CAPE TOWN, South Africa — NASA plans to open a competition in December for multiple, 30-month contracts to study strap-on booster upgrades for the planned heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS), including an upgrade for the five-segment, solid-fuel strap-ons baselined as the initial boosters for the big new rocket.
While the U.S. military’s focus remains trained on China and the Asia-Pacific region, changes in climate and international shipping patterns likely will create a more immediate naval concern and challenge, according to the last chief of naval operations (CNO).
HOUSTON — NASA has selected a second set of five technology demonstration payloads for flight on commercial suborbital launch vehicles tentatively set for early 2012 under the agency’s Flight Opportunities Program. The new payloads join the first set of two payloads selected in mid-May for flight under the nearly one-year-old initiative that is intended to foster the growth of a reusable, suborbital transportation industry in the U.S.
LONDON — The Indonesian air force may hold the keys to how successful the partnership between Airbus Military and PT Dirgantara Indonesia (PTDI) in military and commercial aircraft turns out. The two parties agreed during the summer to build on their long-standing relationship to help revive Indonesia’s aerospace ambitions. Now, more concrete details have been finalized. Airbus Military will offer PTDI the chance to market and co-produce the C295 tactical transport as long as the Indonesian government buys the aircraft as its Fokker 27 replacement.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Space Exploration Technologies Inc. (SpaceX) and other companies developing commercial crew transportation for the International Space Station (ISS) are applying the hard-won lessons of the space shuttle era as they develop their new vehicles, according to John Shannon, NASA’s last shuttle program manager. The reason, in part, is that the commercial companies have hired experienced shuttle engineers away from NASA to help with the new vehicles being developed under the agency’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) seed-money effort.
Tea Party supporters may be conservative about U.S. government spending, except when it comes to spending on the military. Those are the findings of a study conducted by a conservative grassroots political nonprofit called Let Freedom Ring that were presented at a Capitol Hill event Oct. 5 dedicated to igniting opposition to cutting the defense budget.
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As the U.S. Coast Guard’s embattled Deepwater acquisition effort sails toward the $30 billion mark, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is again warning Congress that the service needs to get a better handle on the program. “The total Deepwater program could cost as much as $29.3 billion, an increase of more than 20 percent in four years,” John Hutton, GAO acquisition and sourcing management director, told the subcommittee on Coast Guard and maritime transportation of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
The Lockheed Martin Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) system has destroyed two targets launched seconds from one another during the first attempt to pit the ballistic missile shield against a so-called “raid” threat. The flight test was conducted Oct. 5 at 1:56 a.m. EDT at the Pacific Missile Range facility at Kauai, Hawaii.
NEW DELHI — India has agreed to train and equip Afghanistan’s security forces to help the strife-torn country fight terrorism and give New Delhi a major strategic edge in the region. In a move sure to annoy rival and immediate neighbor Pakistan, India formally expressed its intention to “assist, as mutually determined, in the training, equipping and capacity-building programs for Afghan National Security Forces.” However, neither country has provided details about the military training.
NEW DELHI — Russia has assured India it is cementing measures to avoid delays in the supply of defense equipment and spares. India has been upset with Russia for not sticking to the delivery schedules of contracted weapon systems, creating roadblocks in the transfer of technology, hiking costs midway through the execution of agreements and failing to provide uninterrupted supplies of spares or regular maintenance.
Lockheed Martin is testing winglets and other drag-reducing modifications to cut the fuel consumption of C-130 Hercules and C-5 Galaxy airlifters. With large-scale wind tunnel testing completed, Lockheed is fabricating a shipset of winglets for flight testing on a C-130 in 2012. The modification could be available for both retrofit and forward-fit by early 2014.
LOS ANGELES — Boeing is studying scaled-up variants of the reusable X-37B orbital test vehicle (OTV) for potential delivery of cargo and crew to the International Space Station (ISS) and other low-Earth-orbit destinations.
GLOBEMASTER SUPPORT: The U.S. Air Force has awarded Boeing an expected follow-on contract worth up to $11.75 billion over several years to continue to support U.S. and allied C-17 airlifters.
The U.S. Air Force’s 27th Special Operations Wing recently accepted delivery of its first MC-130J Combat Shadow II from Lockheed Martin at Cannon AFB, N.M. The J-model of the aircraft — a total of 20 were ordered — provides Air Force Special Operations Command’s (Afsoc) operators increased power and efficiency, as well as longer range, shorter takeoff distance, smaller crew size and a revamped computerized flight deck.
INDIANAPOLIS — Rolls-Royce will next week deliver the first production-standard F-35B lift fan to be built at its purpose-built lift fan assembly site here. The $13 million facility was completed in March 2010, but until now has been making components for lift fans as part of the buildup to making the first complete module. The lift fan will be the 12th production unit to be delivered overall.
LOS ANGELES — Researchers hope to learn more about one of the oldest known objects in the Solar System in the coming weeks following the descent of NASA’s Dawn spacecraft closer to the surface of the proto-planet Vesta.
U.S. officials are still confused about why Libya’s stockpile of new, advanced SA-24 Grinch man-portable air defense systems (Manpads) were not fired at NATO aircraft during the battle to oust Moammar Gadhafi. The weapons are perhaps the most sophisticated, light, anti-aircraft missiles made by Russia, and they are certainly the most sought after by insurgents shopping the black market.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos have agreed to set up an “expert-level group” to review exploration targets for joint cooperation, provided the two sides in the bilateral discussion can agree on where to go. Vladimir Popovkin, the new Roscosmos head, told the 62nd International Astronautical Congress that the talks could lead to a deal for sharing the expense of exploration beyond low Earth orbit. Deep-space exploration is “unthinkable without broader international cooperation,” Popovkin said through an interpreter.
The first Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) protected communications satellite was slated to reach orbit Oct. 3, but program officials say it will now complete its journey in 2-3 weeks.
NEW DELHI — India successfully test fired its indigenous, nuclear-capable, surface-to-surface Agni-II ballistic missile off the coast of the eastern state of Orissa late last week. “The trial of the surface-to-surface missile, conducted from launch complex-IV of the Integrated Test Range [ITR], was fully successful, meeting the mission objectives,” ITR Director S.P. Dash says. The missile lifted off from the launch complex on Wheeler’s Island at 9.32 a.m. local time Sept. 30 and splashed down off the Bay of Bengal after a 9-min. flight, he says.
NEW BOARD: New U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is naming his own members to the outside council charged with providing defense policy advice to Pentagon leaders. On Oct. 4 the Pentagon said Panetta has appointed the following new members: Madeleine Albright, former secretary of state; Jamie Gorelick, former deputy attorney general; Jane Harman, a former congresswoman (D-Calif.); retired Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and retired Navy Adm. Gary Roughead, former chief of naval operations.
