Aug 21 2002
From The Space Library
The first Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV), the product of a long-term program designed to provide military and other satellites with enduring, reliable access to space, launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Lockheed Martin had developed the rocket, called the Atlas 5. The EELV placed the European television satellite Hot Bird 6 in its preliminary orbit 31 minutes after its launch, and the satellite's thrusters later maneuvered it into its final orbit. The EELV program had resulted from the U.S. government's research into the 1986 Challenger disaster. The U.S. Air Force had reportedly paid Lockheed Martin and the Boeing Company more than US$500 million each to design an EELV. The U.S. Air Force had requested an EELV that was an advanced version of existing rockets, rather than an entirely new system, estimating that, through 2020, the EELV could reduce the cost of placing military satellites into orbit by approximately US$10 billion. France-based Eutelsat (European Telecommunications Satellite Organization) owned the Hot Bird 6 broadcast satellite, which Alcatel Space had built. (William Harwood, “Into Space, A New Kind of Rocket,” Washington Post, 22 August 2002; Lockheed Martin, “Inaugural Atlas V Scores Success for ILS, Lockheed Martin,” news release, 21 August 2002, http://www.lockheedmartin.com/news/press_releases/2002/InauguralAtlasVScoresSucceslForILSL.html (accessed 28 January 2010).)
A team of NASA scientists using uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAVs) to research electrical storms achieved a flight-duration milestone. The research was part of the Altus Cumulus Electrification Study (ACES), a project that examined the causes of electrical storms and their effects on the planet. The ACES research team employed Altus II UAVs to study thunderstorms over Florida, capping off four weeks of research flights with the study's longest flight, lasting for 6 hours and 32 minutes and monitoring four successive thunderstorms. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems had built the Altus II, which could fly near thunderstorms for hours, at altitudes of up to 65,000 feet. (NASA MSFC, National Space Science and Technology Center, “NASA Lightning Study Achieves Flight-Duration Milestone, Monitoring Four Storms in Single Mission,” news release N02-01 1, 23 August 2002.)
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