The word is that the next launch of an ISC Kosmotras Dnepr booster carrying a cluster of satellites has been officially delayed until April 17th. No details were immediate available as to cause of the Dnepr delay.

Meanwhile, another Dnepr customer – Bigelow Aerospace – has shipped its Genesis 2 space complex module from Las Vegas, Nevada. The expandable module is expected to be lofted into orbit in mid-April from the ISC Kosmotras Space and Missile Complex near Yasny, Russia. The Genesis 2 launch window begins on April 19, according to statement from Bigelow Aerospace.

Genesis 2 – like its predecessor, Genesis 1 now in Earth orbit — is a one-third scale version of the commercial space modules able to house space travelers that Bigelow Aerospace hopes to launch in the future.

According to an article in The Mail, scientists have created sheep with half their organs being human and, overall, 15 per cent human cells. Now that’s freaky.

But there’s potential scientific benefit, the scientist say: They aim to match the DNA in transplantable organs from a sheep to a particular transplant patient, improving the odds of a successful transplant by reducing the chance the patient’s body will reject the foreign organ.

The work, at the University of Nevada-Reno, has been going on for many months.

The latest news on the sheep comes just as a debate has flared over interspecies cloning, in which researchers are trying to put human DNA into animal species eggs in order do study human diseases without using human eggs.

Some say all this sort of work is morally wrong. Others just think it’s creepy. And some point out potential risk such as new types of viruses being introduced into the human population.

“Many silent viruses could create a biological nightmare in humans. Mutant animal viruses are a real threat, as we have seen with HIV,” said atrick Dixon, an international lecturer on biological trends, in the Mail article.

Should scientists be doing research like this? While you ponder that, check out our Top 10 Freakiest Lab Animals.

The job of hauling what will be the International Space Station’s (ISS) largest laboratory when installed now rests in the hands of the two-spaceflight veteran, five-rookie crew of NASA’s STS-124 mission, the space agency announced today.

Two-time shuttle flyer Mark Kelly, who served as pilot on NASA’s STS-121 mission last July, will command the STS-124 spaceflight aboard the Atlantis shuttle, which will deliver the Japanese-built Kibo laboratory [image] to the ISS no earlier than late February 2008.

Kenneth Ham, a U.S. Navy commander and first-time shuttle flyer, will serve as pilot, with veteran astronaut Michael Fossum and rookies Karen Nyberg, Ronald Garan, Stephen Bowen and Akihiko Hoshide – of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) – rounding out the crew.

Kibo, which mean “Hope” in Japanese, is a 37-foot (11.2-meter) long pressurized module with a diameter of about 14.4 feet (4.4 meters), and marks Japan’s first human spaceflight facility bound for orbit.

Earlier this year, NASA space station program manager Michael Suffredini said Kibo will be the “largest laboratory ever to exist at the International Space Station,” and as such very little else will get to ride up to the ISS alongside the new orbital lab.

“It’ll be an awesome sight to see how it fills up the payload bay when it flies,” Suffredini said.

Kibo is actually the second of three pieces of JAXA’s Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) contribution to the ISS. A pressurized logistics module will be launched to the ISS on NASA’s STS-123 mission prior to Kibo’s arrival, then stored in a temporary parking spot.

It is during the STS-124 mission that astronauts will attach Kibo’s logistics module and its own robotic arm. The third JEM component, an external experiment platform, will be launched to the ISS on a later flight.

In addition to his STS-121 flight, Kelly served as pilot on NASA’s STS-108 mission in 2001. Fossum, a veteran spacewalker, flew alongside Kelly on the STS-121 mission, which featured three extravehicular activities.

Of the five rookies, Hoshide is the most recent graduate to NASA’s astronaut ranks. He was selected as a JAXA astronaut in 2001, and completed NASA’s Astronaut Candidate Training in 2006 after two years of intense work.

There’s a lot riding on the upcoming ISC Kosmotras Dnepr blastoff - for many reasons.

The silo-launched booster-for-hire is set to depart the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan late evening on Monday, March 26, U.S. west coast time.

