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Kepler Reaches Cape Launch Pad
A planet-hunting NASA telescope today reached its Cape Canaveral launch pad in preparation for flight next month.

The Kepler telescope was delivered from Astrotech in Titusville to Launch Complex 17 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station around 5:30 a.m. today.

It is scheduled to blast off at 10:48 p.m. March 5 aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket, the Cape's second unmanned launch this year.

Over the mission's planned 3.5-year life, Kepler will scan 100,000 Milky Way stars for Earth-like "exoplanets" (outside our solar system) by tracking their transits across the stars.

Though the telescope will likely spot much bigger planets, and some smaller ones, it will focus on Earth-size planets within stars' "habitable zones" - areas where temperatures would make liquid water possible, and possibly life.

Workers at Astrotech in Titusville on Wednesday secured the telescope in a transportation canister, and trucked it to the Cape early this morning.

The spacecraft and its third stage booster aer scheduled to be mated to the Delta II on Friday.

Scientists hope the roughly $600 million Kepler mission provide statistics about how common or uncommon Earth-like planets are in the galaxy.

The findings could answer ancient questions about the possibility of life beyond Earth, and suggest places for future exploration.

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Space Florida must freeze launch complex spending
FLORIDA TODAY's Paul Flemming in Tallahassee wrote:

Lawmakers Thursday said Space Florida needs to get its guiding principles in order and the director of the public-private industry advocate agreed.

To enforce its wishes, a Senate committee indicated it would force Space Florida to freeze spending $10 million of state money until the agency's master plan is completed.

Space Florida Executive Director Steve Kohler said he agreed with the findings of a legislative audit of how the 2 1/2-year-old group is doing. Holding off on spending the money toward a $55 million launch complex project won't hurt.

"It was exactly what was expected," Kohler said. Theress a Dec. 31 deadline for the master plan. Kohler said it would be done "well before" then.

Christopher Diaz, an analyst with the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability, presented a summary of its recent report on Space Florida's performance and the lack of quantifiable goals to measure achievement.

"Without a master plan, it's difficult for the Legislature to assess how Space Florida's efforts to improve" commercial launch prospects, Diaz told members of the Senate Transportation and Economic Development Committee.

Last year, the state provided $14.5 million toward developing Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral for commercial business. Kohler said $2 million has been spent and another $2 million is committed. Sen. Mike Fasano, a Republican from New Port Richey and chair of the committee, said language would be drafted to stop spending of $10 million until the master plan is done.

"I would assume that would encourage them to complete it very quickly," Fasano said.

Kohler said he agreed with the findings and conclusions of the legislative auditors. He added that ongoing development of U.S. Air Force and Kennedy Space Center master plans have meant holding off on finishing Space Florida's own plan.

"We felt it appropriate to integrate those plans into our plan," Kohler said.

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No shuttle launch Feb. 27; no new date

Marathon meetings at the Kennedy Space Center have broken up and NASA managers could not reach a decision that would have allowed them to launch the space shuttle Discovery on Feb. 27 as planned. They have not decided on an official new launch date, so the mission's liftoff is in limbo.

NASA has a news conference set for 10:30 p.m., where managers will explain what happened and what comes next. They have decided however they will not launch next Friday. You can click the image above or the NASA TV player to the right of this post to watch the broadcast of that news conference live.

NASA's Kyle Hering says the agency is still evaluating whether the shuttle could liftoff by March 13, the beginning of a "cutout" period during which an orbiter could not visit the space station because of a planned Russian Soyuz mission. The cutout extends to April 6.

Editor's Note: At 10:37 p.m., NASA space operations chief said NASA needed to better understand the consquences of a failure of the questioned valves. He said there is a lot of "open" work before NASA could consider. "I am not even going to pick a target launch date at this time." He wanted to give the team "quality time" to go study the issues. Indeed, they called off work at the pad this weekend.

The mission was set to launch more than one week ago, and was most recently rescheduled for a Feb. 27 liftoff, but concerns about flaws in a fuel-pressurization system prompted a series of delays and extensive safety reviews involving engineers across the country.

Once launched, Discovery and her crew are bound for the International Space Station, where they would install the last piece of the outpost's central truss and a giant set of power-generating solar arrays.

Discovery is waiting at the pad for liftoff and the crew is trained and ready to go. They are simply awaiting the completion of the safety analyses and any possible redesign of the system ordered by NASA management.

At issue is the safety of three flow control valves which pop up like lawn sprinklers to help route hydrogen gas from the shuttle main engines through a pipe in the external tank. The gas helps maintain pressure inside the giant orange fuel tank as the rocket propellant is used up.

A tiny piece of one valve snapped off during Endeavour's launch in November. That concerned engineers and safety officials. Because even the smallest of debris inside shuttle fuel lines could rupture other delicate parts of the shuttle propulsion system. Other forms of failure could result in the tank over-pressurizing.

Either way, the worst-case outcomes could include explosion in flight or the premature shutdown of the engines. Any such circumstance could prove disastrous.

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Update: New Discovery Plan Next Week
Space shuttle program managers will develop a plan by Wednesday that they hope allows them to fly Discovery - and later missions - while working to redesign valves in the shuttles' main propulsion system.

