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5:  EXOMARS MAY BE READY FOR LAUNCH IN 2011

The ExoMars probe has finally received the funding needed (650 million euros –slightly more than expected) that will most likely allow it to be launched, via a Soyouz rocket, in 2011.  Unfortunately, the new date will mean that it will take the probe two years to reach Mars, while the two American rovers and even the Mars Express probe only needed seven months when launched in 2003.  Once it arrives, ExoMars will not be looking for signs of water on the Red Planet, instead it will search for bacterial life by analyzing soil samples.  It is also equipped with a drill allowing ExoMars to take samples up to two meters underground.  Its laser will be able to vaporize rocks in its path; the minerals will then be analyzed.  Nevertheless, one very important question still remains: how to ensure the transmission of the data gathered and the reception of any incoming orders?  For budgetary reasons ExoMars will not be able to be launched with its own “orbiter”, a satellite launched along with the probe which separates as it approaches the planet and acts as a relay for the information transmitted.  It may be necessary to buy this service from the United States.  However, it may still be possible to finance a small European orbiter with the extra money awarded to the program during the ESA Ministerial Council. [Le Monde 12/26/05]

codename ???
Aurora was a Greek/Roman Goddess while the atmospheric effect was described in old Old Norse literature and Latvian folklore, Galilei was Italian, while the Hubble telescope is a joint ESA-NASA mission, and the new Galileo Sat was already sorted out and launched smart-ass so trying reading up on history some time

back to the ESA - Aurora Program
http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1952

busy year for arrivals and departures in the solar system.
http://www.newscientistspace.com/articl … news_rss20

...Another planet, Mars, will receive a new visitor on 10 March, when the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is due to enter orbit. It will spend the following six months looping around the planet in an elliptical orbit - passing very close to the planet and then zooming away to high altitude. But it will gradually adjust the orbit to a more circular shape. The science phase of the mission is scheduled to begin in November.
Two planets away, the European Space Agency's Venus Express spacecraft will begin orbiting its target on 11 April.
Asteroids will also be targeted in 2006, with NASA scheduled to launch the Dawn spacecraft no sooner than 17 November. It will explore Ceres and Vesta, two objects in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. However, that mission has experienced budget and technical problems, so the launch date remains tentative.
Our star, the Sun, will not be left out of planned space activities. On 26 May, NASA will launch the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory mission, the first pair of spacecraft devoted to making three-dimensional measurements of the Sun and solar wind.

the Mars MTO is dead but check this

future laser communications ?
http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1436

another space tug

Innovative space tug to prolong the lives of satellites
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Spacecraft are industrial jewels of invention and technology, but they have limited lives. "Sic transit Gloria mundi." That all things, even glorious, must pass was illustrated in Turner's famous oil canvas of the 'Fighting Temeraire' being tugged to her last berth to be broken up
http://eu.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=18336
But a European industrial space group, partly funded by the European Space Agency, is challenging the notion that old satellites must be retired. The company, Orbital Recovery, has recently signed for its first satellite-servicing mission. EuroNews 'Space' magazine has been talking to some of the actors of the very innovative "Space Tug" project.

why do you say this

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A very massive star collapsed to form a neutron star and not a black hole as expected, according to UCLA research from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. This discovery indicates that nature has a harder time making black holes than previously thought.
http://www.noticias.info/asp/aspComunic … 6454&src=0
A dense cluster of young stars about 16,000 light years from Earth - Westerlund 1
http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2005/wd1/
The optical image (left) of Westerlund 1 shows a dense cluster of young stars, several with masses of about 40 suns. Some astronomers speculated that repeated collisions between such massive stars in the cluster might have led to formation of an intermediate-mass black hole, more massive than 100 suns. A search of the cluster with Chandra (right) found no evidence for this type of black hole. Instead they found a neutron star (CXO J164710.2-455216), a discovery which may severely limit the range of stellar masses that lead to the formation of stellar black holes.

