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President Kennedy laid down a straightforward if daunting challenge: the Moon. President George W Bush, perhaps looking for a Kennedy moment, set that challenge again. From President Barack Obama, a more nuanced directive is no surprise. But while Obama would forego a headline destination in favour of having NASA develop exotic technologies to enable human exploration of deep space while the private sector takes on the low- Earth orbit transport challenge, one former NASA astronaut thinks he can achieve both goals - and before any crew is carried aloft in a private rocket. THERE AND BACK Franklin Chang Diaz believes...

secretive military spacecraft resembling a small space shuttle orbiter is undergoing final processing in Florida for launch on April 19. The Air Force confirmed the critical preflight milestone in a response to written questions on Thursday. The 29-foot-long, 15-foot-wide Orbital Test Vehicle arrived in Cape Canaveral, Fla., last month according to the Air Force. The OTV spaceplane was built at a Boeing Phantom Works facility in Southern California. Managed by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, the OTV program is shrouded in secrecy, but military officials occasionally release information on the the spaceplane's progress. "It is now undergoing spacecraft processing...

American space transportation company SpaceX, which has designed the Falcon 9 heavy-lift launch vehicle, has aborted its test launch due to technical reasons. The two stage liquid oxygen and rocket-grade kerosene propelled launch vehicle was scheduled to be test launched on March 9 but it encountered some problem just before the countdown, SpaceX said. "We counted down to an T-2 seconds and aborted on Spin Start. Given that this was our first abort event on this pad, we decided to scrub for the day to get a good look at the rocket before trying again," the company said. No damage...

US President Barack Obama told astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) that he was deeply committed to space exploration, after scrapping plans to return Americans to the moon. Obama on Wednesday told the US, Russian and Japanese ISS astronauts and comrades who travelled to the station on the shuttle Endeavour that he was proud of them and the work they were doing in space. He also said he was "committed" to human space exploration in the future, in a television link-up to the astronauts, and a question-and-answer session with high school children at the White House. "My commitment to...

Chicago-based Boeing Co., NASA’s prime contractor on the international space station (ISS), is looking to add payload processing of station-bound cargo to the work it does in support of the orbiting outpost. The company announced plans Jan. 18 to bid on a new NASA solicitation calling for physical preparation of cargo headed to the station aboard U.S. and foreign spacecraft beginning in January 2011, three months after the agency’s space shuttle fleet is due to retire. NASA currently is counting on two U.S. companies — Dulles, Va.-based Orbital Sciences Corp. and Hawthorne, Calif.-based Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) — to complete...

Although the U.S. won’t be able to meet the congressionally mandated goal of locating and cataloging most near-Earth objects 140 meters across or larger by 2020, it could come close to that deadline if a new space-based observatory is dedicated to the task in concert with a suitable ground-based telescope, according to a National Academies panel. The panel’s final report, released Jan. 22, asserts that the combination of space- and ground-based observation is “the best approach,” and could complete the survey as early as 2022 if funds are appropriated quickly. Alternately, if saving money is deemed more important than meeting...

We could be less than a year away from the launch of Tiangong-1, China's first space laboratory. We've been expecting this launch for years, but relatively little is still known about this mission. We have grown used to seeing computer-generated artwork of this small, stubby laboratory module, not much larger than the Shenzhou crew-carrying spacecraft that will dock with it. China Central Television has also broadcast short video clips showing the module undergoing assembly, and periodically, a short news report on the mission pops up in the Chinese media. Beyond this, not much is really known about Tiangong. We don't...

In the face of threats from jamming and attacks on satellites the United States must lessen its dependence on the Global Positioning System and develop alternatives to GPS, the top Air Force general said today. Gen. Norton Schwartz, Air Force Chief of Staff, told a conference organized by Tuft University’s Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis that GPS signals are particularly vulnerable in time of war since enemies know of the reliance U.S. forces place on its highly accurate signal. Everyone has read about the amazing accuracy of smart bombs and cruise missiles but few remember that those weapons depend on...

