Government/Military

Jammed Valve On Interceptor Kill Vehicle May Have Caused It To Miss Target Missile A jammed valve on a tiny maneuvering thruster in a Standard Missile-3 Block 1A interceptor kill vehicle likely caused the SM-3 to miss killing a target missile, in a test involving a Japanese anti-missile ship, according to the Missile Defense Advocacy...

Sikorski Also Urges Strong Support For NATO By Marina Malenic and Dave Ahearn A top Polish official yesterday urged President-elect Obama, who takes office Jan. 20, and his administration to continue plans for installing ballistic missile defense interceptors in his country. "Naturally, we would like to see this project continue," Radoslaw Sikorski, the Polish foreign...

Commercial space traveler Richard Garriott, son of NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, returned to Earth after a mission to the International Space Station, Space Adventures, Ltd. announced. The company books commercial human space missions, such as Richard Garriott’s trip. He and other crew members successfully landed in the Kazakhstan steppes, aboard the Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft. The...

Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) will continue as the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) chairman in the next two-year Congress, the 111th Congress, the House Democratic Caucus decided. Skelton became chairman two years ago when Democrats were voted into control of the House after a dozen years of a Republican majority. Previously, he was the ranking...

Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry A. "Trey" Obering III turned over responsibility for missile defense operations to Army Lt. Gen. Patrick J. O’Reilly, who became the eighth director of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA). The shift in leadership was announced earlier this year. Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England officiated over the change of leadership,...

Scientists using the European Space Agency spacecraft Mars Express have produced the first crude map of aurorae on Mars. These displays of ultraviolet light appear to be located close to the residual magnetic fields generated by Martian crustal rocks. They highlight a number of mysteries about the way Mars interacts with electrically charged particles originating...

A new sensor aboard the International Space Station will check continuously for harmful chemicals in air breathed by station crew members, NASA announced. That sensor also can serve as a fire and smoke alarm. Astronauts on the current Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-126 Mission will unpack the experimental sensor, called the ENose, Dec. 9. Serving aboard...

NASA is pushing ahead with a plan to launch a spacecraft, Juno, that will unlock secrets of the largest planet in the solar system, Jupiter, the space agency announced this afternoon. This mission will be the first in which a spacecraft is placed in a highly elliptical polar orbit around the giant planet to understand...

European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Frank De Winne is set to become the first European commander of the International Space Station (ISS), ESA announced. De Winne, from Belgium, will fly to the station in a Soyuz spacecraft in May. He will be accompanied by Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk,...

The Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System (JLENS) conducted critical design readiness reviews (CDRR) on its final two prime items, Raytheon Co. [RTN] announced. Those final items were the surveillance radar (SuR) and the communications and processing group (CPG). Both are key milestones in the Army program. "The SuR and CPG...