Once targeted for Feb. 12 and most recently Feb. 27, a Discovery launch may not be possible before a "cutout" for a Russian Soyuz mission to the International Space Station that runs from March 13 to April 6. The shuttle might not be able to launch during that window.

In a briefing late Friday at Kennedy Space Center, NASA managers said they wanted to do more work to understand the root cause behind the failure of a valve that maintains pressure in the shuttle's orange external tank, by allowing or restricting the flow of hydrogen gas to it.

They said they came close to a decision to launch Discovery, but some engineers questioned assumptions and data from the extensive valve tests conducted across the country in recent weeks, which produced a mountain of fresh data to digest.

"There was a just a sense of unease that we did not quite have the rigor that we typically expect for a question like this," said John Shannon, shuttle program manager.

A small piece broke off a valve during Endeavour's launch last November without doing any damage.

But managers worried about a repeat of that event, possibly involving a bigger chunk of valve.

That could result in an explosion or main engine shutdown that could have disastrous consequences for the crew of seven astronauts.

Shannon said the weeks of testing and Friday's marathon flight readiness review, which began at 9 a.m. and concluded before a 10:30 p.m. press briefing, had the goal of making sure that "we didn't just get lucky" on that STS-126 mission.

The area of most concern is within the orbiter's aft section, inches from where the three valves - one for each main engine - pop up and down to increase or decrease the flow of hydrogen gas.

Meanwhile, work to redesign the valves has already begun. The redesigns could be relatively minor tweaks to their shape or changes in materials that could take four to six months, or a more comprehensive change that could take a year or more.

But officials don't expect the issue to keep shuttles from flying.

"I think the overall philosophy is, while we're working this redesign, we'll have a strategy that allows us to continue to fly with the valves we've got, and we'll do that in parallel," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations.

Shannon said some additional tests and better explanation of their results would help present a convincing rationale for flying, showing a "statistically defensible set of data that tells the story" that probabilities of a valve failure are low and could be survived.

Gerstenmaier said the valve problem has essentially existed since the first shuttle flight in 1981, but modern imaging and computer modeling technology now enabled teams to do a more thorough inspection than ever of microscopic cracks.

And lessons learned from the loss of Columbia's crew in 2003 ensured that engineers didn't assume the problem was minor because of Endeavour's safe result.

The managers said there was no indication yet that later shuttle flights, including a Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission targeted to launch May 12, would need to be pushed back.

Nine shuttle missions remain to be flown before the fleet is retired next year, eight of them to the space station.

"This is just one of those things, in a very complicated vehicle, you're going to have issues like this," said Shannon. "We're gong to make sure we do it right."

Once it has launched, Discovery is scheduled to fly a two-week mission to install a final piece of the space station's central truss and deploy a last set of huge solar array wings.

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Ares I-X segments prepped for trip to KSC
The shuttle solid rocket boosters that will form the first stage of the Ares I-X rocket are being prepped for shipment to Kennedy Space Center after a move from a final assembly facility in Promontory, Utah.

Alliant Techsystems hauled the segments to a holding facility where engineers and technicians are making final preparations for cross-country shipment via railcar in March. The ATK booster train is scheduled to depart Utah on March 9 and arrive at NASA's prime launch operations center about 10 days later. You can click to enlarge and save the ATK photos.

The Ares I-X rocket is tentatively scheduled to blast off July 11 from Launch Complex 39B, where NASA just recently completed the raising of three, 600-foot-tall lightning towers that will protect the vehicle at the pad.

Once at KSC, the four solid rocket booster segments will be integrated with mock-ups of a fifth booster segment, an upper stage, an Orion spacecraft and a Launch Abort System. The segments have been instrumented with more than 100 sensors that will gather data on the performance of the first stage flight control system as well as the stage separation and parachute recovery systems.

The booster segments sport a distictive "Z strip" paint job that will enable engineers to observe and evaluate the rocket's roll during ascent as well as its tumble after stage separation and a subsequent descent into an Atlantic Ocean recovery area.

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Oh, No! OCO Fails To Reach Orbit
Editor's note: the "anomaly" press briefing is now scheduled no earlier than 8 a.m. EST.

A $273.4-million NASA mission to map a key greenhouse gas in Earth's atmosphere has failed to reach its intended orbit.

The payload shroud surrounding the Orbiting Carbon Observatory spacecraft apparently failed to separate more than 12 minutes into a flight that began at 4:55 a.m. EST from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The shroud, also called the nose cone or fairing, should have separated like a clam shell.

"It appears that we were getting indications that the fairing was having problems separating," said George Diller, NASA TV's launch commentator and Kennedy Space Center public affairs official.

"It either did not separate or did not separate in the way that it should. But, at any rate, we are still trying to evaluate exactly what the status of the spacecraft is at this point and confirm the location and the orbit and the exact state the spacecraft is in."

All systems were reported "nominal" until NASA Launch Director Chuck Dovale interrupted the commentary from the mission director's center at Vandenberg.

"It appears we've had a contingency with the OCO mission," he said. "Please enact the mission mishap preparedness and contingency plan."

It is the second failure in eight launches for a Taurus rocket, which debuted in 1994.

Two satellites - including NASA's $50 million ozone-monitoring QuikTOMS satellite - and the cremated remains of 50 people were lost during a failure on Sep. 21, 2001, according to an Associated Press report. The report said the rocket veered from its intended path and fell to the Indian Ocean.

