news Security scare puts launch at risk Geoff Brumfiel,Washington The two-week launch window in A NASA mission to Pluto could arrive January 2006 is important because it five years late and cost tens of millions would allow the craft to bounce off of dollars more because of a security ’s gravitational field on its way to JHUAPL/SWRI clamp-down at Los Alamos National Pluto. could potentially Laboratory in New Mexico. launch in February 2007, but it would The nuclear-powered New Horizons not be able to use Jupiter as a spring- spacecraft, scheduled for launch in board and so would face an additional 2006, should be fuelled by plutonium three to four years of travel time. Con- from a reprocessing facility at Los tingency plans drawn up by NASA put Alamos. But work at the lab shut down the extra costs, such as the need to run a on 16 July, pending a security review mission control centre for longer than into the disappearance of two classified expected,at $67 million. computer-storage devices (see In the coming months,mission plan- 430,387;2004).If the reprocessing facil- ners will consider the implications of ities are not restarted soon, the mission The New Horizons probe is rapidly running out of time. redesigning the mission so that it uses could miss its launch window. “We’re fewer fuel pellets.“People are looking at taking this very seriously,” says Alan Stern, the Cassini mission to Saturn, these will lots and lots of remedies,”says Stern.Adding principal investigator of the project and power the spacecraft on its nine-year journey batteries that can be used to power up instru- director of the space-studies department to Pluto, says Orlando Figueroa, deputy ments when the craft arrives at Pluto is one at the Southwest Research Institute in Boul- associate administrator for programmes at possibility.Another is that some of the space- der,Colorado. NASA’s Mission Directorate in craft’s eight science instruments could be New Horizons is a $720-million space- Washington DC. To keep the satellite on removed,says Figueroa. craft designed to look at the ’s schedule for the January 2006 launch date, The fuel shortage is the most pressing farthest and the : a ring of the lab must deliver all the elements by the problem currently facing the mission, but it icy objects beyond ’s orbit.Far from end of the year. is by no means the only challenge. Figueroa the , the craft will depend on nuclear But on 4 August, Los Alamos director says that the launch rocket still needs final power to run its scientific instruments. Peter Nanos said that it would take roughly approval. And because the mission uses Under an agreement with NASA, Los two months for work at the lab to resume. nuclear power, the launch-approval process Alamos is to produce 36 plutonium fuel ele- Mission planners are racing to figure out is more lengthy than normal.“This is a lesson ments.Together with 36 spare elements from how to work the delay into their schedule. in risk management,”he says. ■

Doped athletes flex muscles against drug company Karoline Schwarzberg,Munich long-jumper and sprinter Heike Drechsler, Help for Victims of Doping, a Weinheim- Supporters of athletes who received steroids say they were told these were vitamins. based organization that supports athletes under East Germany’s state-controlled Steroids have many side effects, including an from the former GDR, is urging Jenapharm doping programme are turning up the heat increased risk of cancer and infertility. to pay several million euros in compensation on the pharmaceutical company alleged to to the group of victims. It also accuses have supplied the drugs. Jenapharm, which was taken over by Berlin- Pressure on Jenapharm, based in Jena, based drug company Schering in 2001, of Thuringen, has been mounting since July refusing to open its archives so the extent of ALLSPORT UK ALLSPORT 2003, when a former employee alleged on its involvement can be established. The firm television that the company supplied sports did not respond to requests for an interview. scientists in the German Democratic Last month, the society enlisted the help Republic (GDR) with substances used in the of Werner Franke, a prominent molecular doping programme. Rainer Hartwich, who biologist from the University of Heidelberg. now works as a physician and gives medical In the early 1990s, Franke was on a advice to victims of doping, also admitted to commission of the Wissenschaftsrat, having been involved in confidential clinical Germany’s influential science council, that doping research. investigated people responsible for doping. Jenapharm’s management disputes the He is married to Brigitte Berendonk, an allegations, saying the company produced athlete who left East Germany in 1958. the drugs for medical purposes and was not During previous investigations, Franke involved in doping studies — a claim that and Berendonk unearthed documents that will now be examined by a prominent he is using to compile a report on Jenapharm’s German molecular biologist. involvement. The report, due at the end of The extent of doping is unknown, but August, could make uncomfortable reading thousands of athletes are thought to have Leap of faith: gold-medallist Heike Drechsler for the company, as Franke claims he will be been given muscle-boosting steroids during was given ‘vitamins’ that were actually steroids. able to provide evidence of Jenapharm’s the 1970s and 1980s. Some, such as Olympic links to the doping programme. ■

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