Government/Military

Costs, Options For Reducing Gap Between Shuttles, Orion, Detailed In NASA Study The Constellation Program won’t cut the size of the Orion space capsule, or crew exploration vehicle, as a means of reducing space vehicle weight, Doug Cooke, NASA associate administrator for exploration systems, said. "We’re not looking at taking … astronauts off," even though...

SA-20s Wouldn’t Threaten F-22 Raptors, But Perhaps Would Imperil F-35s, B-2s Russia is selling highly sophisticated SA-20 long-range air defense missiles to Iran, weapons that wouldn’t endanger super-stealthy F-22 Raptor strike fighters, but which might imperil the less-stealthy F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (Lightning II) and B-2 bombers, according to a report in Aviation Week and...

Space Shuttle Endeavour, having earlier completed a 16-day mission that improved the International Space Station, finally made it back home to Kennedy Space Center, riding piggyback atop a modified Boeing 747 jumbo jet. Ordinarily, Endeavour would have returned directly to Kennedy on its own, coming through reentry and back to a landing as a giant...

The Navy fired seven Standard Missile-2 Block IIIA anti-air warfare missiles as part of ongoing U.S. Navy shipbuilder trials and operational tests, Raytheon Co. [RTN] announced. Four of the intercepts were conducted by the guided missile destroyers USS Stockdale (DDG 106) and USS Truxton (DDG 103). Three others were conducted by a cruiser, USS Antietam...

An Air Strike By A Threatened Israel May Be Last Chance To Stop Iran No Chance Seen For U.S. Strike On Iranian Nuclear Facilities Iran is on the verge of developing nuclear weapons, but major nations aren’t taking available steps that could bring Iran to terms and force it to abandon its nuclear ambitions, key...

The Paveway 4 weapon system completed all evaluation activities, clearing it to enter service with the U.K. Royal Navy and Royal Air Force Harrier GR9 aircraft, Raytheon Co. [RTN] reported. Following demonstration of capability trials at the U.S. Navy Air Warfare Center at China Lake, Calif., the U.K. Ministry of Defence accepted the weapon system...

The Hubble Space Telescope spotted carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting another star, NASA announced. This breakthrough is an important step toward finding chemical biotracers of extraterrestrial life, although in this case NASA is sure there’s no life on the distant planet. The Jupiter-sized planet, called HD 189733b, is too hot for...

Light-colored deposits in Martian soil indicate that water long ago may have gushed from springs, the European Space Agency (ESA) reported. That water might, for a time, have sheltered any life forms on Mars as the planet began drying up, losing its surface water and atmosphere. In like fashion, water would be critical to sustaining...

A satellite orbiting Mars completed its primary two-year mission and, after a pause, will be ready for another, NASA announced. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter found signs of a complex Martian history of climate change that produced a diversity of past watery environments. That satellite returned 73 terabits of science data, more than all earlier Mars...

The Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS) B10 satellite completed 15 years on orbit, 50 percent more than its 10-year design life, builder Lockheed Martin Corp. [LMT] announced. The entire DSCS constellation, which provides secure and reliable communications service to the warfighter, will surpass 200 years of cumulative on-orbit service erly next year, the largest total...