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NASA to Investigate OCO Launch Failure
NASA within 24 to 48 hours plans to name the leader of a investigative board that will try to determine the cause of this morning's failed launch of an environmental observation satellite.

The $273.4-million Orbiting Carbon Observatory, which was expected to map carbon dioxide levels in Earth's atmosphere for at least two years, plunged into the ocean near Antarctica after failing to reach orbit.

The clam shell fairing covering the spacecraft on top of an Orbital Sciences Corp. Taurus XL rocket apparently did not separate as planned less than three minutes into the flight, officials said in a briefing this morning.

The extra weight slowed the four-stage rocket's ascent and it fell back to Earth.

"Our whole team, at a very personal level, are disappointed in the events of this morning," a somber John Brunschwyler, Taurus program manager for Orbital, said during a press briefing this morning. "It's very hard, and we are, as I said, at a very personal level, upset with the results."

The 93-foot Taurus rocket and OCO spacecraft - also built by Orbital - launched at 4:55 a.m. EST from Vandenberg's Launch Complex 576-E.

Everything appeared on track more than 10 minutes into the flight.

But behind the scenes, launch controllers were anxiously monitoring what they hoped were incorrect telemetry signals from the rocket. Eventually, they declared a mishap and ordered all launch information impounded for investigation.

Officials said computer commands to separate the fairing - a two-piece diamter nose cone that protects the spacecraft as it rockets through the atmosphere - appeared to have been sent properly seconds after the rocket's third stage ignited.

But the commands were not executed. The jolt of speed that should have occured after shedding the fairing never materialized.

Brunschwyler said the fairing, which measures more than five feet in diameter, had not caused problems in past flights.

This morning's liftoff was pushed back by four minutes to the later of two possible launch times because of a range safety issue. It was not believed to have had any connection to the vehicle's failure later.

NASA and Orbital officials mourned the loss of an observatory that was supposed to revolutionize understanding of the exchange of carbon dioxide in and out of Earth's atmosphere.

Extremely detailed measurements of carbon dioxide, or CO2, around the globe could have dramatically improved predictions about the future build up of the gas and its possible warming effect on the climate.

CO2 levels have risen rapidly in recent decades due to human activities like the burning of fossil fuel and deforestation.

The OCO mission had been in development for more than six years, after being selected in July 2002 as part of NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder program.

"Certainly for the science community, it's a huge disappointment," said Brunschwyler. "The anticipation of this groundbreaking spacecraft to measure what's in the forefront of every newspaper...and it's taken so long to get here."

"OCO was an important mission to measure critical elements of the carbon cycle," added Michael Frelich, director of NASA's Earth Sciences Division at NASA headquarters in Washington. "Over the next several days, weeks and months, we're going to carefully evaluate how to move forward and advance that science."

Officials declined to speculate about the possible repercussions for NASA's Glory mission, which is targeted to launch June 15 from Vandenberg on a Taurus rocket.

"Our goal will be to find a root cause for the problem, and we won't fly Glory until we have that data known to us," said NASA Launch Director Chuck Dovale of Kennedy Space Center's Launch Services Program.

The failure is the second for a Taurus in eight launches. The first, in 2001, also carried a NASA satellite.

A company statement today said Orbital "believes that it is likely that it gathered sufficient data during the flight that will enable the company to identify the cause of the failure."

Today's launch attempt came a little more than two weeks after NASA's successful launch of a weather satellite from Vandenberg, aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket

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NASA Hatching Go-Forward Plan For Discovery
NASA managers could decide as early as today whether to try to launch Discovery in March or postpone its International Space Station assembly mission until April.

At issue: Whether it's safe to launch the shuttle with suspect main propulsion system valves whose failure - in a worse case scenario -- could trigger catastrophe in flight.

A go-ahead could lead to a launch attempt around March 7. A decision to redesign the valves could lead to a lengthy delay.

NASA must launch Discovery by March 13 to complete its station assembly mission before an already scheduled crew rotation at the outpost. Otherwise, the earliest launch date would be around April 7.

"They're going to finalize the plan," Kennedy Space Center spokeswoman Candrea Thomas said Tuesday.

In either case, NASA contractor technicians today will begin to replace three valves designed to control the flow of gaseous hydrogen from Discovery's three main engines to its 15-story external tank during flight.

About the size and shape of small, pop-up lawn sprinklers, the valves are key to keeping pressure within the tank at proper levels as propellant within it is exhausted at a rate that would empty a backyard swimming pool in 25 seconds.

Too much pressure could trigger a relief valve and dump combustable gaseous hydrogen overboard - a potentially explosive fire hazard. Too little pressure could lead to a premature engine shutdown.

One of the valves on Endeavour failed in flight last November. Extensive tests are being carried out at several NASA centers to determine whether the valves present an unacceptable risk to the shuttle and its crew.

NASA engineers think valves that have flown on fewer flights are less susceptible to failure. The valves being removed from Discovery each have flown 12 times. Two of the replacements have flown four times; the third has flown five times.

Seven Discovery astronauts aim to deliver a set of American solar wings to the station. Launch time on March 7 would be about 10 p.m.

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NASA, Feds Investigating UF Prof.
The Associated Press has filed this update:

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) - Federal investigators are alleging that a University of Florida professor and three other members of his family fraudulently received millions of dollars from NASA and then allegedly funneled money to their personal bank accounts, court documents show.

