HOUSTON — Three U.S., Russian and Japanese astronauts descended safely into Kazakhstan late Nov. 21, ending their 167-day Expedition 29 duties aboard the International Space Station. The Soyuz 27 mission spacecraft carrying Mike Fossum, Sergey Volkov and Satoshi Furukawa landed under parachute on the frigid, snow-covered plains north of Arkalyk at 9:26 p.m. EST, in the predawn of Nov. 22 local time (8:26 a.m.).
TEL AVIV — Warily watching the Lockheed Martin Joint Strike Fighter program in the U.S., the Israel air force (IAF) nonetheless is finalizing plans to receive the F-35 “at the earliest date possible,” fiercely rejecting any suggestion to explore other alternatives.
MOSCOW — The third prototype of Sukhoi’s T-50 fifth-generation fighter made its first flight Nov. 22 in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, in Russia’s Far East. The flight lasted a little more than an hour and was in full accordance with the flight plan, Sukhoi says. An aircraft stability test was conducted, as well as an evaluation of powerplant systems’ performance.
As with most of the rest of the 2012 U.S. defense budget, House-Senate conferees will begin with significant disagreement on lines for major aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). See p. 3 for a table showing how various aircraft programs fared, including the percentage-point spread between the House and Senate marks.
PARIS — Mobile satellite services provider Globalstar Inc. and European satellite manufacturer Thales Alenia Space have announced an agreement that could return one of the Covington, La.-based company’s second-generation telecom satellites to service.
AIR FORCE Lockheed Martin Corp., Fort Worth, (F33657-02-D-0009), is being awarded a not-to-exceed $7,400,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. This action is for the development of system upgrades to existing requirements, incorporate new requirements, add capability and enhance performance in the F-22 Weapon System. One firm was solicited and one firm submitted a proposal. The HQ Aeronautical Systems Center ASC/WWUK, Fighter Bomber Directorate, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (F33657-02-D-0009).
GMD UPDATE: Lockheed Martin has submitted its final proposal in its attempt to unseat Boeing as caretaker for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) missile shield program. The Lockheed Martin-Raytheon GMD team delivered its final offer to MDA’s GMD Joint Program Office in Huntsville, Ala., Nov. 18. They are vying with a Boeing/Northrop team. The contract is expected to be worth up to $10 billion for 10 years of work sustaining GMD. The award was once expected this month.
HOUSTON — NASA is signaling a more restrictive use of Space Act Agreements (SAA), a development tool the agency has used since 2006 to hasten commercial cargo and crew transportation services to support post-shuttle activities aboard the International Space Station. The signals came in response to a Nov. 17 audit of NASA’s SAA by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.
Without a deal from the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, lawmakers are already scrambling to limit damage to defense that may already be set in motion. Members of the so-called “super committee” met Nov. 21, the day they needed to deliver a deal to the Congressional Budget Office in time to score the proposal before the official Nov. 23 deadline. But that afternoon, lawmakers conceded they failed to reach an agreement on at least $1.2 trillion in reductions to the federal deficit.
With the recent first deployment of the USS Makin Island LHD-8 amphibious assault ship, the U.S. Navy is right on course for the development and employment of one of its most desired technologies: hybrid drive systems.
NAVY Rolls-Royce Corp., Indianapolis, is being awarded a $13,735,723 modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract (N00019-10-C-0020) to exercise an option for maintenance services in support of the V-22 AE1107C turboshaft engines. The work will be performed in Oakland, Calif. (70%), and Indianapolis (30%), and is expected to be completed in November 2012. Contract funds in the amount of $13,672,071 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity.
XCOR Aerospace and Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) plan to give one adventurous — and lucky — scientist a suborbital research spaceflight on XCOR’s planned Lynx Mark I spaceplane, once the Lynx is up and running.
HOUSTON — The enormous water tank that until recently was used to prepare shuttle astronauts for the spacewalking assembly of the International Space Station will reopen its doors in December to provide offshore oil and gas workers with water survival training. The Sonny Carter Training Facility Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL), a 6.2-million gal. pool located near NASA’s Johnson Space Center, has been operated by Raytheon Technical Services Co., of Dulles, Va., since 2003.
Programs In Play: Fiscal 2012 Markup, By DOD Account Programs In Play: Fiscal 2012 Markup, By DOD Account % Change % Change Number of Account Request House House Senate Senate Budget Lines HS Spread
The U.S. Army can see good news and bad news for fiscal 2012, if it looks at House and Senate appropriations bills at the account level. See p. 3 for a table showing how various service accounts fared, including the percentage-point spread between the House and Senate marks. The good news: Both chambers increased the $1.9 billion request for Army combat vehicles. The Senate was half as generous as the House, adding only 6%. It’s the only account where both bills increase the budget request.
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AIR FORCE Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co., Sunnyvale, Calif., is being awarded a $60,000,000 firm-fixed-price and cost-plus-award-fee contract modification for the Space Vehicle (SV) 5/6 long lead in preparation for the SV 5/6 production contract. The Space and Missile Systems Center, Military Satellite Communications Systems Directorate, El Segundo, Calif., is the contracting activity (F04701-02-C-002, Modification No. P00525).
