spacetoday.net: News briefs: May 1

Posted: Thu, May 2, 2002, 7:56 AM ET (1156 GMT)

US Senator Barbara Mikulski said at a hearing Wednesday that she plans to work to restore funding for a Pluto mission into NASA's 2003 budget. The agency deleted funding for the mission from the budget, saying it preferred to wait a decade or more until better propulsion technologies are developed that could shorten the flight time of such a mission. Mikulski (D-MD) has been one of strongest proponents of a Pluto mission on Congress, in part because the New Horizons spacecraft would be built in her home state, at the Applied Physics Lab or Johns Hopkins University.
Spanish astronaut Pedro Duque may visit the International Space Station next year as a member of a Soyuz taxi crew, RIA Novosti reported Wednesday. Spain would have to pay the estimated 14 million euros (US$12.7 million) for the flight, scheduled for next spring. Duque flew on the STS-95 shuttle mission in 1998.
SpaceDev announced Wednesday that it won a $1.6-million contract from the Air Force Research Lab to develop a shuttle-compatible propulsion module. The module would be used to deploy Hitchhiker-class payloads as well as satisfy Air Force Space Test Program requirements. The total contract value is open-ended. SpaceDev has already completed design work for a Maneuver and Transfer Vehicle that would be used to deploy microsatellites launched as secondary payloads from expendable launch vehicles.