October 31 News Items

Workers' Comp Success Story for Florida Aerospace (Source: Florida Senate)
Legislation passed by the Florida Legislature has succeeded in reducing statewide costs for Workers' Compensation premiums. Just this week, the state's Office of Insurance Regulation approved another 18.4 percent decrease in the statewide Workers' Compensation Insurance rate level. Over the four years since the bill passed, and there have been about $2.8 billion in premiums freed up for other uses. Workers' Compensation rates had previously been among the concerns raised by the aerospace industry in Florida and other states.

SPACErePORT Poll Online (Source: ERAU)
Cast your vote for the presidential candidate who will best support space issues. Visit http://www.spacereport.blogspot.com.

Satellite Service Providers See Soaring Q3 Profits (Source: Ottawa Citizen)
Satellite companies EMS Technologies and Telesat Canada said sales and profits soared in the third quarter compared to a year earlier. Profits at the EMS Satcom division in Ottawa rose almost three-fold to $3.5 million in the quarter. Combined sales of the company rose 13 percent to $73.1 million and operating profits surged 93 per cent to $5.2 million. Telesat Canada said sales rose 15 percent to $16.9 million in the third quarter on strong demand from Latin American phone companies, U.S. direct-to-home satellite services and business clients. Profits surged $6.6 million or 34 percent compared to a year earlier.

NASA Langley to Prepare for Life on the Moon (Source: DailyPress.com)
If NASA Administrator Michael Griffin's vision to "build towns on the moon" is fulfilled, the structures in a lunar village will likely have been designed at Langley Research Center in Hampton. NASA headquarters on Tuesday laid out new space exploration work for its 10 research centers around the country. And one of Langley's assignments is to develop a habitat capable of sheltering astronauts for extended stays on the lunar surface. NASA's outline of new projects both solidifies the agency's intent to follow through on manned missions to the moon and Mars in the next decades and clarifies what role Langley will play.

NASA Hatches Daunting Solar Wing Repair Plan (Source: Florida Today)
In what will be an unprecedented orbital fix-it attempt, a spacewalking astronaut will try to save a damaged International Space Station solar wing this week by mending a torn blanket while anchored to a makeshift scaffold. Discovery mission specialist Scott Parazynski will attempt to stitch up a ripped and rippled section with a series of up to seven straps -- restoring full structural integrity to the solar wing while preventing further damage. Made of lengthy wires with tabs attached either end, the straps will be strung through existing, reinforced holes that are spaced evenly across the 15-foot width of the blanket. The holes were designed for lengthy pins that secured folded up blanket panels in the rectangular boxes they were launched in.

China Developing New Heavy-Duty Carrier Rockets (Source: Xinhua)
China is building a new range of carrier rockets designed to send heavyweight satellites into space, boosting the current carrying capacity by nearly three times. The Long March 5 rockets will be able to carry payloads of up to 25 tons for low earth orbit satellites, up from the current limit of 9.2 tons. In addition to bigger capacity, the Long March 5 rockets will be designed using pollution-free technologies.

Texas Firm to Help Design Spaceport (Source: MySA.com)
San Antonio-based Exploration Architecture Corp. is part of a team that won the design contract for a new spaceport planned for New Mexico. The terminal and hangar facility are projected to cost $31 million and are a project of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority. Leading the project are URS Corp. of the United States and Foster + Partners of Great Britain.

Cape Conference Aims to Attract Space Industry (Source: Florida Today)
About 100 members of the commercial space industry will attend a conference Thursday sponsored by Space Florida. They range from investors to members of the government who are trying to encourage private groups to build rockets. "I think we're getting some serious people here," said Space Florida President Steve Kohler, who helped bring 33,000 jobs to Pennsylvania through a program of government incentives. "It's an indication to the rest of the marketplace that Florida can be serious," Kohler said. The conference will bring several experts to speak.

Brig. Gen. Susan Helms, commander of the 45th Space Wing, will deliver the keynote address. A veteran of five space flights, Helms has logged 211 days in space, including a spacewalk of eight hours and 56 minutes, a world record. Kennedy Space Center Director William Parsons will deliver a welcome message. Group sessions include panel discussions of facilities and the workforce, regulatory perspectives and the commercial possibilities in the space industry. Presenters include Elon Musk, Space Exploration Technologies; Michael Gold, corporate counsel, Bigelow Aerospace; Jeff Greason, XCOR Aerospace; and Dr. Peter Diamandis, chief executive officer of Zero G and founder of the X Prize Foundation.

KSC Keeps Launch Role, But Jobs in Doubt (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
KSC appears almost certain to face job cuts next decade but will hang on to its role as NASA's launchpad and take on the task of assembling the lunar lander under a broad strategy the space agency outlined Tuesday. As space shuttle Discovery orbited the Earth, thousands of KSC workers who helped put it there learned what role the agency plans for the spaceport after the shuttle program is mothballed. Each of NASA's 10 centers would get a piece of its fledgling Constellation program, which aims to develop new rockets and spacecraft to return astronauts to the moon by 2020. But the agency would not provide exact figures on the number of jobs each assignment will carry.

For years, KSC workers have worried whether there will be enough work for them under Constellation. Tuesday's announcement brought a mixed reaction. The center's new role, which will include researching ways astronauts can harvest moon resources, likely won't be enough to offset as many as 5,000 lost jobs expected at KSC when NASA retires the shuttle. "There's nothing in here on the scale of work for the shuttle crew," said Doug Campbell, space adviser for U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. "I still think we have a real workforce challenge at Kennedy Space Center." NASA wants to use Constellation to reduce operating costs by 60 percent from the shuttle program. As part of those cuts, NASA also wants to make launches easier -- which means reducing parts and the personnel needed to maintain them.