Space tourists could fly by 2013

26 October 2011 Last updated at 11:19 GMT The first commercial flight may take off in 2013 if all the tests go well Virgin Galactic said its first passenger flights will not occur before 2013.

Sir Richard Branson's space tourism venture said it hopes to launch the service in two years time, but even that date is not fixed.

The firm's commercial director, Stephen Attenborough, told the BBC that its customers' safety is paramount.

Test flights are currently underway, with rocket-powered tests scheduled to start next year.

Almost 500 people have bought tickets.

Sir Richard had originally hoped the first commercial spacecraft, SpaceShip Two, would take off as early as 2007. However, Mr Attenborough stressed there never was an official date set for the inaugural launch.

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[People] are willing to put a large amount of money upfront because they know we will only take them to space if it's safe to do so”

End Quote Stephen Attenborough Virgin Galactic's commercial director He criticised some press reports, notably an article in the Wall Street Journal, that described the 2013 goal as "yet another delay".

"This is a programme that can't have a hard-end date as safety is number one priority," Mr Attenborough said.

"Our foot is flat on the gas, we have proven technology, we have a spaceport that opened last week, and the test flight programme is well advanced - I don't think you can ask for a lot more from a programme like this. A delay is strange word, and there is no delay."

New pilot

Mr Attenborough also revealed that the venture's chief pilot, David Mackay, has recently been joined by a second pilot.

Keith Colmer, a former Air Force test pilot, was chosen from more than 500 applicants, among them a handful of astronauts.

The BBC's Richard Scott was the first journalist to be allowed inside the Virgin Galactic spaceship

Sir Richard dedicated the launchpad for the space tourism venture in the New Mexico desert on 18 October.

He plans to take the inaugural flight, accompanied by his children.

Mr Attenborough said that although all of the future tourists were eager to blast off to space, none were pushing for an early flight.

"They are willing to put a large amount of money up front because they trust us, because they know we will only take them to space if it's safe to do so," he said.

The 2.5-hour flights will offer five minutes of weightlessness. Tickets cost $200,000 (£127,000).

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Space debris fraud case in Russia

14 September 2011 Last updated at 16:02 GMT Rocket launches are carried out regularly in northern Russia A Russian colonel entrusted with clearing up debris from space rocket launches is to be tried for fraud worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Col Konstantin Petrishchev was responsible for scrapping debris in the far north of Russia for four years, and contracted the work to private firms.

But investigators found that of $1.8m (£1.1m) paid to contractors, $750,000 was awarded for fictitious contracts.

In return, the colonel is said to have received $520,000 in bribes.

He was arrested two years ago after allegedly being caught red-handed accepting a bribe from a businessman worth $26,000.

By that time he had started a new job at the Russian defence ministry's directorate for scrapping armaments and military hardware.

Before that he had served four years in the Russian Space Troops, where he had been responsible for removing space debris in the Arkhangelsk, Tyumen and Komi regions.

Col Petrishchev was found by investigators to have failed to monitor the work of companies employed to remove debris.

He will be tried by a military court.

The Russian military conducts rocket launches from its cosmodrome at Plesetsk, in the Arkhangelsk region.

Metal discarded by rockets may pose an environmental hazard as it contains long-lasting toxins.

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Deals of the day: 'Space Cowboys,' Sennheiser and more

Our "deals of the day" roundup is a selection of some of the better gadgets, gaming and app deals on the Internet right now — with a few strange odds and ends thrown in for fun. Here's what's worth considering today: "Space Cowboys" on Blu-ray for $9, Sennheiser earbuds for $17, discounted Dells and more.

Gadgets:

