NASA’s use of Space Act Agreements (SAAs) is coming under scrutiny both by Congress and by NASA Inspector General (IG) Paul Martin.

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), chairman of the House Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) subcommittee that funds NASA, released two letters today that he sent to NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden inquiring about the agency’s use of SAAs.  The first was sent in January requesting a list of all foreign and domestic SAAs.  The second was sent today alerting Bolden that more questions will be forthcoming about some of them.  Wolf asked NASA to share all the information with the chair of the House Science, Space and Technology (SS&T) Committee, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX).  

House SS&T is NASA’s authorizing committee, which sets policy and recommends funding levels.  Wolf’s committee is the one that actually gives the money to NASA (and other agencies under its jurisdiction) in conjunction with its Senate counterpart.

NASA was given authority to use Space Act Agreements, also called “other transaction authority,” in the law that created the agency in 1958.  SAAs have garnered a lot of attention since NASA began using them for its commercial cargo and commercial crew programs.  Under those SAAs, companies are paid only when they meet agreed-upon milestones, but the government has less insight into what they are doing than with traditional contracts executed under Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR). 

However, Wolf’s interest does not seem to stem from that application of the agreements.

Wolf’s January 14 letter refers to a discussion between his staff and NASA where NASA reported it had “more than ‘550 active international agreements with 120 nations on a wide range of activities. … There is no publicly available list of all such current or pending international Space Act Agreements…’  My staff was also informed that NASA maintains no public list of domestic SAAs.”  Wolf states that he is concerned that NASA may be sharing “sensitive technologies” with foreign governments that “may not share our national interests in space” through the SAAs.

The February 26 letter thanks Bolden for providing the list of all the foreign and domestic SAAs adding that Wolf was “struck by the broad scope of the agreements … as well as the unusual nature of some of [them].” 

Wolf also praises NASA IG Martin for beginning an “overdue” audit of SAAs as well.  Martin’s office tweeted (@NASAOIG) yesterday that it is starting an “audit evaluating NASA’s management of its Space Act Agreements.”  No further details are on the OIG website yet.

Even if you think you’ve seen enough video of the meteor that exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, you ought to watch this.

This compilation of images from offices, schools and factories on YouTube makes you feel like you were there.  [With thanks to @B612foundation retweeting @stevesilberman.]

Divers may have come up empty handed from their search in icy Lake Cherbarkul for a large chunk of the meteor that exploded near the Ural Mountains on Friday, but a team of scientists reportedly found small remnants (meteorites) in the vicinity.    Offers to sell the meteorites are popping up already — but buyer beware.

On Saturday, Russian news sources like RIA Novosti reported that the divers did not find any signs of a large core of the meteor in the lake.  Witnesses had reported seeing the fireball go into the lake and a large hole was found in the ice covering it.  

Yesterday, however, RIA Novosti quoted a scientist at the Urals Federal University as confirming that “the particulate matters, found by our expedition in the area of Lake Cherbarkul indeed have meteorite nature.”  The scientist, Victor Grohovsky, said it was an ordinary stony chondrite meteor and about 10 percent iron.  Russia Today added that Grohovsky’s team was not allowed to inspect the crater that the meteor made in the lake, but they found several dozen meteorites around the hole.  The meteorites are between 0.5 and 1 centimeter in diameter, it continued, and “so far the researchers were able to confirm the samples’ celestial origin out of the 53 small particles sampled.”

Meteorite found in Russian lake, per Russia’s RIA Novosti, February 17, 2013

Offers to sell the meteorites reportedly are appearing on social media outlets and the Internet, with prices as high as $4,000.  Russian authorities are warning potential buyers not to be taken in.  They reportedly have created a task force that is working 24 hours a day to verify all online offers for sales of the meteorites.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Itar-Tass news service puts the final count of those who sought medical attention after the meteor exploded over the city of Chelyabinsk at 9:20 am local time on Friday at 1,158, including 289 children; 52 people were hospitalized.  Also, a “total of 4,715 buildings, including 3,700 apartment buildings, were damaged,” it reported.  The damage and injuries were caused by a shock wave created as the meteor descended through the atmosphere.   Most injuries were from flying glass from broken windows.

