GAG ORDER: NASA’s leadership challenges the logic of asking experts for their honest opinions when science chief John Grunsfeld reminds scientists on the NASA Advisory Council that they are “temporary” government employees when in formal session, and as such required to support — at least in theory — the fiscal 2013 NASA budget proposed by President Barack Obama. The budget would gut the joint Mars exploration program with the European Space Agency. Grunsfeld apparently is not keen on having his independent advisory body become too critical of the administration’s plans.

TURKISH HELO: Turkey is launching a competition for medium helicopters for use by the country’s national police force. The move comes after last year’s contest for 15 light utility helicopters for the police. The new bidding is for seven rotorcraft, associated mission equipment and spares. Bidders have until March 21 to formally receive the request for proposals from the Turkish defense armaments agency, SSM, with bids due on April 24.

WINNING LOSS: When the Indian government named the Dassault Rafale as the low-cost bidder in the country’s Medium Multirole Combat Aircraft competition, beating out the Eurofighter Typhoon, it was seen as a setback for EADS, whose Cassidian unit led the Typhoon campaign. But how much of a loss did EADS really suffer in the MMRCA program? Perhaps less than many suspect. EADS holds a 46% share in the Eurofighter consortium, but also controls 46.3% of Dassault Aviation shares.

TAXING ISSUE: The U.S. aerospace and defense industry might have succeeded last year in helping to persuade Washington to reverse a looming tax withholding requirement on federal contractors, but two senators are not letting the original issue go away silently. Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), senior members of their chamber’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, are publicly pressing the Pentagon to explain what it is doing to help the government gain $4.5 million in unpaid taxes from one U.S.

The House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees NASA funding has rejected the agency’s request to begin shutting down its cooperative Mars-exploration effort with the European Space Agency, until the issue can be debated thoroughly. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), the subcommittee chairman, rejected a fiscal 2012 reprogramming request that would have shifted funds immediately to accommodate the Mars-program downsizing set up in the fiscal 2013 budget request.

PARIS — Iridium CEO Matt Desch says his company will announce an agreement by June with global air traffic monitoring authorities to place automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) terminals on its Iridium Next second-generation satellite constellation, which is scheduled to be fully operational by 2017.

The FCC is extending the comment period until March 16 on a recent notice that LightSquared had not met the conditions set by the agency to begin operational deployment of a high-powered terrestrial 4G voice and data network in the L band. Citing concerns that the network would pose aviation safety risks by interfering with GPS units, the FCC last month indefinitely suspended LightSquared’s conditional waiver to operate the network in bands adjacent to those used by GPS (Aerospace DAILY, Feb. 16).

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden ran into a Capitol Hill buzz saw Wednesday regarding agency plans to cut funding for its internal development of the heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion crew capsule, while adding more financial resources to support development of commercial crew transport vehicles.