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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 8 declined, 7 accepted (15 total, 46.67% accepted)

Space

Submission + - Student Built Spacecraft Separate and Communicate (spaceref.com)

BJ_Covert_Action writes: "Some students from the Cockrell School of Engineering in Austin, Texas have built, developed, launched, and operated two historical satellites. The FASTRAC satellites make up the first small-scale satellite system which is composed of two separate spacecraft that can communicate to each other. On March 22, the single FASTRAC satellite successfully separated into two smaller spacecraft that are currently operating and communicating with each other. While separation and communication has occurred between paired satellites before, this is the first time it has been done with such a small platform (the FASTRAC spacecraft weigh approximately 60 lbs.).

Furthermore, this is the first time a student designed and built space system has been comprised of two separate spacecraft that can interact with each other. One of the most impressive things about this mission is that it was done incredibly cheap at $250,000, which is far below the costs associated with traditional spacecraft."

The Almighty Buck

Submission + - House Appropriations Committee Proposes Budget (house.gov)

BJ_Covert_Action writes: The House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations has released a list of proposed spending cuts for the U.S. Federal Government. The proposed cuts include reductions in spending on many science organizations and funds such as NASA, NOAA, nuclear energy research, fossil fuel energy research, clean coal research, the CDC, the NIH, and numerous EPA programs. There are also quite a few cuts proposed on domestic services, such as Americorps and high speed rail research. The House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers acknowledges that the cuts go deep, and would hurt every district across the country. But they are still deemed necessary to rein in Congressional spending.

Notoriously absent from the proposed budget cuts are two of the largest spending sinks in the federal budget: the Department of Defense and Social Security.

NASA

Submission + - NASA Pitches Heavy Lift Vehicle to Congress (spacenews.com)

BJ_Covert_Action writes: Well, Congress demanded, last year, that NASA develop a budget plan and proposal for a new heavy lift vehicle in light of the Ares V cancellation. Recently, NASA gave Congress just what they wanted. On January 11th, Douglas Cooke pitched an interim report to Congressional members detailing the basic design concepts that would go into a new heavy lift vehicle. Congress required that the new heavy lift vehicle maximize the reuse of space shuttle components as part of its budget battle with President Obama last year. As a result, NASA basically copy-pasted the Ares V design into a new report and pitched it to Congress on the 11th. The proposed vehicle will require the five segment SRB's that were proposed for the Ares V rocket. It will utilize the SSME's for it's main liquid stage. It will reuse the shuttle external tank as the primary core for the liquid booster (the same tank design that is currently giving the Discovery shuttle launch so many problems). And it will utilize the new J-2X engine that NASA has been developing for the Ares V project as an upper stage. In other words, NASA proposed to Congress exactly what Congress asked for.

The catch is, NASA also admitted that they will not be able to complete the proposed rocket on the budget that Congress has given them. Neither will they be able to finish the rocket on time. Finally, NASA has commented that a current study being conducted by 13 independent contractors is still being conducted to determine if there is a better design out there that NASA has, 'overlooked.' NASA has stated that, should that study finds any alternate, interesting designs then, they will need to consider those seriously.

NASA

Submission + - Low Quality Alloy Cause of Shuttle Main Tank Issue (spaceflightnow.com) 1

BJ_Covert_Action writes: NASA engineers have finally discovered the root cause of the cracks that have been found on the space shuttle Discovery's main external tank. The main tank, one of the "Super Lightweight Tank" models developed by Lockheed-Martin employs an aluminum-lithium alloy developed by Lockheed-Martin specifically for this application. The new alloy is used in various structural stringers throughout the SLWT design. Unfortunately, the batch of this alloy used in the tank that is currently mated with the Discovery shuttle, appears to be of low quality. The alloy used in the stringers has a "mottled" appearance, compared to the nominal appearance typically used in the main tank stringers (see picture in article). This appearance is indicative of a fracture threshold that is significantly lower than typical. NASA has determined, through testing, that this low grade alloy has only 65% of the fracture strength of the nominal alloy typically used.

