December 14 News Items

Space Coast Officials Meet NASA Transition Team (Source: Florida Today)
County Commissioners Mary Bolin and Robin Fisher, and Lynda Weatherman, head of the Economic Development Commission of Florida's Space Coast, met with the Obama NASA Review Team last week in Washington. "They advised us that the shuttle retirement was going to be their No. 1 priority," Bolin said. "And that was just tremendous to hear because that is a concern for our citizens. That hits us straight in the heart." "I was very impressed with them," Fisher said. "It seems that President-elect Obama has everything in order, and he's moving at a fast pace." (12/14)

Astrobotic to License Access to Lunar Data Library (Source: Astrobotic)
Astrobotic will create a ‘Digital Moon’ by developing an integrated lunar library of company-collected data combined with information from open sources. Data types will range from radiation and soil characteristics to the performance of various components and materials in the lunar environment. Data products will range from raw collections to highly processed information solutions that meet our customers’ needs. (12/14)

Re-Establishing NASA's Leadership (Source: Huffington Post)
As President-Elect Obama takes office, NASA stands positioned to benefit from the change and enthusiasm brought by his new Administration. Five years out from the announcement of a new vision for America's Space Exploration program, important lessons about what NASA should be doing and how it can best meet those goals are available, and must be learned. So long a source of national pride and inspiration as well as cutting edge research, NASA is now losing its position of world leadership. Thankfully, the ingenuity and the talent necessary to reassert America's pre-eminence are still hardwired into the fabric of this nation. NASA and its peer agencies can be in a position to efficiently tap into it and direct it. Click here to view the article. (12/12)

“Saving” NASA Langley (Source: Space Politics)
The "NASA Aeronautics Support Team" in Virginia's Hampton Roads region are concerned about the future of NASA’s Langley Research Center. “About 20 people” gathered at a luncheon organized by William Harvey, president of Hampton University, to brainstorm ways to preserve the center, which they fear could be threatened by potential future cuts. According to a Daily Press article: “The downward trend in NASA Langley Research Center’s budget almost looks like a going-out-of-business sale.” However Langley director Lesa Roe says that while “next year’s fiscal budget is the toughest the institution will face, but that there’s no longer a downward trend.” So much for that going-out-of-business sale.

Exactly what options this group came up with aren’t revealed in the article. It does note that the Harvey asked Kevin Kelly to create a set of talking points to give to the transition team. While Kelly is identified as a member of the “NASA Aeronautics Support Team”, he is also a vice president at Van Scoyoc Associates, a lobbying firm retained by the team. The article adds that Harvey “may” fly to Chicago to meet with an unnamed official on the Obama transition team. Why Harvey would meet with that person in Chicago, and not the NASA transition team in Washington, isn’t mentioned. (12/12)

Virginia Launch on Jan. 31? (Source: Spaceports Blog)
The military TacSat-3 satellite is now tentatively set for launch on Jan. 31 aboard an Orbital Sciences Corp. Minotaur I rocket from the FAA/AST commercially licensed Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, co-located on the NASA Wallops Flight Facility on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, on a pre-dawn mission to orbit. The TacSat-3 will be the third orbital launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in a little over two years with the Minotaur I booster rocket. The Minotaur I successfully boosted the TacSat-2 and the NFIRE from the spaceport. The Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport was selected by Orbital Sciences Corp. for the first test flights of the Taurus-2 NASA COTS flight to demonstrate re-supply capability to the International Space Station in late 2010. (12/15)

Anousheh Ansari: Proud of Being an Iranian Muslim (Source: Tehran Times)
The second anniversary of Anousheh Ansari’s adventurous travel to the spatial station as the first Iranian space explorer passed over with the reticence of global media who have been busy analyzing the very earliest “side effects” of President-elect Barack Obama’s victory in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Elections. In the heat of Ansari’s space voyage, American media broached bunches of controversial issues such as the reluctance of half-blooded astronaut to introduce herself as Iranian or Muslim, but she never found the opportunity to clarify this. Furthermore, most of the newspapers or websites dedicated their conversations to professional and technical matters when interviewing Anousheh Ansari which caused many stories to remain untold. Click here to view the article. (12/14)

