June 15 News Items

Atlas V Launches from Cape Canaveral Spaceport (Sources: ERAU & Florida Today)
An Atlas V rocket carrying two national security satellites has successfully launched from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. The rocket was launched by United Launch Alliance, a Boeing/Lockheed Martin joint venture. It was originally scheduled to launch on Thursday but was delayed by technical issues with the Eastern Range. Status of the mission beyond payload fairing separation is limited due to the classified nature of the payloads. This was the ninth Atlas V launch and was the first for the National Reconnaissance Office.

Arabsat Nears Deal on Two More Satellites (Source: Space News)
Satellite-fleet operator Arabsat is expected to sign a contract June 16 with Astrium Satellites and Thales Alenia Space for the construction of two fifth-generatoin Arabsat telecommunications spacecraft, to be launched in 2009 and 2010, according to industry officials.

Satellites Are Key Component of New Air Traffic Control System (Source: AIA)
Airline industry leaders say implementation of a GPS-based air traffic control system is an essential part of the FAA's planned system revamping. The FAA's new program will rely on Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast, which uses airplane transponders and GPS satellites to determine aircraft position with much greater accuracy than the current radar system. The FAA is expected to announce which of three finalists will perform the work later this summer.

Russians Fail to Fix Computers (Source: Florida Today)
The Russians' bid this morning to restore power to command, control and navigation computers has failed again, leaving the International Space Station in the same troublesome configuration it's been in since late Wednesday. During a series of communication passes overnight, the Russians worked with the station crew to try to troubleshoot the computers to no avail. They just the crew members to get some sleep while the teams on the ground in Moscow and Houston keep trying to figure out what keeps crashing the critical computer systems.

Russians: Possible 'Fatal Flaw' in Space Station (Source: ABC)
A source inside the Russian space agency has told ABC News that there could be a "fatal flaw" with the station's main computer. After working for a couple of days, the Russians still have no idea what the problem is, and they are pointing the finger at the Americans. They say that setting up the solar array sent electromagnetic interference into the computer, shutting it down. On the positive side, the space agency says that the station could fly for a few months without correcting its flight, meaning that even if the astronauts were forced to leave, there may be more time to fix the computer problems down the road. Meanwhile, shuttle astronauts James Reilly and Danny Olivas from the Space Shuttle Atlantis plan to take a spacewalk Friday afternoon to repair a tear in the shuttles thermal blanket using a surgical staple. Part of the blanket peeled back during the launch.

Dnepr Launches German Satellite (Source: SpaceToday.net)
A Dnepr rocket launched a German radar satellite early Friday. The Dnepr lifted off from a silo at the Baikonur spaceport and placed the TerraSAR-X satellite into a Sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of approximately 514 kilometers. The spacecraft, built by Astrium for German company Infoterra, carries an X-band radar that will be used to provide medium- and high-resolution radar imagery of the Earth's surface. The launch is the second this year for the Denpr, a converted ICBM; another Dnepr, carrying the Genesis 2 spacecraft for Bigelow Aerospace, is expected to launch in the near future from the Yasny launch site in Russia.

EU Official Balks at Space Tourism (Source: The Peninsula)
The European Union's industry commissioner yesterday blasted companies' plans to offer space flights to tourists, calling them a gimmick for the privileged elite. "It's only for the super rich, which is against my social convictions," European Commission Vice President Guenter Verheugen told Reuters. EADS Astrium, the space division of the European aerospace consortium, said this week it planned to build a craft that would be able to carry a handful of tourists on brief forays outside the earth's atmosphere from 2012. Other groups are considering similar ventures including British entrepreneur Richard Branson, whose Virgin Galactic service expects to make its first commercial flight next year.

The EADS aircraft, about the size of an executive jet, would be able to carry four passengers around 100 kilometres from the earth, where they would be able to experience about three minutes of weightlessness and see the curve of the earth. At a price of $200,000-$266,000), the experience would be reserved for a small number of rich sensation-seekers, although as many as 15,000 passengers a year are expected to be ready to pay for a trip by 2020, according to consultants Futron.

