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The orbital airframe structure for the first commercial Dream Chaser mini-shuttle that will launch to Earth orbit just over two years from now has been unveiled by Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) and program partner Lockheed Martin. Sierra Nevada is moving forward with plans for Dream Chaser’s first launch and unmanned orbital test flight in November 2016 atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The winged Dream Chaser is being developed under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program aimed at restoring America’s indigenous human spaceflight access to low Earth orbit and the International Space Station (ISS).

<p>NASA’s next cargo delivery vehicle—a spunky little space plane that looks like it could be an offspring of the space shuttle—is getting ready to fly.</p> <p>The svelte and snub nosed Dream Chaser will soon be shipped to the Mojave desert in California where it would begin a series of ground tests that would eventually culminate with a flight from an altitude of 2.5 miles high.</p>

NASA has selected SpaceX, Orbital ATK and Sierra Nevada Corp. to fly cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) starting in 2019, the agency announced today (Jan 14). Between 2019 and 2024, NASA will purchase a minimum of six uncrewed cargo missions from each of the three companies, agency officials said in a media briefing today. The space agency has the option to purchase additional re-supply missions from any of the three providers, and will likely do so, said Kirk Shireman, program manager for the ISS. SpaceX and Orbital ATK were selected as cargo providers in NASA's first round of...

The US military is conducting wide-area surveillance tests across six midwest states using experimental high-altitude balloons, documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reveal. Up to 25 unmanned solar-powered balloons are being launched from rural South Dakota and drifting 250 miles through an area spanning portions of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri, before concluding in central Illinois. Travelling in the stratosphere at altitudes of up to 65,000ft, the balloons are intended to “provide a persistent surveillance system to locate and deter narcotic trafficking and homeland security threats”, according to a filing made on behalf of the Sierra Nevada Corporation,...

After eight years of war, the Syrian opposition announced that all armed groups united under the command of the Syrian Interim Government’s Defense Ministry and joined forces under the banner of the National Army. For the first time, the Syrian Interim Government formed by the Syrian National Coalition has managed take the armed opposition under its command. With this step, the political opposition for the first time may be able to proclaim itself the representative of the entire Syrian opposition.

ZAGREB, Croatia — The Obama administration on Wednesday renounced the proclaimed leaders of the Syrian political opposition and said any group seeking to oust President Bashar al-Assad must reject attempts by extremists to “hijack” a legitimate revolution. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the Syrian National Council, or SNC, should no longer be considered the “visible leader” of the opposition. That made official what has been the increasingly obvious sidelining of an opposition group led mostly by middle-age Syrian expatriates.

Barack Obama did not tell the whole story this autumn when he tried to make the case that Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attack near Damascus on 21 August. In some instances, he omitted important intelligence, and in others he presented assumptions as facts. Most significant, he failed to acknowledge something known to the US intelligence community: that the Syrian army is not the only party in the country’s civil war with access to sarin, the nerve agent that a UN study concluded – without assessing responsibility – had been used in the rocket attack. In the...

On Tuesday, 13 prominent Syrian rebel factions declared their unification under the banner of an "Islamic Alliance." Their statement, which consisted of four main points, largely expressed their boiling frustration with and official rejection of the Western-backed Syrian National Council, the opposition's political leadership-in-exile. The statement also affirmed that Shariah law should be the "sole source of legislation" in Syria—unsurprising given that most of the signatories already advocate the implementation of Islamic law, albeit according to their own interpretations. While rebel alliances in Syria are often short-lived, the creation of the Islamic Alliance has the potential to make anti-Assad moderates...

Syrian rebel forces have seized a 25-kilometer (15 mile) buffer zone stretching from the Jordanian border to the Golan Heights. According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights watchdog agency, “Fighters loyal to Al Nusra Front, Al Yarmuk Brigade, Al Mutaz Billah Brigade and others took control of Al Rai military checkpoint” east of Sahem al-Golan, in the Dara'a province. snip The rebel forces referred to in the statement are part of the radical jihadist group known as the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Syria, which despises what it considers the rival Western-backed Syrian National Council, the larger...

Syrian opposition leader Moaz Al-Khatib, head of the Syrian National Council, has resigned his post. Al-Khatib said in a statement posted on Facebook that he had vowed to leave the position “if matters reached some red lines.” However, he did not offer any specifics as to what led to the decision, nor what the “red lines” were that had been crossed. “Now I am fulfilling my promise and announcing my resignation from the National Coalition in order to be able to work with freedom that cannot be available within the official institutions,” he said. The SNC was set to meet...