Russian authorities continue to search for fragments from the meteor that exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk yesterday, but with no luck so far.  In the meantime, scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) are revising upwards their estimates of the meteor’s size, mass and energy release based on additional data.

Witnesses believe that part of the meteor landed in Lake Cherbarkul, but divers found no trace of it today according to Russia’s RIA Novosti.   Russian media reports vary on the number of people injured by the effects of the shock wave created as the meteor streaked across the sky at about 9:20 am local time yesterday.   Most agree that it was between 1,000 and 1,200, mostly injured by broken glass.  Many residents apparently ran to windows to see what was happening as the meteor streaked by.   The New York Times quoted a woman as describing the light as “unreal” and “a light which never happens in life; it happens only in the end of the world.”

The shock wave came next and since many people were standing next to windows, breaking glass caused a host of injuries. 

Meanwhile, JPL scientists now believe it was 17 meters instead of 15 meters in diameter, had a mass of 10,000 tons rather than 7,000 tons, and released 500 kilotons of energy instead of 300 kilotons.   The earlier data, reported in a media teleconference yesterday, was based on data from four Infrasound stations that are part of a global network of sensors that monitors compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.  Data from five more stations are now available, allowing the refined estimates.

The atmospheric blast from the meteor that struck near the Russian city of Chelyabinsk this morning released 300 kilotons of energy, similar to a nuclear explosion according to a NASA expert.   The resulting shock wave broke windows and collapsed walls, injuring more than 1,000 people.

Bill Cooke of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center said in a media teleconference this afternoon that the force of the blast was determined by measurements from a global network of sensor arrays called Infrasound.  The Infrasound system of 60 sensor arrays around the world was designed to detect nuclear explosions as part of monitoring compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.  He said NASA used data from four of the sensor stations to determine the amount of energy released by the blast.  He expects other sensor arrays also picked it up, but did not know how many.

Videos of the meteor taken by cell phone and dashboard cameras by many of those who witnessed the event are posted on the Internet and tell more of the meteor’s story, according to Cooke and Paul Chodas of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).  

Asteroids are rocks in space. Those that enter Earth’s atmosphere are called meteors and if they reach the ground they are meteorites.

This meteor is estimated to have been 15 meters in diameter with a mass of 7,000 metric tons and travelling at 18 kilometers per second (40,000 miles per hour).   It penetrated the atmosphere at an angle of 20 degrees and streaked through the sky for 30 seconds before breaking apart 20-25 kilometers (12-15 miles) above the surface of Earth. 

Chodas said this was a “tiny” asteroid and could not have been detected in advance not only because of its size, but because it came from the daylight side of Earth.  Using Earth-based telescopes, asteroids can only be detected against the black background of space — at night.  Asteroids the size of this one reach the surface about once every 100 years, he said.  Cooke said the Earth actually intercepts 80 tons of meteoritic material every day, with “millions of millimeter size meteors striking Earth per day.”   Chodas added that meteors the size of basketballs hit Earth every day on average, while those the size of a car hit every month or two.

The fact that an asteroid hit Russia on the same day as asteroid 2012 DA14 made a close pass of Earth was a rare coincidence, Chodas said, but the two were not related to each other.   Asteroid 2012 DA14 travels in an Earth-like orbit, while the asteroid that hit Russia came from the asteroid belt.   The Russian meteor came from the opposite direction and its velocity was “much, much greater” than DA14, he stressed.  No verified fragments from the meteor have been located so far, but Cooke expects that it was a common stony asteroid, not one made of iron.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, issued a press release saying the two events today “are a stark reminder of the need to invest in space science,” and promised to hold a hearing on ways to “better identify and address asteroids that pose a potential threat to Earth.”  A date for the hearing was not announced, only that it will be “in the coming weeks.”

Correction:  An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the energy released was 300 megatons, rather than 300 kilotons, of energy.