Perfect return flight for Proton

The Proton launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome

A Russian Proton Breeze M rocket has successfully launched one of the biggest commercial satellites ever built - the Inmarsat-4 (I4-F3).

The telecommunications spacecraft was released by the Proton at 0746 GMT, after a flight of more than nine hours.

It was the rocket's first outing since an upper-stage failure in March left a US coms platform at a useless altitude.

The I4-F3, operated by the UK-based Inmarsat company, will complete the firm's satellite broadband network.

The latest spacecraft joins two others of the same design that are already in orbit. The new satellite will be positioned over the Americas at 98 degrees West to give Inmarsat global coverage.

The company's network delivers high-speed (up to half a megabit) mobile internet and phone services to users on land, at sea and in the air.

The I4s are immense. The main body is 7m high and incorporates a 9m-wide antenna reflector that is unfurled in space like a fan.

"Each is almost the size of a double-decker bus, weighs six tonnes, and has a solar wingspan the length of a football pitch," said Andrew Sukawaty, CEO and chairman of Inmarsat.

It will take about a month to get the I4-F3 ready for service

"Each I4 is 60 times more powerful and has 16 times the capacity of an Inmarsat-3 satellite."

The Proton Breeze M, operated by International Launch Services, left the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 2243 GMT, Monday.

The 58m-high, 700-tonne vehicle was making its return to flight after stranding the US AMC-14 satellite well below its intended operational orbit.

A review board determined that a pipe rupture in the Breeze M upper-stage caused the booster to shut down early, and the rocket's manufacturer - the Khrunichev Space Centre - was ordered to make modifications.

Protons have been launching commercial satellites since 1996, but they have a much deeper governmental heritage going back to the 1960s.

The vehicles have despatched science missions to the planets. They have also launched key components of the Soviet-era Mir space station and the International Space Station.

Although the Proton can be regarded as one of the most successful heavy boosters in history, the March failure was the third in three years and a successful outing for the Inmarsat satellite was deemed absolutely essential to maintain market confidence in the rocket.

The I4 is one of the biggest commercial platforms in operation today
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India has Big Plans for Lunar Exploration

India will send their first mission to the Moon in September. Chandrayaan-1 has been built and will be launched from Indian soil and sent on a mission to study the lunar surface. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) will use its highly successful Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) to get the lunar probe into space. This is an impressive mission for a small space agency, making huge strides in the exploration of space…

It seems like everybody is doing it these days. First, Russia did it (in 1959) by landing a probe on the lunar surface and taking pictures of the far side of the Moon. Then the Soviets put the first artificial lunar satellite into orbit in 1966. Not to be out done, President Kennedy had already begun the US quest to get man on the Moon, and in 1969 the superpower achieved that goal. For a long time it was only the two competitors in the Space Race who had visited the Moon, but in 1990, Japan joined the "Lunar Club" (with the Hiten spacecraft). Then in 1997 Hong Kong (China) succeeded in two flybys (HGS-1, a commercial satellite). Eventually, in 2006, the European SMART-1 space vehicle made it into lunar orbit. But since then, it's been China (with the Chang'e program) and Japan (with SELENE, or "Kaguya") who have been most active around the natural satellite.

And now there is a new kid on the block: India. One of the most populous nations in the world is pushing ahead with its own aspirations for lunar exploration. Although comparatively small, the Indian space agency ISRO was established in 1972 to develop space-based technologies in the aim of enriching the nation's economy. Until the early 1990's, India had to rely on Russia to launch payloads into space, but 1994 saw the first successful launch of the powerful Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), lifting domestic and commercial satellites into orbit. Now the PSLV will launch India's most valuable payload yet, the Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter and impactor. It is scheduled for launch on September 19th.

In a speech on India's 61st Independence Day from the historic Red Fort in Delhi, the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called the Chandrayaan-1 mission "an important milestone" for the nation. However, although a date has been set for launch, some of the text seemed a little uncertain. "This year we hope to send an Indian spacecraft, Chandrayan, to the moon. It will be an important milestone in the development of our space programme," Singh said. Whether the "we hope" was accidental or whether the launch date is only tentative remains to be seen.

