June 8 News Items

University Researchers To Upgrade Safety And Performance Of Rocket Fuel (Source: SpaceDaily.com)
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have received a $1 million grant from the U. S. Department of Defense (DoD) to boost the safety and performance of fuel used in thousands of satellites, space vehicles, rockets and missiles. The UMass team will study the spray and combustion of gelled hypergolic propellants, formed from a fuel and an oxidizer that ignite spontaneously when mixed, so there is no need of an ignition mechanism to bring about combustion. Hypergolic propellants have been used for decades. The UMass Amherst research is part of a larger, interdisciplinary collaboration with Purdue and Iowa State Universities that was awarded $6.4 million by the DoD. (6/8)

Space Florida Board Plans June Meetings (Source: Space Florida)
The Space Florida Board of Directors will hold public meetings on June 9 and June 18-19. The June 9 meeting of the board's Business Development Committee will be held at the Center for Space Education at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. The June 18-19 meetings will be held in West Palm Beach and will feature committee meetings on the 18th and a full board meeting on the 19th. Contact Juanell Kirkendoll at mailto:jkirkendoll@spaceflorida.gov for information. (6/8)

2008 University Rover Challenge Results (Source: Mars Society)
After two days of intense competition and hard work, Oregon State University captured first place in the 2008 University Rover Challenge at the Mars Desert Research Station. They narrowly beat out the defending champions from the University of Nevada Reno. Following hot on their heels in third place was first-time entrant from the York University of Toronto, Canada. Georgia Tech and Iowa State University both turned in rousing performances in that challenge, and finished second and third in that event, respectively. The BYU team, which was unable to compete in yesterday's contests due to problems booting their rover's operating system, fixed those problems overnight and brought their rover to the soil analysis task, where they impressed the judges. (6/8)

European Officials Debate Opening Galileo to Non-European Firms (Source: Space News)
The European Commission and the European Space Agency (ESA), the two government bodies overseeing Europe's Galileo project, are battling about the degree to which they should open up the contract bidding on the satellite navigation system — especially to U.S. and other non-European companies. The issue has led some government officials to raise the specter that Europe's flagship space endeavor could end up being farmed out to U.S., Russian or Chinese companies in the interests of getting the best value for money. (6/8)

Wynne's Ouster Could Impact Air Force Transition to Next Administration (Source: Space News)
The forced resignation of U.S. Air Force Secretary Mike Wynne likely will have a big impact of the service's transition to the next U.S. presidential administration in 2009, something Wynne had made a priority, according to Robbin Laird, a defense analyst who has done work for Wynne. Laird said in a June 6 interview that Wynne was managing a host of issues critical to the service's future, including integrating the operations of the newest generations of military space systems, planes and unmanned aerial vehicles. (6/8)

NASA Weighs Design Changes to Ares 5 Launcher (Source: Space News)
Although work has yet to begin in earnest on NASA's proposed Ares 5 heavy-lift launcher, the U.S. space agency's rocket designers are preparing to brief top brass on a batch of changes intended to boost the vehicle's performance. Adding a sixth RS-68 engine to the Ares 5 main stage, increasing the use of weight-saving composite materials throughout the vehicle, and making major modifications to the pair of solid-rocket boosters (SRBs) strapped to the side of the vehicle are among the changes under consideration, according to senior NASA officials and other experts. (6/8)

GOP Lawmakers Test Russian Soyuz Waiver Plan (Source: Space News)
NASA's request for continued relief from a 2000 law restricting its purchase of Russian Soyuz vehicles has run afoul of House Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans, who wrote President Bush to argue that a waiver should be unnecessary if the White House is correct that Russia is no longer helping Iran acquire nuclear know-how. "We are writing to request that you withdraw from consideration the agreement on peaceful nuclear cooperation with Russia that was recently submitted to Congress, particularly in light of the request for an extension of your waiver of authority in the Iran, North Korea, and Syria Nonproliferation Act (INKSNA) that would allow NASA to continue to purchase spacecraft from the Russian space agency," 14 Republicans wrote in the June 5 letter. (6/8)

