Space Station may have to be abandoned

The failure of a Soyuz rocket to send a supply ship into space last week may mean that the International Space Station will have to be temporarily abandoned for the first time since 2000, Florida Today reports.

Russian space vehicles are the only means of ferrying crews and supplies to the station now that the U.S. space shuttle program has ended.

Last week, the third-stage failure of a Soyuz rocket sent an unmanned Progress supply ship crashing into Siberia.

As a result, plans to launch a new crew to the station on Sept. 21 have been postponed indefinitely while Russian officials investigate why the rocket failed.

Mike Suffredini, NASA's program manager for the space station, says two factors could now force the temporary abandonment of the station, the newspaper reports.

First, is the imminent expiration date of the "certified orbital lifetimes" of two Soyuz "lifeboats" now attached to the station. The second involves flight rules that call for crews to return to Earth during daylight.

Three of the crewmembers aboard the station -- two Russians and an American -- have already delayed their planned Sept. 8 return by a week while the probee continues.

They will likely return before Sept. 19 -- the last daylight landing opportunity that month in the central steppes of Kazakhstan, Florida Today reports.

The next opportunity would not come until Oct. 27, about 10 days beyond the 200-day "certified orbital lifetime" of their Soyuz taxi back home.

The remaining three crew members need to return before Nov. 19 -- the last daylight landing opportunity that month.

Otherwise, the certified life of their Soyuz spacecraft will expire before the next daylight opportunity rolls around in late December, the newspaper says.

Al Qaida #2 - now # none. Killed by US.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Al-Qaida's second-in-command, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, has been killed in Pakistan, delivering another big blow to a terrorist group that the U.S. believes to be on the verge of defeat, U.S. officials said Saturday.
The Libyan national had been the network's operational leader before rising to al-Qaida's No. 2 spot after the U.S. killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden during a raid on his Pakistan compound in May.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last month that al-Qaida's defeat was within reach if the U.S. could mount a string of successful attacks on the group's weakened leadership.
"Now is the moment, following what happened with bin Laden, to put maximum pressure on them," Panetta said, "because I do believe that if we continue this effort we can really cripple al-Qaida as a major threat."
Since bin Laden's death, al-Qaida's structure has been unsettled and U.S. officials have hoped to capitalize on that. The more uncertain the leadership, the harder it is for al-Qaida to operate covertly and plan attacks.

Bin Laden's longtime deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is running the group but is considered a divisive figure who lacks the founder's charisma and ability to galvanize al-Qaida's disparate franchises.
A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to summarize the government's intelligence on al-Rahman, said al-Rahman's death will make it harder for Zawahiri to oversee what is considered an increasingly weakened organization.

"Zawahiri needed Atiyah's experience and connections to help manage al-Qaida," the official said.
Al-Rahman was killed Aug. 22 in the lawless Pakistani tribal region of Waziristan, according to a senior administration who also insisted on anonymity to discuss intelligence issues.
The official would not say how al-Rahman was killed. But his death came on the same day that a CIA drone strike was reported in Waziristan. Such strikes by unmanned aircraft are Washington's weapon of choice for killing terrorists in the mountainous, hard-to-reach area along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

It's a miracle! B-2 Spirit resurrected!

by Daryl Mayer
88th Air Base Wing Public Affairs

8/23/2011 - WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio -- Sadly, we've seen too many comrades return home bearing the scars of war -- enough that the term "wounded warrior" has become entrenched in the American lexicon and merits millions of hits on Google.

So when a 'wounded warrior' - a veteran which has stood ready to answer its country's call -- flew into Palmdale, Calif., on August 16, it could've passed as yet another sad and noble story.

Except that aircraft number 0332, the B-2 bomber named the "Spirit of Washington," hadn't received its scars in battle, but from a horrific fire in February 2010 that left it unable to fly.

Marooned on the island of Guam, the aircraft needed to travel to Northrop Grumman's maintenance facility in Palmdale. Six thousand miles across the Pacific is normally a cakewalk for an aircraft that was designed to project U.S. power to any spot on the globe. But the Spirit of Washington was going to need a lot of work just to get off the ground.

