EUTELSAT 21B and Star One C3 Set for Ariane 5 November Launch

 

The two satellite passengers to be carried on Arianespace's Flight VA210 - the sixth Ariane 5 mission of 2012 from French Guiana - are undergoing checkout at the Spaceport for their November 9 liftoff.

Orbital Sciences Corporation's Star One C3 spacecraft for Brazilian communications service provider Star One S.A. has begun its pre-launch processing in the S5 payload preparation facility, joining the Thales Alenia Space-built EUTELSAT 21B for Europe's Eutelsat Communications - which currently is being fueled.

EUTELSAT 21B will have a liftoff mass of five metric tons, carrying 40 Ku-band transponders on its Spacebus 4000 platform.

To operate at Eutelsat's 21.5 degrees East orbital position, the satellite will enable Eutelsat to boost capacity at this orbital slot by almost 50 percent - providing relay services for telephone companies, enterprises and government administrations in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Star One C3 is based on Orbital's GEOStar bus, and is to weigh in at under 3,200 kg. It is fitted with a hybrid payload to provide C- and Ku-band communications for the South American region.

Arianespace's five Ariane 5 missions conducted to date in 2012 from French Guiana have orbited eight satellites and one Automated Transfer Vehicle for servicing of the International Space Station.

In addition to these heavy-lift flights, the company performed one medium-lift Soyuz mission so far this year from the Spaceport, lofting a pair of Galileo navigation system IOV (In-Orbit Validation) spacecraft, while a Soyuz launch conducted by Arianespace's Starsem affiliate from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome deployed the Metop-B weather satellite.

Adding to the 2012 activity was Arianespace's support for the successful qualification launch of its light-lift Vega vehicle from French Guiana, with this maiden mission performed under responsibility of the European Space Agency.

For further information visit: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/EUTELSAT_21B_and_Star_One_C3_Set_For_Ariane_5_November_Launch_999.html

Student teams fly their theses in weightlessness

 

Fly Your Thesis group after flight

 For three days last week, student teams had the opportunity to run their experiments in near-weightlessness aboard Novespace’s Airbus A300 Zero-G aircraft as it followed a series of parabolas.

As part of the Fly Your Thesis! Project, three student groups flew along with nine professional teams in the 57th ESA parabolic flight campaign, investigating effects that are virtually impossible to study on the ground under the normal pull of gravity. This year’s educational venture gave students invaluable experience in how to design, build and perform experiments in microgravity.  

Hydronauts2Fly Team

The Hydronauts2Fly team studied how the posture of a relaxed person changes in microgravity. Cameras recorded the limb positions of a floating volunteer to improve the layout of future space stations and help design better spacesuits. The information could also be useful for ergonomic applications on Earth.

LINVforROS students in Microgravity  

The LINVforROS Corn experiment studied variations in reactive molecules containing oxygen produced by maize plants as they were subjected to the different g-forces during the flights.   

Dustbrothers Team

The Dustbrothers team investigated the levitation of highly porous sintered glass plates due to the ‘Knudsen compressor effect’. This poorly understood effect is thought to be important in the early phases of planet formation, where it is possible that it is at least partially responsible for the movement of dust away from the star in a protoplanetary disc of matter. 

All three teams must now analyse their data and the results will form part of their Masters theses, PhD theses or research programmes.“My thanks to ESA Education and the Novespace team for this great opportunity,” says Emanuela Monetti, from the LINVforROS team. “This experience was for me one of the best in my life.”

For further information visit: http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM0KF52Q8H_index_2.html

Earth’s magnetosphere behaves like a sieve

 

ESA’s quartet of satellites studying Earth’s magnetosphere, Cluster, has discovered that our protective magnetic bubble lets the solar wind in under a wider range of conditions than previously believed. Earth’s magnetic field is our planet’s first line of defence against the bombardment of the solar wind. This stream of plasma is launched by the Sun and travels across the Solar System, carrying its own magnetic field with it.

Depending on how the solar wind’s interplanetary magnetic field – IMF – is aligned with Earth’s magnetic field, different phenomena can arise in Earth’s immediate environment. One well-known process is magnetic reconnection, where magnetic field lines pointing in opposite directions spontaneously break and reconnect with other nearby field lines. This redirects their plasma load into the magnetosphere, opening the door to the solar wind and allowing it to reach Earth.

