significantly greater ease. It also helped, of course, that we’d been through this once before... it’s always easier when you know what you’re doing!”

 

-- Leonard David

June 7

Bigelow Module Launch Delayed

Word from Bigelow Aerospace is that launch of their prototype inflatable module is being delayed. Given no follow-on technical issues, the hardware could now roar skyward, sometime in the July 4-14 time frame, explained Chris Reed, a spokesman for Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace in a June 6 communiqué.

The Genesis I module is outfitted with a total of 13 cameras inside and outside the spacecraft. Financed by wealthy hotel operator, Robert Bigelow, the test flight is part of an ever-expanding set of modules to be flown.

To loft the module into Earth orbit, Bigelow Aerospace has booked a Dnepr booster under contract with ISC Kosmotras, a Russian and Ukrainian rocket-for-hire company.

Bigelow Aerospace is dedicated to flight-verifying larger and larger inflatable modules – eyeing a commercial business of providing habitable space for experimental purposes, and even using the structures to create an orbiting hotel.

-- Leonard David

June 5

Former future CEV drops into museum

The U.S. Space & Rocket Center accepted today the donation of a full scale boilerplate crew exploration vehicle built by Lockheed Martin for water landing tests in 2005.

The future "CEV" was made in support of NASA's former Orbital Space Plane Program at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Adjacent to the museum's Saturn V, the CEV's exhibit "serves as a reminder to those who see it that soon we will return to the moon and travel beyond," said USSRC's Chief Executive Officer Larry Capps at this morning's ribbon cutting ceremony.

The capsule, primarily made of hand laid-up fiberglass with a Nomex honeycomb core, was debuted only hours before NASA Headquarters announced MSFC's role in the modern CEV/CLV program.

For photographs from the ceremony and more details, see collectSPACE

-- Robert Z. Pearlman

Copyright 2006 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.

June 2

Opportunity Mars Rover Hits Sandy Stop 

NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover has experienced high slip in the sands of Meridiani Planum. The result is that the robot’s wheels are embedded. Early looks at the situation show that the rover has made very little progress after almost 80 feet (24 meters) of wheel spin.  

The immediate plan is to assess the state and health of the vehicle.  

Opportunity has been slogging its way over sand ripples, finding the best traction by moving between patches of flat-lying rock outcrops. The robot has been wheeling toward large Victoria Crater - an enormous depression, measuring a half-mile (800 meters) in diameter. 

Over a year ago – in April 2005 – Opportunity was stilled by a sand ripple, later dubbed “Purgatory Dune” with ground controllers needing more than five weeks of planning, testing and carefully monitored action to free the robot. 

The rover’s sand trap situation is not viewed as bad as Purgatory Dune. 

-- Leonard David

 

May 29

 

Voltage Glitch Afflicts Submarine-Launched Russian Satellite

 

MOSCOW (Interfax-AVN) - Equipment faults on the Russian Kompas-2 satellite launched by a Shtil ballistic rocket from the Yekaterinburg submarine in the early hours of May 27 (local time) occurred due to a voltage drop in the satellite's battery, Roskosmos press secretary I