September 30, 2010

First Potentially Habitable Exoplanet Found Santa Cruz CA (SPX) Sep 30, 2010 - A team of planet hunters from the University of California (UC) Santa Cruz, and the Carnegie Institution of Washington has announced the discovery of a planet with three times the mass of Earth orbiting a nearby star at a distance that places it squarely in the middle of the star's "habitable zone." This discovery was the result of more than a decade of observations using the W. M. Keck Ob ... more

Japan's first GPS satellite in operational orbit Tokyo (UPI) Sep 28, 2010 - Japan's first navigation satellite will improve positioning coverage in mountainous terrain and urban centers, authorities say. The country's space agency announced the Michibiki satellite entered its orbit Monday more than 20,000 miles above Asia, SPACE.com reported. Michibiki, which means "guiding" or "showing the way" in Japanese, will undergo three months of technology tests ... more

Russian company to build 'space hotel' with home comforts Moscow (AFP) Sept 29, 2010 - A Russian company on Wednesday announced plans to launch a comfortable space hotel for tourists who up to now have shared cramped accommodation with astronauts, the RIA Novosti news agency reported. The company, Orbital Technologies, plans to launch the first module of the hotel in 2015-16, its chief executive Sergei Kostenko told RIA Novosti at a presentation. A cosy fit, the first mod ... more

MEADS Life Cycle Costs Significantly Lower Than Fielded Systems Orlando FL (SPX) Sep 28, 2010 - The Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) program has presented a required life cycle cost estimate to the three partner nations that proves the MEADS system design will significantly reduce the cost of ownership compared to air and missile defense systems that are currently fielded. MEADS will especially reduce operation and support (O and S) costs. Ordinarily, over two-thirds of the ... more

Goddard Team Obtains The 'Unobtainium' For NASA's Next Space Observatory Greenbelt MD (SPX) Sep 30, 2010 - Imagine building a car chassis without a blueprint or even a list of recommended construction materials. In a sense, that's precisely what a team of engineers at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., did when they designed a one-of-a-kind structure that is one of 9 key new technology systems of the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM). Just as a chassis supports th ... more

Hylas Gets Green Light For Spaceport Trip Paris, France (ESA) Sep 30, 2010 - Following extensive testing in India, the Hylas-1 telecommunication satellite has been given the go-ahead for shipping to Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana for its November flight. The Hylas-1 mission, a public-private partnership between ESA and Avanti Communications in the UK, will target the high demand for broadband services in Europe. The Agency's advanced communications payload wil ... more

Expedition 25 Crew At Work, Waiting For Three New Members Houston TX (SPX) Sep 30, 2010 - Expedition 25 Commander Doug Wheelock along with Flight Engineer Shannon Walker continued working on the Water Processing Assembly (WPA). They worked to install a hose and sample port adapter to provide an alternate source of potable water to the WPA. Working on the WPA proved difficult due to a loose component which prevented them from rotating a rack as required by their procedures. The ... more

Northrop Grumman And Boeing Partner For Missile Defense Simulation Architecture Contract Huntsville AL (SPX) Sep 29, 2010 - Northrop Grumman and Boeing has announced a strategic partnership to pursue the competitive contract for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) Objective Simulation Framework (OSF) that will integrate the MDA's modeling and simulation architectures. "The MDA has an essential need to more efficiently validate Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) performance through the increased use of mo ... more

MEADS Demonstrates Interoperability With NATO Orlando FL (SPX) Sep 29, 2010 - The Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) battle management capability successfully demonstrated interoperability with the NATO Air Command and Control System (ACCS) during a Joint Project Optic Windmill (JPOW) test in July. The interface test was conducted using the Active Layer Theatre Ballistic Missile Defense (ALTBMD) Integration Test Bed being developed by NATO. The test proved a ... more

Atmosphere Checked, One Mars Year Before A Landing Pasadena CA (JPL) Sep 30, 2010 - What will the Martian atmosphere be like when the next Mars rover descends through it for landing in August of 2012? An instrument studying the Martian atmosphere from orbit has begun a four-week campaign to characterize daily atmosphere changes, one Mars year before the arrival of the Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity. A Mars year equals 687 Earth days. The planet's thin atmosphere ... more

China To Launch Second Lunar Probe Xichang, China (XNA) Sep 30, 2010 - China will launch its second lunar probe, Chang'e II, at an appropriate time between Oct. 1 and 3, the Xichang Satellite Launch Center (XSLC) in southwest China's Sichuan Province announced Wednesday. Fueling of the Long March CZ-3C rocket will begin on Sept. 30. The lunar probe will test key technology for Chang'e III, collect data for future landings of Chang'e III and Chang'e IV, ... more

