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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 2014
PAGE 3
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NATIONAL
ASSOCIATED PRESS
This March 26, 2013, file photo provided by NASA shows the release of the SpaceX Dragon-2 spacecraft from the International Space Station. NASA is pressing ahead on April 14 with the planned launch of a supply ship despite a critical computer outage at the International Space Station, promising the situation is safe.
Rocket leak delays space station launch
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A space station cargo ship will remain Earthbound for a while longer because of a rocket leak.
With just over an hour remaining, the SpaceX company called off Monday's planned launch. Officials said they believe the problem can be fixed by Friday, the next opportunity for flying and the last chance before astronauts do urgent spacewalking repairs.
A helium leak in the first-stage of the unmanned Falcon rocket forced a halt to the countdown, the latest delay spanning the past month.
Over the weekend, NASA almost postponed the launch
attempt because of a computer outage at the International Space Station. But mission managers decided Sunday that everything would be safe for the arrival of the Dragon capsule and its $ 2 \frac{1}{2} $ tons of supplies.
The computer, a critical backup, failed outside the space station Friday as flight controllers were trying to activate it for a routine software load. The primary computer has been working fine.
It's the first breakdown ever of one of these so-called space station MDMs, or multiplexer-demmultiplexers, used to route computer commands for a wide variety of systems. Forty-five MDMs are scattered around the orbiting lab. The failed one is located outside and therefore will require spacewalking repairs.
The Dragon capsule holds a gasket-like material for next week's computer replacement. This new material was rushed to the launch site over the weekend and loaded into the Dragon. NASA said astronauts can make the repair without it if necessary.
NASA astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Steven Swanson will perform the spacewalk next Tuesday — regardless of whether the Dragon flies by then. It will take several days to get the replacement computer ready, thus the one-week wait before the job, NASA's Kenny Todd, a station operations manager, said Monday.
SpaceX — Space Exploration Technologies Corp. of California — is one of two American companies hired by NASA to fill the cargo gap left when the space shuttles retired in 2011.
If the SpaceX Dragon isn't flying by Friday, the company may have to get in line behind Orbital, on track for a May delivery run from its Virginia launching site.
The Dragon should have soared in mid-March, but SpaceX needed two extra weeks of launch prepping. Then an Air Force radar-tracking device was damaged in a fluke accident; an electrical short caused the instrument to
Monday's helium leak apparently came from a system that separates the first-stage during the first few minutes of flight.
overheat.
Earlier in the afternoon, SpaceX signed a 20-year lease with NASA to take over the launch pad used during the Apollo and shuttle programs. Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39-A would be used for SpaceX launches with astronauts bound for the space station in three or four more years, if NASA approves. Russia currently provides the only way to get astronauts to and from the space station.
Unmanned missions also are slated for this pad, possibly next year.
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NATIONAL
Tearful ceremony as
91-year-old Colorado
WWII vet gets medal
LAKEWOOD, Colo. — A World War II veteran from Arvada was surrounded by his four sons and several grandchildren and great grandchildren as he was awarded a Prisoner of War medal.
A cousin, Carol Dechant Young, says 91-year-old Frank Dechant only recently began to open up about being captured by the Nazis. His wife, 85-year-old Edythe, says the experience took an emotional toll on her husband, who cried as relatives congratulated him Monday at a medal ceremony in the Lakewood offices of congressman Ed Perlmutter.
Perlmutter's office says Dechant's unit was captured in December 1944 during Belgium's Battle of the Bulge. Liberation came in April 1945 after a two-month, forced march ahead of the Soviet advance into Germany.
Dechant had been awarded seven other medals. The POW Medal was created in 1985.
Associated Press
NATIONAL
Army upholds Manning's conviction, 35-year sentence
ASSOCIATED PRESS
An Army general has upheld Private Chelsea Manning's conviction and 35-year prison sentence for giving reams of classified U.S. government information to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, the Army said Monday.
The approval by Maj. Gen. Jeffery S. Buchanan, commander of the Military District of Washington, clears the way for an automatic appeal to the Army Court of Criminal Appeals.
The 26-year-old Crescent,
Manning's appellate lawyers, Nancy Hollander and Vincent Ward, told supporters Sunday in Washington that they expect to argue that the sentence is unreasonable. It is the longest prison term ever given by a U.S. court for leaking government secrets to the media. They said they also expect to argue that Manning's speedy trial rights were violated, that the Espionage Act was misused and that high-ranking commanders improperly influenced her case.
Emma Cape, campaign organizer for the Chelsea Manning Support Network, said Buchanan "has ignored the many grave injustices in this case."
Okla., native is serving her sentence at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. She was sentenced in August for six Espionage Act violations and 14 other offenses for leaking more than 700,000 secret military and State Department documents, plus battlefield video, while working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq in 2009 and 2010.
Buchanan, as commander of the jurisdiction in which the trial was held, could have thrown out or reduced the court-martial results.
Manning supporters call her a whistleblower who exposed U.S. war crimes and diplomatic hypocrisy. Manning has said she hoped the leaks would spark debate about the role of the military and U.S. foreign policy in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
During Manning's trial last summer military prosecutors called her an anarchist hacker and traitor who indiscriminately leaked information she had sworn to protect, knowing it would be seen by al-Qaida. It was among the largest leaks of classified information in U.S. history.
Manning's petition for a formal name change is scheduled for a hearing April 23 in Leavenworth County District Court.
Gender dysphoria generally disqualifies one for military service, but Manning can't be discharged while serving her sentence.
After sentencing, Bradley Manning declared a desire to live as a woman, Chelsea, having been diagnosed with gender dysphoria by two military
mental-health experts.
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