IAC 2006 Late Breaking News announced
21 September 2006The large number of papers presented to the International Astronautical Congress and its numerous activities mean that most International Astronautical Congress (IAC) material is prepared well in advance. This makes it difficult to pay proper attention to more recent events, news and discoveries - some of these may be very important.
Hence, the IAC this year will host a Late Breaking News (LBN) series of presentations which open the Congress every day at 08:30.
The International Programme Committee has selected five main themes.
On Tuesday 3 October, Dr Michael Griffin, NASA Administrator, will provide the latest news about NASA's accomplishments and future activities:
- the return to flight of the Space Shuttle fleet with Discovery's mission in July 2006
- the flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis in September to recommence ISS assembly the Cassini probe locating methane lakes on Saturn's moon, Titan
- the initial results from the Spitzer Space Telescope concerning dark matter These are very important achievements.
- In addition, the twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, continue to carry out their mission over 830 days beyond their original 90 day mission plans. In December 2006, NASA will begin to utilise the themes and objectives of the Global Exploration Strategy to map exploration architectures with an initial focus on the Moon.
This brief summary announces a very interesting event.
Later the same day, Tuesday 3 October at 13:10, Prof. Dr Bernard H. Foing, ESA's SMART-1 Project Scientist will present the SMART-1 mission. On 3 September 2006, within one second of the predicted time, in the Lake of Excellence, ESA's SMART-1 impacted the Moon completing an incredible mission. Using solar power and 60 litres of Xenon fuel, SMART-1 escaped Earth orbit, reached lunar capture, performed its lunar mission and finally impacted the Moon. Prof. Foing describes the worldwide impact campaign, reports on the last data from the spacecraft and presents the latest science and technology results. This will be the initial report on another European first.
USA's Independence Day, 4 July 2006, capped a three-year long effort to return the reusable NASA spacecraft fleet to flight after the loss of Columbia on 1 February 2003. STS-121 has been a milestone in the history of both the Space Shuttle and International Space Station programmes. Thomas Reiter, a European astronaut is part of the crew of that flight and will stay for an approximate six months onboard the station, the first long-duration mission of a European astronaut on the ISS. One of his activities will be the operation of Astrolab, an ambitious ESA payload. William Gersteinmaier, NASA Associate Administrator for Space Flight, and Dr Marc Heppener, ESA's Head of Science and Applications Division, will make the presentation of these recent missions on Wednesday 4 October.
On Thursday 5 October, Mr. Tang Xianming, Chief, China Manned Space Engineering Programme Office, presents their next manned space activities. After of the success of the Shen Zhou spacecraft, China is preparing further manned missions. The future plan and prospects of the China Manned Space Engineering Programme will be presented by a person directly involved in this effort
The Friday 6 October Late Breaking News session will cover another recent and interesting event. The IAU 26th General Assembly, meeting at Prague last August, discussed a possible new definition of a planet.
This is a topic still ongoing in the astronomical community and justifies a presentation at the Congress. This is a three part presentation, respectively covering the description of the resolution, an analysis of this matter and approach taken and, finally, the legal implications.
Dr Lubos Perek, Emeritus at the Czech Astronomical Institute, Dr Gerhard H Schwehm, head of ESA's Solar Science Operation Division and Leslie I Tennen, Former Commissioner of the Arizona Space Commission are the three speakers in this event.
This important series of new presentations points the way to the quality of the programme for this year's 57th International Astronautical Congress in Valencia.
News content on this website, where abstracts are taken from full articles elsewhere, are assumed public domain. All uncredited images are assumed as public domain with the exception of logos which are generally trademarks of the organisation whose materials are cited.