ESA Ministerial Council approve Arianespace Ariane 6 design - Video

Decided upon in Luxembourg by the European Space Agency Council Meeting at Ministerial Level, Ariane 6 is a modular three-stage launcher (solid–cryogenic–cryogenic) with two configurations using: four boosters (A64) or two boosters (A62).

Images of the Ariane 6 launcher design agreed at today's Ministerial Conference

Credit: ESA

Iran to Launch 3 New Satellites with More Powerful Launchers

In this undated photo provided by the Iranian Defense Ministry on Friday, June 17, 2011, technicians work on a locally manufactured satellite called Rasad. 

Image courtesy Iranian Defense Ministry.

Iran is preparing to launch three new locally made satellites to the orbit, Fars News Agency reported citing the Deputy Head of the Iranian Space Agency (ISA) Hamid Fazeli.

Tehran is preparing to orbit three new home-made satellites, called Zafar (Triumph), Tolou (Sunrise) and Pars, from more powerful launchers and on the back of bigger carriers in the near future, an official announced on Saturday. 

Credit: Fars News Agency

Deputy Head of Iran Space Agency (ISA) Hamid Fazeli made the announcement on the sidelines of a ceremony at the start of the World Space Week in Tehran today.

"Launching the under-construction satellites, including Sharifsat and Nahid, are also among the short-term plans of the ISA," he added.

Also, Iranian Vice-President for Executive Affairs Mohammad Shariatmadari told reporters in the same ceremony that Iran hopes that its Sharifsat satellite would be sent into orbit this year.

Fazeli had announced in May that Iran plans to launch three home-made monitoring satellites into orbit in the next Iranian calendar year (March 2015-March 2016).

"Zafar, Tolou and AUT Sat will be sent into space onboard the Simorq satellite carrier," he said.

Fazeli noted that the satellites would transmit images of the Earth's surface to ground stations.

Zafar will be sent into a geostationary orbit, which is a circular orbit around 36,000 kilometers (22,320 miles) above the Earth's equator.

The satellite will reportedly have a lifespan of one year and six months, and will capture images and transmit them to stations on earth.

Tolou satellite will also carry out remote sensing and topography missions, and will travel in an orbit of 500 kilometers above from the Earth’s equator.

Moreover, AUT Sat, developed by Iranian scientists at Amir Kabir University of Technology, is a monitoring and telecommunications satellite, which weighs 100 kilograms. It is expected to have a lifespan of two years.

France 'eyes EADS Airbus-Safran (Snecma) tie-up for launch rockets'

European aerospace group EADS Airbus and French rocket-maker (Snecma) Safran are looking at jointly making next-generation launch rockets to compete with US firm SpaceX, the French financial newspaper Les Echos said Sunday in a report on its website.

EADS Airbus chief Tom Enders and Safran (Snecma) boss Jean-Paul Herteman are to meet French President Francois Hollande in Paris early Monday, after which a deal is expected to be announced for their companies to jointly manufacture Europe's Ariane 6 rockets, Les Echos said.

The deal was being made because, "despite proven reliability, Ariane suffers from an overly fragmented industrial organisation... that badly hurts its competitiveness" while SpaceX "works in a totally integrated fashion", Les Echos reported.

The Ariane 6 rockets are designed to put single payloads into orbit and are to be cheaper than the heavier and bigger Ariane 5 rockets currently used, which carry two satellites at once.

SpaceX, a private US company, already sends up smaller, cheaper launch rockets and is steadily taking over some launches that NASA used to handle.

ESA Launchers: Arianespace announces preliminary requirements for Ariane-6

Ariane 6. Credit: ESA–D. Ducros, 2013

The preliminary requirements for Europe's next-generation Ariane 6 launcher have been agreed and the project is set to move on to the next stage.

In November 2012, the ESA Council at Ministerial level, meeting in Naples, Italy, approved the start of preparatory activities for Europe's next-generation Ariane 6 launch vehicle.

The objective of Ariane 6 is to guarantee autonomous access to space for Europe, serving European institutional missions, without requiring public support to exploit.

The performance requested for the new vehicle is up to 6.5 tonnes in equivalent geostationary transfer orbit, to cover both institutional and commercial needs.

The configuration retained was 'PPH' – indicating the sequence of stages: a first and a second stage using solid propulsion (P) and a third stage using cryogenic propulsion (H).

Ministers also requested that the new vehicle exploits maximum commonalities with the cryogenic reignitable upper stage of Ariane 5 ME.

The next step for the Ariane 6 project is the completion of a first Design Analysis Cycle, which is planned for the end of February, and which includes trade-offs for several subsystems.

"Decisions taken by the ESA Council at Ministerial level in November 2012 are being implemented strictly and timely," noted Antonio Fabrizi, ESA's Director of Launchers.

NASA: Nuclear Fusion Rockets for Future Space Exploration

A concept image of a spacecraft powered by a fusion-driven rocket. 

In this image, the crew would be in the forward-most chamber. 

Solar panels on the sides would collect energy to initiate the process that creates fusion.

CREDIT: University of Washington, MSNW

Rockets that harness the power of nuclear fusion may provide the next big leap in humanity's quest to explore the final frontier, NASA's science chief says.

Nuclear fusion rockets could slash travel times through deep space dramatically, potentially opening up vast swathes of the solar system to human exploration, said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

John Grunsfeld

"It's transformative," Grunsfeld said last month after his presentation at Maker Faire Bay Area in San Mateo, Calif., a two-day celebration of DIY science, technology and engineering.

"You could get to Saturn in a couple of months. How fantastic would that be?"

For a little perspective: NASA's robotic Cassini spacecraft blasted off in October 1997 and didn't enter Saturn orbit until July 2004.



Traditional chemical propulsion systems can get humans to destinations in deep space, but with a lot of travel time.

For example, a roundtrip manned mission to the vicinity of Mars, which NASA aims to execute by the mid-2030s, would require about 500 days of spaceflight.

Speeding up the trip to Mars, or anywhere else, is desirable for a number of reasons — to minimize the radiation dose astronauts receive during the journey, for example, and to save money on consumables such as food and water.

So NASA and researchers around the world have been investigating advanced propulsion technologies, including space-bending "warp drives," enormous solar sails and matter-antimatter engines.

Nuclear fusion is perhaps the most promising of these possibilities, at least in the relatively near term, proponents say.

Fusion rockets would harness the energy released when the nuclei of two or more atoms combine.

Our sun and other stars are fusion-powered, converting this energy to light; the same principle also gives hydrogen bombs their immense destructive power.

NASA has funded several early-stage fusion ideas recently via a program called NIAC (NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts).

One of these groups, led by scientists at the University of Washington, recently calculated that a fusion rocket could make it possible to get astronauts to Mars in as little as 30 days.