Engineers developing NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) for future deep-space human exploration missions are polling the worldwide launch industry for an existing upper stage they can use to propel the Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle (MPCV) on two test flights around the Moon.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Gen. William Shelton, commander of Air Force Space Command, is drawing attention to the the increasingly decrepit state of infrastructure at the Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg AFB launch sites, and the threat it poses to national security space. “We limp along from year to year keeping our fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong,” Shelton says, speaking at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics New Horizon Forum here.

Shelton argues strongly in favor of the development of new main and upper-stage engines.

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UPSTARTS WELCOME: Sending a clear warning shot across the bows of established launch suppliers, Gen. William Shelton, commander of Air Force Space Command, says the service is increasingly interested in the potential of emergent space companies like Blue Origin and Space Exploration (SpaceX). Propulsion systems recently demonstrated by Blue Origin “might well be worth examining for our own unmanned purposes,” Shelton says.

WRITE IN: In addition to its lawsuit against the service, Hawker Beechcraft is hoping to build political pressure on lawmakers and the Defense Department to force the U.S. Air Force to revisit its decision to award the Light Air Support (LAS) contract to Sierra Nevada/Embraer. The company has launched a letter-writing campaign, asking customers and other supporters to contact their local congressmen and the Pentagon. As a result, close to 5,700 letters had been sent to Congress and the Pentagon by the afternoon of Jan. 6, according to the company.

BEIJING — Testing has proved the effectiveness of crucial landing technology for China’s third lunar exploration mission, due to be launched in 2013, says national space contractor CAST. The mission, to be called Chang’e 3, is aimed at making advances in a wide range of technologies, CAST says. It lists them as soft landing, surveying the surface by rover, “survival on the lunar surface,” communications for long-distance monitoring and control, and direct injection into a lunar transfer orbit.