August 12 News Items

Dust ‘Comes Alive’ in Space (Source: Times Online)
Scientists have discovered that inorganic material can take on the characteristics of living organisms in space, a development that could transform views of alien life. An international panel of scientists found that galactic dust could form spontaneously into helixes and double helixes and that the inorganic creations had memory and the power to reproduce themselves.

The new research found nonorganic dust, when held in the form of plasma in zero gravity, formed the helical structures found in DNA. The particles are held together by electromagnetic forces that the scientists say could contain a code comparable to the genetic information held in organic matter. It appeared that this code could be transferred to the next generation.

Interview with Elon Musk (Source: NPR)
National Public Radio last week interviewed SpaceX founder Elon Musk to discuss his space interests and his electric car company, Tesla Motors. Click here to hear the interview.

NASA Decides to Phase Out Delta 2 (Source: Space News)
NASA intends to conduct its final Delta 2 launch around the end of the decade and then shift more of its launch traffic in that payload class to the Atlas 5 or Delta 4 launch vehicles, the U.S. space agency's chief rocket buyer said in an Aug. 8 interview. Bill Wrobel, NASA assistant associate administrator for launch services, said the decision to phase out use of the Delta 2 came down to money. Delta 2 launch prices, already on the rise, are expected to jump sharply once the U.S. Air Force abandons use of the reliable workhorse as soon as next year so it can make greater use of the Atlas 5 and Delta 4.

USAF Sees Limits to Small Satellite Use (Source: Space News)
As the Air Force pushes forward with its plans to deploy small satellites intended to support tactical forces directly, the service is well aware that those systems will not be able to answer all the needs of its troops. Small satellites that can be launched on short notice can play a "limited" role to help fill in some of the gaps of existing constellations, or help to reconstitute capabilities that may have been disrupted by natural causes or intentional attacks, according to Col. Robert Walker, chief of the operationally responsive space (ORS) division at Air Force Space Command.

Loral Looks to Expand Manufacturing Capability (Source: Space News)
Loral believes it can win orders for between seven and nine large telecommunications satellites per year in the coming years and is looking to expand its manufacturing facilities, through purchase or partnership, to be able to meet that demand. Loral's satellite manufacturing division in California has been the most successful of the U.S. and European commercial satellite contractors in recent years and has driven the company's overall growth. Loral also remains confident that the merger of its satellite-operating division, Skynet, into Telesat Canada and Loral's purchase of a 64 percent stake in Telesat Canada will be approved by regulators in September.

T-Sat, Space Radar Pose Budget Challenges, GAO Warns (Source: Space News)
Two of the Pentagon's most ambitious satellite development programs face a potential mismatch between costs and available funding as well as schedule challenges, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) warned in a report released Aug. 2. The congressional watchdog agency credited the Space Radar and Transformational Satellite Communications System (T-Sat) programs with progress in terms of retiring technical risk, but said challenges remain. T-Sat, a futuristic constellation of highly secure communications satellites linked by lasers, is expected to be put under contract before the end of the year.

Sea Launch's Odyssey Platform Returns to California (Source: Space News)
Sea Launch's floating rocket-launch platform, Odyssey, has completed two months of repairs at Vancouver's Victoria Shipyard and returned to its Long Beach, Calif., home port for a final series of preparations before a scheduled October launch of the 6,000-kilogram Thuraya-3 mobile communications satellite. Most of the necessary recertification of the platform's seaworthiness was completed as repairs were being done, and as the platform was heading south toward California. The Odyssey platform was damaged during the January on-pad failure and subsequent explosion of the Sea Launch Zenit 3 SL vehicle, which was carrying the Boeing-owned NSS-8 telecommunications satellite.

Delayed GlobalStar Launch Now Expected in October (Source: Space News)
Russia's Soyuz-Fregat commercial launch vehicle now is expected to return to flight in late October to place four Globalstar mobile-telephone satellites into low Earth orbit following modifications to its Fregat upper stage. That would be followed by a November or December launch of Canada's Radarsat 2 Earth observation satellite aboard a Soyuz-Fregat vehicle, with a possible launch of Europe's Giove-B navigation test satellite - if it's ready - late in the year or early in 2008. The successful May launch of four Globalstar satellites aboard a Soyuz turned up anomalies in the behavior of the Fregat upper stage and forced a grounding of the vehicle, which had been scheduled to launch the second and final batch of first-generation Globalstar spacecraft in July.

ICO Global Seeks Second Launch Deadline Extension (Source: Space News)
ICO Global Communications is asking U.S. regulators to approve a second extension of its deadline to launch a large two-way communications and broadcasting satellite, this time because of schedule slips associated with the Atlas 5 rocket. Lockheed Martin has informed ICO that the launch, which had been scheduled to occur by Nov. 30, will not occur before mid January. ICO is seeking FCC approval for the launch deadline to be moved to January 15, and the in-service deadline for the full ICO system be moved from Dec. 31 to Feb. 15. The FCC granted an earlier extension over the protests of ICO competitor Inmarsat of London. The Atlas launch manifest for 2007 has slipped for two reasons. The first is the June 15 underperformance of the vehicle's Centaur upper stage in a launch of two classified U.S. military satellites.

Integral Systems Reports Rise in Classified Sales (Source: Space News)
Satellite ground-control system provider Integral Systems Inc. posted a company-record $35.9 million in revenue for the third quarter of 2007 on the continued strength of its Air Force business and a sharp increase in sales to classified programs. Integral attributed the company's growth - revenue was up 24 percent over the same period last year- to Air Force contracts, including an extension to the Command and Control-System Consolidated program. During the three-month period ending June 30, Integral's net income rose 28 percent, to $3.8 million.

Station Truss Installed; Shuttle Damage Assessment Planned (Source: SpaceToday.net)
Astronauts installed a new truss segment to the International Space Station during a spacewalk on Saturday while NASA continued to study damage to the underside of the shuttle Endeavour. They retracted the radiator on the P6 truss segment to prepare it for its move from the top of the station to the end of the port side of the truss on a later shuttle mission. Shuttle engineers, meanwhile, continued to analyze images of the underside of the orbiter that show a gash several centimeters across in the shuttle's tiles. NASA plans more inspections of the shuttle on Sunday to better determine the size and depth of the gash, but thought it less likely that a spacewalk would be required to repair the damage.

Race Is On To Detect Dark Matter (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
In deep underground laboratories around the globe, a high-tech race is on to spot dark matter, the invisible cosmic glue that's believed to keep galaxies from spinning apart. Whoever discovers the nature of dark matter would solve one of modern science's greatest mysteries and be a shoo-in for the Nobel Prize.

Yet it's more than just a brainy exercise. Deciphering dark matter -- along with a better understanding of another mysterious force called dark energy -- could help reveal the fate of the universe. Previous hunts for the hypothetical matter have turned up nothing, but that has not deterred some two dozen research teams from plumbing the darkness of idled mines and tunnel shafts for a fleeting glimpse.

Dark-matter detecting machines today are more powerful than previous generations, but even the best has failed so far to catch a whiff of the stuff. Many teams are now building bigger detectors or toying with novel technologies to aid in the hunt.