Marshall Programs Get Boost (Source: Huntsville Times)
If the NASA budget makes it through Congress unscathed this year, the agency should have more money than the White House asked for, including full funding for rockets that Marshall Space Flight Center is developing, U.S. Rep. Bud Cramer said Thursday. A new draft of the NASA budget increases President Bush's space agency money request by about $290 million to $17.6 billion for fiscal 2008. The bill will go to the House Appropriations Committee next week, said Cramer, a member of the committee, "and I feel optimistic that it will get voted on by the House sometime before we recess in August."

Subcommittee Urges Criminal Investigation of NASA General Counsel (Source: US House of Reps.)
The Chairman and Ranking Member of the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and Technology urged the Department of Justice today to investigate and possibly prosecute Michael Wholley, the general counsel of NASA, for obstruction of justice and destruction of government records. In their letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the Congressmen wrote that Mr. Wholley personally destroyed video records of an April 10 agency meeting between NASA Administrator Michael Griffin and the staff of the Office of the Inspector General with full knowledge that the meeting was relevant to an ongoing Subcommittee investigation.

Honey, the Baby's Spacewalking (Source: CNN)
An elementary school science teacher Chicago doesn't have to turn on the news for an update on NASA's space mission. She just turns on her video baby monitor. Since Sunday, one of the two channels on Natalie Meilinger's baby monitor has been picking up black-and-white video from inside the space shuttle Atlantis. The other still lets her keep an eye on her baby. "Whoever has a baby monitor knows what you'll usually see," Meilinger said. "No one would ever expect this."

Meilinger silenced disbelieving co-workers by bringing in a video of the monitor to show her class on Tuesday, her students' last day of school. At home, 3-month-old Jack and 2-year-old Rachel don't quite understand what their parents are watching. "I've been addicted to it and keep waiting to see what's next," Meilinger said. Summer Infant, the monitor's manufacturer, is investigating what could be causing the transmission, communications director Cindy Barlow said. She said she's never heard of anything similar happening. "Not even close," she said. "Gotta love technology."

NASA Urges Patience as Russians Work on Computer Glitches (Source: SpaceFlightNow.com)
Russian engineers troubleshooting computer problems aboard the space station have coaxed three of six critical guidance and control computers back into operation after a crippling shutdown Wednesday. A few hours later, apparently still experiencing problems, the two operating command-and-control computers, along with a lone guidance computer, were shut back down to give engineers time to assess telemetry. Additional troubleshooting and work to restore the computer system to more normal operation will be attempted \Friday when the space station passes back within range of Russian ground stations.

E'Prime Aerospace Corp. Retains Launch Customer Despite Troubles (Source: ERAU)
Less than a year after selling over 386 million of his E'Prime shares to the corporation in a $3 million stock buyback deal (which also included a $1 million reimbursement of funds he loaned the company, and a $280,000 per-year consulting position with the company), E'Prime director Bob Davis was removed from his position by his fellow board members over issues raised in a 2006 audit. The issues included inaccurate claims by Davis that certain missile production assets to be used by the company were not constrained by international treaty requirements. An internal investigation is ongoing. Despite these troubles, Melbourne-based M Star Global Communications has assured E'Prime that it remains committed to launching four KA-band satellites aboard the company's proposed Eagle rockets.

Obsolete Chips in Space (Source: MSNBC)
How many people are still cranking along with a 12-year-old computer at work? If that's your situation, you might have a bit more sympathy for the astronauts trying to cope with the computer problems on the international space station. The system that controls the station's orientation as well as other key functions on the Russian side of the outpost basically uses 12-year-old chips that were designed using a 21-year-old architecture and sent into orbit seven years ago.

Congressional Subcommittee Proposes Increase in NASA Funding (Source: Planetary Society)
The subcommittee responsible for the NASA budget has proposed an increase of $286 million in the agency’s funding above the Administration’s proposal for the upcoming fiscal year. This brings the total proposed NASA budget to $17.6 billion, or a 6% increase over the NASA’s current funding levels. Over half of the increase, or $180 million, goes towards NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, which has endured severe cuts in science spending over the past two years. A large part of the added funds will go to Earth science missions and the restoration of the exoplanet-hunting Space Interferometry Mission (SIM), which has been put on hold for budgetary reasons.