Four days of meetings in Doha, the capital of Qatar, of Western-backed elements backing the overthrow of the Syrian government began in disarray Sunday, following last week’s demand by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for a shakeup within the so-called rebel leadership. Clinton gave the Syrian oppositionists their marching orders last Wednesday, declaring that the Syrian National Council (SNC), formed barely a year ago and recognized by Washington as the “legitimate representative” of the Syrian people, had lost US backing. She dismissed the leadership that the US had previously supported as a gang of irrelevant exiles who had not...

Starting at the end of this month the Democratic National Convention will open with a focus on Islam; 20,000 Muslims are expected to attend, according to the Bureau of Indigenous Muslim Affairs, the national Muslim American non-profit coordinating the two days of events they claim are non-political. ”Jumah at the DNC” begins August 29 and will start with a Friday afternoon jummah prayer followed by other unnamed programs and events, leading up to the Islamic Regal Banquet. The following day will be an all day Islamic Cultural and Fun Fest which will include discussions on the topics of Islamaphobia, Anti-Shariah,...

Illustrating that the jihadist enterprise transcends all borders, American Islamist groups typically preoccupied with remaking the U.S. have been leaving their fingerprints on the campaign to exchange secular authoritarianism for religious authoritarianism in the Middle East. As these organizations labor stateside to nudge the governing class to embrace Arab Islamists at the expense of liberals — prompting Egyptian intellectual Essam Abdallah to lament that "the most dramatic oppression of the region's civil societies and the Arab Spring … is led by the powerful Islamist lobbies in Washington" — several of the groups' past and current officials have emerged as key...

Syrian National Council head Burhan Ghalioun announced he would step down amid allegations the Muslim Brotherhood secured his re-election Syrian opposition leader Burhan Ghalioun announced Thursday that he is resigning from his post just two days after being re-elected by a vote of 21-19. “I will not allow myself to be the candidate of division, I am not attached to a position, so I announce that I will step down after a new candidate has been chosen, either by consensus or through new elections," he said in a statement. Ghalioun, who has led the dissident Syrian National Council by consensus...

PARIS – A Syrian government run by the country's main opposition group would cut Damascus's military relationship to Iran and end arms supplies to Middle East militant groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, the group's leader said, raising the prospect of a dramatic realignment of powers at region's core. Burhan Ghalioun, the president of the Syrian National Council, said such moves would be part of a broader Syrian reorientation back into an alliance with the region's major Arab powers. Mr. Ghalioun's comments came Wednesday, in his first major media interview since he was made SNC leader in October.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - The population of the Sierra Nevada could more than triple in the next 35 years, threatening many of the mountain range's Gold Rush-era towns with sprawl, gridlock and pollution, according to a report released Tuesday. Much of the 400-mile-long range is designated as national forest, park land or wilderness. It also holds plenty of private land where development could change the face and feel of the mountains, warns the Sierra Nevada Alliance, a 12-year-old coalition of more than 60 environmental organizations. About 600,000 people live in the 20 California and three Nevada counties that divide the...

Eight towns would love to land the new Sierra Nevada Conservancy headquarters, projected to eventually have 70 employees and a $10 million budget. But only two showed up at the historic first meeting of the conservancy board Thursday in Sacramento, and both were from Nevada County. Nevada City used a laid-back approach in its pitch, but Truckee came on like a runaway snowboarder. Auburn, Colfax, Placerville, Amador City, Ione and Jackson were no-shows. “Give us your serious consideration,” said Truckee Mayor Craig Threshie in a lengthy speech that trumpeted the town’s location, history and commitment to the range. “We have...

The Sierra Nevada, historically a majestic battleground for competing local interests, comes under the stewardship of the state's newest and biggest conservancy this week. Proponents say the 25-million-acre Sierra Nevada Conservancy will be more than a protector of the mountain environment - it will also be an incubator for jobs and economic growth. The conservancy's 13 voting board members - seven state appointees and six county supervisors - will hold their first meeting at 10 a.m. Thursday in Sacramento at the state Energy Commission building, 1516 Ninth St. The Sierra Nevada Conservancy is the ninth conservancy created by the Legislature...

London,Thursday, May 23, 2002: India's Strategic Nuclear Command is expected to be in place by next month, four years after the country conducted underground tests and declared itself a nuclear-state. The Strategic Nuclear command (SNC) which will be commanded by the Indian Air Force (IAF) and based at Thiruvananthapuram, currently the headquarters of the IAF Southern Air Command, will function under the aegis of the newly created Integrated Defence Staff (IDS), the Jane's Defence Weekly has said quoting official sources. A large proportion of the SNC's air and sea-based assets will eventually be based on the Andaman and Nicobar island...