June 11 News Items

Can Wallops/MARS Compete for COTS-D? (Source: Spaceports Blog)
NASA is said to be in the final stages of vetting a review on the feasibility of accelerating the crew transport portion of its COTS program. NASA is funding SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp. to develop cargo-focused COTS capabilities. Only SpaceX has been actively working on a COTS D concept, with Orbital focused exclusively on cargo at this point.

To launch human missions from the Wallops spaceport will require modifications to the FAA-AST permit and NASA environmental impact studies as well. Virginia lawmakers are being asked to urge NASA to review Wallops Island human-rated launch requirement studies now as other federal lawmakers are seeking to advance the acceleration of COTS D to reduce the expected gap in U.S. human spaceflight capability between the space shuttle’s 2010 retirement and the debut of the Orion in 2015. (6/10)

Florida Governor Signs Budget, Including Space Items (Source: ERAU)
Governor Crist signed the 2008-09 budget, including new investments in Florida’s Space industry. $14.5 million is included for launch infrastructure at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport; $1.25 million for space industry workforce retention and training; and $500,000 for a Florida Sub-Orbital Commercial Research & Training Center at the Florida Institute of Technology. (6/11)

JASON 2 Satellite Ready for June 20 Launch from California (Source: NASA)
The launch of the Ocean Surface Topography Mission, or OSTM/Jason 2, aboard a Delta II rocket is scheduled for June 20, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The launch window extends from 12:46 a.m. to 12:55 a.m. PDT. The mission is an international collaboration between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the French space agency Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT). (6/11)

Spacehab Subsidiary Secures Spacecraft Processing Work (Source: Spacehab)
Spacehab's Astrotech subsidiary has won a fourth, fully-funded task order under the $35 million Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract. The Company will provide facilities and payload processing services from its VAFB location in support of NASA’s Widefield Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) Mission scheduled to launch in late 2009. (6/11)

Premier Inn Plans First Hotel on the Moon (Source: Travel Daily News)
Premier Inn, the UK’s largest and fastest growing hotel brand, unveiled its plans for its most ambitious hotel development ever: the first ever hotel on the moon. A 43,500 square feet site has been purchased and designers and engineers have been working on the blueprints and design for the first lunar hotel that Premier Inn estimates could be constructed and opened within 25 years. Visit http://www.traveldailynews.com/pages/show_page/26085 to view the article. (6/11)

University of Florida Scientist Seeks Flying Saucer Design Patent (Source: Florida Today)
A UF scientist has submitted a patent application for a flying saucer. Subrata Roy has submitted a patent application for a circular, spinning aircraft design reminiscent of the spaceships seen in countless Hollywood films. The proposed prototype is small -- the aircraft will measure less than six inches across -- and will be efficient enough to be powered by on-board batteries.

Roy calls his design a "wingless electromagnetic air vehicle," or WEAV. Roy said the design can be scaled up and theoretically should work in a much larger form. The vehicle will be powered by a phenomenon called magnetohydrodynamics, or the force created when a current or a magnetic field is passed through a conducting fluid. In the case of Roy's aircraft, the conducting fluid will be created by electrodes that cover each of the vehicle's surfaces and ionize the surrounding air into plasma.

The force created by passing an electrical current through this plasma pushes around the surrounding air, and that swirling air creates lift and momentum and provides stability against wind gusts. In order to maximize the area of contact between air and vehicle, Roy's design is partially hollow and continuously curved. (6/11)

Delta-2 Launches GLAST from Florida (Source: Florida Today)
NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Telescope (GLAST) is now circling Earth in its intended orbit 301 miles above the planet after a successful launch aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket. The 13-story Delta 2 Heavy blasted off from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport at 12:05 p.m. -- 20 minutes later than planned because of some minor trouble at an Atlantic Ocean tracking station. (6/11)

Bush Administration Responds to NASA Authorization Language (Source: OMB)
President Bush's Office of Management & Budget (OMB) has issued a Statement of Administration Policy to suggest changes it believes should be made to the proposed NASA Authorization Act for 2008. The OMB document expresses concerns about "problematic policy implications" and recommends the removal or modification of sections of the bill, including: "carrying out an additional procurement for Commercial Orbital Transfer Services (COTS) crew capabilities, and mandating that NASA purchase commercial services regardless of cost;" and "requiring the continued operation and utilization of the ISS by the United States after 2016, without first mitigating significant budget implications in the outyears". (6/10)

Google Co-Founder Books Private Space Mission (Source: New York Times)
Sergey Brin, a co-founder of Google, has made a $5 million investment in Space Adventures that will serve as a deposit on a future flight. “I am a big believer in the exploration and commercial development of the space frontier, and am looking forward to the possibility of going into space,” Brin said. It is anticipated that Brin's flight will be a dedicated commercial mission, instead of a ride-along opportunity aboard a Space Station servicing flight. For the private Soyuz mission, Space Adventures will book two seats on the three-seat spacecraft, with a Russian commander taking the other seat. The mission will be scheduled so as not to interfere with the official flights of astronauts to and from the station, the company said.

Space Adventures has seats reserved for flights to the space station this October and April 2009. Clients have paid $20 million to $40 million for their trips. The company did not disclose what the private flight will cost. “From a passenger point of view, you wouldn’t be a fifth wheel on the flight to the space station,” astronaut Tom Jones said. “It’s a move toward a more mature commercial space travel industry.” Eric Anderson, the chief executive of Space Adventures, said that the deal meant “we become a space mission company, not simply a seller of seats.” Future missions could take travelers to other destinations like privately run space stations, he said.

The move to a purchased mission is “a different paradigm,” said Dr. John Logsdon, the director of the space policy institute at George Washington University, and could help NASA determine what it ought to be paying for its own passage to the station aboard the Soyuz craft. (6/11)

Space Telescope to Aid Ohio State University Quest for Signs of Dark Matter (Source: Columbus Dispatch)
Scientists say a new space telescope will unveil secrets of stars so dense that a teaspoonful weighs a billion tons, of unseen matter that holds galaxies together and black holes that gobble neighboring stars. The list of possible discoveries is so long that scientists have dubbed the Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) “a discovery machine.” Until now, astronomers and particle physicists could only theorize how gamma rays, which are thousands to billions times more energetic than visible light, are connected to a wide variety of heavenly bodies. As part of the GLAST mission, Ohio State and the University of California, Santa Cruz, will search for the fingerprints of “ dark matter” in the Milky Way. The Milky Way and other galaxies spin too fast for gravity alone to hold them together, so unseen matter, called dark matter, must be there. (6/11)

Delta Countdown Under Way at Spaceport (Source: Florida Today)
Countdown to the planned launch of a Delta 2 Heavy rocket is under way at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport today as NASA and United Launch Alliance gear up for a $690 million mission to explore the most extreme environments in the universe. The 13-story rocket and its payload -- NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope -- are scheduled to blast off from launch pad 17-B between 11:45 a.m. EDT and 1:40 p.m. EDT today. (6/11)

Discovery Separates From Space Station for Journey Home (Source: Florida Today)
The Space Shuttle Discovery undocked from the International Space Station Wednesday morning, ending a nine-day stay and heading for a Saturday landing at Kennedy Space Center. (6/11)