Word: payloaders
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
NASA's new manner was in marked contrast to its bold, often arrogant and occasionally careless approach in pre-Challenger days. NASA initially promoted the shuttle as a routine "space truck," an efficient, economical transport vehicle capable of lofting any payload -- commercial, scientific or military -- into orbit. Washington succumbed to that pitch, allowing NASA to decree ! that expendable rockets such as the Delta, Atlas and Titan be phased out in favor of the shuttle...
...result of its difficulties, NASA has lost potential commercial clients to the European Space Agency, which will put payloads into orbit aboard unmanned Ariane rockets at bargain prices (cost: about $40 million per payload). Even more galling was last month's decision by the Reagan Administration to allow China to launch two U.S. communications satellites, a move that stunned the fledgling U.S. commercial rocket industry. "That hurt, and hurt hard," says an executive of one U.S. firm. "We wanted those birds...
Experts point out that the Air Force drawing may be somewhat misleading. Several details, like the placement of the engine-exhaust outlets, have been deliberately masked. Others, including crew size and maximum payload, along with such flight characteristics as range, airspeed and cruising altitude, remain strictly classified. The Air Force does acknowledge, however, that the plane is going to cost more than projected. The fleet of 132 bombers, originally priced at $36.6 billion, could cost twice as much by the time it is airborne in the 1990s...
Sometime next year, when the Soviets launch one of their Proton rockets toward their space station Mir, a pharmaceutical experiment on board could mark a new cooperative era in space. The package, a crystal-growing project, will be the first commercial payload put into orbit for a U.S. company by the Soviets. Glavkosmos, the Soviet civilian space agency, has agreed to conduct several such experiments aboard Mir under a contract with Payload Systems, a Wellesley, Mass., consulting firm. American firms that want to explore low- gravity manufacturing and other space-based technologies are turning to the Soviets because...
Robins claims she discovered a self-defeating Unisys procedure: instead of halting other operations while both the main and backup software were tested, the contractor permitted NASA to make additional changes in payload and other shuttle flight plans as the testing proceeded. While this saved a three-week hold for each test, she insists that it rendered the results meaningless, since the software could not be adjusted and tested simultaneously...