The channel broadcasts from Moscow via satellites IS9, Hispasat 1D and the satellite television system Digital+. Millions of viewers across Europe, North and South America have access to its open signal. RT’s Spanish programming takes into account the time difference for its broadcasting across various time zones and all news bulletins are run at morning or evening prime-time in Madrid, Mexico, Buenos Aires, Miami, Los Angeles and New York. RT Spanish is set to deliver news on politics, business and sports, reports on developments across the globe and in Russia, as well as important interviews and unique viewpoints, often not covered by other media worldwide.

Chandrayaan II, the second lunar mission, a four-year project under Indo-Russian collaboration, is being executed by ISRO after the success of Chandrayaan I. The designs of the rover and orbiter for the mission have been finalized and the fabrication will begin shortly. Chandrayaan-II, also an unmanned mission, will land on the lunar surface and make chemical, mineralogical and photo-geologic mapping of the moon to confirm Chandrayaan-I’s findings. Unlike the first lunar mission, Chandrayaan-II will not have 11 payloads, but fewer instruments, Annadurai said, and will also investigate the presence of water.

“We are pleased to be selected to continue to work on this program, having already supplied equipment for several earlier spacecraft in the constellation,” said John Keating, CEO of COM DEV International.  “In addition to these contracts which we will service from our Cambridge facility, we announced last month that our U.S. subsidiary had won a separate contract for work on the same satellite.”

GIOVE-A was the first part of the in-orbit validation programme for Galileo, broadcasting the first signal to successfully secure the critical Galileo frequency filing with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) at 17:25 GMT on the 12th January 2006.  This was a significant achievement for SSTL having commissioned the necessary systems to achieve this broadcast in just three weeks. On the May 2, 2007, GIOVE-A successfully transmitted the first Galileo navigation message from space, containing the information needed by users’ receivers to calculate their position using the future Galileo satellite navigation service.  These signals have since been used for signal quality testing and for equipment manufacturers and the scientific community to validate prototype Galileo receivers. Throughout the past 4 years, the satellite has provided valuable data about the Medium Earth Orbit which the Galileo constellation will occupy, helping to characterise the radiation environment and validating subsystems such as an atomic clock and the Galileo signal broadcasting payload.

In July and August this year, GIOVE-A was gradually moved to a higher orbit to ensure that it does not cross the operational Galileo constellation’s orbits when the first operation satellites are launched in 2012.  The satellite has been in orbit for 21 months beyond its original 27 month mission design life and continues to provide critical data to all of the ground users experimenting with Galileo navigation signals. SSTL, together with its partner OHB-System of Bremen, Germany form the core team of one of the two consortia bidding for the operational satellites. The final proposal was delivered to ESA in November and the outcome of the evaluation process is awaited. To help improve the overall schedule the team was authorised by the EC and ESA to initiate the procurement of long lead items for the full system earlier this year.

The proposed missions would probe the atmosphere and crust of Venus; return a piece of a near-Earth asteroid for analysis; or drop a robotic lander into a basin at the moon’s south pole to return lunar rocks back to Earth for study. NASA will select one proposal for full development after detailed mission concept studies are completed and reviewed. The studies begin during 2010, and the selected mission must be ready for launch no later than December 30, 2018. Mission cost, excluding the launch vehicle, is limited to US$650 million.

Each proposal team initially will receive approximately US$3.3 million in 2010 to conduct a 12-month mission concept study that focuses on implementation feasibility, cost, management and technical plans. Studies also will include plans for educational outreach and small business opportunities. The selected proposals are:

•The Surface and Atmosphere Geochemical Explorer, or SAGE, mission to Venus would release a probe to descend through the planet’s atmosphere. During descent, instruments would conduct extensive measurements of the atmosphere’s composition and obtain meteorological data. The probe then would land on the surface of Venus, where its abrading tool would expose both a weathered and a pristine surface area to measure its composition and mineralogy. Scientists hope to understand the origin of Venus and why it is so different from Earth. Larry Esposito of the University of Colorado in Boulder, is the principal investigator.
•The Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer spacecraft, called Osiris-Rex, would rendezvous and orbit a primitive asteroid. After extensive measurements, instruments would collect more than two ounces of material from the asteriod’s surface for return to Earth. The returned samples would help scientists better undertand and answer long-held questions about the formation of our solar system and the origin of complex molecules necessary for life. Michael Drake, of the University of Arizona in Tucson, is the principal investigator.
•MoonRise: Lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin Sample Return Mission would place a lander in a broad basin near the moon’s south pole and return approximately two pounds of lunar materials for study. This region of the lunar surface is believed to harbor rocks excavated from the moon’s mantle. The samples would provide new insight into the early history of the Earth-moon system. Bradley Jolliff, of Washington University in St. Louis, is the principal investigator.

