spacetoday.net: News briefs: September 10

Posted: Tue, Sep 11, 2001, 12:15 AM ET (0415 GMT)
Enterprise module docked to ISS

Russian officials have worked out an agreement that will allow two commercial modules under development to be docked to ISS, according to an Aviation Week article. Under the agreement the Enterprise module will dock with the nadir port on Zarya, while the FGB-2 module will dock to the nadir port on Zvezda. The Piers docking module, which will be attached to the nadir port on Zvezda later this month, will be later moved to the zenith port to accommodate FGB-2... SpaceDev has started testing of CHIPSat, the company's first microsatellite, the company announced Monday. The NASA-funded astronomy spacecraft will be delivered to the University of California Berkeley, managers of the mission, by the end of November, in preparation for launch as a secondary payload on a Delta 2 in June 2002... The European Southern Observatory has retracted an announcement published last October claiming to have discovered a dust disk around a star previously found to have an extrasolar planet. ESO officials said the disk thought to have been found around the star Iota Horologii was an instrumental artifact and not real... Four of the eight members of the Mars Society's board of directors have resigned in the last two weeks, NASA Watch reported this weekend. Author Kim Stanley Robinson and businessmen Marc Boucher, Elon Musk, and Eric Telenius have resigned "over various concerns about the way in which the Society is being managed," according to the report.