Reiterating shared authority over space under the 2009 Lisbon Treaty

MIRROR, MIRROR: NASA plans to hold a workshop in February on possible uses for two 2.4-meter telescope mirrors transferred to the civil space agency in June by the National Reconnaissance Office. Although the optics have been proposed for a wide field infrared survey of the sky, other possibilities include uses for focused space-technology research, human exploration and operations, heliophysics, astrophysics and planetary science. The agency will select concepts for using the mirrors that it believes advance its goals, and allow detailed presentations of them at the Feb.

A small engineering firm on Florida’s Space Coast hopes to recover some of the revenue and jobs the region lost with retirement of the space shuttle fleet by offering maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services to the commercial spaceflight industry that the Obama administration hopes will take the shuttle’s place.

U.S. efforts to forecast are hampered by shortage of funding

Has met with limited success in efforts to embrace earned value management system

SATELLITE EXPORTS: The U.S. Export-Import Bank has authorized two transactions totaling $461 million to underwrite the export of U.S.-made satellites to Hong Kong. Asia Broadcast Satellite (ABS) will deploy the satellites to upgrade and expand its fleet, which offers coverage to 80% of the world’s population. In the first transaction, the bank authorized a $171.3 million loan to ABS to finance the purchase of a FS1300, C/Ka/Ku-band geostationary satellite from Space Systems/Loral and associated insurance. The satellite is scheduled to launch in 2013.

Houston — The nonprofit ArduSat initiative has selected NanoRacks LLC to coordinate the launch of the first U.S. commercial satellites from the International Space Station using the small spacecraft deployment system successfully demonstrated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NASA from the orbiting lab’s Kibo science module in early October.

The 40-year stream of Landsat remote sending imagery of the Earth is poised to be extended by another decade with the upcoming launch of the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM). The LDCM spacecraft is in thermal vacuum testing at prime contractor Orbital Sciences Corp.’s Gilbert, Ariz., factory, and on track for a Feb. 11 launch. The 3,085-kg spacecraft — built around Orbital’s LEOStar-3 bus — has a design life of five years, but will carry enough fuel to keep it functioning for 10.