The hue and cry over demoting Pluto from the status of a planet to a “dwarf planet” has not subsided, but today NASA announced that “the Pluto system” is growing. Based on observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, a fourth moon has been discovered.

Pluto’s first moon, Charon, was identified in 1978 by the U.S. Naval Observatory. Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers now have found three more: Nix and Hydra in 2005, and this new one that is temporarily designated P4.

P4 is very small, with a diameter of just 8-21 miles. Charon is 648 miles is diameter, while Nix and Hydra are in the range of 20-70 miles.

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will reach the Pluto system in 2015 to provide more detailed data about the dwarf planet and its moons. NASA quoted New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern as calling the new finding “a fantastic discovery.”

The International Astronomical Union created the term “dwarf planet” in 2006 and moved Pluto and the asteroids Eris and Ceres into that class of objects.

It is really hot here in Washington, DC today and it’s going to get hotter, but other parts of the country are much worse off. NOAA today released an animation based on satellite data of the extent of the heat wave blasting the United States.

A lot of attention has been focused on the deadly tornadoes and floods that have brutalized parts of the United States this year, but NOAA quotes Eli Jacks of the National Weather Service as saying that “Heat kills hundreds of Americans each year — more than tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, lightning or any other weather event combined.”

As the animation shows, the midwest is suffering the most. Jacks added that forecasts using environmental satellite data “give us the ability to warn the public as early as possible, so people can prepare and stay safe.”

Yesterday, the New York Times profiled Glenn Burns, an Atlanta meteorologist, as exemplifying weather forecasters who have gained almost hero status as their ability to predict severe weather events has improved dramatically. Some of those systems, like Doppler radar, are ground-based, but space-based systems also are crucial.

The data for NOAA’s animated map came from both sets of NOAA weather satellites: Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) and Polar-Orbiting Environmental Satellites (POES). NOAA is struggling to get Congress to fund new satellites for those systems. The House Appropriations Committee cut $168 million from NOAA’s FY2012 request for the new polar-orbiting satellites — the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) — and $50 million from the GOES request.

Weather forecasts rely on data from NOAA’s geostationary system and a set of three satellites in polar orbit: NOAA’s POES, the Department of Defense’s (DOD’s) Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), and the European EUMETSAT organization’s Metop series. NOAA has launched all of its POES satellites and is anxiously awaiting the first in the JPSS series although FY2011 budget cuts have delayed that program. NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco has repeatedly warned Congress that an 18-month gap in NOAA polar weather satellite may result, but that did not persuade House appropriators to approve all of the $1.07 billion she requested for JPSS for FY2012. The House also cut funding for DOD’s DMSP replacement program, the Defense Weather Satellite System (DWSS), by just about half, approving $225 million of the $445 million request. That is troublesome, but DOD at least has two more DMSP satellites awaiting launch to tide them over until the new satellites are ready.

Europe is having its own woes. Space News reported on July 1 that four of EUMETSAT’s 26 member countries blocked approval of its new polar-orbiting system, EPS-SG. EUMETSAT’s last Metop satellite is expected to be launched in 2016, but Europe’s complicated approval process, which involves two multinational organizations — EUMETSAT and the European Space Agency (ESA) — means that decisions take years to accomplish.

NOAA is in the most precarious position, with no polar satellites “in the barn” awaiting launch. It will have to depend on a NASA satellite scheduled for launch later this year, NPP, that was not designed for operational use to supplement the POES satellites already in orbit. When they cease functioning, forecasts will be based on less data and could lose significant accuracy. NOAA Deputy Administrator Kathy Sullivan told a Women in Aerospace (WIA) conference in June that the February 2010 blizzard that hit the East Coast — “Snowmageddon” — would have been underforecast by 10 inches without the NOAA polar orbit satellite data. The impacts would have included stranded aircraft and airline passengers, stymied ground commerce, and a population “unprepared for paralyzing snow depth,” she said.

Tara Rothschild, a staffer for the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, told the WIA conference that Congress understands the need for weather satellites, but many Members simply do not believe NOAA’s contention that there will be a data gap, and in any event, it would not be for many years. Everyone on Capitol Hill is focused on today, she said, not something that will happen in 2016 or later.

As the nation celebrates the anniversary of the United States winning the race to the Moon against the Soviet Union 42 years ago today, NASA is preparing for the end of the space shuttle program early tomorrow morning and reliance on Russia to take Americans into space for an indefinite number of years.

The final space shuttle mission, STS-135, undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) yesterday and after a final inspection of the heat protecting tiles on its belly using Canada’s robotic arm, is preparing to land at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) tomorrow morning. A small satellite, PicoSat, was deployed from the shuttle’s cargo bay yesterday as well. The 8-pound satellite will relay data about the performance of its solar cells.

The first landing opportunity at KSC calls for the deorbit burn at 4:49:04 am EDT and landing at 5:56:58 am. The second opportunity has the deorbit burn at 6:25:44 am and landing at 7:32:55 am. Whichever time landing occurs will mark the end of the space shuttle program. The United States does not have a replacement for the shuttle. Under the 2010 NASA Authorization Act, NASA is subsidizing two commercial companies to develop systems to take crews to the ISS as well as developing its own crew transportation system to serve as a backup to the commercial companies and to take astronauts further out into space. The schedules for those development programs are contingent on many factors, particularly available government funding in these austere economic times. When either will be ready is unclear. Until then, NASA will pay Russia to take astronauts to and from ISS.

Forty two years ago, the United States and the Soviet Union were racing to see who could first send astronauts to the Moon. The United States won that race when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the lunar surface with Mike Collins orbiting overhead on July 20, 1969. Five more U.S. crews landed on the Moon before the Apollo lunar program ended in 1972.

