Satellite News

Students world-wide are being asked to come up with ideas for a space mission to be launched in 2010. Proposals are now being sought for YES3, the third project in ESA’s Young Engineer’s Satellite Programme, the project that gives students the chance to design and build space hardware.

Nearly six months after it entered orbit, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has concluded its aerobraking phase. The spacecraft had been dipping in and out of the red planet’s atmosphere to adjust its orbit.

The crash of a Dnepr launch vehicle shortly after takeoff from Baikonur cosmodrome at the end of July was caused by a failure in the operation of a hydraulic device, said Nikolai Anfimov, head of the failure investigation commission and general director of TsNIIMash.

The Kennedy Space Center returned to normal operations today with the passage of Tropical Storm Ernesto late Wednesday.