Station Crew Size To Be Reduced Following Soyuz Failure DAN LEONE, WASHINGTON

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Russia plans to fly two missions of its Soyuz-U rocket, which failed Aug. 24 while attempting to deliver supplies to the international space station, prior to launching a new crew to the orbital outpost atop a similar launch vehicle, a senior NASA official said.At minimum, the failure will force NASA and Russia's Roscosmos space agency to operate the space station with a three-person crew, or half its normal complement, between mid-September and mid-November, the U.S. space agency said. But if Roscosmos fails to clear the Soyuz rocket for crew launches prior to mid-November, the orbital outpost will have to be abandoned altogether, if only temporarily, Michael Suffredini, NASA's space station program manager, said.Army Satcom Demand Expected To Soar as Smartphones Go to WarDEBRA WERNER. SAN FRANCISCOU.S. Army demand for satellite communications is growing so rapidly that it can only be satisfied by a diverse combination of commercial and government satellites offering service in all of the existing radiofrequency bands, according to industry officials who attended the Army Satcom Users Workshop in Tampa, Fla., sponsored by the Satellite Industry Association and the Army's Warfighter Information Network-Tactical program office.The Defense Department "can't afford to continually launch their own constellations, manage and operate them to cover their entire requirement, so commercial satellite providers have to help," said John Munoz Atkinson, a retired U.S. Army colonel and director of land mobile programs for Inmarsat Government Services. "The government needs to strike the appropriate balance between using their own satellites and using commercial satellites."