The proposals were submitted to NASA on July 31, 2009, in response to the New Frontiers Program 2009 Announcement of Opportunity. New Frontiers seeks to explore the solar system with frequent, medium-class spacecraft missions that will conduct high-quality, focused scientific investigations designed to enhance understanding of the solar system. The final selection will become the third mission in the program. New Horizons, NASA’s first New Frontiers mission, launched in 2006, will fly by the Pluto-Charon system in 2014 then target another Kuiper Belt object for study. The second mission, called Juno, is designed to orbit Jupiter from pole to pole for the first time, conducting an in-depth study of the giant planet’s atmosphere and interior. It is slated for launch in August 2011.

“We are talking about people’s lives,” Perminov was quoted by news agencies as telling the radio station. “Better to spend a few hundred million dollars to create a system for preventing a collision than to wait until it happens and hundreds of thousands of people are killed,” he said.

The Apophis asteroid measures approximately 350 metres (1,150 feet) in diameter and RIA Novosti news agency said that if it were to hit Earth when it passes nearby in 2036, it would create a new desert the size of France. Perminov said a serious plan to prevent such a catastrophe would probably be an international project involving Russian, European, U.S. and Chinese space experts. Interfax quoted him as saying that one option would be to build a new “space apparatus” designed solely for the purpose of diverting Apophis from a collision course with Earth safely. “There won’t be any nuclear explosions,” Perminov said. “Everything will be done according to the laws of physics. We will examine all of this.”

In a statement dated from October and posted on its website, NASA said new calculations on the path of Apophis indicated “a significantly reduced likelihood of a hazardous encounter with Earth in 2036. Updated computational techniques and newly available data indicate the probability of an Earth encounter on April 13, 2036, for Apophis has dropped from one-in-45,000 to about four-in-a-million,” NASA said. RIA Novosti said the asteroid was expected to pass within 30,000 kilometres (18,600 miles) of Earth in 2029 — closer than some geo-stationary satellites — and could shift course to hit Earth seven years years after that.

SBIRS satelliteThe Critical Design Review was accomplished by a joint SBIRS Wing, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Northrop Grumman Electronics Systems and Aerospace Corporation team.  LMSS, Sunnyvale, California, is the prime contractor for the SBIRS program and NGES, Azusa, California, is the principal subcontractor for payload integration and test. The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, California, provides technical and managerial support to the Wing with the objective of achieving mission assurance, reliability, technical performance, and on-schedule delivery. The SBIRS Wing provides oversight and program management of the SFP program.

  SBIRS is the next-generation missile early warning system designed to enhance and augment the Defense Support Program satellites. The SBIRS mission areas include missile warning, missile defense, technical intelligence and battlespace awareness. The HEO payload consists of a single scanning sensor.  The GEO payload consists of both a scanning sensor and a staring sensor.  The scanning sensor provides continuous observation and surveillance of traditional intercontinental ballistic missile threats. The SFP program completes the four satellite geosynchronous constellation and procures additional HEO systems. Procurement of payload long-lead items for the HEO-3 and GEO-3 effort began in March 2008 with the HEO-4 and GEO-4 long-lead procurement beginning in July 2009.  Major sub-assemblies for the HEO-3 and GEO-3 payloads will be delivered to NGES during 2010; starting the assembly, integration and test phase for each payload.  Completion of the four payloads is projected to occur between 2012 and 2014.

The SBIRS Wing develops, deploys and sustains a US$25.2-billion portfolio of surveillance satellites and associated ground control stations for the DSP and the SBIRS program.  These systems detect, track and report global and theater ballistic missile attacks against the U.S., our allies, and combat forces to support warfighting decisions by combatant commanders.