NASA engineers have devised a potential fix to the problem that they are currently testing to ensure that the repair will cause no unintended consequences. NASA plans to have the Discovery shuttle ready to launch again by February 24th, 2011.

Space

Submission + - SpaceX Announces Dragon as First Falcon 9 Payload (spaceflightnow.com)

BJ_Covert_Action writes: "SpaceX announced yesterday that it would be integrating a stripped down test version of its own Dragon cargo capsule as the payload for its first Falcon 9 test launch. The Falcon 9 rocket is currently scheduled to launch on November 29 of this year if everything goes according to plan. However, Elon Musk admits that launch day will likely slip to sometime early next year. The Falcon 9 is the heavy launch vehicle designed by SpaceX to be used as a cheap, commercial alternative to existing United States launch platforms. Having launched a few successful light missions with the Falcon 1 rocket, SpaceX is going to launch the Falcon 9 as its next milestone in commercializing the space industry.

Utilizing its own cargo capsule as the first Falcon 9 payload will effectively give SpaceX twice the tests for one launch slot on the Cape Canaveral range. The capsule that will be used is a test version of the full Dragon capsule that encompasses primarily the structure and a few components of the full version. It served originally as a ground test platform for the Dragon design team and now will double as an orbital testbed. If nothing else, the announcement, which was detailed by Spaceflightnow.com upped the ante in the commercial space market by showing the SpaceX is capable and willing to push the envelop on its development schedules. It should serve as a proper motivator for other commercial competitors such as Orbital Sciences with their Cygnus capsule which is also under development."

Hardware

Submission + - Congress Considers Funding for Vehicle Mileage Tra (thetruthaboutcars.com) 3

BJ_Covert_Action writes: According to thetruthaboutcars website, the House of Representatives is looking into legislation to divert $154,500,000 in tax dollars for a research project that involves tracking per vehicle mileage in the U.S. From the article:

US Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) introduced H.R. 3311 earlier this year to appropriate $154,500,000 for research and study into the transition to a per-mile vehicle tax system

The article goes on to describe how Oregon already has done some research and testing of of such a tracking system. Tracking the mileage per vehicle in the United States via a GPS-RFID reader technology combination would allow the federal government to accurately tax motorists based on how far they actually drive. Currently, motorist taxes are levied at the gas pump. The bill being discussed would invest nearly $155 million in developing a system that tracks vehicles based on a unique GPS unit installed in each car. The GPS unit would communicate the data it gathers to RFID readers placed along roadsides at a particular interval. The U.S. Treasury Department would be in charge of the research program and would, thus, receive the appropriated tax money for research.

Like all fun government surveillance legislation, this funding and, if implemented, the program itself raises more questions about American's right to privacy. Do we really want the government, or any other agency for that matter, to track our movement and driving habits on a regular basis?

There is a pdf of the bill available for download on the article page.

Space

Submission + - Roiling Surface Plume of Betelgeuse Imaged (astronomynow.com)

BJ_Covert_Action writes: Astronomy Now is running a piece regarding some new, exquisitely detailed pictures taken of Betelgeuse, a star in the constellation Orion. Betelgeuse is classified as a supergiant star and is approximately 1000 times the size of the sun. Two teams of astronomers used ESO's "Very large Telescope," its NACO instruments, and as an imaging technique known as "Lucky Imaging" to take some of the most detailed pictures of Betelgeuse to date.

The new pictures reveal a gas plume on the surface of Betelgeuse which extends from the surface of the star a distance greater than that between our sun and Neptune. The images also showed several other 'boiling' spots on the surface of Betelgeuse, revealing the surface to be quite tumultuous. Currently, it is known that stars of Betelgeuse's size eject the equivalent mass of the Earth into space every year. However, the mechanisms for said ejections is currently unknown. This recent astronomy work will help researchers determine the mechanics behind such ejections.

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