What ensued over the next 18 months was nothing short of a herculean effort, according to Col. Mark Williams, Aeronautical Systems Center's B-2 Division Chief.

"This was a truly amazing effort with tremendous teamwork between my folks in the B-2 Division, B-2 System Support Branch, Northrop Grumman, Global Strike Command, Air Force Materiel Command, Global Logistics Support Center, U.S. Transportation Command, and the Air National Guard," Colonel Williams said. "A very large group of people came together to bring this aircraft home."

Early on, the team set a goal to have the aircraft in Palmdale before the end of the 2011 fiscal year.

"We budget for three aircraft every other year to receive Programmed Depot Maintenance (PDM)," Colonel Williams said. "It was an aggressive goal, but we wanted to get 0332 to Palmdale before the end of FY11 as our third PDM."

Getting a team on the ground was the first order of business and Northrop Grumman basically deployed a team of engineers and technicians to work with the Air Force. The task list was long and included rebuilding some structural components, work that typically is only done at the depot.

"Our goal was to make the aircraft safe to fly. We knew it would be going straight in for depot maintenance and didn't want to duplicate anything. But there were some depot-level items that needed attention to ensure our flight crew would be safe," Colonel Williams said.

The colonel dispatched two of his best from the division to be his eyes and ears on the ground.

Lt. Col. Greg Tolmoff deployed and learned how to inspect and certify the repairs to ensure every task was performed to standard. Senior Master Sgt. Keith Sanders used his 16 years of experience as a B-2 Maintenance Crew Chief to help guide and assess progress.

"I can't say enough about how Greg and Keith performed," Colonel Williams said. "I'm extremely proud of the dedication they displayed during periods of long hours and family separation."

Once the aircraft was ready to again take the skies, the entire team outlined a comprehensive plan to fly the aircraft home. They established very strict controls on weight, altitude, and speed to lessen stress on the airframe. In-flight refueling was used to prevent ever having to take on the weight of a full load of fuel and a support aircraft followed along to assist the flight crew with avoiding turbulent weather and coordinate with air traffic control.

"The 141st Air Refueling Wing (ANG) deployed to Guam from Fairchild, Washington, and provided KC-135s for refueling and to serve as a support plane," Colonel Williams said. "That allowed us to put a team of Northrop engineers in the support plane where they could monitor the aircraft's performance and offer technical advice to deal with any issues."

Fortunately for all, this "wounded warrior" took to the skies like the proverbial phoenix traveling the entire distance without incident and landing in Palmdale more than a month ahead of schedule. It now starts a 24 month PDM process that will completely return this veteran to operational duty for the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman AFB, Mo.

Looking at a photo of 0332 silhouetted against Joshua Trees and the rising California sun taken as it prepared to land in Palmdale, Colonel Williams has the look of someone who witnessed something amazing.

"I'm going to make that photo my new computer wallpaper," he sa

Russian ISS supply rocket crashes ...

(CNN) -- A Russian space freighter carrying cargo to the International Space Station has crashed in a remote area of Siberia, Russian emergency officials said Wednesday.
The unmanned Progress cargo craft, which launched at 7 p.m. in Kazakhstan (9 a.m. ET) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, was due to dock with the ISS on Friday.
Rescue teams have been dispatched to the crash site of the Progress-M12M, the regional branch of the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry told CNN.

Officials could not immediately confirm whether the crash might have caused any damage on the ground. Russia's Interfax news agency reported that the rocket had come down in the Altai region.

Earlier on Wednesday, Russian government space agency Roscosmos reported that the cargo ship had deviated from its planned trajectory shortly after takeoff, failing to reach the target orbit, and had disappeared from radars.

"The engine system's erratic functioning and its subsequent breakdown occurred during the operation of the third stage at the 325th second of the flight of the Soyuz-U carrier rocket with the Progress M-12M resupply vehicle," Roscosmos said in a statement.

The spacecraft was to deliver more than 3.5 tonnes (about 3.85 U.S. tons) of cargo to the crew of the ISS now orbiting the Earth, Roscosmos said.
The load included food supplies, medical equipment, personal hygiene items, as well as scientific equipment needed for experiments aboard the ISS, according to space officials.
There are currently six astronauts at the ISS -- three from Russia, two from the United States and one from Japan.

