The International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety (IAASS) has just published the book “Safety Design for Space Operations” (Elsevier, 2013). The book comes four years after “Safety Design for Space Systems,” a university level textbook recently translated into Chinese. With contributions from more than 40 authors, chosen from among the best in their respective fields, the project was coordinated by IAASS President Tommaso Sgobba, and edited by Dr. Firooz Allahdadi, Isabelle [...]
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Is It Space Junk? Texan Electrician Finds Mysterious Sphere in his Backyard
By Tereza Pultarova and Dean Gentz It was late February 2013 when Dean Gentz, an American electrician, spotted a strange object in his cow pasture near the tiny town of Buna, east Texas. First, he didn’t pay any special attention to it thinking it was most probably just another toy his nephews and nieces had left around. When he finally decided to [...]
Fengyun 1C Debris Collided with BLITS Satellite
A release from AGI concludes that a change in orbit and spin period for the active Russian BLITS satellite reported on February 4 is due to collision with a piece of Chinese ASAT debris from Fengyun 1C. The change was observed by Institute for Precision Instrument Engineering (IPIE) scientists Dr. Vasiliy Yurasov and Dr. Andrey Nazarenko. They recorded a sudden decrease [...]
China Plans Next Manned Mission for Summer 2013
China announced that it will launch a new manned space mission between June and August 2013. Three taikonauts will comprise the crew. “The 3 astronauts will stay in orbit for 15 days, including 12 days when they will work inside the coupled complex of the Shenzhou-10 and Tiangong-1,” said Zhou Jianping, the head designer of China’s manned space program The crew will [...]
When Space Attacks!
Damage and injury from falling space objects are thankfully rare, but as seen in Russia on 15th February, rare events can and do happen, especially when viewed over a long enough timeline. The injury toll from the Russian meteorite appears to have settled at approximately 1500 light casualties, marking a new record for the highest confirmed amount of people to [...]
Is China Preparing an Anti-Satellite Test?
U.S. experts think China is preparing to perform another anti-satellite (ASAT) test in January. “The first media report on these rumours appeared in October,” wrote Gregory Kulacki of the Union of Concerned Scientists on a blog post dated January 4th. “China’s Ministry of Defence challenged the information in that report, but in November contacts in China told us an announcement about an [...]
Asteroids Swoop Past Earth
On the morning of December 11, asteroid 2012 XE54 – discovered just two days prior – passed within 230,000 km of Earth. The 36 m long asteroid passed well within the Moon’s orbit, experiencing an unusual surface eclipse as it passed through Earth’s shadow. 2012 XE54 highlights the need for improved cataloguing of potentially hazardous asteroids. Tuesday’s passage was quite [...]
ESA Considers Launching Astronauts on Chinese Spacecraft
The European Space Agency (ESA) is considering a possible cooperation with China on human space missions by the end of this decade, says the head of the European Human Space Flight and Operations Directorate, and former German ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter. “I would welcome a European astronaut flying aboard a Chinese spaceship,” said Thomas Reiter to The Associated Press. He [...]
Chinese Use Space Radiation to Mutate Food Crops
Exposure to radiation is one of the well-studied hazards of spaceflight. But what if you could turn that hazard to advantage? That’s what China has attempted to do by sending plant seeds to space, then cultivating the resultant mutations. In early experiments begun in 1987 Jiang Xingcun, a scientist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, discovered that spaceflight can increase [...]
Sri Lanka’s First Space Academy to be Created with Chinese Support
Taking advantage of Chinese technical assistance offered by Sino Satellite Communications Company Ltd (SinoSAT) and China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC), the Sri Lankan company Supreme Satellite Private Ltd (SupremeSAT) just signed a joint agreement for the establishment of a first ever Sri Lankan Space Academy. “I am very glad that this venture coincides with the vision of the President [...]