FBI agents raided the office of the university's Innovative Nuclear Space Power and Propulsion Institute, which was founded by professor Samim Anghaie, an Iranian-born director of the institute and a professor of radiological engineering.

According to court documents, Anghaie and his family members set up a company called New Era Technology, which was known as NETECH. His wife, Sousan Anghaie, was the president of the company.

Court documents allege that NETECH submitted fraudulent proposals to NASA for proposed research contracts. As a result, NETECH received several NASA contracts. NETCH is also accused of submitting fraudulent invoices to NASA which represented hours worked by alleged employees.

Investigators allege that Anghaie and his wife diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars of illegally obtained government funds from their corporate bank account to their personal accounts.

The government alleges that some of the money was diverted to their sons, Ali Anghaie and Hamid Anghaie.

Court documents allege that since 1999, NETECH was awarded 13 contracts from the government and NETECH's bank records show that from 2000, NASA, the Air Force and the Department of Energy deposited nearly $3.4 million into the corporate account.

The documents allege the money was used to pay for cars and real estate.

The federal government filed the documents as part of a motion seeking to seize six cars, six pieces of real estate in Ft. Lauderdale, Gainesville, Manchester, Conn. and Tampa, and several bank accounts.

Steve Orlando, a spokesman for the University of Florida, said Samin Anghaie has been placed on leave with pay.

EARLIER POST:

On behalf of NASA's inspector general, the FBI this morning has raided the office of a University of Florida nuclear engineering professor who studies the application of nuclear power to space propulsion.

The office belongs to Prof. Samim Anghaie, director of the university's Innovative Nuclear Space Power and Propulsion Institute, officials confirmed.

"We're cooperating with their investigation," said Steve Orlando, director of the university's news office.

Orlando said he did not know the reason for the investigation, and referred questions to the U.S. Attorney's northern district office in Tallahassee.

Karen Rhew, an attorney and spokeswoman there, said the warrant was one of several executed this morning by multiple agencies as part of an ongoing investigation.

"There were a series of warrants executed by federal agencies," she said. "I will confirm that one was at the INSPI."

She declined to confirm any other details about the case or its target, and said no arrest had been made and no criminal charges had been filed.

NASA's Office of the Inspector General had no comment.

Investigators began their work before 8 a.m. at Anghaie's office in the Department of Nuclear and Radiological Engineering, Orlando said, and the investigation continued as of 11 a.m.

Orlando said the university had taken no action against Anghaie but was reviewing his employment status.

Anghaie joined UF's faculty in October 1980, according to his personnel file, with some breaks in employment there along the way. He has no record of disciplinary action.

Founded in 1985, the institute conducts "fundamental and applied research in areas related to application of nuclear power in space," according to its Web site. It is funded by government and private grants.

University records show Anghaie has no active NASA grants.

Anghaie's bio cites several papers or lectures given at NASA-sponsored workshops on the topic of nuclear space propulsion.

In 1997, a university press release touted Anghaie's interest in shortening the nearly two-year trip required for a manned mission to reach Mars by developing fuels for a nuclear thermal propulsion rocket.

A 2007 news report also identified him as one of hundreds of professors working on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a $1.5-billion experiment that could be flown by the space shuttle to the International Space Station if an additional shuttle flight is added.

Nine more flights are currently scheduled by next year - eight to complete construction of the space station, and one to service the Hubble Space Telescope.

Learn more about UF's Innovative Nuclear Space Power and Propulsion Institute here. (Editor's note: the link was having trouble connecting this afternoon.)

Investigators also searched a Gainesville home in a subdivision where public records show Anghaie owns a home.

A woman who answered a call to a number listed in Anghaie's name said she had no comment.

We'll provide updates as they become available. You can refresh this page to get the latest report.

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NASA Aims To Launch Discovery March 12
NASA just set March 12 as a new tentative launch date for Discovery -- a target that provides time to replace suspect main propulsion system valves and complete engineering analyses aimed at making certain the shuttle is safe to fly.

Liftoff time would be around 8:54 p.m. EDT. The agency is leaving open an option to move the launch up to March 11 if work between now and then goes well.

NASA in any case would have a back-up launch day on March 13 before the agency stood down for an already scheduled crew rotation at International Space Station.

NASA established the tentative date after putting in place a safety plan that should enable the agency to launch Discovery and a crew of seven astronauts safely.

NASA is replacing three suspect valves that control the flow of gaseous hydrogen into the shuttle's external tank during flight. The valves are key to keeping pressure within the giant tank at proper levels as propellant is exhausted by the ship's three main engines in flight.

One of three valves failed during Endeavour's launch last November, routing gaseous hydrogen into its external tank at a higher than normal rate. Post-flight inspections showed a piece of the lip of the valve - which is the size and shape of a small pop-up lawn sprinkler - cracked off during flight.

Engineers fear a cracked valve could create shards that could rupture a gaseous hydrogen line, resulting in a loss of pressure to the external tank. That could trigger an engine shutdown in flight.

Too much pressure in the tank could force open a separate relief valve that would dump combustible gaseous hydrogen overboard - a potentially explosive fire hazard.

NASA engineers have determined that valves that have been used on fewer flights are less susceptible to failure, so managers ordered up the replacement of the three now on Discovery. Those valves each have flown 12 flights. Technicians are removing them tonight.

