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| Image credit: Xinhua |
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| What's Next for China? |
| Oct 17, 2003 - With Yang Liwei safely on the ground, China took advantage of their space momentum to highlight their future plans. Officials from the Chinese Space Agency announced today on state television that another Shenzhou flight will take place within one to two years. After that will come a series of flights to master docking spacecraft and spacewalking. And then the Chinese intend to build a space station of their own; nothing as elaborate as Mir or the International Space Station, which will be serviced by Shenzhou. |
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| Image credit: ISRO |
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| India Launches Remote Sensing Satellite |
| Oct 17, 2003 - An Indian PSLV rocket blasted off today from the Satish Dhawan Space Center carrying the IRS-P6 remote sensing satellite into an 821 km high polar orbit. The rocket was launched even though the weather was poor with heavy rains – the wind, however, wasn’t a problem. IRS-P6 is the most advanced remote sensing satellite built by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO); it will primarily monitor natural resources, like water, agriculture, and gather land management data. |
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| Image credit: NASA/JPL |
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| Glaciers in Patagonia Melting Faster Then Expected |
| Oct 17, 2003 - New research from NASA shows that glaciers in the Patagonia region of South America are thinning out at an accelerated rate. Researchers compared data from the recent space shuttle topography mission in 2000 against historical surveys from the 1970s and 90s. The Patagonia glaciers are losing mass faster than other icefields, such as those in Alaska, which are five times larger. This different rate of melting is important, because it helps researchers understand some of the factors that could contribute other than just overall global climate change. |
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| Image credit: Planetary Society |
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| Solar Sail Launch Delayed to 2004 |
| Oct 17, 2003 - The Planetary Society announced this week that they will be pushing back the launch of the Cosmos 1 solar sail from October to some time in 2004. This will give the mission team more time to test various aspects of the spacecraft to make that it works properly when it does launch. Their previous launch of a solar sail failed when the Volna rocket carrying it failed to deploy the spacecraft. If successful, this prototype vehicle will help demonstrate that the light from the Sun can be used for propulsion. |
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