News Summaries for February 4

Ben Bova: Anti-Satellite Weapons Threat Greater Than You Might Think (Source: Naples News)
“Gentlemen may cry peace, peace,” said Patrick Henry, “but there is no peace. The war is actually begun!” Most Americans — most of the people of the world — believe outer space should not be militarized. And yet the inevitable logic of national interests has once again led a major power, China, to build and test an anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon.

In 1981 the Soviet Union fielded an ASAT weapon consisti ofg a bomb-carrying satellite that was brought into orbit near another satellite and detonated when the two vehicles came close together. The U.S., meanwhile, developed a two-stage missile carried to high altitude by an F-15 fighter plane and then launched into space. The missile’s tracking system guided it into a head-on collision with the target satellite: a so-called “kinetic kill” system. In 1985, the Democratic Party-controlled House of Representatives voted a moratorium on American ASAT systems. The U.S. has not tested an anti-satellite weapon since.

Hundreds of civilian satellites orbiting the Earth relay telephone calls and television broadcasts, they monitor the global environment, they help in search and rescue operations, they observe the weather, they search for natural resources and do many, many other tasks. International commerce and financial dealings are dependent to a considerable degree on satellites. An electromagnetic pulse (a strong-enough surge of electromagnetic energy) could destroy the circuits in unhardened satellites. Most of our civilian satellites are not hardened. A single modest-sized hydrogen bomb detonated a couple of hundred miles high would produce pulse that could knock out just about every unprotected satellite on that hemisphere of the Earth. So, if terrorists got their hands on a moderate-sized ballistic missile and a hydrogen bomb warhead in the 100 kiloton range, they could knock out all the unprotected satellites over half the world.

NASA Selects Florida Explorer School to Experiment on 'Weightless Wonder' (Source: NASA)
NASA has Immokalee Middle School in Naples, Fla., to fly experiments aboard the agency's reduced-gravity aircraft, the "Weightless Wonder," a modified McDonnell Douglas DC-9. The school is two of 20 NASA Explorer School teams selected for this unique experience, which also will give teachers a feel of space as the aircraft carefully executes a series of parabolic maneuvers. Immokalee teachers will arrive at Ellington Field in Texas on Feb. 11 for their flight. Immokalee's experiment aims to characterize the movement and lifting capability of a hovercraft in a zero-G environment. The school will measure movement using motion sensors and accelerometers.

Scientists: ITAR Still Hinders Cooperation (Source: Space News)
Nobel laureate George F. Smoot said he is optimistic that current U.S. regulations limiting space-science collaboration with other nations will be eased as U.S. policymakers are made aware of the effects of the restrictions. Smoot said collaboration between U.S. and European scientists is harder now than it was before U.S. technology-transfer rules were tightened in 1999 as part of a wider and more-rigorous application of the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). He said U.S. government officials charged with reviewing bilateral or multilateral science projects have been so worried about being accused of letting sensitive technologies slip into the wrong hands that they have overcompensated.

Air Force, Army Face Shortage of SBIRS Ground Equipment (Source: Space News)
A shortfall in the budget for the ground equipment that will be needed for the Pentagon’s next generation of missile warning satellites threatens to limit the ability of troops on the battlefield to use those satellites to provide warnings of missile launches. As a result, Air Force and U.S. Army officials are looking for temporary fixes to the problem. The Army and the Air Force have ground systems today deployed around the world that receive information from the current Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites to help spot nearby missile launches. However, the budget for the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) High satellites, which are scheduled to start replacing the DSP satellites in 2008, does not include funding for similar ground systems.

Europe Approves Contracts for Joint Mission to Mercury with Japan (Source: Space News)
The financial-oversight body of the European Space Agency (ESA) approved the agency’s first mission to Mercury, a two-satellite project to be launched in 2013 in cooperation with the Japanese space agency, JAXA. ESA’s Industrial Policy Committee approved contracts totaling $426.4 million for Europe’s BepiColombo Mercury Planetary Orbiter. The contracting team will be led by Astrium GmbH of Germany, with Astrium Ltd. of Britain and Alcatel Alenia Space Italy acting as co-prime contractors.