ESA Neosat boosting Europe's telecommunications by satellite

ESA is forging ahead with the Neosat next-generation satcom platform, planning the first flights within five years. 

The goal is for European satellite builders to capture at least half of the world's satcom market in 2018-30 through innovation and efficiency, generating 25 billion pounds in sales.

The contract for Phase-B of Neosat was signed today by Magali Vaissiere, ESA's Director of Telecommunications and Integrated Applications, and Eric Beranger and Bertrand Maureau for prime contractors Airbus Defence and Space, and Thales Alenia Space, respectively.

Magali Vaissiere commented: "Neosat will foster the competitiveness of European satellite industry and strengthen Europe's position in the core satcom market for the next decade.

"This is a unique opportunity for Europe's suppliers, as 80% of European satellite platform equipment is procured from within ESA Member States. This will be worth 7 billion pounds to those suppliers."

Magali Vaissiere, ESA’s Director of Telecoms,
Eric Béranger (EADS) and Bertrand Maureau (Thales)

The contract signed today covers selection of the equipment suppliers for the Neosat product lines.

The two co-primes will run competitions between equipment suppliers for platform building blocks, based on an agreed single set of requirements.

The winners of these competitions will become part of the industrial consortium for developing the two platform lines, one led by aerospace super-corporation EADS (European Airbus Defense and Space), and the other by Thales Alenia Space.

The upcoming phase will include concurrent engineering activities to define the technical baseline of the new platforms and involve subcontractors in the UK, Sweden, Switzerland and Luxembourg.

Technologies to be investigated for the future platforms include orbit raising by electric propulsion, new thermal control concepts and next-generation battery cells.

The Neosat prime contractors have activities in France and in the UK, both countries being major contributors to Neosat.

The contract for Phase-B is expected to last around 13 months. The subsequent Phase-C/D will start in 2015 for the development and manufacture of the first two prototype flight platforms, launch in 2018-19 and in-orbit demonstration under a public-private partnership to be established with satellite operators.

Neosat is part of ESA's Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems programme (ARTES), and aims at developing, qualifying and validating in orbit next-generation satellite platforms for the core satcom market.

A crucial objective for Neosat is to reduce the cost of a satellite in orbit by 30% compared with today's designs by the end of the decade.

Existing and new technologies will be used in innovative ways and to achieve economies of scale by creating a common supply chain for both satellite prime contractors.

Farewell to ESA's ATV-3 Edoardo Amaldi: Greetings to ATV-4 Albert Einstein

ATV Albert Einstein arriving by boat at Europe’s Spaceport, in Kourou, French Guiana on 19 September 2012.

It is scheduled for launch to the International Space Station in April 2013.

Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique Video du CSG

ESA's third Automated Transfer Vehicle Edoardo Amaldi undocked from the Space Station on 28 September and completed the final part of its six-month servicing mission to the Station by reentering the atmosphere on 3 October and burning up as planned over an uninhabited area of the southern Pacific ocean.

ATVs perform all manoeuvres, including docking autonomously, under close surveillance by their control centre in Toulouse, France run jointly by ESA and CNES.

ATV Edoardo Amaldi and the International Space Station firing their thrusters to boost the orbital outpost’s orbit. 

This shot was captured by ESA astronaut André Kuipers during his PromISSe mission.

ATV-3, Edoardo Amaldi docked with the Interntional Space Station on 29 March 2012 during André’s six-month PromISSe mission.

The cargo ship delivered 6596 kg of fuel, air, oxygen, scientific equipment, spare parts and crew supplies.

While docked, the ATV-3 performed nine reboosts to keep the Space Station in orbit, counteracting the effects of atmospheric drag.

Without reboosts by ATV and Russia’s Progress vehicles, the Station would eventually fall back to Earth.

On 22 August, ATV-3’s eighth boost lasted for 40 minutes (nearly half an orbit) and raised the Station to new heights – a record-breaking 405 x 427 km above Earth.

During the six months that ATV-3 spent at the Station, it provided 48 cubic metres of extra space for the astronauts. Before its departure, the crew loaded its pressurised module with waste material.

ESA ATV Edoardo Amaldi Boosts Space Station: The Inside Story - YouTube

Caption from ReelNASA: As the International Space Station is boosted into a higher orbit, Expedition 29 Commander Mike Fossum and Flight Engineers Satoshi Furukawa and Sergei Volkov float freely to demonstrate the acceleration of the orbiting complex.

ISS Reboost
One of the crucial tasks of all ATVs is Station reboosting. This interesting and partly-scientific video shows what it’s like to be inside the ISS when it’s being accelerated.