Heavy-lift launch vehicles of the type many believe will be a part of President Barack Obama’s long-awaited space policy — and in-space assembly techniques based on lessons from the Hubble Space Telescope — could enable NASA to deploy telescopes large enough to answer the eternal question “Are we alone?” in the coming decades. Matt Mountain, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), and John Grunsfeld, his newly named deputy and a three-time Hubble-servicing astronaut, told the Space Transportation Association Jan. 15 that astronomers are on the cusp of technical advances that will cast their view back — literally —...

As the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama prepares to propose changes to NASA’s human spaceflight program in the president’s 2011 budget request to lawmakers Feb. 1, an independent NASA safety advisory panel is warning the space agency against abandoning its current plans. In an annual report issued Jan. 15, the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel cautioned the United States against halting work on NASA’s Ares 1 rocket to fund unproven commercial alternatives. “To abandon Ares I as a baseline vehicle for an alternative without demonstrated capability nor proven superiority (or even equivalence) is unwise and probably not cost-effective,” the report...

NASA’s first use of a low-cost, modular spacecraft design will be put into an unusually low orbit of the Moon to sample its atmosphere and dust and create a profile that will be useful for studies throughout the Solar System. The Lunar Atmosphere Dust Environment Explorer (Ladee) is still in the early days of mission and science planning but is booked for an Oct. 28, 2012, liftoff on an Orbital Sciences Minotaur V from NASA’s Wallops Island, Va., space complex. It will be the debut of the five-stage solid propellant Minotaur V as a low-cost alternative for planetary missions. Ladee...

The U.S. Air Force/Lockheed Martin team developing the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) program has achieved two key milestones: a testing milestone demonstrating that the ground system is on track to support launch of the first SBIRS geosynchronous (GEO-1) satellite in the constellation, and a maturity milestone moving the ground system into the next level of integration. SBIRS will deliver unprecedented, global, persistent infrared surveillance capabilities by providing early warning of missile launches, and simultaneously supporting other missions including missile defense, technical intelligence and battlespace awareness. The testing milestone, known as the Combined Day-In-The-Life Test (CDITL), validated the functionality, performance, and...

Engineers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center are developing an in-orbit test bed to validate techniques for refueling satellites that weren’t designed to be refueled, using procedures growing out of the experience gained servicing the Hubble Space Telescope. Preston Burch, the Hubble program manager, said Jan. 11 that the experiment would use the Canadian-built Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator, known as Dextre, to simulate cutting into a spacecraft’s insulation, tapping into its fuel plumbing, and refilling its tanks to extend its service life. “We’ve already developed a prototype tool that’s pretty cool that can cut through the external skin or insulation...

NASA’s managers have settled on a fix they say will protect astronauts from potentially dangerous levels of vibrations that could otherwise reach the planned Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle during its climb to orbit atop the Ares 1 rocket, according to information posted on a NASA Web site. NASA Constellation program officials decided Dec. 17 to update the Ares 1 vehicle design to include upper-plane C-spring isolators and an upper-stage liquid oxygen (LOX) damper intended to keep vibrations originating in the Ares 1 main stage from reaching Orion and its crew. The Constellation program is a 5-year-old effort to replace the...

Making "space available" is at the heart of the global travel, tourist and lodging industry. That business axiom is no stranger to Robert Bigelow, owner of the Budget Suites of America Hotel Chain. But now the North Las Vegas, Nevada-based Bigelow is putting his money down on inflatable Earth orbiting modules. He’s intent on attracting not only high-flying sightseers, but those hungering to crank out made-in-space products and evaluate microgravity processes. Bigelow’s plan is to establish a habitable commercial space station for research, manufacturing, entertainment and other uses. First Genesis, then Nautilus Bigelow Aerospace is developing the Genesis Pathfinder --...