St. Lucie Mom Keeps Eye on Shuttle (Source: Palm Beach Post)
We can all guess what Linda Relis of Port St. Lucie is doing these days. On May 31, Relis' son Col. Ron Garan, a NASA astronaut, lifted off from Cape Canaveral on the Space Shuttle Discovery for a 14-day mission to the space station. "Needless to say, I'm glued to the NASA channel," Relis wrote in an e-mail. "My son finally got what he's dreamed about since he first saw Neil Armstrong walk on the moon," Relis said. Relis and Col. Garan's wife, Carmel, and three sons had a chance to meet the shuttle crew and their families at a barbecue at the astronauts' beach house. (6/8)

Space Station Experiments Could Hold Key to Food-Poisoning Vaccine (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
It reads like the plot of a science-fiction movie: a maverick businessman cuts a deal with NASA to send bacteria into space, looking for a deadly superstrain that will make him rich. Only this is no film script, and the tycoon in this story is not seeking world domination but a vaccine that could save millions of lives, spawn a new industry and give the international space station a reason for being.

Scientists have known for decades that some experiments just work better in space -- but it hasn't been easy to get them up there or find the money or commercial interest to make it happen. Enter Tom Pickens III, a swaggering 50-year-old Wall Street troubleshooter and the son of Texas oil legend T. Boone Pickens. Since taking the helm of the struggling aerospace company Spacehab Inc. 18 months ago, Pickens has made it his goal to do what nobody has done before: use space as a unique place to develop products for use back on Earth.

For decades, microbiologists have struggled to find a strain suitable for a vaccine for Salmonella infections. The promise of a breakthrough seemed closer after NASA agreed earlier this year to let Spacehab become the first commercial venture to make use of the international space station. The reason? Bacteria do amazing things when you remove gravity. Visit http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/orl-spacevax0808jun08,0,5453358.story to view the article. (6/8)

Mars Lander's 1st Soil Sample May Not Be Analyzed (Source: Reuters)
Dirt that the Phoenix Mars Lander scooped recently from the planet's surface may be too clumpy to be analyzed by the machine's onboard system, NASA reported on Saturday. A robotic arm retrieved a cup-sized sample of Martian dirt on Friday and placed it on the lander's Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA, which was scheduled to spend about a week determining the soil's water and mineral content.

The TEGA features a screened opening that prevents large particles from clogging it. Only those thinner than 1 mm (0.04 of an inch) can pass through, and an infrared beam verifies whether they have entered the instrument. The beam has not yet confirmed any activity and researchers are not sure why, NASA said in a statement. Scientists suspect the soil may be clumped together too tightly, NASA said. (6/7)

Gifted Students Exposed to Space, Science at KSC (Source: Florida Today)
Launching a high-altitude balloon was the final project for gifted high school students who took part in a five-day, highly selective, free pilot program at KSC. The Governor's School Summer Academy received more than 320 applications for one of 35 coveted slots split between two sessions. Free summer programs for gifted students are hard to come by these days because of budget cuts.

Funding for the Governor's School pilot summer program was made possible through a $500,000 contract from the Florida Department of Education. It is a joint initiative among Florida Tech, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and Florida State University. The funding, approved in the state's 2007 legislative session, supports planning to establish a Governor's School for Science, Mathematics and Space Technology at or near Kennedy Space Center. While plans for the school are still in the works, the summer campers were able to get a taste of what might be in store.

To be considered for the program, 10th-, 11th- and 12th- grade students had to provide SAT or ACT scores, a teacher recommendation and two essays. Participants were housed at a hotel near KSC and worked as long as 12 hours some days. Most did not seem to mind because they are interested in a career in space or engineering. "I learned, but I didn't realize I was learning," said Julia Rauchfuss, a 15-year-old going into the 10th grade at Melbourne's West Shore Jr./Sr. High. "They were pretty sneaky about sticking in all the teaching." (6/7)

China to Launch French-Built Communications Satellite (Source: Xinhua)
China is to launch a new communications satellite, Zhongxing-9, with a Long March-3B rocket carrier on Monday at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. Both the satellite and carrier were in good conditions, and preparation was going on smoothly. Zhongxing-9, a satellite ordered by China Satcom from the France-based Thales Alenia Space (TAS), will be used for television live broadcast. (6/8)