17.3" Dell Inspiron 17R Core i3-2310M, 4GB RAM for $530 (Normally $659)15.6" Dell XPS 15 Core i5-2410M, 6GB RAM, 750GB 7200RPM HDD, 2GB GeForce GT 540M for $800 (Normally $900)15.6" HP dv6z Quad Edition, AMD Quad-core A6-3400M, 6GB RAM, 640GB HDD, Blu-ray for $570 (Normally $700)17.3" Dell XPS 17 Core i5 "Sandy Bridge" Laptop with 1GB GeForce GT550M for $694 (Normally $899).15.6" HP Pavilion g6s Core i7 2.7GHz Dual-core "Sandy Bridge" Laptop w/Blu-ray & MS Office 2010 Home & Student Edition for $721 (Normally $1,030)Dell Vostro 260 Core i3 "Sandy Bridge" Mini Tower with 20" Dell E2011H LED-backlit LCD Monitor for $449 (Normally $649)21.5" Dell Inspiron One 2205 2.8GHz Dual-core 1080p All-in-one Multi-touch PC for $500 (Normally $600)30" Dell UltraSharp U3011 2560 x 1600 IPS-panel LCD Monitor for $1,124 (Normally $1,499).46" Sony BRAVIA XBR-46HX909 3D 240Hz 1080p LED HDTV for $1,200 (Normally $1,479)Sony 3DBNDL/ALICE 3D Deluxe Starter Kit for $100 (Normally $275)60" Panasonic Viera TC-P60S30 S Series 1080p 600Hz Plasma HDTV for $1,197 (Normally $1,900)15.6" Lenovo G570 43344QU Pentium B940, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD for $380 (Normally $450)14" Dell Inspiron 14r Core i5-2410M, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD for $575 (Normally $809)17.3" Toshiba Qosmio X770-ST4N04 Quad Core i7-2630QM, 8GB RAM, 1TB 7200RPM HDD, 1.5GB GeForce 560M, Blu-ray for $1,399 (Normally $1,549)14" HP dm4t Core i3-2310M, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD for $550 (Normally $73014" HP G4-1010us Pentium P6200, 4GB RAM, 320GB 7200RPM HDD for $420 (Normally $500)2.5TB Western Digital Elements Portable External Hard Drive WDBAAU0025HBK for $95 (Normally $107)Bluetooth Laser Mouse N6901A for $14 (Normally $24)Lenovo M0520 Speakers for $10 (Normally $30)50" LG 50PW350 720p 3D Plasma HDTV for $681 (Normally $799)47" LG 47LE8500 1080p LED HDTV for $1,099 (Normally $1,945)42" LG 42LV5500 1080p LED HDTV for $649 (Normally $680)Sanyo VPC-CS1 HD Video Camcorder for $114 (Normally $174)Panasonic Lumix DMC-FP3 14MP Digital Camera for $92 (Normally $106)Sennheiser Street II CX 200 Stereo Earbud Headphones for $17 (Normally $24)

Gaming:

Apps:

Miscellaneous odds and ends:

Note: Today's deals were discovered via:

Dealhack, AppBrain, LogicBUY, FatWallet,Laptopaholic, CheapCollegeGamers, 148Apps, SlickDeals, CheapStingyBargains, Dealzon, Brand Name Coupons and GamerHotline

Please read the detailed descriptions of each linked offer carefully before buying — msnbc.com is not responsible for the duration or integrity of individual deals.

Rosa Golijan writes about tech here and there. She's a bit obsessed with Twitter and loves to be liked on Facebook.

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Giant space scope reaches orbit

19 July 2011 Last updated at 14:03 GMT By Katia Moskvitch Technology reporter, BBC News RadioAstron's antenna is 10m in diameter RadioAstron, a Russian radio telescope intended to be the biggest radio telescope in space, has started touring the Earth for the first time.

Once operational, the 3.8 tonne "space eye" could help focus in on many remote places of the Universe.

The device will travel in an elliptical orbit that at its furthest reaches almost as far as the Moon.

Carried by a Zenith-3M rocket, it blasted off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome on Monday.

The telescope is part of a Russian space observatory called Spectrum-R.

Despite RadioAstron's antenna being only 10m across - far smaller than the antennas of many other radio telescopes on Earth - its signals are meant to be combined with those on the ground, effectively making it the biggest radio telescope in space.

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On the fifth day [after the launch] the telescope's mirror will open, and in the three following months we will prepare the observatory for practical work,”

End Quote Viktor Khartov Lavochkin R&D No rivals Shortly after the observatory reached its designated orbit, it successfully opened its solar panels, said Viktor Khartov, head of Lavochkin R&D that built the device.

He said that it would take the craft eight days and seven hours to circle the Earth.

"On the fifth day [after the launch] the telescope's mirror will open, and in the three following months we will prepare the observatory for practical work," he added.

Although RadioAstron is expected to deliver more precise data than the US space veteran Hubble, the Russian Federal space agency Roscosmos said the apparatus was not meant to replace it.

"Hubble is an optical telescope and RadioAstron is radio," Aleksei Kuznetsov, Roscosmos' spokesperson, told BBC News. "I would say that the two will complement each other."

Once RadioAstron's 27 carbon fibre petals open up to form a dish, the telescope will start to collect data, then combine it with observations captured by radio telescopes on Earth.

This technique of combining images from a network of telescopes to form a single image is called interferometry.

The result is expected to have an incredibly high resolution - as if taken by a telescope with a dish as wide as the maximum distance between the antennas - from the Earth to the Moon.

One of the telescope's primary goals is to zoom in to the neighbouring galaxy M-87, some 59 million light years from Earth.

The telescope was delivered into orbit by a rocket that launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome

Scientists believe that there is a black hole there, and RadioAstron's mission is to confirm this hypothesis.

Researchers are also after some detailed data about pulsars, interstellar plasma and neutron stars in the Milky Way.

Soviet legacy

The Soviets first started building the telescope back in the 1980s, but the project was shelved when the USSR collapsed in 1991.

"In the 1990s, financial hurdles prevented us from completing the observatory, but in recent years Russia has come back to it," said Mr Kuznetsov.

"The launch of Spectrum-R is one of the main aspects of Roscosmos' space programme."

According to Roscosmos, the observatory is expected to remain in operation for at least five years.

Later in 2011, Russia also plans to go forward with its Phobos-Grunt mission, which involves sending a craft to Phobos, one of Mars' moons, to explore its surface.

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