What's in this week's issue of Space News? Every Monday we post quick, concise summaries of the current issue's top stories.

The most recent smaller stories from all corners of the space community, collected in one convenient place.

WASHINGTON — Acknowledging that a NASA authorization bill is unlikely to be enacted this year, three U.S. Republican senators — including presidential candidate John McCain (R-Ariz.) — have written President George W. Bush imploring him to direct NASA to hold off for at least a year taking any action that would preclude the agency from flying space shuttles beyond 2010.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Gilat Satellite Networks has given U.S. and Israeli private-equity investors until Thursday to honor their commitment to purchase the company or face legal action as Gilat seeks at least $47.3 million in deal-termination penalties, Gilat Chief Executive Amiram Levinberg said Aug. 25.

ORLANDO, Fla. — A European version of Russia's Soyuz rocket will launch the Koreasat 6 telecommunications satellite in late 2010 from Europe's Guiana Space Center spaceport under a contract with Korea Telecom (KT), the Arianespace launch consortium announced Aug. 25.

WASHINGTON — An Alliant Techsystems (ATK) ALV-X1 suborbital rocket carrying two NASA hypersonic flight experiments was destroyed by range officials shortly after launch from the U.S. space agency's Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's eastern shore.

PONTE VEDRA, Fla. — Inmarsat has selected Thales Alenia Space to build a large S-band satellite for two-way mobile communications in Europe to be launched aboard an International Launch Services (ILS) Proton Breeze M rocket in early 2011, London-based Inmarsat announced Aug. 22. The satellite construction and launch agreements are subject to Inmarsat's receipt of a license from the European Commission to operate the service

WASHINGTON — A new report from the National Research Council warns that the near-term focus of NASA's technology development efforts could jeopardize the agency's longer-term space exploration goals.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — State TV says Iran's space agency aims to send an astronaut to space within 10 years.

PONTE VEDRA, Fla. — The third and last Inmarsat 4 mobile-broadband satellite was successfully placed into orbit Aug. 19 by an International Launch Services (ILS) Proton Breeze M rocket, ILS and Inmarsat announced. The launch completed a decade-long, $1.5 billion investment by London-based Inmarsat and returned ILS to commercial service five months after a failure that forced a redesign of the Proton Breeze M upper stage.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — An independent assessment panel has found that the lack of a true authority for U.S. military space acquisition has contributed to the overall decline of national space security, and is recommending sweeping changes within the Defense Department, a panelist said Aug. 13 at the U.S. Space and Missile Defense Conference here.

PONTE VEDRA, Fla. — Europe's Ariane 5 ECA rocket successfully launched Japanese and U.S. telecommunications satellites Aug. 14 in the fifth of a planned seven launches in 2008, and was the vehicle's 27th consecutive success.