Pluto Has 2 "New" Moons
http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4011

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has spotted two possible new moons orbiting Pluto, the ninth planet in our solar system.
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object … ctid=38198
If confirmed, the candidate moons could provide new insight into the nature and evolution of the Pluto system and the early Kuiper Belt. The Kuiper Belt is a vast region of icy, rocky bodies beyond Neptune's orbit.
"If, as our new Hubble images indicate, Pluto has not one, but two or three moons, it will become the first body in the Kuiper Belt known to have more than one satellite," said Hal Weaver of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md. He is co-leader of the team that made the discovery.

Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, being briefed in ESOC's Main Control Room, 21 October 2005.
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMMQD6Y3EE_index_1.html
Her visit comes on the eve of the 26 October launch of ESA's Venus Express  spacecraft from the Russian Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan — the same launch point for Tereshkova's Vostok 6 launch in the predawn darkness of 16 June 1963. General Nicolas Kamanine, the then Deputy Chief of Staff of the Soviet Air Force, said of the talented, then-26-year-old astronaut: "Tereshkova is our female Gagarin".
"I wish the best of success for the Venus Express launch," said Ms Tereshkova. She asked many questions on ESOC's activities and ESA programmes, adding "I am impressed with the continuing cooperation between the Russian space agency and ESA, and hope to see a deeper relationship in the future."

News From A Space Phantom: The Continuation Of The Matroshka Experiment
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/iss-05zzzzt.html
A phantom, which was outside the International Space Station (ISS) for a year and a half, is now inside with the ISS crew. However this is no ghost story but a serious set of scientific experiments to monitor radiation levels inside and outside the ISS.
This Phantom is part of the ESA Matroshka experiment facility that was installed on the outside of the ISS on 27 February 2004 to measure radiation doses that astronauts experience during EVA activities.

 
Top officials and specialists from all space-faring nations meet at the first Space Safety Conference in Nice, France
http://www.esa.int/esaHS/SEMPXA6Y3EE_index_0.html
In recent years marked by increased cooperation among space-faring nations and the arrival of new players, such as Brazil and China, and the first steps towards private space tourism, there has however, been growing awareness that it is time to reform and harmonise the existing legal and regulatory framework for space safety and make it easier for the private sector to undertake the development of commercial space activities.

Aurora technology development activities accessible via main Aurora web page
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Aurora/SEM0BD5Y3EE_0.html
Included in the site's content are first, dedicated pages giving an overview of the key technological challenges involved in the main Aurora missions: ExoMars and Mars Sample Return. The site then also contains sections on the main exploration capabilities such as entry, descent and landing systems, mobility etc. which allow access to descriptions of the specific development activities in each field, and where possible, links to the executive summaries of the final reports of these activities.

Can we have another go at CryoSat, please?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/11 … ncounting/
ESA is next meeting to discuss its budget in December. Member states' science ministers will have a lot of missions competing for their budgets, including the long-term Aurora project, which will see European space craft travel to Mars, and a possible collaboration with Russia to build Kliper, a rival to the US' Shuttle.
Spokespeople for the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) in the UK both said it was too early to say how sympathetic the UK would be to proposals to re-run the CryoSat mission

Gamma-ray Detectors
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/scien … ctors.html

The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory was the second of NASA's Great Observatories. Compton, at 17 tons, was the heaviest astrophysical payload ever flown at the time of its launch on April 5, 1991 aboard the space shuttle Atlantis. Compton was safely deorbited and re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on June 4, 2000.
http://cossc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/cgro/index.html

Integral: three years of insight into the violent cosmos
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMY146Y3EE_index_0.html

Integral is surveying the sky continuously using four instruments – two main gamma-ray instruments dedicated to imaging (IBIS) and spectroscopy (SPI), an X-ray instrument (JEM-X) and an optical monitor (OMC).
These instruments are Integral’s ‘eyes’ – providing for the first time simultaneous, single-satellite observations in different wavelengths of the most energetic objects and phenomena in the Universe

Highlights from INTEGRAL
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object … ctid=38098

2018 is the date because they said they'll be on the Moon

and if they ain't on the Moon by then you can forget about Mars, unless others like Russia or China have something planned sooner

this is a great mission, every week they have produced an amazing report