Two of the replacement valves have flown four missions; the third replacement has flown five times. They will be delivered to Kennedy Space Center next week and then installed in the orbiter.

If need be, engineers also could shore up gaseous hydrogen lines in places where bends make them more vulnerable and susceptible to damage.

Extensive testing, meanwhile, is continuing at several NASA centers around the country. The tests are aimed at determining how large a piece of debris might be created during a valve failure and how much damage that debris might do to gaseous hydrogen lines. Managers then must determine whether the valves present an unacceptable risk to Discovery and its astronaut crew.

Shuttle program managers will meet next Wednesday to gauge progress, and if all is going well, a formal flight readiness review would be held March 6.

As it stands, Discovery would have to launch by March 13 for its astronauts to complete a mission to deliver a new set of solar wings to the station and then depart the outpost before the March 28 arrival of a fresh resident crew.

Expedition 19 commander Gennady Padalka, flight engineer Michael Barratt and space tourist Charles Simonyi are slated to launch March 26 from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Current station commander Mike Fincke, flight engineer Sandra Magnus and Simonyi then would return to Earth on April 7.

Should Discovery still be on the ground March 14 or later, NASA could negotiate with the Russian Federal Space Agency for a delay in a planned March 26 launch of Padalka and his crew. Or NASA could shorten the 14-day Discovery flight by scrapping one of four planned spacewalks. Either option might gain the agency an extra launch attempt.

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Leader Named for OCO Investigation
NASA has named Rick Obenschain, deputy director of the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., to lead the investigation into Tuesday's failed launch of a $273.4-million climate change satellite.

The payload fairing atop an Orbital Sciences Corp. Taurus XL rocket did not break away as it should have less than three minutes after the booster blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

As a result, the four-stage rocket's two remaining stages slowed and fell back into the ocean near Antarctica, carrying NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory with it.

Obenschain will lead a Mishap Investigation Board that includes four other members who have not yet been named.

NASA says the investigative board will gather information in an effort to determine the failure's root cause, then make recommendations for how to prevent a similar event.

Here's some background on Obenschain provided by NASA:

Obenschain shares responsibility for executive leadership and overall direction and management of Goddard and its assigned programs and projects. He also is responsible for providing executive oversight and technical evaluation for the development and delivery for Goddard space systems launch and operations.

Previously, Obenschain was appointed director of the Flight Projects Directorate in September 2004, and was responsible for the day-to-day management of more than 40 space and Earth science missions. He has held a number of project management positions at Goddard.

Obenschain is the recipient of NASA's Distinguished Service Medal, Exceptional Service Medal, Outstanding Leadership Medal, Equal Opportunity Medal, and Goddard's Award of Merit. In 1995, he received the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics von Braun Award for Excellence in Space Program Management.

First approved in 2002, OCO was supposed to map in detail for at least two years the sources and "sinks" for carbon dioxide - places where the gas is released into Earth's atmosphere and absorbed by plants and oceans.

The observatory's coverage would have been far more comprehensive than current monitoring stations provide, and could have significantly improved modeling of climate change.

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas whose levels have risen dramatically because of human activity since the industrial age, like the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

The launch failure was the first overseen by NASA launch managers since 1996. A NASA ozone-monitoring satellite was lost in 2001 as a secondary payload on the only other Taurus rocket failure. It ended up in the Indian Ocean.

The Taurus now has two failures in eight launches.

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Obama Budget Directs NASA To Stay The Course

President Barack Obama is sticking with plans to retire NASA's shuttle fleet in 2010 and send U.S. astronauts back to the moon by 2020, according to details in the fiscal 2010 budget blueprint delivered to Congress today.

The spending plan calls for $18.7 billion for NASA, according to a copy of the budget obtained by Traci Watson of USA Today. That's up from the $17.2 billion NASA received for fiscal 2009.

Combined with the $1 billion provided to the agency in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 -- the $787 billion stimulus package signed by Obama on Feb. 16 -- this represents a total increase of more than $2.4 billion over the 2008 level. Obama had pledged during the presidential campaign to add $2 billion to the NASA budget.

The budget blueprint calls for NASA to add one more shuttle mission if it can be carried out "safely and affordably" by the end of 2010. Obama had pledged during his presidential campaign to fund an extra mission before shuttle fleet retirement. The flight would haul a particle physics experiment up to the International Space Station.

The budget gives NASA broad direction to stay the course with current plans to return to the moon by 2020 and continue the robotic exploration of the solar system.

NASA Acting Administrator Christopher Scolese said the budget blueprint is "fiscally responsible."

"The $18.7 billion budget proposal for 2010 is fiscally responsible and reflects the administration's desire for a robust and innovative agency aligned with the president's goals of advancing our nation's scientific, educational, economic and security interests," Scolese said in a statement.

"This budget ensures NASA maintains its global leadership in Earth and space research, and it advances global climate change studies, funds a robust program of human and robotic space exploration, allows us to realize the full potential of the International Space Station, advances development of new space transportation systems, and renews our commitment to aeronautics."

Check out the Fiscal 2010 Budget Blueprint. You can search the 146-page budget blueprint using the keyword NASA to locate all the details. There are two pages that detail the NASA spending plan. For the highlights click

The budget:

++Funds a program of space-based research that supports the Administration's commitment to deploy a global climate change research and monitoring system.

