December 4 News Items

The Space Race Goes Corporate (Source: Tampa Tribune)
Norm Bobczynski of SpaceX drives a gray Honda minivan up to a dormant rocket launch pad at Cape Canaveral and scans his eyes across worn concrete roads and rusting steel towers. "This is our baby now, and it will be a lot of work," he says. So far, a series of U.S. and European companies have hired SpaceX to heave their satellites into orbit - a job typically done by huge military contractors and government agencies. "The whole idea is to make space flights more like an airport," Bobczynski said. The government might own the port, but private companies would use it to launch rockets regularly, cheaply and quickly. This sort of entrepreneurial get-up-and-go attitude may represent the best hope of solving a set of thorny problems for Florida and NASA.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk decided to develop rockets that are simpler, with common parts, faster and cheaper - more like building Toyota Camrys than NASA shuttles. Each of several SpaceX rockets uses the same Merlin engine, in combinations from one to nine units, allowing the company to mass-produce them for less cost. The good news for Florida is SpaceX plans many of its launches from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. The bad news for the local job market is the company's whole business model aims to do things faster, cheaper and with lower costs - meaning fewer employees.

At a minimum, Brevard officials say the area could lose 2,500 jobs as the shuttle retires. SpaceX officials said the company could top out at a few hundred employees at most at Cape Canaveral. "These are well-paying jobs, and the entire community is working together to ensure affected workers are able to transition smoothly and continue to work in Brevard County," said Lynda Weatherman, president and chief executive of the Economic Development Commission of Florida's Space Coast.

Italian Satellite to Launch Wednesday from California (Source: Lompoc Record)
Vandenberg Air Force Base again will have some Italian flavor this week when a Delta 2 rocket is set to carry aloft that nation's second Earth-imaging satellite of the year. The 12-story-tall Delta is scheduled for liftoff at 6:31 p.m. Wednesday from Space Launch Complex-2. Unlike most missions, this one has an extremely tight launch window each day - one second only - to get off the ground so that it can get to its proper spot in space. The approximately 4,200-pound spacecraft is a global Earth observer that Italy will use for both military and civil purposes.

China to Launch Mars Probe in 2009 (Source: The Hindu)
China, which sent its first lunar orbiter to probe the moon's surface recently, will launch its maiden Mars probe onboard a Russian rocket in October 2009, state media reported. Yinghuo-1 would reach the pre-set circling orbit and beam the first images of the red planet in September 2010, the state-run China Daily said, quoting a senior scientist. The 110-kg micro-satellite would travel 350 million km in 11 months before entering the planet's orbit.

Mars Rover Spirit Escapes from Sandy 'Dungeon' (Source: New Scientist)
NASA's Mars rover Spirit has freed itself from the loose soil it had been stuck in for about two weeks, but over the next month it will have to navigate similarly treacherous terrain to reach a safe spot to ride out the coming Martian winter. Spirit got stuck in the sandy soil, nicknamed "Tartarus" after an underworld dungeon in Greek mythology, in mid-November. But on 28 November, it clambered out, after a series of short drives in which rover managers drove it first in one direction and then in another, "switchbacking" out of the troublesome spot. Now, the rover will try to drive about 25 meters to the northern edge of Home Plate, a 90-metre-wide raised plateau that it has been exploring for months. That region boasts relatively steep, northern-tilting slopes that would maximise the sunlight falling on the rover's solar panels during winter in the planet's southern hemisphere.

ICO Has High Hopes for Suit Against Boeing (Source: Space News)
The lawsuit by startup mobile satellite communications company ICO Global against satellite maker Boeing could result in a cash windfall equivalent to $10 per share of ICO stock, ICO Chief Executive J. Timothy Bryan said Dec. 3.

China Defends Space Program as Peaceful (Source: Reuters)
China's space program will maintain steady long-term growth to serve strategic national interests, but it is peaceful in nature and costs just a fraction of NASA's spending, a senior official said. China launched its first lunar probe in October, the latest feat in an ambitious space program seeking scientific and military benefits as well as domestic political gains from its boost to patriotism. But some critics have questioned the ruling Communist Party's eagerness to clamber into the select ranks of global space powers even as hundreds of millions of Chinese struggle in rural hardship. "China's space cause always serves the overall national development strategy and needs," Chen Qiufa, vice minister of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, told an online chat on the government Web site. But China would stick to a principle of peaceful exploitation of space and would not engage in a space arms race.

One Last Ride to the Hubble (Source: New York Times)
Next August, after 20 years of hype, disappointment, blunders, triumphs and peerless glittering vistas of space and time, and four years after NASA decided to leave the Hubble Space Telescope to die in orbit, setting off public and Congressional outrage, a group of astronauts will ride to the telescope aboard the space shuttle Atlantis with wrenches in hand. That, at least, is the plan. “It’s been a roller coaster ride from hell,” Preston Burch, the space telescope’s project manager, said in his office here at the Goddard Space Flight Center of the controversy and uncertainty.

In a nearby building, the Hubble’s astronaut knights — dressed as if for surgery, in white gowns, hoods and masks —swarmed through a giant clean room to kick the tires, so to speak, of new instruments destined for the Hubble and to try out techniques and tools under the watchful eye of the Goddard engineers. They practiced sliding a new wide-field camera 3, suspended in air like a magician’s grand piano, in and out of its slot on a replica of the telescope that is mechanically and electrically exact down to the tape around the doors. Click here to view the article.

SpaceX Chief Eyes Public Offering in 2 Years (Source: Reuters)
Space Exploration Technologies Corp, a startup aiming to slash the cost of launching people and cargo into space, may go public within the next two years, according to founder Elon Musk. Musk said he aims to put payloads into space for one-quarter to one-third of what his domestic competitors charge. He said he could beat by one-half the cost of international competitors including China, which he called the biggest potential competitor. A spokeswoman for the rocket joint venture between Boeing Co and Lockheed Martin, United Launch Alliance, did not return a request for comment. "I think going public might be some time in late 2009 ... something on that order," he said. But Musk said he was in no rush, did not need funds and was keen to get at least two successful launches of the Falcon 9 rocket under his belt before an initial public offering.

Governor Stresses Space Business Development (Source: Tampa Tribune)
While watching a recent shuttle launch, Florida Governor Charlie Crist said he's concerned about that job losses from the program's retirement and is eager to court private companies getting into the space business in Florida. "Some Western states want to take over the U.S. space business - and that business should be with us in Florida," Crist said. As for upstart, private space companies in Florida, Crist said, "I want my people to listen and respond to their needs."

Report: US Halted Indian Launch of Israeli Spy Satellite (Source: Jerusalem Post)
The September launch of an Israeli spy satellite from India, which now faces months of postponements, was canceled due to "last-minute" pressure by the United States, the Indian press reported Monday. The TecSar satellite - developed and manufactured by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) - initially was supposed to be launched in September, on the heels of the June launch of the Ofek 7 spy satellite. It is the first Israeli satellite with Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) capabilities, a technology that allows the camera to take pictures of targets in all weather conditions. Indian sources said US government pressure was responsible for calling off the launch of the satellite, which already had been mounted on the space-bound rocket.

An Indian paper hinted that the reason for the American pressure was to prevent India from obtaining powerful military platforms. Earlier this year, the paper said, the US curtailed Indian plans to develop missiles with a 5,000-kilometer range and advised it to only manufacture missiles with a range of 800 km. The Defense Ministry refused to comment on the report, but expressed confidence the satellite would be launched in the near future. Click here to view the article.