The Soviets abandoned their human lunar landing program and focused on building space stations in Earth orbit, operating seven of them between 1971 and 2001 (Salyut 1, Salyut 3-7, and Mir). In 1975, the first joint U.S.-Soviet space mission took place — the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. The United States spent the 1970s developing the space shuttle and, beginning in the 1980s, an international space station with Europe, Canada and Japan. In 1993, Russia joined the U.S.-led space station partnership, creating the ISS program. Now, Russia alone has the capability to send astronauts to the ISS (China has launched people into space three times, but is not part of the ISS partnership).

NASA is getting extra bang for its buck these days by relocating existing spacecraft and using them for additional research above and beyond their primary missions.

ARTEMIS has joined the ranks of Stardust-NExT and EPOXI as recent examples of “repurposed” spacecraft. Launched in 2007, the two ARTEMIS probes are now in orbit around the Moon after completing their research to study the Sun’s interaction with Earth’s magnetic field.

The two were originally part of a set of five spacecraft in the Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) program. The other three THEMIS spacecraft are continuing their solar-terrestrial physics studies.

These two — renamed Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynaimcs of the Moon’s Interaction with the Sun (ARTEMIS) — were moved from their previous locations at Lagrange points to lunar orbit through a complex set of orbital maneuvers. The first reached lunar orbit on June 27 and the second on July 17. Their orbits will take them within 60 miles of the lunar surface where they will collect data about the Moon’s core, surface composition, and magnetic properties. The probes are expected to return data from their new locations for seven to 10 years.

The following events may be of interest in the coming week. For more information, check our calendar on the right menu or click the links below. The House and Senate are in session this week. The House had planned to be in recess, but decided to remain in session because of the debt limit/deficit reduction talks.

Monday, July 18

• NASA-United Launch Alliance press conference, 1:00 pm EDT (11:00 am MDT)

Tuesday, July 19

• “Day Without Space: National Security Ramifications,” 2325 Rayburn House Office Building, 9:00 am – 11:00 pm EDT

Tuesday-Thursday, July 19-21

• NASA Lunar Science Forum, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA

Thursday, July 21

• Scheduled landing of the final space shuttle mission, STS-135, at Kennedy Space Center, FL, 5:56 am EDT

NASA is gearing up to launch its next Mars rover — the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) or “Curiosity.” An open question is where on Mars it should land.

That question will be answered on Friday, July 22 in a press conference at the National Air and Space Museum (NASM). The museum has a life-size model of Curiosity on display.

The press conference will be held at 10:00 am EDT and will be shown on NASA TV (http://www.nasa.gov/ntv).

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), vice-chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, is calling for a “better space program.”

In an op-ed in today’s Space News, Rep. Smith says that “America deserves to be inspired by the heavens again.” As others in Congress have done, he criticized the Obama Administration for not complying with the 2010 NASA Authorization Act.

UPDATE: NASA has refined the landing time to 5:56 am EDT on Thursday, which is reflected below.

STS-135 (Atlantis), the final space shuttle mission, closed the hatches with the International Space Station (ISS) today as it readies to return home.

The hatches were closed at 10:28 am EDT. The shuttle crew went to sleep at 1:59 pm EDT this afternoon to get ready for an early morning undocking tomorrow, Tuesday, July 19, at 2:28 am EDT.

Landing is currently scheduled for 5:56 am EDT at Kennedy Space Center on Thursday.

Among the agencies whose budgets would be cut by the House Appropriations Committee in the FY2012 Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) bill is the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). The cut of more than 50 percent of its budget request is the result of congressional unhappiness with OSTP’s continued efforts to engage with China despite language in the final FY2011 Continuing Resolution that it refrain from doing so.

The committee’s report on the FY2012 CJS bill says the following:

“The Committee recommends $3,000,000 for the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), which is $3,647,000 below fiscal year 2011 and $3,650,000 below the request.

“Coordination with China.-OSTP has chosen to disregard a strong and unambiguous legislative prohibition on bilateral engagement with China or Chinese-owned companies that was included in the Department of Defense and Full Year Continuing Resolution Act, 2011 (Public Law 112-10). OSTP and the White House raised no concerns about this language while it was under consideration. Only after the Committee asked OSTP about its compliance with the provision did OSTP claim that the language infringed on Constitutional prerogatives and acknowledge an intention to proceed with prohibited activities. Even then key information about a scheduled bilateral event was omitted. OSTP’s behavior demonstrates a lack of respect for the policy and oversight roles of the Congress.”

The report goes on to say that the remaining OSTP funding is to be prioritized to coordinate and improve government programs for STEM education.

The Associated Press ran a story about it yesterday.

Yesterday, National Public Radio’s Science Friday host Ira Flatow interviewed Michael Turner of the University of Chicago and science writer Ron Cowan about the plight of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

The audio of the program is available on Science Friday’s website.

Turner defended the program, using the age-old argument that NASA’s programs push the envelope of science and technology and that “once in a while” there is an overrun. Not all would agree with Turner on the frequency of cost overruns. A 2004 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report found an average of 45 percent cost growth for the 72 NASA programs it analyzed.

Cowan pointed out that supporters of the project were not forthright about its costs in the beginning, and Turner agreed that was one of the lessons learned from last year’s Casani report on JWST — that one must be upfront about the costs. As for now,Turner argued that the program was about 75 percent done and ending it now would be “penny wise and pound foolish.”

Cowan said he is concerned that NASA is not saying how much more JWST will cost if the launch slips to the early 2020’s. Turner countered that NASA has come up with a new plan for completing it and is negotiating with the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and some things have to be done behind closed doors.