This is all I got from chron.com and JJO:

“Hoping to lift doubts about Cecil Cooper being a lame duck, the Astros pick up the manager’s extension for the 2010 season.

“This is so we can move forward,” Astros owner Drayton McLane said before the team’s press conference with Cooper.”

Not much from the chron but interesting indeed.  I was hoping they would do this so Coop could relax a little bit.  Hopefully this will somehow translate to some more W’s.