Milky Way Sidelined In Galactic Tug Of War Cambridge MA (SPX) Sep 30, 2010 - The Magellanic Stream is an arc of hydrogen gas spanning more than 100 degrees of the sky as it trails behind the Milky Way's neighbor galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, has long been thought to be the dominant gravitational force in forming the Stream by pulling gas from the Clouds. A new computer simulation by Gurtina Besla (Harvard-Smithsoni ... more

NRL's Wide-field Imager Selected For Solar Probe Plus Mission Washington DC (SPX) Sep 30, 2010 - NASA has chosen the Naval Research Laboratory's (NRL's) Wide-field Imager to be part of the Solar Probe Plus mission slated for launch no later than 2018. The Solar Probe Plus, a small car-sized spacecraft will plunge directly into the sun's atmosphere approximately four million miles from our star's surface. It will explore a region no other spacecraft ever has encountered in an effort to ... more

Opportunity's Surroundings After Sol 2363 Drive Pasadena CA (JPL) Sep 30, 2010 - This mosaic of images from the navigation camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows surroundings of the rover's location following an 81-meter (266-foot) drive during the 2,363rd Martian day, or sol, of Opportunity's mission on Mars (Sept. 16, 2010). The camera took the component images for this 360-degree panorama during sols 2363 to 2365. The terrain includes light-toned ... more

UN denies naming 'point of contact' for aliens Vienna (AFP) Sept 28, 2010 - The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs on Tuesday dismissed as "nonsense" a newspaper report which said it had appointed a new ambassador as a point of contact for extra-terrestrials. "The article in the Sunday Times is nonsense," UNOOSA said in a statement, referring to a report this weekend which said the UN was to appoint Malaysian astrophysicist, Mazlan Othman, to be the first ... more

Hello, Saturn Summer Solstice: Cassini's New Chapter Pasadena CA (JPL) Sep 30, 2010 - Turning a midsummer night's dream into reality, NASA's Cassini spacecraft begins its new mission extension - the Cassini Solstice Mission - today. The mission extension will take Cassini a few months past Saturn's northern summer solstice (or midsummer) through September 2017. It will enable scientists to study seasonal changes and other long-term weather changes on Saturn and its moons. C ... more

China's Mystery Moon Rocket Sydney, Australia (SPX) Sep 28, 2010 - As we approach the launch of China's second Moon mission on October 1, some major questions about the spacecraft and its launch vehicle remain unanswered. China's media has been generally low-key about covering the upcoming flight. There has been little recent talk in China's major newspapers, despite the supposed impending launch. That's a bit strange for a nation that loves to trumpet it ... more

Raytheon Unveils Lighter, Faster, Stronger Exoskeleton Robotic Suit Tewskbury MA (SPX) Sep 29, 2010 - Raytheon unveiled its second generation Exoskeleton (XOS 2) at its research facility in Salt Lake City, Utah, during a demonstration with Paramount Home Entertainment. The new robotic suit is lighter, faster and stronger than its predecessor, yet it uses 50 percent less power. Its enhanced design also means that it is more resistant to the environment. "XOS 1 was essentially a proof of con ... more

Two Koreas set for first military talks since 2008 Seoul (AFP) Sept 30, 2010 - South and North Korea are Thursday to hold their first military talks for two years in an attempt to ease tensions heightened by a naval disaster near their disputed sea border. Three officers from each side will meet at the border truce village of Panmunjom at 10:00 am (0100 GMT) after the North accepted the South's revised date for the meeting. The North had proposed holding the milita ... more

N.Korea heir apparent wins senior party posts Seoul (AFP) Sept 30, 2010 - The youngest son of ailing leader Kim Jong-Il has taken over powerful posts in North Korea's ruling party, state media said Wednesday, confirming his status as heir apparent in the nuclear-armed nation. Kim Jong-Un was named one of two vice-chairmen of the central military commission of the Workers' Party of Korea and a member of its central committee, a day after his father appointed him a ... more

	Launch Vehicle and Spacecraft Acoustic Testing and Analysis Baltimore, MD (BWI), October 19-21, 2010 $1,395 Launch Vehicle Payload Integration Cocoa Beach, FL. October 25-27, 2010 $1,395