October 21 News Items

Russia Set to Invest Heavily in Space Industry (Source: Reuters)
Russia will spend billions of dollars over the next three years to consolidate its leading role in the space industry, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said. Putin said that Russia, which accounts for 40 percent of all space launches, would earmark more than 200 billion roubles ($7.68 billion) from the federal budget for development of the space industry in 2009-2011. (10/21)

Marshall Director says Shuttle Must Retire by 2010 (Source: Huntsville Times)
Keeping the space shuttle program going past its planned retirement date of 2010 is a "bad idea" and would rob development money from its replacement, the Ares I rockets now being developed at Marshall Space Flight Center, said Marshall Director Dave King. Space agency managers asked shuttle teams across the nation, including Marshall, to look at options for extending the shuttle. About $5 billion a year is included in NASA's almost $20 billion budget for the shuttle program. When the Ares program was envisioned, in late 2003, that money was deemed needed by 2011 for the new rocket program to continue. (10/21)

Russians Resolve Problem with Soyuz Craft, NASA Says (Source: MSNBC)
Coming back to Earth from space is never routine, but this week's descent of a Soyuz spacecraft with two Russian cosmonauts and a private space traveler from America will be more closely watched than usual — because of two rough rides that came before. During the previous two Soyuz descents from the space station, in October 2007 and April 2008, the spacecraft suffered the same type of major anomaly when explosive bolts failed to separate the crew cabin cleanly from other no-longer-needed sections of the vehicle. As a result, in each case, the ship’s landing guidance system switched to a steering mode that dropped the crews far short of their aim points, and far higher accelerations.

Russian space officials say they solved the problem going forward by making modifications in the spacecraft, starting with the one that was launched this month and will remain attached to the space station until next spring. As for the Soyuz due to come back this week, the Russians say the problem was fixed when an explosive bolt was removed during an emergency spacewalk in July. (10/21)

Lockheed Martin Profit Up (Source: Reuters)
Lockheed Martin reported a 2 percent increase in third-quarter profit. Lockheed reported quarterly profit of $782 million, compared with $766 million in the year-ago quarter. Results were boosted by a one-time gain of $44 million, representing a portion of deferred gains from the 2006 sale of its stake in Lockheed Khrunichev Energia International and International Launch Services, which provided marketing and support services for commercial satellite launches. Sales fell 5 percent to $10.6 billion. (10/21)

Congress Cancels BASIC Satellite Program (Source: AP)
With a federal budget crunch looming, Congress this month canceled Pentagon plans to buy and launch two commercial imagery satellites to complement its network of classified spy craft, military and space industry officials said. House and Senate intelligence appropriations committees cut all funds for the satellite program during a conference to work out differences in the classified 2009 bills that approve intelligence spending. They also wiped out the remaining 2008 funds. The exact amount is classified, but the program was expected to cost about $1.7 billion. (10/21)

Brazil Hopes to Launch Satellite Rocket in 2011 (Source: Space Daily)
Brazil hopes to have a basic version of a satellite transport rocket blasting off from its territory in 2011 after successful tests of one of the vehicle's engines this week. The information confirms Brazil's ambitions to join China and Russia as a top emerging economy with its own space program. The Brazilian Space Agency on Monday tested the second stage of its four-stage VLS-1 (the initials stand for Satellite Launch Vehicle in Portuguese). (10/21)

Russia to Decide on State Space Corporation in 2009 (Source: RIA Novosti)
Russia may decide to create a state corporation for the rocket and space industry next year, a deputy prime minister said on Tuesday. Sergei Ivanov said that "all relevant departments have been instructed to develop this issue and present their well-considered proposals in 2009." Russian Space Agency head Anatoly Perminov said in turn that establishing a state corporation would help to create conditions for the stable economic development of the space industry. (10/21)

Video Addresses USA Support for Next-Generation Space Systems (Source: Forbes)
What's next for United Space Alliance as the Space Shuttle program comes to an end? Forbes Video Network looks into the company's options and ongoing diversification programs. Visit http://www.forbes.com/video/?video=fvn/tech/km_shuttleprogram100108 to view the video segment. (10/21)

A Lack of Flare (Source: Huntsville Times)
Sunspot and solar flare activity has slacked off to a level not seen in more than half a century, NASA scientists say. The sun has been dormant for 210 days this year. That's bad for solar scientists but good for orbiting astronauts and anybody in the telecommunications business, said Dr. David Hathaway, a solar physicist for Marshall Space Flight Center.

"For people in my business this is a real down time," Hathaway said from his office at the National Space Science and Technology Center on Sparkman Drive. "What we want is great big magnetic upheaval with plenty of flares and spots to study. "What we have now is a featureless ball." Sunspot and solar flare activity has dropped to the lowest level since 1954, when the star went through 274 dormant days, Hathaway said. (10/21)

Planets Thought Dead Might Be Habitable (Source: Space.com)
Astronomers have long talked about a "habitable zone" around a star as being a confined and predictable region where temperatures were not to cold, not to hot, so that a planet could retain liquid water and therefore support life as we know it. The zone may not be so fixed, it turns out. Some extrasolar planets that one might assume are too cold to host life could in fact be made habitable by a squishing effect from their stars, a new study found.

A planet's midsection gets stretched out by its star's gravity so that its shape is slightly more like a cigar than a sphere. Some planets travel non-circular, or elongated paths around their stars. As such a world moves closer to the star, it stretches more, and when it moves farther away, the stretching decreases. When a planet's orbit is particularly oblong, the stretching changes are so great that its interior warms up in a process called tidal heating. A computer model simulating this effect on exoplanets found that the process could shift the range and distance of the "habitable zone" around a star in which planets would have the right temperatures needed to harbor life. (10/21)

Sierra Neveda to Aquire SpaceDev (Source: Wall Street Journal)
BSpaceDev Inc., less than two weeks after the death of founder Jim Benson, agreed to be acquired for about $38 million by Sierra Nevada Corp., a closely held maker of small satellites and other space hardware. (10/21)

Critics Question India's Moon Mission (Source: The Hindu)
Critics have questioned India's Chandrayaan-1 unmanned moon mission, pointing to explorations done by other countries in the past. They say the venture is expensive, "wasting resources" and objectives are nothing but "reinventing the wheel". Officials of the Bangalore-headquartered space agency strongly disagree. Visit http://www.thehindu.com/holnus/000200810211411.htm to view the article. (10/21)