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News briefs: February 28
Posted: Fri, Mar 1, 2002, 7:53 AM ET (1253 GMT)
- Europe's proposed Galileo navigation system moved closer to reality Thursday when the German government gave its stamp of approval to funding plans for the project. The decision should make it easier for European transport ministers to approve the project in a March meeting, freeing up $450 million. Galileo is intended to be a European version of GPS, using 38 satellites, to begin operations late this decade.
- The nearest small galaxy to the Earth may have been ripped from another, according to European astronomers. SPACE.com reported that astronomers found that stars in the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy, discovered only in 1994 despite being only 75,000 light-years away, share a number of similarities with those in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), another satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. The Sagittarius dwarf may have been ripped from the LMC after a collision with the neighboring Small Magellanic Cloud.
- NASA on Wednesday named astronauts for two shuttle missions in 2003. The six-person crew of STS-115, who will deliver a second truss segment to the ISS, includes five NASA astronauts and one Canadian astronaut. The crew of STS-116 includes a core of four people, including Swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang, who will install a third truss segment to ISS. STS-116 will also ferry the three-person Expedition Eight crew to the station, commanded by veteran astronaut Michael Foale.
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