NASA and Ad Astra Rocket Co. Agree on Test of VASIMR Rocket Engine on Space Station (Source: Ad Astra)
NASA and Ad Astra Rocket Co. of Texas have entered into a Space Act Agreement that could lead to conducting a space flight test of the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) engine on the Space Station. The VASIMR engine is a new plasma-based space propulsion technology, initially studied by NASA and currently under commercial development by Ad Astra. (12/14)

DirectTV Holding Off On New Satellite Orders (Source: Space News)
Satellite-television provider DirecTV is delaying investment in new satellites because of the slowing U.S. economy as a preventive step but is not yet feeling the effects of the economic downturn on its subscriber base, according to Jonathan Rubin, the Los Angeles-based company's senior vice president for financial planning. (12/13)

ULA Asked to Break Logjam After Subpar 2008 Launch Performance (Source: Space News)
Faced with a 58-launch manifest that spills over into 2012, in part the result of a rocket fleet that was grounded by technical issues for much of 2008, NASA and the U.S. Air Force have asked their primary launch services provider to find a way to increase its operating tempo starting next year. United Launch Alliance (ULA), builder and operator of the Atlas and Delta rockets that launch the vast majority of U.S. government payloads, is looking at the possibility of condensing launch pad processing time from 60 to 45 days. ULA is expected to report back in the next couple weeks. A 45-day period between launches could open one more launch slot in 2009 and possibly two in 2010. The launch schedule shows no signs of letting up. In addition to the 34 Atlas missions planned over the next three years, Delta 4 and Delta 2 each are scheduled to launch 12 times. More than half of those launches typically occur at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, with the remainder at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. (12/13)

Air Force Preparing to Extend T-Sat Design Studies (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Air Force is preparing to extend Boeing and Lockheed Martin's study contracts for the Transformational Satellite (T-Sat) communications system as the service continues its work to revise requirements for the scaled-back system. The extensions likely will be awarded soon — the current contracts expire in January — and will be similar to previous extensions, with each worth $75 million over six months, sources said.

Lockheed Martin and Boeing have been doing risk reduction and system development work at their California facilities since 2004. The Air Force had intended to select one company for the prime contract in 2008, but instead twice extended the studies with contracts totaling $300 million. (12/13)

Japanese Law Charts New Course for Space Activities (Source: Space News)
The last year was one of great strides for Japan's space program and ended with a glimmer of commercial promise, officials and observers here said. Most of Japan's contribution to the international space station finally reached orbit, and the country's mainstay launch vehicle continued its run of consecutive successes. But the most important event of the year, perhaps of the decade, occurred in May when Japan's parliament, or Diet, passed the Basic Law for Space Activities, casting aside a 1969 resolution that committed the country to using space for peaceful purposes only. (12/13)

California Aerospace Economic Development Report Now Available (Source: CSA)
The California Aerospace Advisory Committee, supported by the California Space Authority, has released a report with observations and recommendations for preserving and expanding the state's aerospace industry. The Golden State enjoys the largest concentration of aerospace in the United States, with significant benefits to the state's export ratio. Twenty-seven percent of the nation's aerospace and thirty-one percent of the U.S. space industry is in California. The annual economic impact of California aerospace is $53 billion. Click here to download the report. (12/12)

Space Entrepreneur Forum Website Launches (Source: CSA)
SEF Spaceworks, co-founded by small spacecraft pioneer Professor Bob Twiggs and space entrepreneur Jefferey Manber, is focused on small and entrepreneurial commercial space activities. It was developed as a follow-on to Stanford University's work in partnership with the California Space Authority on developing a series of seminars on Innovation in Aerospace and Space Exploration. Visit http://SEFSpaceworks.com for information. (12/12)