++Funds a robust program of space exploration involving humans and robots. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration will return humans to the Moon while also supporting a vigorous program of robotic exploration of the solar system and universe.

++Funds the safe flight of the Space Shuttle through the vehicle's retirement at the end of 2010.

++An additional flight will be conducted if it can be completed safely before the end of 2010.

++Funds the development of new space flight systems for carrying American crews and supplies to space.

++Funds continued use of the International Space Station to support the agency and other Federal, commercial, and academic research and technology testing needs.

++Funds aeronautics research to address aviation safety, air traffic control, noise and emissions reduction, and fuel efficiency.

The more detailed language on the future of human space flight says the budget:

++Funds a Robust Program of Space Exploration involving humans and Robots. NASA's astronauts and robotic spacecraft have been exploring our solar system and the universe for more than 50 years. The Agency will create a new chapter of this legacy as it works to return Americans to the Moon by 2020 as part of a robust human and robotic space exploration program. NASA also will send a broad suite of robotic missions to destinations throughout the solar system and develop a bold new set of astronomical observatories to probe the mysteries of the universe, increasing investment in research, data analysis, and technology development in support of these goals.

++Completes the International Space Station and Advances the development of New Space Transportation Systems. NASA will fly the Space Shuttle to complete the International Space Station and then retire the Shuttle in 2010; an additional flight may be conducted if it can safely and affordably be flown by the end of
2010. Funds freed from the Shuttle's retirement will enable the Agency to support development of systems to deliver people and cargo to the International Space Station and the Moon. As part of this effort, NASA will stimulate private-sector
development and demonstration of vehicles that may support the Agencyâ

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Delta IV Rocket Raised At Cape Canaveral
A United Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket was erected at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station earlier this week as NASA geared up for the launch in April of a new hurricane-tracking satellite.

The Delta IV and its payload -- a Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite known by the acronym GOES-O -- are slated to blast off around April 28 from Launch Complex 37.

The payload is one of a new generation of weather satellites built by Boeing for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NASA is responsible for procuring and overseeing launch services for the spacecraft.

GOES satellites provide the familiar weather pictures seen on television newscasts around the country. They play a key role in tracking the development of hurricanes off the west coast of Africa and are used to track the course of tropical storms as they cross the Atlantic Ocean and threaten communities in the Caribbean Sea and along the eastern seaboard of the United States.

Data from the satellites are crucial to forecasting projected paths of hurricanes and issuing advanced warnings that enable communities to board up and evacuate as cyclones approach.

NOAA and NASA in 1998 awarded a contract to Hughes Space and Communications -- now Boeing -- for the manufacture, launch and delivery in orbit of up to four advanced weather satellites as well as the delivery of associated ground systems elements.

The basic contract called for Boeing to build two spacecraft, but NOAA exercised an option for a third spacecraft soon after the original pact was signed. The first of the satellites -- GOES-N -- was successfully launched by Boeing on May 24, 2006 -- about six months before the formation of United Launch Alliance, which is a joint venture partnership of Boeing and Lockheed Martin that merges the Delta and Atlas families of Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELVs). ULA is a prime launch services contractor for federal government agencies that include NASA, NOAA, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Air Force and the National Reconnaissance Office.

The GOES-O spacecraft to be launched in April is scheduled to be shipped to Cape Canaveral aboard an Air Force C-17 heavy-lift cargo aircraft next week. It will be transported to Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville for final integration and testing before subsequent delivery to Launch Complex 37 for installation atop the Delta IV.

The third in the series of satellites -- GOES-P -- is in ground storage at a Boeing facility in El Segundo, California, and will undergo final thermal vacuum testing during the next several months.

That satellite currently is scheduled to blast off Dec. 16 aboard another Delta IV rocket at Launch Complex 37.

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NASA Moon Mission Delayed Almost A Month
NASA's first mission in a bid to return to the moon is being pushed back almost a month due to a delay in a military satellite launch and precise timing required for the lunar mission.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter now is being targeted for launch May 20 aboard an Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The moon mapper and a piggyback payload that will search for polar ice had been slated to fly on April 24.

Launch of the mission must be timed to put both the orbiter and its companion spacecraft on the proper course to achieve science objectives. Two- to three-day launch opportunities come up about every two weeks.

NASA was forced to forego a planned April 24 launch as well as a launch opportunity between May 7 and May 9 when the planned May 9 launch of another Atlas V with a military communications satellite slipped to March 13.

NASA had considered trying to launch the moon mission during the early May window but ultimately decided that Atlas turnaround operations would make the schedule too tight.

NASA earlier this week set March 12 as a tentative launch date for shuttle Discovery's International Space Station assembly mission. But the agency has yet to officially book the date on the Air Force Eastern Range, which provides tracking, range safety, weather forecasting and launch scheduling services for all missions from Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The U.S. Air Force would have to agree to push back the March 13 Atlas V launch for Disvovery to fly on March 12. It typically takes two days to reset range systems for the launch of different vehicles.

The mission will be the first to fly since President Bush in 2004 directed NASA to return astronauts to the moon by 2020. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will map the lunar surface and scout for safe landing sites in areas where NASA might locate a future moon base.

The secondary payload -- dubbed the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS -- will comprise the Atlas V's Centaur upper stage and a shepherding satellite.

