Oct 15 2003
From The Space Library
The People's Republic of China launched Shenzhou 5 on a Long March 2F rocket, becoming the third nation after Russia and the United States to send a human into orbit. Veteran fighter pilot Yang Liwei expected to orbit Earth 14 times before landing. The launch was the culmination of the decade-long effort of China's secretive, military-linked space program, undertaken with the hope of improving the communist nation's image abroad, as well as among its own citizens. Chinese officials described the Shenzhou program as homegrown, but western analysts stated that Russia had provided China with important technology and training for its taikonaut (astronaut) corps. Western analysts described the Shenzhou craft as an improvement over the Russian Soyuz design, with new solar arrays enabling the front-end orbital module to remain in space after the taikonaut compartment had returned to Earth. In addition, the craft's improved collision-avoidance systems provided Shenzhou with enhanced capacity to avoid dangerous space debris. (Spacewarn Bulletin, no. 600; David Lynch, “China Blasts Off into Space,” USA Today, 15 October 2003; Christopher Bodeen for Associated Press, “China Launches First Manned Space Mission,” 15 October 2003.
NASA released its Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR) Mishap Investigation Board (MIB) report, which identified four possible causes for the failure of the comet-rendezvous mission. The CONTOUR Mission~ intended to encounter at least two comets and to perform investigations and analyses of comet material~ had launched on 3 July 2002. NASA had lost contact with the craft on 15 August 2002, following a propulsive maneuver involving the solid rocket motor (SRM), and had been unable to reestablish contact as of 20 December 2002. On that date, NASA and Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory had concluded that the spacecraft was lost. NASA had established the MIB on 22 August 2002. The CONTOUR MIB's task was to examine the processes, data, and actions surrounding the events of 15 August; to search for proximate and root causes of the loss of the craft; and to develop recommendations for future missions. In its report, the CONTOUR MIB concluded that the probable cause of the mission's failure was the structural failure of the spacecraft resulting from plume heating during the embedded SRM burn on 15 August. However, the lack of telemetry and observational data, immediately before and during the burn, as well as the lack of recoverable debris, left open the possibility that one of several other problems might have contributed to the loss of the spacecraft. The MIB report identified as other possible causes the catastrophic failure of the SRM; collision with space debris or meteoroids; and the loss of dynamic control of the spacecraft. (NASA, “Contour Mishap Board Completes Investigation,” news release 03-324, 15 October 2003, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2003/oct/HQ_03324_contour.html (accessed 27 January 2009); NASA, “Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR) Mishap Investigation Board Report,” 31 May 2003; Associated Press, “Heat from Rocket Likely Broke Up Unmanned Spacecraft~NASA,” 16 October 2003.
NASA announced that astronaut Franklin R. Chang-Dìaz had won Discover Magazine's Innovation Award for Space Science and Technology in the Space Explorer category. The annual awards, presented in the categories of Space Explorer, Communications, Space Scientists, Technology for Humanity, and Aerospace, honored scientists whose work had benefited the U.S. space program and all of humanity. A veteran of seven spaceflights, a record he shared with only one other astronaut, Chang-Dìaz was Director of the Advanced Space Propulsion Laboratory at NASA's JSC in Houston, Texas, where he was leading a team to develop the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) Engine. The team was working on a conceptual engine that would eventually enable humans to explore distant regions of Earth's solar system and, perhaps, regions beyond the solar system. A native of Costa Rica, Chang-Dìaz had earned undergraduate and advanced degrees in mechanical engineering and applied plasma physics from the University of Connecticut and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before becoming an astronaut in 1981. He had first traveled to space in 1986 and, most recently, had participated in the ISS assembly and crew-exchange mission in June 2002, during which he undertook three spacewalks. (NASA, “Astronaut Chang-Diaz Wins Discover Magazine Award,” news release 03-335, 15 October 2003, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2003/oct/HQ_03335_ChangDiaz_Award.html (accessed 27 January 2009).
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