News Summaries for January 10

Aerospace Production Moves at Smooth Pace, Statistics Show (Source: AIA)
The increase in aerospace production is continuing at a smooth pace, according to Department of Labor statistics. November overtime averaged 6.1 hours, historically lower than average fourth-quarter overtime hours of 6.4. "Overtime hours remain well below levels seen last upcycle, implying orderly production ramp," says UBS analyst David Strauss.

Lockheed Lands Contract Modification for Trident Missiles (Source: AIA)
Lockheed Martin has received a modification on a Navy contract to produce Trident II (D5) missiles. The contract modification, worth $655 million, also includes support for already deployed Trident I and II missiles. Lockheed Martin has substantial Trident support operations at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport.

Work Nearly Completed on Atlantis Rocket Boosters (Source: AIA)
NASA is completing work on the rocket boosters that will help launch Atlantis on March 16. NASA and contractor United Space Alliance will meet next week to decide whether they are ready to attach a 15-story external tank to the boosters.

Europe's Galileo Faces High Costs, Arguments Over Command Center (Source: AIA)
The European Space Agency's Galileo program is facing high cost overruns, and backers say it is unclear if it will make money. Additionally, arguments have broken out over which country will host Galileo's command center. Galileo is an effort to improve upon the U.S. Global Positioning System and create business for European aerospace and satellite industries.

PSLV Launches Four Satellites (Source: SpaceToday.net)
An Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket placed four satellites into orbit, including a new remote sensing satellite and India's first recoverable spacecraft. The PSLV lifted off from India's Satish Dhawan spaceport. The largest of the four satellites on the PSLV is Cartosat-2, a 680-kilogram high-resolution remote sensing satellite. The other major payload on the PSLV was the 550-kilogram Space capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE-1), India's first spacecraft that is designed to return to Earth. SRE-1 carries two microgravity science experiments, and will return to Earth in several days, splashing down in the Bay of Bengal off the Indian coast. Also on the PSLV were two microsatellites, Indonesia's LAPAN-TUBSAT and Argentina's PEHUENSAT-1. The flight is the first orbital launch worldwide in 2007, and the first for India since the failed launch of a larger GSLV rocket in July 2006.

Arianespace Wins ProtoStar Launch Contract (Source: SpaceToday.net)
Arianespace has won a contract to launch the first spacecraft for new satellite operator ProtoStar. An Ariane 5 will launch the 4100-kilogram ProtoStar 1 spacecraft for ProtoStar in March 2008. Last week ProtoStar announced a contract with Space Systems/Loral to refurbish the spacecraft, originally built as ChinaSat-8 for a Chinese customer but never launched because export control restrictions prevented the US-built spacecraft from being sent to China for launch there.

One Giant Screwup for Mankind (Source: WIRED)
NASA put a man on the moon - then lost the videotape. A grizzled crew of ex-rocket jockeys are on a star-crossed mission to find it. As a young electrical engineer at Westinghouse, Stan Lebar had been tasked with developing a camera that could capture the most memorable moment of the 20th century – the Apollo 11 moon landing. The goal of the mission wasn't merely to get a man on the moon. It was to send back a live television feed so that everyone could see it – particularly the Soviets, who had initiated the space race in 1957 by launching Sputnik...Amid the celebration, though, Lebar scrutinized the video, and his joy vanished. He had known the converted footage wouldn't be as good as a standard TV signal. But as Armstrong bounded through the Sea of Tranquility, the astronaut looked like a fuzzy gray blob wading through an inkwell. "We knew what that image should look like," Lebar says, "and what I saw was nothing like what I'd simulated."

With the rush of history upon him, Lebar let the concern pass. Not long ago, Lebar learned why the footage had looked like mush: The transfer and broadcast had degraded the image badly, like a third-generation photocopy. "What the world saw was some bastardized thing," says Lebar, now 81. "Posterity deserves more than that." Good thing the engineers in Australia recorded the raw feed. Now Lebar and a crew of seasoned space cowboys are trying to get that original footage and show it to the world. There is just one problem: NASA has lost the tapes. Visit http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.01/nasa.htmlto view the article.

Software Error Doomed The Mars Global Surveyor Spacecraft (Source: SpaceRef.com)
During a meeting of the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group, the group addressed issue of the recent failure of the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft. Apparently incorrect software doomed the spacecraft. MGS stopped operating shortly after celebrating its tenth anniversary. "We think that the failure was due to a software load we sent up in June of last year. This software tried to synch up two flight processors. Two addresses were incorrect - two memory addresses were over written. As the geometry evolved, we drove the [solar] arrays against a hard stop and the spacecraft went into safe mode. The radiator for the battery pointed at the sun, the temperature went up, and battery failed. But this should be treated as preliminary."

NASA Turns Down Langley Mars Airplane Project (Source: WTKR.com)
NASA has decided not to move ahead with a Langley Research Center project to send an airplane skimming the Martian landscape. The space agency has announced the finalists for its Mars Scouts Missions, and they don't include Langley's Aerial Regional-scale Environmental Survey plane, or ARES. The plane would have measured the near-surface atmospheric chemistry and captured new information about Mars' atmosphere, surface, interior and early climate.

Up to 28 Spacecraft to be Launched as Part of 2007 Space Program (Source: Interfax)
Between 25 and 28 spaceships are to be launched in accordance with Russia's space exploration program in 2007, according to the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos). At the State Council's upcoming session in April, Roscosmos plans "to seriously address the issue of launching a large-scale program of efforts aimed at ensuring the effective use of operating space systems and complexes," Davydov said.

Space – The Final Insult (Source: The First Post)
Stephen Hawking and Moby aboard Branson’s spaceship? It’s all too much! Hawking, whose flight Branson says he'll sponsor himself, though whether in the interests of scientific discovery or just because the acclaimed physicist lends respectability to the whole exercise, history doesn't yet relate. The question is what sort of company the professor is likely to find himself in. Moby, Paris Hilton, Princess Beatrice and ad guru Trevor Beattie are all said to have sought tickets, which - what with Branson himself on board - suggests a veritable Celebrity Big Brother space house is in the making.