The Centaur will be sent on a suicide dive into a dark, shadowed crater at one of the moon's poles, kicking up a large cloud of debris. The instrumented satellite will fly through the debris plume and gather data on its contents for scientists back on Earth.

The aim is to confirm the presence or absence of water ice in the crater. NASA's Lunar Prospector found evidence of concentrated stores of hydrogen at the poles, a sign that water ice might be harbored there. Water ice could be used at a moon base to generate water and breathing air for colonists.

The Atlas V slated to blast off from Launch Complex 41 on March 13 will carry the Wideband Global SATCOM-2 satellite. The spacecraft is the second in a series of next-generation military communications satellites designed to augment and eventually replace aging Defense Satellite Communication System spacecraft that have been the Pentagon's orbital workhorses for more than two decades.

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Launch Group At KSC Tallies Remarkable Record
The failed launch last week of a Taurus rocket was a first for NASA's Launch Services Program, which has chalked up a remarkable record of successful launches in the past decade.

Formed in 1998 as part of an agency-wide consolidation, the group tallied an admirable 56 consecutive successful launches between its inaugural launch of Deep Space-1 in October 1998 and the Feb. 9 launch of a national polar-orbiting weather satellite for the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration.

NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory was lost last Tuesday after a Taurus XL rocket launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California failed in flight. Data telemetered back to Earth during the flight indicated the rocket's payload fairing failed to separate. The rocket crashed into Antarctic seas.

The LSP is based at Kennedy Space Center and manages launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Other launch locations include NASA's Wallops Island flight facility in Virginia, the North Pacific's Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and Kodiak Island in Alaska.

The group has lofted a host of historic missions, including the Mars Spirit and Opportunity rovers, the Lunar Prospector and the Cassini mission to Saturn as well as the Stardust, Genesis and Deep Space missions.

NASA since 1990 has been procuring launch services from the commercial sector, but up until 1998, management oversight for Expendable Launch Vehicle launch services was performed at two other NASA field centers.

Delta rocket launches were managed by Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and the Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio (now known as the Glenn Research Center) managed Atlas rocket missions.

The management oversight for all NASA Expendable Launch Vehicle missions was consolidated at Kennedy Space Center in 1998 as part of an agency reorganization that was ordered up by then-NASA Administrator Dan Goldin.

Steve Francois is the head of the LSP at KSC. Omar Baez and Chuck Dovale are launch directors for the LSP.

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Public Picks Cuddling Galaxies As Hubble Target
The polls are closed, all the ballots are in and we have a winner: the public is pointing NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to a pair of cuddling galaxies that are coming together in deep space.

A total of 139,944 votes were cast online for six candidates during NASA's month-long "Hubble, You Decide" contest. Forty-eight percent of those votes -- 67,021 -- were cast for two interacting galaxies known as Arp 274.

Drawn together by their gravity, the galactic pair might be spawning offspring. The spiral shapes of the galaxies largely are intact, but as they merge together, the gas clouds inside them might be forming new stars.

A spiral galaxy hosting more than 100 billion stars (NGC 5172) came second place with 26,987 votes, or 19 percent of the total.

Third place went to an interstellar nursery (NGC 6334) where hot young stars emit high-energy radiation. It had 21,475 votes, or 15 percent of the vote.

In fourth place was an edge-on galaxy (NGC 4289) with 11,451 votes, or eight percent of the ballot. Two planetary nebula (NGC 40 and NGC 6072) came in fifth and sixth, respectively. Each had less than one percent of the vote.

You can see all the candidates here: Hubble, You Decide

The workhorse camera that has captured Hubble's most iconic images -- Wide-Field Planetary Camera 2 -- will take a high-resolution image of the winning candidate. The image will be released in early April as part of the agency's International Year of Astronomy celebration.

Launched from Kennedy Space Center in April 1990 aboard shuttle Discovery, the Hubble telescope is designed to be repaired by astronauts. NASA aims to launch a fifth and final Hubble servicing mission on May 12.

An astronaut crew led by veteran mission commander Scott Altman will outfit the observatory with two new science instruments, attempt to repair two others, and equip the telescope with gear that will extend its useful life another five years.

http://hubble.nasa.gov/missions/sm4.php
http://www.nasa.gov/hubble
http://www.floridatoday.com/apps ... n?category=news0202

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GAO: NASA projects late and over budget
FLORIDA TODAY's EUN KYUNG KIM reports from Washington:


WASHINGTON- Most of NASA's big-ticket projects fail to come in under budget or on time, according to a government audit released today.

Ten out of 13 large-scale NASA projects that cost $250 million or more exceed their budget, on average, by 13 percent, according to the report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. Those same projects also have an average launch delay of 11 months.

"While NASA's budget represents less than 2 percent of the federal government's fiscal discretionary budget, the agency is increasingly being asked to expand its portfolio to support important scientific missions including the study of climate change," the GAO said in its report.

"Therefore, it is exceedingly important that these resources be managed as effectively and efficiently as possible. In the past, this has not always been the case," auditors said, noting NASA's history of failing to meet cost, schedule and performance objectives.

Among the programs examined:

--The Ares 1 rocket, which has gone $304 million over budget and slipped a year, from 2014 to 2015, in its first scheduled manned launch.

