June 9 News Items

Orbital Sciences Chooses Virginia for Taurus 2 Launches (Source: State of Virginia)
Orbital Sciences Corporation has selected the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), located at Virginia's Wallops Island, as its launch site for the new Taurus II rocket. Orbital will invest approximately $45 million in Virginia to assemble, test and launch the Taurus II rockets. The rocket program will also create approximately 125 new jobs in the state, which will be based both at Orbital's Dulles headquarters and at the Wallops Island launch site.

The first mission of the Taurus II rocket is scheduled for late 2010. It will be the launch vehicle for a joint NASA and Orbital cargo delivery demonstration mission to the International Space Station (ISS). If NASA selects Orbital for operational cargo missions to the ISS later this year, those missions would also originate from MARS, beginning in 2011.

The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with Accomack County, Loudoun County, the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority and the Virginia Public Building Authority to secure the project for Virginia. Among the latest incentives was a $1 million performance-based grant from the Virginia Investment Partnership (VIP) program, an incentive available to existing Virginia companies. The Virginia Department of Business Assistance will provide training assistance through the Virginia Jobs Investment Program. (6/9)

Spaceport America is Only the Beginning (Source: Naples News)
They’re building a spaceport in New Mexico. Other states, including Florida, are working to build spaceports, but New Mexico has something that none of the others has: a multimillionaire tenant who is determined to make a profitable commercial business out of launching tourists into space. As Tevya says in "Fiddler on the Roof," "Sounds crazy, no?" The correct answer is no. Visit http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2008/jun/08/ben-bova-spaceport-america-only-beginning/ to view the article. (6/9)

China Launches French-Built Satellite (Source: Hitech News)
China launched a new communications satellite, Zhongxing-9, from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the southwestern Sichuan Province at 8:15 p.m. (Beijing Time) Monday. The satellite was shot into space aboard the Long March-3B rocket carrier. It was the 107th launch mission for the Long March series of carrier rockets. Zhongxing-9, a satellite ordered by China Satcom from the France-based Thales Alenia Space, would be used for live television broadcast and put into use before the Beijing Olympic Games in August. (6/9)

Knights in Shining Armor (Source: Space Review)
Interest in space solar power has grown in the last year, in large part because of a study of the concept performed by a Defense Department office. Dwayne Day argues, however, that this enthusiasm is largely misplaced, given the lack of clout possessed by this office as well as the significant technical challenges space solar power still faces. Visit http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1147/1 to view the article. (6/9)

Space Policy Issues Facing a New Administration (Source: Space Review)
The next president will face a number of major issues related to space policy upon taking office next January. Eligar Sadeh examines those issues as discussed at a forum earlier this year. Visit http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1146/1 to view the article. (6/9)

Delta 2 Launch On Schedule for Wednesday (Source: Florida Today)
A crucial new destruct system battery was installed and tested aboard United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket over the weekend, and mission managers have cleared the vehicle to launch Wednesday with NASA's newest space telescope. The 13-story rocket and its payload -- NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST -- are set to blast off at Launch Complex 17-B at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport during a window that will extend from 11:45 a.m. to 1:40 p.m. EDT Wednesday. (6/9)

Russia May Leave Space Travel Market in 2009 (Source: Russia IC)
According to Head of the Russian Space Agency Anatoly Perminov, next year Russia may leave the market of space tourism travel, if members of the ISS program decide to increase the crew size up to six people. At the present moment the crew team consists of 3 people. Earlier it was reported that members of the ISS program planned to increase the crew size up to six people. Taking into account that in 2009 the American shuttles halt flights, the Russian Soyuz spacecraft will turn into the main means for carrying tourists to space. Russia will have to halt flights of space tourists. (6/9)

Expert: Water on Mars Not Likely to Sustain Life (Source: NewsDay)
As the Phoenix lander continues its mission on Mars, drilling into the terrain in hopes of hitting ice, a Long Island space scientist says he's convinced water once trickled on the Red Planet. But Scott McLennan, a Stony Brook University geochemist, says the Martian water he and his colleagues have identified is a briny liquid so salty that it probably never sustained life as we know it. "Our work is based on the Mars Rover Mission, and also on materials we got from rocks and meteorites that came from Mars," said McLennan, who referred to the spacecraft Opportunity, which landed on the Red Planet along with its twin probe, Spirit, in 2004. (6/9)

Russia Could Learn From U.S. Space Program (Source: RIA Novosti)
This summer will prove crucial for the Russian space program. First of all, the U.S. Congress will decide whether to buy Soyuz spacecraft for flying crews to the International Space Station (ISS). In early June, NASA and Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) delegations negotiated in the United States. However, the U.S. decision will be far more important for Moscow than for the Americans. It would be an exaggeration to say that top NASA managers are seriously worried about this. In August 2006, President George W. Bush said interplanetary missions were becoming the main aspect of the U.S. space program. Washington, which has already spent $100 billion on the ISS project, continues to support it only through sheer inertia. Visit http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080609/109608014.html to view the article. (6/9)

Making Sense of Mars Methane (Source: Astrobiology Magazine)
Research on methane at a Mexican salt flat could help reveal the source of methane that has been detected in the atmosphere of Mars. But first scientists have to decipher the unique – and seemingly contradictory - isotopic signature of the Mexican methane. Commercial salt ponds near the Mexican town of Guerrero Negro, which lies about midway down the Baja California peninsula, produce methane gas that may help scientists understand the origin of methane in Mars’s atmosphere. Click here to view the article. (6/9)