In Brief:

March 15, 2000
Web posted at: 5:44 p.m. EST (2244 GMT)

EDWARDS, California (CNN) -- A prototype spacecraft designed to serve as a lifeboat for the International Space Station will go aloft on March 30, a Dryden Flight Research Center spokesman said Wednesday.

Known as the X-38, the low-cost vehicle is expected to eventually become the first new U.S. manned spacecraft to fly to and from space in more than 20 years.

The demonstrator vehicle developed an unexpected electrical problem during an experimental flight two weeks ago, forcing NASA to scrub the test.

A B-52 took off carrying the X-38, but before the X-38 could be released, the prototype experienced an electrical short that cut power to some flight computer systems, said Dryden spokesman Alan Brown.

Mission technicians suspect random radiation caused the glitch. A radio transmission along a particular frequency from a nearby source could have caused the power failure, Brown said.

Early proposals to develop and build a crew return vehicle exceeded $2 billion. NASA estimates it can produce the X-38 prototype at one-tenth the cost, in large part by using many existing technologies and over-the-counter parts to construct the vehicle.

BUFFALO, New York -- A group of amateur sky watchers, using a 40-year old telescope and a home-built astronomical camera, achieved a rare feat this month, spotting the afterglow of a faraway gamma-ray burst.

Members of the Buffalo Astronomical Association detected the gamma-ray explosion, among the most powerful in the universe, on March 4. The faint afterglow of the fireball was located near the constellation Hercules, which at this time of the year is easily observed in northern latitudes.

Three days earlier, the NEAR asteroid orbiter and Ulysses solar observatory first detected the burst. Few professionals attempt to find the optical afterglow from gamma-ray explosions, but the amateur astronomers decided to try anyway.

Bill Aquino, Frank Chalupka, Dennis Hohman and Tom Bakowski pointed the astronomy club's 12-inch reflecting telescope at the approximate coordinates of the burst for two hours. Later their camera images showed they had succeeded in capturing the gamma-ray fireball.

The Hubble Space Telescope first detected the optical signs of a gamma-ray burst in 1997. Astronomers have had difficulty in finding them, however, because the afterglow generally fades rapidly and the coordinates usually take hours or days to determine precisely.

STENNIS SPACE CENTER, Mississippi (CNN) -- The engine for a prototype of the X-38, a launch vehicle that could replace the space shuttle, shut down early during a recent test.

Mission engineers had planned to simulate 220 seconds of flight, but the test ended after 75 seconds due to a software error, according to the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

The test, the 10th of 14 planned for the X-33 engine, was scheduled to be the longest to date. Nine previous tests have gone full duration. Post-test inspections indicate slight damage to one or two engine-related components. The next test will repeat parts of this test, the space center said.

The $1.2 billion X-33 program, a joint venture between NASA and Lockheed Martin, aims to test a pilotless demonstrator of the VentureStar, a reusable space vehicle that NASA and Lockheed Martin hope to launch in 2005.

VentureStar would be used to transport supplies to space stations and place satellites in orbit more cheaply than the space shuttle.

But major technical problems have plagued the X-33 program. In January, leaky fuel tanks delayed the first test flight scheduled for this summer.

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