Under certain circumstances this can drive ‘space weather’, generating spectacular aurorae, interrupting GPS signals and affecting terrestrial power systems.

   Solar wind entry at high latitudes

In 2006, Cluster made the surprising discovery that huge, 40 000 km swirls of plasma along the boundary of the magnetosphere – the magnetopause – could allow the solar wind to enter, even when Earth’s magnetic field and the IMF are aligned.

These swirls were found at low, equatorial latitudes, where the magnetic fields were most closely aligned. These giant vortices are driven by a process known as the Kelvin–Helmholtz (KH) effect, which can occur anywhere in nature when two adjacent flows slip past each other at different speeds.

Examples include waves whipped up by wind sliding across the surface of the ocean, or in atmospheric clouds. Analysis of Cluster data has now found that KH waves can also occur at a wider range of magnetopause locations and when the IMF is arranged in a number of other configurations, providing a mechanism for the continuous transport of the solar wind into Earth’s magnetosphere.

“We found that when the interplanetary magnetic field is westward or eastward, magnetopause boundary layers at higher latitude become most subject to KH instabilities, regions quite distant from previous observations of these waves,” says Kyoung-Joo Hwang of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and lead author of the paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

“In fact, it’s very hard to imagine a situation where solar wind plasma could not leak into the magnetosphere, since it is not a perfect magnetic bubble.” The findings confirm theoretical predictions and are reproduced by simulations presented by the authors of the new study. “The solar wind can enter the magnetosphere at different locations and under different magnetic field conditions that we hadn’t known about before,” says co-author Melvyn Goldstein, also from Goddard Space Flight Center.

“That suggests there is a ‘sieve-like’ property of the magnetopause in allowing the solar wind to continuously flow into the magnetosphere.” The KH effect is also seen in the magnetospheres of Mercury and Saturn, and the new results suggest that it may provide a possible continuous entry mechanism of solar wind into those planetary magnetospheres, too.

“Cluster’s observations of these boundary waves have provided a great advance on our understanding of solar wind – magnetosphere interactions, which are at the heart of space weather research,” says Matt Taylor, ESA’s Cluster project scientist.

“In this case, the relatively small separation of the four Cluster satellites as they passed through the high-latitude dayside magnetopause provided a microscopic look at the processes ripping open the magnetopause and allowing particles from the Sun direct entry into the atmosphere.”

For further information visit: http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMOVAMFL8H_index_2.html

Two-thirds of enterprises will adopt a mobile solution by 2017

Two-thirds of enterprises will adopt a mobile solution by 2017

 NEW DELHI: Over the next five years, 65% of enterprises will adopt a mobile device management (MDM) solution, according to Gartner, a research firm. With the increased functionality of smartphones, and the increasing popularity of tablets, much of the network traffic and corporate data that was once the primary domain of enterprise PCs is now being shifted to mobile devices.

"The era of the PC has ended. Employees are becoming more mobile and looking for ways to still be connected wherever work needs to be done," said Phil Redman, research vice president at Gartner. "The convenience and productivity gains that mobile devices bring are too tempting for most companies and their employees. Securing corporate data on mobile devices is a big challenge, but one that companies must embrace. Enterprises are struggling with how to support and secure this dynamic workforce."

Gartner predicts that through 2017, 90% of enterprises will have two or more mobile operating systems to support. In the past year, many companies have moved to Apple's iOS as their main mobile device platform, with others to follow over the next 12 to 18 months. As enterprises continue to offer multi-platform support, and new platforms such as Windows 8 continue to emerge, MDM needs will continue to grow.

As one of the fastest-growing enterprise devices in the past 18 months, tablets are a further driving force for enterprises adopting MDM. Most companies and users are supporting the tablet for limited usage, typically for email and personal information management (PIM) functions. However, users are pushing for more enterprise applications to be supported on the tablet, usually through either enterprise or application provider development. As more of these native apps become available, and as remote access technology improves, more enterprise content will be stored on these devices. Users are already synchronizing corporate content into public clouds for later retrieval on the devices.