NASA Regression: The Transition is Not Going Smoothly (Source: What's New)
NASA is a thorny problem for Obama. NASA administrator Mike Griffin is focused on the Constellation program, the much delayed, way-over-budget and thoroughly useless moon rocket, which seems to be the U.S. entry in a space-race with emerging nations. The Orlando Sentinel reports a squabble between Griffin and Lori Garver, a former NASA associate administrator for policy, who heads the Obama NASA-transition-team. Griffin says she’s unqualified. She has no background in science or technology. It’s past time for a complete restructuring of NASA focusing on the future, not the past. Cede the Moon to China and the ISS to India. Space ships, along with sailing ships and covered wagons, are relics of bygone eras. There’s a universe out there to learn about, let’s get on with it. (12/12)

ISRO to Redesign Soyuz for its Manned Space Mission (Source: PTI)
After the historic moon mission, India will redesign Russian space capsule Soyuz to send its astronauts on the country's maiden manned space mission. "We will be redesigning the Soyuz space capsule of the Russian agency for our mission," ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair said. Under an MoU signed by Nair and his Russian counterpart Anatoly Perminov, space scientists from the two countries will jointly build the spacecraft for India's manned mission. The Soyuz, which has been in use since 1967, has been upgraded several times. (12/14)

NASA's Budget Scrutinized (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Of 74 questions submitted to NASA by Obama's NASA transition team, more than half asked about basic spending issues, including cost overruns. It's clear that NASA's long-standing inability to manage its money has attracted the team's attention. For nearly two decades, NASA and its out-of-this-world projects have made a "high-risk" list compiled by government auditors because of cost overruns totaling millions -- sometimes billions -- of dollars. The designation applies to programs that are "impeding effective government and costing the government billions of dollars each year," according to the Government Accountability Office.

"Our space program is running inefficiently, and without sufficient regard to cost performance," wrote Alan Stern, a former NASA associate administrator mentioned as a possible replacement for Mike Griffin. NASA is involved in a lawsuit with an auditing company hired to review NASA contracts. The firm says it has found millions of dollars in overpayments but was unable to get a full picture of the problem because NASA refused to let it see all its records. The firm cited one example in which a NASA employee at Johnson Space Center defended contractors, whom she called her "customers," and refused to go after some of the companies to refund the money that was overcharged. NASA disputes the claim.

The Obama transition team wants to know how many similar problems the agency has. The team's first question asks for a list of any programs that "may be experiencing delays and/or cost overruns that have not been publicly reported," according to a copy of the questionnaire. On the campaign trail, Obama pledged to increase NASA's roughly $17 billion budget by $2 billion -- but that was before the economic downturn turned into a meltdown. Griffin said NASA shouldn't be evaluated by how well it estimates the cost of projects. "If we are to judge the worth of our work by our ability to estimate, then that is a standard I am not ready to apply or to accept," Griffin said. "We are always going to be on [GAO's] high-risk list," he said. (12/13)

To the Heavens From the Jungle’s Edge (Source: New York Times)
Not so long ago, French Guiana was etched into the public imagination as a depraved prison colony by books like “Papillon,” Henri Charrière’s classic memoir of his incarceration on Devil’s Island. But now this overseas sliver of France offers something altogether different — a bit of insight into the shifting fortunes of the U.S. in at least one corner of the evolving world economy. From Kourou, where 20,000 people live sandwiched between jungle and ocean, it is easy to see how much Americans, who once dominated the commercial space industry, have been reduced to just another competitor on a global field of play.

The driving force behind Kourou’s development is Arianespace, a French company that began as a poor cousin to NASA nearly three decades ago. Today, it has edged past Boeing and Lockheed Martin to become the leading player in the $3.2 billion commercial-satellite-launching industry; it accounts for about half of all the tonnage sent into orbit for business purposes each year. As Americans reached for the Moon, France and its European partners slowly built their commercial launch operations here. Then the Americans began to stumble. Boeing and Lockheed Martin, whose mainstay was American military contracts, kept launching commercial satellites from California and Florida in those years. But that business has declined drastically.

Meanwhile, Arianespace had tied together CNES with other European stakeholders to focus on commercial launches. One risk for all of these players is the current souring of the global economy. The number of launches is expected to drop next year, and it is anybody’s guess what demand will be beyond that. "France found a use for one of the pieces of confetti left over from its empire,” said Peter Redfield, an anthropologist who studies French Guiana, “while the Americans, after the lunar missions, are still asking what todo for an encore." (12/14)