Nov 7 2003
From The Space Library
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Boris Alyoshin and French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin signed an agreement allowing Russian access to the ESA launch complex in French Guiana, beginning in 2006. The agreement provided for the construction of a new launchpad at Kourou for the launching of Russian Soyuz rockets. France agreed to contribute half of the cost of EUR 314 million (US$361 million), with other ESA member states providing the remainder. The agreement also allowed Arianespace to collaborate with the Russian company Starsem to use Soviet-era Soyuz rockets for launching medium-sized payloads, thereby closing a gap in Arianespace's marketing range. (Agence France-Presse, “France, Russia Sign Deal for European Space Pad,” 7 November 2003.
The U.S. Senate confirmed the appointment of Gwendolyn S. Brown as NASA's Chief Financial Officer. Before her nomination in July 2003, Brown had served as NASA's Deputy Chief Financial Officer for Financial Management, and before joining NASA, she had served on the U.S. Senate staff and had held various positions within the DOD. Brown had come to NASA from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), Directorate for Program and Financial Control, where she had been a senior program analyst. (NASA, “Senate Confirms Gwendolyn Brown as NASA Chief Financial Officer,” news release 03-346, 7 November 2003, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2003/nov/HQ_03346_brown_confirmed.html (accessed 5 February 2009).
NASA announced the names of three additional members of the crew of the Space Shuttle Program's Return to Flight Mission STS-114. In 2001 NASA had named four astronauts to STS-114~Mission Commander Eileen M. Collins, Pilot James M. Kelly, Mission Specialist Stephen K. Robinson, and Mission Specialist Soichi Noguchi of JAXA. The four were already training for the flight, scheduled to launch no earlier than September 2004. Astronauts Andrew S. W. Thomas, Wendy B. Lawrence, and Charles J. Camarda rounded out the mission's crew of seven. NASA had originally planned for STS-114 to have a seven-member crew, but in the wake of the Columbia accident, NASA had changed the mission objective to focus on testing and evaluating new procedures for flight safety, rather than on ISS logistics and crew rotation. Thomas and Lawrence were veteran astronauts~Thomas was the second-highest-ranking member of NASA's Astronaut Office, and Lawrence had flown on the Shuttle three times. Camarda was a rookie making his first orbital flight. NASA had assigned Robinson and Noguchi to conduct spacewalks on the flight.(NASA, “NASA Names Crew Members for Shuttle Return to Flight Mission,” 7 November 2003, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2003/nov/HQ_03360_STS_114_crew.html (accessed 5 February 2003); Todd Halvorson, “Astronaut Veterans, Rookie Fill Return-to-Flight Shuttle Crew,” Florida Today (Brevard, FL), 10 November 2003; Jim Banke, “NASA Names Additional Crew for Return to Flight Mission,” Space.com, 7 November 2003, http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts114_ crew_031107.html (accessed 13 March 2009).
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