August 3 News Items

Secret Spy Satellite Abandoned by US (Source: UK Telegraph)
The US has given up on one of its most high-tech spy satellites after it failed to respond to repeated attempts at contact. The L-21, which was only launched in December, will be left to drop out of orbit and burn up in the earth's atmosphere, according to reports. The loss is an expensive blow to the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which builds and operates reconnaissance satellites for the US military and security services. Costing hundreds of millions of dollars, the L-21 contained much experimental technology which will now have to be piggybacked onto other satellites. Details of the equipment on board are classified, but an unnamed NRO source said that the failure of the satellite was "troubling", as other countries are currently pressing ahead with their own reconnaissance research.

Progress M-61 to Launches Equipment to Fix ISS Computers (Source: Kommersant)
A Soyuz-U booster with Progress M-61 cargo spaceship blasted off from the Baikonur spaceport Thursday night. Progress M-61 is to dock with ISS Sunday delivering equipment to fix ISS computers. Progress M-61 also carries devices for a Japanese program of space experiments as well as the fuel, water and food for the crew, which currently includes Russia’s cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov and NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson.

NASA Fixes Leak on Endeavour, Delays Launch 24 Hours (Source: New Scientist)
A leak in the space shuttle Endeavour's cabin has been fixed after a faulty valve was replaced. Workers replaced the valve with another from the shuttle Atlantis on Thursday, then performed a test to check the leak. Now, the shuttle Endeavour is slated to blast off from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport for the International Space Station on Wednesday, a day later than planned. The official countdown to the launch will also be postponed a day, to Sunday.

Boeing, Lockheed Confident in Satellite Bids (Source: AIA)
Boeing and Lockheed Martin both are confident in the competing bids they have submitted for work on the Defense Department's Transformational Satellite Communications system. The department should announce its choice later this year. The winning team will be awarded $4.5 billion in up-front contracts, and up to $10 billion over time, according to industry estimates.

NASA Awards $975M Extension to Pratt & Whitney (Source: Forbes)
NASA on Thursday said it signed a $975 million contract extension with United Technologies Corp.'s Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne unit to maintain the agency's fleet of space shuttle main engines until they're retired in 2010. The extension brings the total value of the contract to slightly more than $2.05 billion, according to NASA.

India Will Send Astronaut Into Space by 2015 (Source: Times of India)
India will send an astronaut into space on one of its own rockets by 2015 and embark on a manned mission to the moon by 2020, the country's space agency chief said on Friday. Before sending an astronaut to the moon, the country will send the Chandrayaan-I satellite to the moon next year, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman Madhavan Nair said.

NASA Plans 'Armageddon' Spacecraft to Blast Asteroid (Source: Flight International)
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center has designed a nuclear-warhead-carrying spacecraft, to be launched by the US agency's proposed Ares V cargo launch vehicle, to deflect an asteroid that could threaten all life on Earth. The "Cradle" spacecraft would carry six 1,500kg missile-like interceptor vehicles that would carry one 1.2MT B83 nuclear warhead each. The spacecraft's target near-Earth object (NEO) is the Apophis asteroid, which will pass by the Earth within the orbit of the Moon in April 2029.

For the study, however, its orbit was changed to bring it into a "dead-centre" collision course with Earth and its mass was assumed to be 1,000,000kg. The spacecraft's possible launch dates were 2020 and 2021. By the 2020s NASA concluded that "the nuclear interceptor option can deflect NEOs of [100-500m diameter] two years before impact, and larger NEOs with at least five years warning". Click here to view the article.

House Bill Boosts NASA Exploration, Aeronautics, Sciences (Source: AIA)
An appropriations bill approved by the House last week contains across-the-board good news for NASA, with increases for exploration, aeronautics research, and Earth and space sciences. The fiscal 2008 Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations Act (HR 3093) includes strong investment in NASA priorities. The bill received strong bipartisan backing, passing 281 to 142. It succeeded due to strong support from the leadership of the Appropriations Committee and the Science, State, Justice, and Commerce Subcommittee, said AIA's president John Douglass said.

Weldon Introduces COTS Funding Amendment (Source: MajorityWhip.gov)
Florida Congressman Dave Weldon successfully added an amendment to the NASA Appropriations committee report that encourages NASA to shift unallocated, uncommitted 2008 funding from the cargo-oriented COTS program to instead meet NASA's crew transportation needs. Visit http://www.majoritywhip.gov/whip_pack/2007/07/23/whip_pack.pdf to view a Majority Whip report that describes the amendment.

Landmark Science & Technology Bill Passed by Congress (Source: AIP)
Efforts that have extended over many years to increase federal support for science and technology, and science and math education, culminated last week when the House and then the Senate passed H.R. 2722, the Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education and Science Act (COMPETES). President Bush is expected to sign this bill. The bill authorizes $43.3 billion in federal spending in FY 2008, 2009, and 2010 in science, engineering, mathematics and technology research, and in education programs.

The bill responds to widespread concern that the United States is losing its technological edge. Efforts to increase awareness of this problem were significantly boosted when the National Academies released its "Gathering Storm" report in 2005 to critical acclaim. In brief, the bill authorizes (but note, does not appropriate funding) the following: Doubling of the National Science Foundation budget; Doubling of the Department of Energy's Office of Science budget; Doubling of the National Institutes of Standards and Technology laboratory budget; Expanding NSF funding for a Teacher Scholarship Program and its Math and Science Partnerships program; Creation of a Technology Innovation Program at the Department of Commerce; Doubling of funding for the Department of Commerce Manufacturing Extension Partnership; Increased funding for young researchers; and Establishment of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy at the Department of Energy.

Legislation Ensures NASA Involvement in Science/Tech Competitiveness Program (Source: SpaceRef.com)
The H.R. 2722 House/Senate conference agreement establishes NASA as a full participant in all interagency activities to promote competitiveness and innovation and to enhance science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. The agreement also affirms the importance of NASA’s aeronautics program to innovation and to the competitiveness of the U.S. It urges NASA to implement a program to address aging workforce issues at NASA and to utilize NASA’s existing Undergraduate Student Research program to support basic research by undergraduates on subjects of relevance to NASA. Finally, the conference agreement expresses the sense of Congress that the International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory offers unique opportunities for educational activities and provides a unique resource for research and development in science, technology, and engineering which can enhance the global competitiveness of the U.S.