Dec 21 2007
From The Space Library
ESA launched the sixth Ariane 5 rocket of 2007 from Kourou, French Guiana, setting a record for the agency. The Ariane 5 lifted into orbit the Horizons-2 telecommunications satellite, a joint U.S.-Japanese venture. The rocket also carried the RASCOM-QAF1 satellite, which would offer telephone and Internet service throughout Africa. Horizons 2, the second satellite for the U.S.- based Intelsat and the Japan-based JSAT, would replace Intelsat’s SBS-6 spacecraft, which had been in orbit for 17 years. With 20 Ku-band transponders, the 2,304-kilogram (5079.5-pound) Horizons 2 would provide telecommunications services for 15-17 years to the continental United States, the Caribbean, and parts of Canada. After 10 years struggle to organize an ownership structure, Regional African Satellite Communications Organization (RASCOM) had secured US$370 million in funding from a consortium, comprising a Libyan investment fund, the Libyan General Post and Telecommunications Company, and three African development banks. The consortium intended for its satellite, the Rascom-QAF1, to provide a first step toward establishing the space infrastructure necessary to link poor rural Africans with urban areas.
Peter B. De Selding, “Ariane 5 Rocket Successfully Lofts Horizons-2, RascomStar-QAF-1,” Space.com, 21 December 2007; Stephen Clark, “Ariane 5 Launches for Record 6th Time this Year,” Spaceflight Now, 21 November 2007.
NASA named Macro-Fiber Composite (MFC), a device that acts like muscle and nerves to expand and contract surfaces, as the 2006 NASA Government Invention of the Year. A team of researchers at NASA’s LaRC had created the flexible material using ceramic fibers. Voltage applied to the MFC made the ceramic fibers change shape and expand or contract, causing material to bend or twist. The device had industrial and research applications, primarily for vibration monitoring and dampening. The MFC had improved research on helicopter rotor blades and assisted in detecting pipeline cracks. NASA had used the MFC to monitor the vibrations of support structures near the Space Shuttle launchpads during launches.
NASA, “NASA Names New Composite Government Invention of the Year,” news release 07-287, 21 December 2007, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2007/dec/HQ_07287_Invention_of_the_Year.html (accessed 20 October 2010).
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