August 4 News Items

Boeing New Mission Control Center Opens (Source: SpaceDaily.com)
Boeing has announced the completion of a $10 million, 20,500-square-foot satellite Mission Control Center (MCC) in El Segundo, Calif. The MCC can manage up to four commercial or government satellite missions at the same time. The MCC replaces another Boeing facility in El Segundo that was smaller and had limited capacity. (8/4)

Japan's Transport Vehicle Eyed as Replacement for U.S. Space Shuttle (Source: Daily Yomiuri)
With the scheduled retirement of the U.S. space shuttle program in 2010, Japan's H-2 Transfer Vehicle (HTV) is attracting attention as a potential candidate to take over the role of transporting goods to the International Space Station. The HTV's first model is scheduled to be launched in autumn next year--more than 10 years after the development project started. The ISS, which orbits the Earth at an altitude of 400 kilometers, currently is manned by three astronauts.

Necessities such as food and fresh supplies of oxygen are transported to the spacecraft by transfer vehicles. Japan started its HTV project based on an agreement signed with Russia, Europe and the United States--which jointly operate the ISS--to individually develop a cargo transfer spacecraft. The HTV's cylindrical body, which measures 10 meters long and 4.4 meters in diameter, is designed to load goods weighing up to 6 tons. (8/4)

17 Projects Funded Under Florida/NASA Matching Grants Program (Source: FSGC)
Seventeen proposals for conducting scientific research and development will receive funding in 2008 from the Florida Joint Matching Grant Program, a collaboration of the NASA Florida Space Grant Consortium and Space Florida. A total of $375,000 will be distributed to 4Frontiers Corporation; the Astronauts Memorial Foundation; Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University; Florida Institute of Technology; University of Central Florida; and University of Florida.

This annual program combines Federal and State funds for projects that will diversify Florida's space industry and increase the state's involvement in space research. "This seed funding can really be a stepping stone for the recipients," said Dr. Jaydeep Mukherjee, Director of the Florida Space Grant Consortium and administrator of the program. "It allows them to compete for larger awards. Many of our past beneficiaries have gone on to receive some very prestigious grants." (8/4)

Lockheed Martin, Thales Alenia Are Finalists for Iridium Next Contract (Source: Space News)
Mobile satellite services fleet operator Iridium Satellite LLC has selected two finalists — Lockheed Martin of the United States and Thales Alenia Space of Europe — to compete to build Iridium's second-generation constellation of low-orbiting spacecraft. A decision on a winner will be made, and a contract signed, by mid-2009, Iridium announced Aug. 4. (8/5)

NASA Awards Medical and Environmental Support Contract (Source: NASA)
NASA has selected Innovative Health Applications, LLC , or IHA, to provide medical services, environmental health services, environmental services, and agency occupational health program support at Kennedy Space Center. The contract begins on Oct. 1, with a five-year base period, followed by two one-year options. It is a cost plus award fee contract. The maximum potential value of this contract is approximately $163.5 million. (8/4)

White Knight Good for More Than Personal Spaceflight (Source: Space Review)
WhiteKnightTwo is still a stunning aircraft. The unusual twin-fuselage design, connected by a wing over 40 meters long, has enough room in the middle for SS2, allowing it to connect directly to the wing rather than suspend it under the fuselage, as was the case for SS1 and the original White Knight aircraft. The pilots will fly the aircraft from the right-side fuselage, with room for passengers, such as people training for their own suborbital flights, in both fuselages.

The vision for WhiteKnightTwo "was of a launch system that could be part of a longer-term development program...with an open architecture which would allow other people to develop other vehicles capable of doing other things.” Among those applications would be as a platform for expendable or even reusable boosters for launching small satellites, in much the same way Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Pegasus rocket is air-launched from an L-1011 aircraft. WK2 could become a high-altitude aircraft for research and other terrestrial applications. WK2’s status as the largest all-composite aircraft, Virgin officials believe, could also help drive development in aviation of other composite aircraft that could offer greater fuel efficiency. (8/4)

4Frontiers Gets Florida Grant to Investigate Mars Greenhouse Materials (Source: 4Frontiers)
4Frontiers Corporation, a NewSpace technology, entertainment & education company, has been awarded a $25,000 research grant from the Florida Space Grant Consortium (FSGC), as part of the Florida Space Research & Education Grant Program. This grant will assist 4Frontiers in pursuing its technology roadmap for Mars settlement technologies. The project’s goal is to study the performance of various transparent materials which have been selected as potential candidates for use in future Mars greenhouses. The research will involve the construction of small chambers that incorporate these materials, simulating a Mars greenhouse. The chambers will then be placed within a larger chamber which will simulate the environmental conditions found on the Martian surface. The project will investigate heat transfer and stress performance of these materials under the unique conditions specific to the red planet. (8/4)

