The move follows a Presidential request for a briefing on the failures, first reported by SpaceDaily May 6th. Clinton selected U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen to coordinate the review, which will include NASA administrator Daniel S. Goldin, National Reconnaissance Office chief Keith R. Hall, and Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenant. A report is due on the President's desk by year's end.

White House sources tell SpaceDaily that Cohen has asked acting Air Force Secretary F. Whitten Peters to staff the effort, along with some former members of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense-Space office.

The office was abolished by Cohen last year in a cost-cutting move. The review will be folded into an on-going study of U.S. space launch ranges being conducted by the President's Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Security Council.

SpaceDaily has learned that there will be a classified part of the top level study that will address specific impacts on launch ills on the U.S. national security launch manifest. Of the three Titan IV failures from August 1998 to May 1999, one carried an NRO satellite payload and two others carried Air Force communications and early warning satellites.

The failures have also caused Air Force officials to revisit discussions with NASA concluded last year on flying large heavy military satellites once again aboard the NASA Space Shuttles.

The Air Force decided last year to retain the Titan over the Shuttle for the launches of spacecraft leading up to the dawn of the new Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) era which starts in 2001 and becomes operational the following year.

Some Defense Support Program (DSP) and other communications satellites were manifested for launch on final Titan IVB boosters which could have been shifted to Shuttle. But Air Force experience with Shuttle delays, as well as the completion of the 41 Titan IV launch order package, already funded, led the service to stay with the unmanned rocket over the winged Shuttles.