Gartner believes that mobile device proliferation is inevitable and the only way that IT staff can maintain control is by separating mobile computing devices into three distinct device classes: trusted standard devices provided by the company, tolerated devices and non-supported devices. In this scenario, users are given a predefined list of supported technologies in each class, along with a budget for the projected amount that each selection consumes. Users can optimize the technologies according to their requirements without exceeding the budget.

"This is just the start for MDM. More data is being put on mobile devices, and enterprises are fast developing their own applications to support their mobile users. As mobile devices continue to displace traditional PCs, enterprises will look to their existing MDM systems to support more devices and enterprise applications and data," said Mr Redman. "MDM vendors are moving beyond security, to support enterprise and third-party applications, data and content. In the next two years, we will continue to see MDM platforms broaden out and become more enterprise mobile system management platforms, not just for devices alone."

For further information visit: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/17004466.cms?prtpage=1

Facebook and Zynga threatened with shutdown by Anonymous hacktivists in retaliation for gaming giant's layoff

Facebook and Zynga threatened with shutdown by Anonymous hacktivists in retaliation for gaming giant's layoff

 Hackers have threatened to shut down sites on November 5, which marks Guy Fawkes Day

The threat by Anonymous comes after Zynga slashed its workforce of 3,000 employees by 5 per cent The gaming giant, known for FarmVille and Words With Friends, allegedly plans to outsource jobs to India

The 'hacktivists' have targeted Zynga for its 'outrageous treatment of their employees ‘The online activist group, known as Anonymous, has threatened to shut down Zynga and Facebook, days after the gaming giant announced it was laying off 5 per cent of its workforce.

The group is targeting the San Francisco based company because of 'the outrageous treatment of their employees and their actions against many developers,' an unidentified member of the group, donning their trademark Guy Fawkes mask, announced in a YouTube video posted on Sunday.

Slamming the tech firm for slashing its employee base while sitting on 'billion dollars cash,' the hackers threatened to release games it has stolen from Zynga's server, in addition to shutting down both Zynga and Facebook on November 5.

Warning: The online activist group known as Anonymous has threatened to shut down Zynga and Facebook on November 5, which marks Guy Fawkes Day

Threat: The group planned its attack in retaliation against Zynga's announcement it would cut 5 per cent of its staff and would outsource many of those jobs to India The looming threat to take down the social networking sites comes after Zynga unveiled a restructuring plan in the wake of its disappointing third quarter earnings report on October 24.

Zynga CEO Mark Pincus announced last week it would lay off five per cent of its workforce, of approximately 3,000, shutting down its office in Boston and slashing the staff at the company's Austin branch. The company is also said to be looking at closing operations in the UK and Japan.

More...

 Occupy mom wins $85,000 in divorce from banker husband

 Why hasn't Facebook taken it down? Outrage over 'Bikini Jailbait' page that 'exploits young women' to direct users to hardcore porn site 'Jailbreaking' tablets deemed illegal but government deems it OK to download unapproved apps to smartphonesThe downsizing came as Zynga announced the company lost $52.7 million, or 7 cents per share in the past quarter.

The company CEO described the layoffs as necessary 'to streamline our operations, focus our resources on our most strategic opportunities, and invest in our future,' in a memo to staff last week. ‘As part of these changes, we’ve had to make some tough decisions around products, teams and people. ‘Plan: The group dubbed their campaing #OP maZYNGA and plans to roll out their attack in multiple phases Layoffs: Zynga CEO Mark Pincus (speaking at a San Francisco event on October 11) said last week the layoffs were necessary 'to streamline operations’ ‘We don’t take these decisions lightly as we recognize the impact to our colleagues and friends who have been on this journey with us. We appreciate their amazing contributions and will miss them.'

In addition to staff cuts, the company is also retiring some of its older games. Though Zynga dominated the early online gaming market, with its widely popular FarmVille and Words With Friends, it has been losing out to competitors like King.com, Wooga and Kixeye, in addition to the mobile arena where it has lost market share. The latest news from Zynga could mean even more problems for Facebook, as the gaming unit accounted for 14 per cent of Facebook's total revenue for the first six months of 2012.

Facebook has failed to impress Wall Street in the aftermath of its hyped IPO in May, as many analysts wonder if Mark Zuckerberg can really deliver a profit. Gaming giant: Zynga (pictured: the company headquarters in San Francisco) opened in 2003 and developed FarmVille and Words With Friends. It accounted for 14 per cent of Facebook's revenue in the past six months

Zynga customers and Facebook users, We are anonymous. During the last few days anonymous has been targeting Zynga for the outrageous treatment of their employees and their actions against many developers.