NASA'S Johnson Space Center Closed for Edouard (Source: NASA)
NASA's Johnson Space Center closed at 12 p.m. CDT Monday and will remain closed through Tuesday because of the threat of tropical storm Edouard. Plans call for the center to reopen Wednesday. Edouard is predicted to cross the Texas coast early Tuesday. Flight control of the International Space Station will continue from Houston, and the Space Station Mission Control Center at Johnson will remain open. (8/4)

Space Solar Power Workshop Planned in Orlando on Oct. 2-3 (Source: AFRL)
The Air Force Research Laboratory is planning a two-day conference titled "State of Space Solar Power Technology" at Disney's Shades of Green hotel in Orlando. The conference is intended to be a forum where technologies can be examined--especially those of interest to the Department of Defense--that could lead to space-based beamed power systems. Registration is FREE and limited to 200 persons, with slots filled on a first-come, first-serve basis. When capacity is met, registration will be closed. Visit http://www.upcomingevents.ctc.com/sbsp/sbsp.html to register and for information. (8/4)

Joint Lunar Conferences Planned at Cape Canaveral on Oct 28-31 (Source: NSSFL)
The annual meetings of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG), International Lunar Conference 2008, the ICEUM ILEWG Conference on Exploration and Utilization of the Moon , and the Space Resources Roundtable (SRR X) will be combined and held October 28–31, 2008, at the Radisson Resort at the Port, in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Visit http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/leagilewg2008/leagilewg20082nd.shtml for information. (8/4)

Air Force Ready To Launch First Spaceplane Demonstrator Mission (Source: Aviation Week)
The Air Force is preparing for the Atlas V launch in December of the first U.S. robotic military spaceplane mission into orbit. The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle flight will mark a fundamental technology milestone for the Air Force. It will carry on winged hypersonic space vehicle technology as the space shuttle is canceled. This work is designed to propel the Air Force mission more rapidly using a reusable hypersonic craft serviced on the ground just like an airplane.

In the future, this could lead to military spaceplane capability for the same kind of rapid access to the blackness of space that the Air Force already has to the blue sky - for the same offensive and defensive missions, including intelligence, strike and communications services to the military as a whole. The 11,000-lb. Boeing Phantom Works vehicle is about 29 ft. long with a roughly 15-ft. wingspan; the vehicle height is 9.6 ft. Its 205-ft.-tall Atlas V 501 booster will lift off from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport.

Once in orbit, the spacecraft will open a small payload bay and deploy a gallium arsenide solar array to power its flight. The exact mission duration is classified. The X-37B is designed for multiple missions, moving X-plane flight testing into space from the ground. The touchdown will involve a steep 20-deg., 170-190-kt. diving shuttle-type approach similar to that used in helicopter drop tests with a subscale X-40 vehicle and the more complex X-37A. (8/4)

First Contact: Interstellar Mission to an Inhabited Planet (Source: Astrobio.net)
The discovery of planets around other stars is going through an “inflation era” of rapidly expanding new knowledge. Beginning in 1995, the first decade of exoplanet observations involved simply doing an inventory. In the second decade we are rapidly characterizing the physical properties of these remote worlds, and by the third decade well will be cataloging inhabited Earth-like planets. Click here to view the article. (8/4)

Regolith Challenge: Digging In for the Prestige (Source: Santa Maria Times)
NASA prize money totaling $750,000 eluded inventors hoping to develop a robot that could collect fake moon dirt during the 2008 Regolith Excavation Challenge at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Eight teams actually put their inventions to the test during the competition, but none met the challenge of digging 330 pounds of simulated moon dirt, called regolith, putting it into a collector and completing the task within 30 minutes. Organizers said 25 teams had registered for the event, but only 16 traveled to the Central Coast. Half of those ended up dropping out due to mechanical or logistical problems. (8/4)

Kazakhstan at Crossroads in Space (Source: Moscow Times)
The politics of space are frequently eclipsed by the politics of energy, and yet disruptions in the satellite world can often have unforeseen consequences. There is a certain danger whenever you take either pipelines or satellites for granted. In early June, all contact was lost with Kazsat 1, Kazakhstan's first communication satellite. Now Kazakhstan's space agency must await the already scheduled launch of the Kazsat 2 satellite in 2009 to help fill the void.

With the loss of Kazsat 1, a Russian-built satellite, the Kazakh government now finds itself at a crossroads -- in space. For one thing, Russia let Kazakhstan down in this instance. At the same time, Moscow's seeming indifference to Astana's demands that Russian engineers and space companies drastically change launch procedures at Baikonur for public safety and environmental reasons does not help matters either. (8/4)