The third SpaceX commercial cargo mission to the International Space Station has been delayed until no earlier than March 30 because of payload contamination that may require some new parts to be installed. Originally set for March 16, the Falcon 9 launch was delayed on March 14 to “ensure the highest possible level of mission assurance and allow additional time to resolve remaining open items,” according to a NASA update that quoted SpaceX and referred additional questions to the Hawthorne, Calif., commercial-cargo launch service provider.
LONDON — Russian state-owned helicopter consortium Russian Helicopters increased revenues by 10% in 2013 despite delivering fewer helicopters during the year. The company, which is owned by state-funded Rostec, recorded revenues of 138.3 billion rubles ($3.76 billion), up from 125.75 billion rubles in 2012. Profits were up slightly, 1.3%, to 9.47 billion rubles ($260 million), with the company delivering 275 helicopters in 2013 compared with 290 in 2012.
Russia is gaining on America’s dominance of military sales globally, and in one measure Moscow has become the prime provider of weapons to the Indian imports market (the world’s largest), according to the latest analysis from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri). According to the Swedish defense think tank, the five largest suppliers of global arms exports during 2009–13—responsible for a combined three-quarters of all exports—were the U.S. with 29%, Russia at 27%, Germany at 7%, China at 6% and France with 5%.
ViviSat, a satellite-servicing startup developing life-extension vehicles for end-of-life commercial communications satellites in geostationary orbit, has signed three customers and expects to begin building its specialized spacecraft by the end of 2014.
HOUSTON — U.S. and Russian flight control teams coordinated the first debris avoidance maneuver for the International Space Station in 16 1/2 months late March 16, to avoid a debris fragment from Meteor 2-5, a weather satellite launched by the former Soviet Union in October 1979. The ISS crew — commander Koichi Wakata, of Japan; NASA’s Rick Mastracchio, and Russia’s Mikhail Tyurin — were asleep and in no danger as the debris of unknown dimensions passed at 12 p.m. (Midnight on Sunday, EDT March 16), NASA spokesman Josh Byerly said.
BUDGET NEWS: With the release of the Obama administration’s fiscal 2015 budget request last week, the Aviation Week Intelligence Network’s budget digest page is your one-stop source for news, data and analysis of programs and priorities as the request makes its way through Congress. AWIN subscribers can access the page at www.aviationweek.com/awin/USBudget2015.aspx
A specialized telescope at the South Pole has detected what scientists say is the first direct evidence of the dramatic expansion of the Universe an instant after the Big Bang, according to scientists who spent three years examining their data before making the announcement in Cambridge, Mass., today. Known at BICEP2, the instrument takes advantage of the still, dry environment at the South Pole to avoid interference that might obscure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background, an artifact of the Big Bang that is the oldest light there is.
The Pentagon is increasingly looking at first-tier subcontractors and their deals with prime providers of major weapons and systems, and all of them are being judged on what they do to lower costs for the Defense Department, according to Shay Assad, director of defense pricing and acquisition policy.
Once NASA begins delivering its astronauts to the International Space Station with commercial crew vehicles, it may also be possible for industrial or academic researchers to spend time there without being selected as astronauts, according to the top space station manager at agency headquarters.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) mar. 18 - 19 — 2014 Precision Strike Annual Review, "PSAR-14 - Precision Engagement—Staying Relevant in A Dangerous World," Waterford Springfield Cenvention Center, Springfield, Va. For more information go to www.precisionstrike.org/Events/4PPR/4PPR.html
GRoK Technologies LCC, a Houston startup, plans to develop alternatives to the animal-based testing of new human medications, cosmetics and environmental toxins, as well as noninvasive medical therapies, through licensing agreements reached with NASA’s Technology Transfer Program. The accords will be backed by patented technologies in 3-D human tissue growth using rotating wall vessels (RWV), or bioreactors, and time-varying electromagnetic fields.
SHIP CONSTRUCTION: The U.S. Navy has awarded Bath Iron Works, of Bath, Maine, a $642,583,946 contract modification to exercise options for the construction of a DDG 51 class ship, the Pentagon announced March 14. The modification also provides $79,400,000 in advanced procurement funding for fiscal 2016-2017 ships. The work is expected to be completed by July 2023. Contract funds in the amount of $100 million will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.
After its most ambitious Florida test flight to date, NASA’s Morpheus prototype planetary lander will undergo a significant guidance system upgrade at Kennedy Space Center for the installation of Autonomous Landing Hazard Avoidance Technology (ALHAT) sensors, to evaluate the unpiloted vehicle’s ability to steer around boulders or steep crater slopes while in flight to achieve a safe touchdown.
The political situation in the Ukraine may force the U.S. to rethink its airborne supply route into Afghanistan, as well as Russian-built rocket engines used for space launches, Pentagon leaders say.
Russia is taking lessons from NASA’s aeronautics and Europe’s Clean Sky programs in structuring its new civil aviation research effort, to begin in 2016. With $6 billion in government funding over 10 years to 2025, the National Aeronautical R&D Plan will be similar in scale to NASA’s aeronautics program, which runs at around $550 million a year. An overview of the plan was provided by Sergey Chernyshev, executive director of the TsAGI aero-hydrodynamic research institute, at the Greener Aviation 2014 conference in Brussels on Mar. 11.
THE PENTAGON — After a slight dip in the fiscal 2015 spending plan to about $2 billion, proposed U.S. Navy science and technology (S&T) funding holds steady through fiscal 2019, focusing on such programs as the Lockheed Martin F-35, Sikorsky CH-53K and railgun prototype. “In the R&D [research and development] account, science and technology funding declines 2% in FY ‘15 and then remains steady over the balance of the FYDP [Future Years Defense Program],” says Rear Adm. William Lescher, deputy assistant Navy secretary for budget.
