December 2014

A Session of ESA's Council at Ministerial Level in Luxembourg (Photo ESA–S. Corvaja)

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A few days ago, ESA’s Council Meeting was held in Luxembourg. Representatives of the member countries established the guidelines for the operations in the coming years. The discussion focused mainly on the evolution of the rockets to get to the Ariane 6 and Vega-C, essential to remain competitive in the satellite launch market. It’s more and more important for the growing requests but the competition is getting tougher and tougher. The Council also confirmed the ExoMars mission, the collaboration in the management of the International Space Station and opened to the possibility of new space missions in collaboration with other space agencies.

The Orion spacecraft blasting off atop a Delta IV Heavy rocket (Photo NASA / Bill Ingalls)

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The Orion spacecraft was launched in its Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) mission, its first test flight, on a Delta IV Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral. It performed a series of maneuvers in orbit, also passing through the Van Allen belts. After about four hours, the Crew Module separated from the rest of the spacecraft to splash down after a little while in the Pacific Ocean completing the test. U.S. Navy ships collaborate with NASA for the recovery of the Orion.

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One of the two satellites of the Galileo constellation launched into the wrong on August 22, 2014 has been recovered. The series of 11 maneuvers planned last month to change its orbit was successfully accomplished across 17 days. On November 29, the satellite has been activated and sent the first navigation signals. Therefore ESA has begun the normal test phase and soon a similar series of maneuvers is scheduled for the other satellite in the wrong orbit.

Convergence by Charles Sheffield (Italian edition)

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The novel “Convergence” by Charles Sheffield was published for the first time in 1997. It’s the fourth book of the Heritage universe and is the sequel to “Transcendence”. It’s also part of the omnibus titled “Transvergence” together with the previous one.

Louis Nenda and Atvar H’sial are back from Genizee, the Zardalu homeworld, but they find something strange. The Artifacts have an estimated age in millions of years but they seem to have suddenly started becoming active. To understand what’s happening, they look for Darya Lang, an expert of the Builders, because they already worked with her in various adventures.

Darya Lang has just returned from Genizee when she happens to see a part of a conference of Quintus Bloom, another Builders scholar. Bloom thinks that those mysterious aliens are actually the humans descendants who have sent the Artifacts back in time from a distant future. To discover the truth, Darya Lang and some old friends go back to study some Artifacts but the changes taking place are making them more dangerous than ever.

The Japanese space probe Hayabusa 2 lifting off on a H-IIA 202 rocket (Photo courtesy JAXA. All rights reserved)

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A few hours ago the Hayabusa 2 space probe was launched on a H-IIA 202 rocket from the Yoshinobu Launch Complex at the Tanegashima center run by JAXA, the Japanese space agency. After almost two hours Hayabusa 2 successfully separated from the rocket’s last stage starting its long voyage towards the asteroid (162173) 1999 JU3.