There will be 26 spacecraft - count ‘em - 26 spacecraft on this cluster launch, with the primary payload being EgyptSat.

Part of that mix are seven cubesats flying as secondary payloads, a majority of those built by university students. Also in that number is Bothell, Washington-based Tether Unlimited’s Multi-Application Survivable Tether (MAST) flight experiment, which includes three tethered picosats.

Everybody concerned has fingers crossed for this flight - and no wonder. A set of 14 cubesats from 10 different universities and one private company all lost their payloads when a Dnepr launcher failed, plowing a hole in the Kazakh tundra back in late July 2006.

Check out that smashing story at:

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/060830_cubesats.html

Another group keeping an eye on this Dnepr mission is Bigelow Aerospace of Las Vegas, Nevada. A straight and true flight of the rocket would surely sound an all-clear for takeoff of that firm’s Genesis-2 expandable module - to be lofted in the near future by another Dnepr rocket.

NASA’s Congressionally-requested report on asteroids — and what to do about worrisome, Earth-smacking space rocks — is in the cross-hairs of former Apollo astronaut, Russell Schweickart.

For one, the study spotlighted use of nuclear standoff explosions to divert a potentially hazardous object, suggesting that such a technique is 10-100 times more effective than the non-nuclear alternatives analyzed by NASA study officials.

That conclusion has been flagged by an asteroid expert as one of the greatest stupidities in the report.

Meanwhile, Schweickart has launched his own report deflection campaign, requesting NASA chief, Mike Griffin, to support open discussion and examination of the report’s findings. Schweickart is mounting an effort to bring out basic issues either not considered or ignored in the NASA report to Congress.

“Outsiders” to the NASA study — Near Earth Object Survey and Deflection Analysis of Alternatives — have been denied access to the larger, over 270-page “limited edition” of the final report. That makes it essentially impossible to know, let alone critique, the sources used to prop up the NASA report conclusions, Schweickart says.

If you want to take your own look at a 27-page slice of the larger, still stealthy version of the full NASA report to Congress on near Earth objects, check out:

http://www.nasa.gov/about/reports/index.html
  

The International Space Station (ISS) is flying just a bit higher today thanks to a handy robotic space freighter docked at the orbital laboratory.

Russia’s unmanned ISS cargo ship Progress 23, which is currently berthed at the aft end of the space station’s Russian-built Zvezda service module, fired eight thrusters for 12 minutes and 32 seconds to boost the space station’s orbit into the proper position to meet a new batch of astronauts next month.

The result: A 6.3-mile (10-kilometer) boost for the ISS.

So now, instead of orbiting the Earth in a 214-mile by 199-mile (344-km by-320 km), the space station has evened itself out a bit to reach a 214 by 205-mile (344 by 330-km) orbit.

While it seems like a relatively minor shift, the orbital reboost is a landmark for two astronauts aboard the ISS. The maneuver means the space station is now in position to receive the relief crew for Expedition 14 commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and flight engineer Mikhail Tyurin, who have lived aboard the ISS since late September.

Expedition 15 commander Fyodor Yurchikin and flight engineer Oleg Kotov – not to mention U.S. space tourist Charles Simonyi – are due to launch towards the ISS on April 7, then dock two days later. Expedition 14 flight engineer Sunita Williams will join the Expedition 15 crew, while Simonyi will return to Earth with Lopez-Alegria and Tyurin around April 17 or so.

So hooray for orbital mechanics. It means the Expedition 14 crew is one step closer to coming home.

 In other news, how bout that new Node 2 name Harmony?

High-flying chunks of junk brought about by China’s January 11 anti-satellite (ASAT) test now total 1,344 pieces of space debris as of March 9 - a count that continues to climb.

While a few bits of ASAT-produced clutter from destroying their own old weather satellite have already reentered the Earth’s atmosphere, the Chinese target practice is rated as the largest debris-generating event in space history.

