spacetoday.net: News briefs: June 10

Posted: Tue, Jun 11, 2002, 8:09 AM ET (1209 GMT)

Space station program manager Tommy Holloway will retire from NASA next month, the space agency announced Monday. Holloway had been at NASA since 1963 and was involved with the Gemini, Apollo, and Shuttle programs. William H. Gerstenmaier, deputy program manager, will take Holloway's post after he leaves July 3.
NASA said Monday that it has granted an extension to a task force identifying research priorities for the space station. The Research Maximization and Prioritization Task Force (REMAP) was to present its findings to the NASA Advisory Council this week, but will spend another month prioritizing the research to be performed on ISS. NASA Watch reported last week that NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe reviewed REMAP's findings and asked them to do more work because the task force had ranked too many experiments as "top priority."
Canada's RADARSAT-2 radar mapper spacecraft passed its critical design review, the Canadian Space Agency announced Monday. The spacecraft, built by MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates, is scheduled for launch in late 2003 on a Delta 2.
NASA believes that next month's launch of the shuttle Columbia on a flight whose crew includes Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon will not require any additional security than already used, Reuters reported Monday. Security at the Kennedy Space Center has been stepped up in the wake of the September 11 attacks, and NASA is "largely satisfied" with that level of security and plans no changes for the STS-107 mission.