Libyan rebels flying surveillance drone, called the Aeryon Scout.

WIRED DANGER ROOM: The Libyan revolutionaries are more of a band of enthusiastic amateurs than experienced soldiers. But it turns out the rebels have the kind of weaponry usually possessed by advanced militaries: their very own drone.

Aeryon Labs, a Canadian defense firm, revealed on Tuesday that it had quietly provided the rebel forces with a teeny, tiny surveillance drone, called the Aeryon Scout. Small enough to fit into a backpack, the 3-pound, four-rotor robot gave Libyan forces eyes in the sky independent of the Predators, Fire Scout surveillance copters and manned spy planes that NATO flew overhead. Don’t worry, it’s not armed.

So far, the rebels have just one Scout among them, according to Marni McVicar, Aeryon’s vice president for business development. Working with a Canadian private security company called Zariba, Aeryon delivered the Scout “several weeks” ago to rebels in the Western port city of Misurata who used it, according to McVicar, to hasten their surprisingly rapid march to Tripoli.

The rebels needed barely a day of training to use a technology that many national armies would love to acquire. “We like to joke that it’s designed for people who are not that bright, have fat fingers and break things,” McVicar told Danger Room in a phone interview.

Listening to McVicar’s description, the Aeryon Scout sounds user-friendly enough to be operated by the car dealers, medical students and teachers who formed the impromptu Libyan rebel army in the west. Unlike many minidrones, the Scout isn’t controlled by a joystick. It’s run by a touchscreen tablet powered by Windows XP. The interface divides the screen among imagery (still or video) that the drone collects and displays in real time, a control dashboard and a programmable map of the area to fly over.

“You simply press on the screen and that’s where the vehicle goes,” McVicar said. “Press where you want the camera to focus on, and you’re done.”

It also gives the rebels another advantage that lots of armies desire: night vision. A thermal-imagery camera aboard the Scout provides an alternative to night-vision goggles, and from arguably a better vantage point. In the video above, released by Aeryon on Tuesday, nighttime images of Libyan artillery positions come into view from the Scout.

McVicar wouldn’t say how much the Libyan rebels paid for the drone. But she noted when asked that the drone retails for $100,000.

How the rebels even got the drone is fascinating as well. Representatives of Libya’s rebel government checked out demos of the Scout in Ottawa, Ontario, a few months ago. They were frustrated with not being able to see the aerial imagery NATO collected from its satellites, spy planes and drones, and wanted their own flying robots — although it’s been reported that NATO has coordinated surveillance with the rebels ahead of the Tripoli offensive. Some rebels had even taken to strapping cameras onto model airplanes. After being impressed with the Scout, the Transitional National Council decided it wanted something a bit more professional.

So a Canadian military vet, Charles Barlow, brought it personally into Misurata. Armed with a Canadian export license and the backpack-sized Scout, Barlow boarded a retrofitted tuna boat at Malta that was used to send humanitarian aid to Misurata despite NATO’s maritime blockade in late July. As far as Barlow is aware, Canada licensed the drone for sale to the Libyan rebels, but NATO didn’t know that the boat carried it into port, even after multiple hailings by NATO vessels.

Barlow, who runs a Canadian private-security firm called the Zariba Security Corporation, told Danger Room that he spent only about 24 hours teaching Misurata’s rebels how to use the Scout. On the bombed-out airfield near the port, Barlow launched about 10 test flights while Gadhafi’s artillery crashed down only a few miles away.

There was also little doubt about where the Libyan rebels wanted to use it. “The only imagery they wanted loaded on was Misurata to Tripoli, on that coastal road,” Barlow said. “I can’t hand-on-heart tell you it’s in Tripoli, but this was the main front out of Misurata.”

As Paul McLeary at Ares notes, the arrival of drone technology — even in micromachine form — to a band of rebels is yet another example of the rapid proliferation of unmanned vehicles away from the control of powerful state militaries. It was a big deal in 2005 when Hezbollah flew Iranian surveillance drones into Israel. “It’s certainly not the last time a nonstate actor gets its hands on this kind of technology,” McLeary writes.

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