November 14 News Items

Layoffs Coming for Launch Personnel (Source: Santa Maria Times)
Citing a market slowdown and program consolidations, the main launch firm at Vandenberg Air Force Base will lay off a total of 350 workers from its locations across the nation in February. Just how many United Launch Alliance workers at Vandenberg will receive pink slips isn't known yet. With 4,200 employees overall, the firm has about 400 workers at Vandenberg and 775 for the East Coast launch site at Cape Canaveral, Fla. A second reduction, involving up to 350 more employees, could occur at the end of 2009, officials added.

ULA officials say several factors contribute to the planned layoffs. The company formed in late 2006 from a merger of Lockheed Martin and Boeing's manufacturing and launch operations crews for the Atlas and Delta boosters. “We always knew we'd be smaller but I think there was an expectation that perhaps that shrinking would not have to be tied to a reduction in force,” Andrews said.

The merger also prompted elimination of Huntington Beach operations, which supported ULA during its first two years. Additionally, ULA's workhorse rocket, the Delta 2, is feeling the pinch of a slower launch market, a completed contract for a series of missions and program restructuring. (11/14)

Space Coast Businesswoman Receives SWE Entrepreneur Award (Source: Craig Technologies)
The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) has named Carol Craig as the recipient of a 2008 Entrepreneur Award. Craig is the founder and owner of Craig Technologies, Inc., a provider of technical and engineering services for commercial and government entities. Craig is based in Cape Ccanaveral and suports various space program contracts. (11/14)

NASA Awards CU $2 Million Grant for Suborbital Rockets (Source: Boulder Daily Camera)
The more-than-30-year history of rocket programs at the University of Colorado’s Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy has been extended with a $2 million grant that NASA awarded the university for its student sounding-rocket program. A team of about six CU graduate students and professors will design, build, launch and modify the scientific instrumentation for a series of four sounding-rocket launches departing from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The instruments on the sounding rockets will be used to study X-ray emissions throughout the galaxy. (11/14)

Images Captured of Four Planets Outside Solar System (Source: AP)
Earth seems to have its first fuzzy photos of alien planets outside our solar system, images captured by two teams of astronomers. The pictures show four likely planets that appear as specks of white, nearly indecipherable except to the most eagle-eyed experts. All are trillions of miles away — three of them orbiting the same star, and the fourth circling a different star. None of the four giant gaseous planets are remotely habitable or remotely like Earth. But they raise the possibility of others more hospitable. (11/14)

SpaceDev Reports Third Quarter Fiscal 2008 Results (Source: Market Wire)
SpaceDev reported its financial results for the three and nine months ended Sep. 30 with year to date revenues of approximately $28.3 million, an increase of over 11.6%, net income for the nine months of almost $500,000. SpaceDev reported revenue of approximately $9.0 million and $28.3 million for the three and nine months ended Sep. 30, 2008, an increase of approximately $1.4 million and $3.0 million, or 18.9% and 11.7% for the three and nine month periods respectively, from the approximate $7.6 million and $25.3 million in revenue reported for the same three and nine month periods in 2007. (11/14)

Spirit Phones Home After Life-Threatening Dust Storm (Source: Planetary.org)
After taking a “direct hit” from one of Mars’ notorious dust storms last weekend, Spirit phoned home, exactly like its ground team had asked it to do, and members of the rover team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) cheered. The dust storm hit the already power-challenged Mars Exploration Rover (MER) hard, causing it to suffer a life-threatening drop in energy not long after it began moving again for the first time in some eight months. (11/14)