“Platforms costing billions of dollars to replace and the lives of astronauts from many nations are now at risk from debris left by China’s recent ill-advised antisatellite test,” General James Cartwright, head of the U.S. Strategic Command noted in testimony before a recent congressional hearing of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee.

Meanwhile, a subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) — or is it the Useless Pieces of Outer Space? — adopted by consensus last month a set of space debris mitigation guidelines - the product of a multi-year effort. The full UN COPUOS is expected to approve the guidelines at its next meeting in June.

A months-in-the-making NASA report to Congress on asteroids has reached the desks of lawmakers. The congressionally-mandated appraisal — Near-Earth Object Survey and Deflection Analysis of Alternatives — is a 27-page chunk from a longer, over 270-page “limited edition” report.

One early responder to the report is not too pleased.

“We are still reviewing the report, but it’s clear that NASA’s recommended approach isn’t a credible plan to achieve the goal specified in the NASA Authorization Act. The Committee will continue to pursue this issue in the coming year with the goal of obtaining a more responsive approach,” said House Committee on Science and Technology Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN).

The report is an interesting read, with final recommendations tweaked by policy wonks at NASA Headquarters, as well as purse string strategists at the Office of Management and Budget.

I’ve been told than an electronic version of the larger report is being held up as it’s not yet suitable for the visually impaired.

NASA insiders are wary of being tagged with a new assignment without new money - and being forced to pull cash out of other projects to carry out new asteroid duties.

Still, the report that’s circulating up on Capitol Hill is an eyeful.

One key finding from the report focused on diverting a potentially hazardous object — labeled PHO — is that nuclear standoff explosions were found by the study team to be 10-100 times more effective than the non-nuclear alternatives analyzed. Non-nuclear kinetic impactors, the report notes, are the most mature approach and could be used in some deflection/mitigation scenarios, especially for near-Earth objects that consist of a single small, solid body.

As for asteroids in NASA’s Vision for Exploration — back to the Moon, Mars and other destinations - the report states that near Earth objects are one of those potential “other destinations.”

Furthermore, the report adds: “NASA is currently developing a new launch system, the Ares I and V launch vehicles, and a new crew exploration vehicle, the Orion. It is possible that the systems used to return humans to the Moon could be used to also visit a NEO.”

Read the report here.

Yesterday’s signing of a NASA Ames Memorandum of Understanding with the state of Hawaii has some understated possibilities - perhaps including future launches of Earth orbiting payloads and passengers.

The two-year agreement with the state of Hawaii was neogotiated through NASA’s Space Portal - a newly formed organization in NASA Research Park at the Ames Research Center near Silicon Valley, California. That Space Portal seeks to spur new partnerships with NASA to promote the development of commercial space exploration.

Officials at the University of Hawaii have told me that work is underway to develop both a booster and small satellites that can be cheaply lobbed into Earth orbit — and even to the Moon — from the military’s Pacific Missile Range at Barking Sands, Kauai.

In addition to a range of projects, talk has also started about passenger space travel from those islands of paradise.

Imagine…sun, snorkeling and personal spaceflight all in one travel package! 

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) is now aiming to launch its second Falcon 1 rocket no earlier than March 19, 10 days later than a previous target, to allow extra time for an equipment swap.

In statement released late Monday, SpaceX chief Elon Musk said the Falcon 1’s new window stretches from March 19 to March 22 at the booster’s equatorial-based Omelek Island launch site on the Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean’s Marshall Islands. Earlier announcements by the El Segundo, California-based SpaceX targeted a launch window that opened on March 9.

The extra time, wrote Musk in the Monday update, will allow engineers to install new thrust vector control boards to the Falcon 1 rocket’s second stage.

“The upgraded boards will be installed this week,” Musk wrote. “If all goes well, Falcon 1 will do a static fire next week and then launch in the week of the 19th.”

The upcoming Falcon 1 launch will be the booster’s first flight after a failed March 2006 debut that ended just after liftoff [image]. The mission is a demonstration flight for the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which also funded the Falcon 1’s failed inaugural launch, and features two experimental payloads, SpaceX officials have said.