January 9 News Items

Embry-Riddle Awarded $2M FAA Grant for Future Airport Technologies (Source: Orlando Business Journal)
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has been awarded a $2 million grant from the Federal Aviation Administration to help in the establishment of the "Airport of the Future" at Daytona Beach International Airport. The objective is to create a national testing site for the next-generation air transport system technologies that will lead to critical safety and security improvements and reduce congestion at the nation's airports. To accomplish that, Embry-Riddle, the FAA, Daytona Beach International Airport, and several partner companies are pooling resources and expertise to demonstrate how available and emerging technologies can be used for airport safety, security and efficiency. So far, the project has garnered nearly $4 million in private investment from the industry. The project could evolve to support the integration of airport and spaceport systems.

Shuttle Delays Endanger Space Station (Source: USA Today)
Like many home-improvement projects on Earth, NASA's most ambitious building effort in space languishes half-done. Now new delays, combined with the space shuttle's looming retirement, are raising worries about whether it can be finished at all. The International Space Station, a $100 billion orbiting laboratory, has been under construction since 1998. The station's pieces can get to orbit only on the shuttle, a fragile, aging vehicle that has suffered repeated schedule disruptions. Even a few months' delay in a shuttle flight is cause for concern, because the shuttle must retire by October 2010 to free up money for developing a safer vehicle. The spacecraft is slated to fly 13 more missions before it rolls into its hangar for good. That's an average of nearly five flights per year, a rate NASA hasn't achieved since 2002.

ILS Marks First Year with $1.5 Billion in New Proton Business (Source: ILS)
International Launch Services (ILS) brought in $1.5 billion in new launch orders in 2007, its first year as an independent company marketing the Proton Breeze M vehicle. This total represents contracts for 17 launches on Proton, Russia’s premier heavy-lift launcher, through 2013. ILS has exclusive rights to market the Proton vehicle worldwide to commercial satellite operators. Khrunichev Space Center of Moscow, one of the cornerstones of the Russian space industry, manufactures the Proton and is in a partnership with ILS.

Japanese Satellite Flops at Map-Making: Official (Source: AFP)
An advanced Japanese surveying satellite launched two years ago is proving to be a disappointment, producing images too blurry for map-makers. The $457 million "Daichi" satellite was sent into space to create detailed maps of remote parts of Japan, but the images have not been of sufficient quality, the government's Geographical Survey Institute said. "For many places, we now expect to conduct land surveys to update the maps," said Takashi Hayashi, an official with the institute. The institute had hoped the satellite would complement the work, but officials have so far used the Daichi satellite's images to update maps of just 52 of 4,300 section images of Japan. Most areas where satellite images have been used have been remote areas including Iwo-to, better known as Iwo Jima.