Regardless, the mission appears to be good to go, obviously a huge boost to national pride. "I want to see a modern India, imbued by a scientific temper, where the benefits of modern knowledge flow to all sections of society," he continued.

A Blueprint to Regenerate Limbs

Probing the salamander genome reveals clues to its remarkable ability to regrow damaged limbs and organs.

In its own way, the axolotl salamander is a mighty beast. Chop off its leg, and the gilled creature will grow a new one. Freeze part of its heart, and the organ will form anew. Carve out half of its brain, and six months later, another half will have sprouted in its place. "You can do anything to it except kill it, and it will regenerate," says Gerald Pao, a postdoctoral researcher at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, in La Jolla, CA.

That extraordinary power of regeneration inspired Pao to probe the axolotl salamander's DNA. Despite decades of research on the salamander, little is known about its genome. That began to change last year, when Pao and his collaborators won one billion bases' worth of free sequencing from Roche Applied Science, based in Indianapolis. Now that the data is in, scientists can finally begin the hunt for the genetic program that endows the animal with its unique capabilities.

While all animals can regenerate tissue to a certain extent--we can grow muscle, bone, and nerves, for example--salamanders and newts are the only vertebrates that can grow entire organs and replacement limbs as adults. When a leg is lost to injury, cells near the wound begin to dedifferentiate, losing the specialized characteristics that made them a muscle cell or bone cell. These cells then replicate and form a limb bud, or blastema, which goes on to grow a limb the same way that it forms during normal development.

Scientists have identified some of the molecular signals that play a key role in the process, but the genetic blueprint that underlies regeneration remains unknown. Researchers hope that by uncovering these molecular tricks, they can ultimately apply them to humans to regrow damaged heart or brain tissue, and maybe even grow new limbs.

In order to quickly identify sections of the salamander's genome involved in regeneration, the scientists sequenced genes that were most highly expressed during limb-bud formation and growth. They found that at least 10,000 genes were transcribed during regeneration. Approximately 9,000 of those seem to have related human versions, but there appear to be a few thousand more that don't resemble known genes. "We think many of them are genes that evolved uniquely in salamanders to help with this process," says Randal Voss, a biologist at the University of Kentucky, who is working on the project.

The researchers now plan to make a gene chip designed to detect levels of some of these candidate genes, so that the scientists can determine at exactly what point during the regeneration process the genes are turned on. The team is also developing molecular tools that allow them to silence specific genes, which will enable them to pinpoint those that are crucial for proper regrowth.

Scientists also sequenced random chunks of the salamander genome. At about 30 billion bases and 10 times the size of the human genome, it is one of the largest among vertebrates. Most scientists expected that the extra DNA would be made up of junk DNA, long stretches of bases between genes. But initial findings were surprising. "Genes are on average 5 to 10 times larger than those in other vertebrates," says Voss. "The region of the genome containing genes is estimated to be more than two gigabases, which is as big as some entire genomes."

The extra DNA sequences sit within genes and are cut out during the translation from gene to protein. Much of this DNA comprises repetitive sequences not found in any other organisms to date, says Pao. However, it's not yet clear whether these repetitive stretches help facilitate regeneration or play some other role in the salamander's life cycle.

One of the key questions yet to be answered is whether the salamander has unique genetic properties that enable regeneration, or whether all animals have that innate capability. "If we come up with some totally unique gene only present in axolotl, that would make it really hard to replicate," says David Gardiner, a biologist at the University of California, Irvine, who is also collaborating on the project. He prefers to think that regeneration comes from a fundamental abilitylying dormant in mammals, which could be reawakened with some simple genetic prodding."Most of the tissue in our arm regenerates; it's just the arm that doesn't regenerate," he says. "What's missing is how you coordinate a response to get an integrated structure."

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