WASHINGTON NASA budget has request rewritten to its reflect Fiscal a 2003 dramatic shift in its long-term planning, using Space Launch Initiative (SLI) funds to pay for space shuttle “enhancements,” International Space Station activities and early work on the small orbital spaceplane that would replace Russian Soyuz capsules as the ISS lifeboat.

Paris Washington At least two bids have been submitted for the first part of NATO’s $620-million Satcom Post-2000 program, a satellite-services buy that is scheduled to replace the organization’s existing NATO IV milsatcom system. Two tenders are known to have been submitted—one by the U.K. Defense Procurement Agency, France’s DGA and Teledife of Italy, and the other by the U.S. government.

Paris The European Court of First Instance has struck down yet another European Commission merger decision, further fueling speculation that an EC ruling last year blocking an alliance between General Electric and Honeywell may be reversed.

ANDREWS AFB, MD. In a homeland defense simulation here that pitted a fictional National Security Council against an uncertain ter rorist threat, the “national leaders” decided to ground general aviation and air cargo carriers as a precaution.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. Kevin Kronfeld has only just begun his career in aerospace technology. years searching artificial intelligence at the Rockwell Collins Advanced Technology Center. Yet, he already knows the lingo of singles and home runs.

WASHINGTON Three U.S. airlines, two small and one among the largest, won a little breathing room last week in their struggles to stay afloat financially. The rest kept plugging. Frontier Airlines and Aloha Airlines won conditional approval from the Air Transportation Stabilization Board (ATSB) of loan guarantees to cover 90% of borrowings critical to their survival.