Space News for June 10, 1999

Team Assigned to Investigate Launch Failures

An independent team of experts are investigating Boeing’s recent launch failures, seperate from the government investigations. The team will review the Delta, Sea Launch, and Upper Intertial Stage, and provide their report by the fall.

CNN Space

Electrical Problem May Have Caused IKONOS Failure

It seems that aerospace companies do nothing but post-mortems these days. Lockheed Martin believes that the IKONOS 1 rocket launched from an Athena II rocket never reached orbit because of an electrical problem, which stopped a protective cover from being ejected at the proper time. With the additional load of the cover, the rocket didn’t have enough energy to reach orbit.

CNN Space

Warp Drive Becomes Theoretically Possible

It’s been quite a controversy: is a warp drive possible? Physicists have taken both sides of this argument, with one stating that it’ll take more energy than available in the Universe, and now, and new paper by Chris Van Den Broeck which states that it might require much less energy.

BBC News

exoScience

Globalstar Launch Delayed Again

As predicted, terrible weather in Florida has delayed the latest launch of Globalstar satellites on a Boeing Delta II rocket. The launch has been postponed until Thursday, with two launch windows to improve their chances of actually launching.

SpaceViews