We have come to believe that these actions of Zynga will result in massive layoff of a thousand people and legal actions against everyone that speaks to the public about this plan. It will also come to end of the US game market as we know it as all this jobs will be replaced in other more convenient financial countries. With a billion dollars cash sitting in a bank we do believe that such actions are an insult to the population and the behaviour of corporations like Zynga must change.

Anonymous could not allow this to happen so it's starting to release confidential documents we have leaked on this plan. As we speak we are planning to release also all the games we've taken from their servers for free.hat being said we will stop the idea of the distribution of such games if Zynga will cease immediately the plan. ‘On November the fifth we will release the key to the data files. Remember, remember the 5TH of November,' the group said.

November 5 marks Guy Fawkes Day, which commemorates the day in 1605 when Guy Fawkes joined a group of Roman Catholic conspirators who tried to blow up the British Parliament. The group of hackers, whose members don masks of the English rebellion leader, are a loosely organized body who protest government surveillance of the web.

For further information visit: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2224555/Facebook-Zynga-threatened-shutdown-Anonymous-hacktivists-retaliation-gaming-giants-layoff.html

Photograph of Spy Satellite IGS-1B Captured in Its Final Orbits

Photograph of Spy Satellite IGS-1B Captured in Its Final Orbits

IGS-1A and 1B satellites. 

IGS-1B is a Japanese Information Gathering Satellite that was launched on March 28, 2003 together with its companion IGS-1A on board a H2A rocket. Both satellites were delivered into a 486 x 491 km orbit with an inclination of 97 degrees. The satellites orbited within 37 minutes of each other.

In 2007 it was announced by officials that IGS-1B was malfunctioning due to a loss of power. Since that time the satellite's orbit was observed to degrade.

The expected announcement of its upcoming uncontrolled atmospheric re-entry finally happened on Thursday, July 26, 2012 at 9:52 GMT. Re-entry was located over the Pacific Ocean, about 1,300 kilometers north-east of New Zealand. It is plausible that a considerable amount of fuel was still onboard during re-entry of IGS-1B.

It's companion IGS-1A is still in orbit. In the last years, I regularly pointed my camera to IGS-1A and IGS-1B without any spectacular results; the images revealed not much detail. These satellites appeared to be reasonably difficult objects to capture in their original orbits.

That changed July 25, when I was able to capture IGS-1B just 13 hours before its re-entry in an almost overhead pass in favourable atmospheric conditions. The altitude of the satellite at that time had already dropped below 200 km.He upper set of images show original unprocessed color frames from my video-camera attached to a 10 inch aperture reflecting telescope. It was one of the objects with the highest angular speed I have captured so far using my fully-manual tracking method.

We see clearly the typical golden color of the foil wrapped around the satellite. The stronger processing used in the grayscale images on the bottom show interesting detail. Beside the solar panels - which from this angle are seen only slightly illuminated by sunlight - we see some nice detail on the satellite-body appearing as some knots and ridges that are confirmed by the other images of this frame-set.

Searching the web for any pre-launch images of this satellite to compare with, I found out that there actually doesn't exist published factory-images of IGS-1B or a comparable satellite of this type, only some sketches illustrating the approximate configuration of the satellites (see illustration on top, left).

As the website Spaceflight 101 puts it: "Ground-Based images of classified spacecraft are extremely rare as most of these vehicles are in classified orbits," making the efforts put into obtaining telescopic photography of this type of satellites all the more worthwhile.

For further information visit: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Photograph_of_Spy_Satellite_IGS_1B_Captured_in_Its_Final_Orbits_999.html

China dismisses reports about anti-satellite missile test

China dismisses reports about anti-satellite missile test

Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun has dismissed media reports about a planned test launch of an anti-satellite missile in November."Such reports did not conform to the fact," Yang said at a regular news briefing on Thursday.

Reports said that China will conduct the test targeting satellites with a high orbit altitude, such as reconnaissance satellites and navigation satellites. Reports said the test would be conducted after the U.S. presidential election next month.

For further information visit: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/China_dismisses_reports_about_anti_satellite_missile_test_999.html