Friday 20 June 2003

Nozomi completes final Earth flyby With all the hullabaloo over the ESA's Mars Express and Nasa's two Martian probes everyone seems to have forgotten Japan's Nozomi probe, which was launched in 1998. The craft made its final gravity assist flyby of the Earth yesterday but it seems there are problems. Project officals say they won't know if the craft is on the right trajectory to be captured. Nozomi was supposed to arrive at Mars in 1999 but a thruster glitch meant the mission controllers had to redesign its flyby sequence. The probe was not designed to be travelling for so long and was hit by a solar flare that fried some of its electronics. There are also fears that there may not be enough fuel to modify the trajectory further. Controllers say they will know more in about a week. If all goes well, Nozomi will enter Mars orbit in January 2004. 7:26:22 PM    comment []  Google It!

Space snapper catches unusual views Amateur astronomer John Locker takes some remarkable pictures of the space station moving across the faces of the Sun and Moon. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition] 6:59:01 PM    comment []  Google It!

Wi-fi will be 'next dot.com crash' With everyone and their brother in law seeming to jump on the public Wi-Fi access bandwagon, the BBC carries this story warning that it could be another bubble waiting to burst. The worry is that there aren't enough people who own Wi-Fi compatible equipment to make services pay. I'm personally not so sure. As hotspots become more widely available a lot of laptop/handheld owners will be tempted to upgrade their equipment. I've just ordered a new Powerbook and I've ordered an Airport card to go with it, encouraged, in part, by the growing availability of Wi-Fi hotspots. ([BBC News | Technology | UK Edition] 6:54:52 PM    comment []  Google It!

© Copyright 2003 David Stewart. Last update: 01/07/2003; 17:50:18.