--The Orbiting Carbon Observatory, which failed to reach orbit after an unsuccessful launch last week, was five months late and $38 million over budget.

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Kepler Launch Set for Friday Night
NASA managers today officially scheduled a 10:49 p.m. Friday launch time for the agency's Kepler telescope, a $600-million mission that will search for Earth-like planets in habitable zones around other stars.

"We're ready to fly," said NASA spokesman George Diller after a flight readiness review at Kennedy Space Center that reconvened briefly at 6 p.m.

Managers determined that United Launch Alliance's Delta II rocket does not have much in common with an Orbital Sciences Corp. Taurus XL booster that failed last week.

Engineers took extra time this afternoon to complete their review of the two vehicles, focusing on the payload fairing system that did not separate on the Taurus last Tuesday, causing a NASA satellite to crash into the ocean.

"They went through a very methodical process of eliminating all the areas of potential similarities or commonalities, and really didn't find any," said Diller. "We had to make sure we had gone through everything, and we finished that up this afternoon."

Diller said no other serious issues were presented during today's readiness review.

NASA's KSC-based Launch Services Program oversaw the failed Taurus launch - the program's first failure since it was created in 1998 - and is managing the Kepler launch.

The go-ahead to blast off Friday sets the stage for fueling of the Delta II's second stage to begin Tuesday morning at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 17-B.

On Friday, Kepler has two three-minute launch windows, the first starting at 10:49 p.m. and the second at 11:13 p.m.

Weather is expected to be very good, with only a 10 percent chance of conditions prohibiting a liftoff.

The Kepler observatory will survey more than 100,000 stars in the Milky Way. It will watch for stars to wink as orbiting planets cross their path, and measure the change in brightness.

Mission scientists hope by the end of a 3.5-year mission to announce if Earth-size planets in habitable zones around stars - where liquid water could exist on the surface - are common or not.

A pre-launch press briefing held at KSC is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. Thursday, followed immediately by a mission science overview.

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NASA Scores Successful Ares Parachute Test
Blogger Note: This just in from NASA:

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- NASA and industry engineers successfully completed the second drop test of a drogue parachute for the Ares I rocket. The test took place Feb. 28 at the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground near Yuma, Ariz.

The Ares I, the first launch vehicle in NASA's Constellation Program, will send explorers to the International Space Station, the moon and beyond in coming decades. The drogue parachute is a vital element of the rocket's deceleration system; it is designed to slow the rapid descent of the spent first-stage motor that will be jettisoned by the Ares I during its climb to space. The parachute will permit recovery of the reusable first-stage motor for use on future Ares I flights.
The first-stage solid rocket motor will power the Ares I rocket for the first two minutes of launch.

This was the seventh in an ongoing series of flight tests supporting development of the Ares I parachute recovery system, which includes a pilot chute, drogue and three main parachutes. Researchers dropped the 68-foot-diameter drogue parachute and its 50,000-pound load, which simulates the rocket's spent first-stage motor, from a U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft flying at an altitude of 25,000 feet. The parachute and all test hardware functioned properly and landed safely.

The parachutes being developed for the Ares I recovery system are similar to those used for the four-segment space shuttle boosters, but they have been redesigned to accommodate new requirements of the Ares I first stage. The Ares I will have a five-segment solid rocket booster that will move faster and fall from a higher altitude than the shuttle boosters.

Engineers from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manage the team that conducted the test. ATK Launch Systems near Promontory, Utah, is the prime contractor for the first-stage booster. ATK's subcontractor, United Space Alliance of Houston, is responsible for design, development and testing of the parachutes at its facilities at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston manages the Constellation Program, which includes the Ares I rocket, the Ares V heavy-lift launch vehicle, the Orion crew spacecraft and the Altair lunar lander. Marshall manages the Ares Projects. The U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground provides the test range, support facilities and equipment to NASA for parachute testing.

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NASA missing out on funds without leader
Gannett News Service's Eun Kyung Kim has filed this report:

WASHINGTON - The lack of an official NASA administrator may be hampering the agency from getting its fair share of federal dollars during current budget negotiations, lawmakers said today.

President Barack Obama and his economic advisers are making budget projections that will stretch years down the road, and "NASA needs to be at the table when these decisions are being made," said Rep. Frank Wolf, a Virginia Republican on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies.

The panel held a hearing to discuss the role NASA science, and other agency programs, play in the overall science enterprise.

Lennard A. Fisk, a former NASA associate administrator, argued that several congressional bills have treated science within NASA as less important than similar programs in other agencies.

As an example, he cited the recently implemented stimulus bill that only singled out Earth science for substantial funding.

"As a practicing space scientist, and someone who throughout much of my career has been concerned with science policy, I can find no logic in the judgment that NASA science is of less importance than other scientific disciplines," said Fisk, now a space science professor at the University of Michigan.

Wolf, the top Republican on the panel, said the current economic crisis will probably prevent NASA from getting the money he said the agency deserves.

The nation's debt continues to grow, and he said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton recently visited China practically "with a tin cup" in her hand.

But Fisk said that investing in NASA science will have a positive impact on the nation's financial system.

"The technology developed for scientific exploration enhances our other space activities, and finds its way into our economy," he said. "The youth of our nation are inspired by the brilliance of our scientific achievements in space, and encouraged to pursue careers in science and engineering."