The Station accelerates forward while the astronauts, who are in free-flight orbit around Earth (albeit in side the station)  drift backwards, relative to the Station. Thus providing further proof that Newton was indeed correct!

ISRO Human Spaceflight Receives Big Budget Boost

The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) project has been allocated Rs 250 crore.

ISRO's warhorse rocket, PSLV had put in orbit the Chandrayaan-I and two launches of the rocket are scheduled for the first quarter of 2010-11.

India's human space flight programme got a major boost as the General Budget on Friday proposed a significant allocation to it and also sought increase in funds for setting up an indigenous global positioning system.

The Budget, presented by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in the Lok Sabha, has allocated Rs 150 crore for the human spaceflight programme under which the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) plans to develop a space vehicle to put a two-member crew in space and get them back safely.

The government has already approved pre-project research and development activities in this regard.

The plan allocation for ISRO has been pegged at Rs 5,000 crore as against the revised budgetary estimates of Rs 3,172 crore last year.

The Budget has proposed Rs 100 crore for Chandrayaan-I and II. Space scientists are planning to land two robotic rovers on the moon to carry out tests on the lunar surface.

The allocation for the Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System (IRNSS), on the lines of US' Global Positioning System (GPS), was pegged at Rs 262.10 crore against the revised estimates of Rs 220 crore last year.

ISRO plans to have a constellation of seven satellites which are expected to provide position accuracies similar to GPS in a region in and around the country. The first satellite is targeted for launch in 2011.

The Budget allocated Rs 250 crore for developing the semi-cryogenic engine, which is key to development of advanced rockets to launch heavier satellites.

Mukherjee has earmarked Rs 40 crore for Aditya, the space department's ambitious project to launch a satellite to study the sun.

The project would be India's maiden space-based coronagraph to study the Sun's corona. The objective of the project is to have a fundamental understanding of the physical process that heat up the solar corona, accelerate the solar wind and produce coronal mass ejections.

The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) project has been allocated Rs 250 crore. ISRO's warhorse rocket, PSLV had put in orbit the Chandrayaan-I and two launches of the rocket are scheduled for the first quarter of 2010-11.

NASA Working to Boost Speed of Space Communications

View of the Canberra Complex showing the 70m (230 ft.) antenna and the 34m (110 ft.) antennas. The Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex, located outside Canberra, Australia, is one of the three complexes which comprise NASA's Deep Space Network. The other complexes are located in Goldstone, California, and Madrid, Spain

Rovers and deep space probes can forget about quickly posting cool high-definition videos to YouTube, given the painfully slow data transfer rates for most of today's space missions.

But NASA wants to change that by fusing together three aged space communication networks into a much faster, more efficient data network worthy of 21st century missions to the moon, Mars and beyond. And it hopes to do it all without costing taxpayers an extra cent.

NASA's overhaul aims to boost space communication by as much as 50 times faster than today's data transfer rates, so that a Mars mission squeaking by on a few megabits per second might someday get as much as 600 megabits per second, if not more. That could enable far more scientific payoff per mission in the long run.

"Imagine what you can accomplish with a single mission instead of several spacecraft flying over several years to collect the data," said Badri Younes, NASA's deputy associate administrator for Space Communications and Navigation.

An upgraded network might support the very quick upload or download of huge video files the size of an HD YouTube video, as opposed to current capabilities that would struggle to transfer mp3 music files.

Younes worked at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center for a decade before leaving to join the U.S. Department of Defense. But the U.S. space agency hired him back in August 2007 for the purpose of revolutionizing its space communication networks.

Climate action should boost energy access for poor: UN

Tackling climate change should also include providing low-carbon energy to the poor, UN agencies said Monday, pointing out that almost one third of the world's population remains in the dark at night.

The report, The Energy Access Situation in Developing Countries, is published by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and World Health Organization (WHO).

It notes that 80 percent of people without access to electricity live in the world's least developed countries, led by sub-Saharan Africa. The figure is highest in Burundi, Chad and Liberia, where 97 percent have no electricity.

Minoru Takada, in charge of energy and the environment at the UNDP, said failure to gain access to reliable energy made it "particularly difficult" for such countries to attain the UN's Millennium Development Goals on reducing poverty rates by 2015.

Lack of access to cleaner, reliable sources of energy means that three billion people depend on traditional biomass and coal to cook their food or heat their homes, says the report.

The fuels are not only a significant contribution to global warming because of the partial combustion of the gases.

Particles and fumes from them are also blamed for the death of two million people each year from pneumonia, chronic lung disease and lung cancer.

Therefore, all we need to discuss and resolve now, is how to curb the growth in the population explosion and the inevitable demand for scarer resources, encroachment into wild spaces and rampant consumerism.