Latest Vega Stories
The European Space Agency (ESA) announced on Monday that initial launches for the Russian-made Soyuz rocket and a new light rocket called Vega will be delayed until 2010.The rockets were originally set to launch later this year.The Russian Soyuz is being added to ESA's launch pad at Kourou, French Guiana, to provide operational flexibility and manage mid-level payloads as the Ariane 5 rocket handles heavier payloads.The launch was postponed as a result of delays in a Russian-built mobile...
Jean-Yves Le Gall, Chairman and CEO of Arianespace, and Mark Dankberg, Chairman and CEO of ViaSat Inc., announced today in Washington, D.C. that they have signed the launch Service & Solutions contract for the ViaSat-1 satellite. WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- ViaSat-1, a high-capacity Ka-band spot beam satellite, is scheduled for launch by an Ariane 5 during the first half of 2011 from the Guiana Space Center, Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. ViaSat-1 will be dedicated...
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Vega 7 Entertainment announced today the release of AREA 51: THE ALIEN INTERVIEW SPECIAL EDITION, featuring color video footage purported to be of a living E.T. filmed in 1989 at the top secret government base known as Area 51. This new edition of the 1997 documentary feature film comes to DVD for the first time with this release. The SPECIAL EDITION features a new interview, taped in early June of this year, with the mysterious informant "Victor", who...
One Saturday evening in spring, female impersonators strutted, sashayed and lip-synched to R&B and gospel songs at a Norfolk banquet hall while guests showered them with dollar bills. People feasted on a down-home spread of green beans, fried chicken and macaroni, on tables sprinkled with confetti. Presiding over it all in a crimson evening gown was Vega Perry, who played the part of the regal, occasionally bawdy hostess. She threw the party to thank supporters of her business, Miss Models...
On 27 March 2008, the second stage motor for Vega - Europe's new small launcher - successfully completed a static firing test at the Salto Di Quirra Inter-force Test Range in Sardinia, Italy.Ignition of the qualification model of the Zefiro 23 solid-propellant rocket motor occurred at 13:15 CET. In just 14 seconds, the thrust reached 930 kN, equivalent to nearly 95 tons of force. This was the second and final firing test for the Zefiro 23, in which over 24 tons of propellant was consumed with...
With the VISIR instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope, astronomers have mapped the disc around a star more massive than the Sun. The very extended and flared disc most likely contains enough gas and dust to spawn planets. It appears as a precursor of debris discs such as the one around Vega-like stars and thus provides the rare opportunity to witness the conditions prevailing prior to or during planet formation. "Planets form in massive, gaseous and dusty proto-planetary discs that...
NOAO -- Strong darkening observed around the equator of Vega suggests that the fifth brightest star in Earth's sky has a huge temperature difference of 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit from its cool equatorial region to its hot poles. Models of the star based on these observations suggest that Vega is rotating at 92 percent of the angular velocity that would cause it to physically break apart, an international team of astronomers announced today in Washington, DC, at the 207th meeting of the American...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A California couple left their 5- and 9-year-old children home alone for the weekend while they went to gamble in Las Vegas. Police said the parents could be charged with child neglect but have not been able to interview the couple in person because bad weather was delaying their return from Las Vegas until Wednesday. The couple went to Las Vegas on Friday, leaving the children cereal to eat and the father's cell phone number to call in an emergency. Their...
ESA -- On May 31, 2005, the European Space Agency, whose Member States pool their resources to pursue common goals for space utilisation and research, turned 30. Thanks to an impressive mission record, the Agency has placed Europe and European industry at the forefront of space activities around the world. Yet, when it all started, a European success story in terms of space activities seemed far away. The world was divided up by the two superpowers into spheres of influence in which the...
PARIS (AFP) -- Europe is making a double throw of the dice on Saturday with a fresh attempt to launch a new super-rocket, the Ariane 5 ECA, from its space base in Kourou, French Guiana. More than half a billion euros (650 million dollars) and Europe's bid to rival the United States and Russia in the lucrative market for satellite launches will be riding on the mammoth rocket. "The consequences of a failure would be quite serious," Francois Auque, chief executive officer of EADS...
Latest Vega Reference Libraries
Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve (April 15, 1793 "“ November 23, 1864) was a Baltic-German astronomer, and member of a celebrated line of astronomers. He is best known for his advanced observations of double-stars. He was born in Altona, Denmark, what is currently Germany. He was the son of the renowned Jacob Struve, and was the second of a five-generation legacy of astronomers down to his great-grandchildren. When Germany was occupied by the French, Struve's father, Jacob,...
Lyra Constellation -- Lyra (the lyre) is a prominent, although fairly small, northern constellation. It was one of Ptolemy's 48 constellations, and also counts among the modern 88 constellations. Its brightest star is Vega (Alpha Lyrae), which together with Altair (Alpha Aquilae) and Deneb (Alpha Cygni) forms the large asterism known as the Summer Triangle. Beta Lyr is a half separated (i.e. one of the stars reached its Rochevolume) eclipsing binary of a cream-white colour. The...
Cygnus Constellation -- Cygnus (the swan) is a northern constellation. It was one of Ptolemy's 48 constellations, and is also one of the 88 modern constellations. Because of the pattern of its main stars, it is sometimes called the Northern Cross (in contrast to the Southern Cross). The bird extends over the summer Milky Way, appearing to fly south. Notable features Cygnus contains several bright stars. Deneb, α Cygni, is an extremely brilliant star, very prominent...
Vega -- Vega (Alpha Lyrae) is the lead star in the constellation Lyra, reaching near directly overhead the mid-northern latitudes, during the summer. It's a "nearby star" at only 25 light years distant and together with Arcturus and Sirius, one of the brightest stars in the Sun's neighbourhood. Vega is a vertex of the Summer Triangle. Its spectral class is A0V (Sirius, an A1V, is slightly less powerful) and it's firmly in the main sequence, fusing hydrogen to helium in its core....
