News Summaries for January 19

EADS North America Creates Scholarship Program in Florida (Source: Businesswire)
EADS North America has established a university engineering scholarship in Florida, one of the finalists during the company's industrial site competition for the multi-role tanker production and assembly facility. The company presented $100,000 to Governor Charlie Crist to establish a five-year scholarship programs at the University of Central Florida and University of Florida. These scholarships will be awarded to deserving students who are pursuing degrees in aerospace engineering and related fields. In addition, scholarship recipients will be encouraged to apply for internships at Airbus North America's newest U.S. engineering center in Alabama location that was ultimately chosen for EADS North America's military tanker industrial facility. The Mobile Engineering Center is scheduled to open in early 2007.

Update on SpaceX Falcon Flight (Source: SpaceX)
During final check-outs prior to static fire, SpaceX uncovered an anomaly with the thrust vector control (TVC) pitch actuator on the second stage of the Falcon vehicle. Repairs/adjustments will result in the launch being pushed to February. Since the actuator is not used during the static fire, SpaceX decided to push forward with that test in order to acquire valuable data on engine ignition, pad acoustics, and the overall system response. The static fire is now planned to occur between Saturday and Tuesday. This test will proceed very slowly and then only burns for about four seconds, so will not be webcast to avoid boring people silly. SpaceX will post a video afterwards.

China Trashes LEO With Debris From Anti Satellite Test (Source: SpaceDaily.com)
The United States, Australia and Canada have expressed concern to China over Beijing's successful test in space last week of a satellite-killing weapon. "The United States believes China's development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the spirit of cooperation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area," said a national security spokesman. A senior White House official said that Britain, Japan and South Korea were expected to express their concerns to China soon. The impact occurred at more than 500 miles above Earth [and has likely expanded the amount of dangerous debris in low earth orbit].

Loral Wins Contract To Build Satellite For Intelsat (Source: Loral)
Loral, the world's leading provider of high-power commercial satellites, announced that Intelsat Corporation has awarded SS/L a contract to manufacture Intelsat 14, a new, high-power C- and Ku-band satellite. The satellite will carry 40 C-band and 22 Ku-band transponders across four different beams, covering the Americas, Europe and Africa. Intelsat 14 will have a design life of 15 years and will replace the PAS-1R satellite when the new satellite is delivered in 2009. In all, Loral satellites have amassed more than 1,300 years of reliable on-orbit service.

China Knows How Much America Has to Lose (Source: Daily Telegraph)
There is probably no better way to get China's nationalists to demand a Great Leap Forward in military spending than to tell them they are two decades behind the U.S. Yet that is what happened after Beijing's use of a missile to take out a redundant weather satellite. The U.S., experts pointed out, carried out this sort of test in the 1980s, and abandoned them because they made too much mess. (Another reason, some analysts say, was because they denied a rule of the Cold War game. By trying to knock out the other side's advanced warning system, you showed you intended a first strike, and that called into question the argument that mutually assured destruction created a "safe" balance of power.)

When it comes to its strategic interests, Beijing does not care much about making a mess, particularly 530 miles up in space. And despite appearances, what really matters to China is not whether its military and its space program can catch up with America's. China is neither claiming a "balance" nor trying to challenge America across the board. Economically, it believes in the American dream — more, perhaps, than America itself. Internationally, it does not desire to impose an alternative model to America's on the Middle East, or Europe — or at all.

Instead, it has a set of limited but clear strategic goals, to last it for the next two decades. By that time, it hopes, its economy, society, maybe even politics will have changed so that anything is possible. One of those goals is to develop the ability to retake Taiwan, which it wants to "reunite" with the Motherland, by force if necessary. That also means deterring Taiwan's ally, America, from intervening to save it. Another is to ensure no-one interferes with its general "sovereignty". A third is to ensure its economy cannot be disrupted...They look up and see America's single greatest strength — the extraordinary satellite technology that enables it to know where its enemies are and bomb them. And they realized its greatest strength was also its weakness, because while a human can fight back, a satellite cannot.

Chinese Anti-Satellite Tests Are Exaggerated Rumors — Russian Defense Minister (Source: MosNews)
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov has called the reports that a Chinese ballistic missile has hit a satellite highly exaggerated rumors. When the test happened, the U.S. stated that communication with one of its spy satellites was lost, but thus far no evidence has turned up to suggest the loss of communication was directly related to China’s test. The U.S. last tested an anti-satellite system back on September 13, 1985.

Bold Move Escalates Space War Debate (Source: MSNBC)
An aging Chinese satellite was instantaneously converted into a 542-mile-high cloud of metallic confetti. U.S. agencies believe China launched a medium-range missile from its Xichang spaceport and guided it into a high-speed collision with a weather satellite called Fengyun-1C. For the first known time in history, a missile launched from the ground destroyed an orbiting satellite. The geometry of this particular test (and also, whether this test was the first shot, or the fourth or fifth or more) remains classified. But further leaks and revelations can be expected. Also to be expected are suggested schemes for countermeasures. First of all, space is not under a uniform hazard from ground-based weapons. The higher you are, the less threatened you are. It could take a weapon four to six hours to reach a target in the 24-hour geosynchronous arc over the equator, where critical observation and applications satellites are located. But it's also a matter of accuracy and closing speed. Higher orbits pose much more of a challenge for weapons that depend on a fast relative closing speed for a “kill.” Visit http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16694039/ to view the article.