Italy’s deputy defense minister is warning the U.S. that if Congress opts to pull out of the tri-national Medium Extended Air Defense System (Meads), its closing costs will mount. Italy follows Germany, the other international partner on the tri-country missile defense system, in objecting to plans by lawmakers to cut the president’s $804 million budget request to wrap-up development of the system (Aerospace DAILY, July 15).
Europe has weighed in on the GPS interference issue in the U.S., expressing “deep concerns” about LightSquared’s plans to operate a broadband wireless network using frequencies adjacent to the band allocated to global navigation satellite systems.
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GPS CHECKOUT: Boeing is checking out the latest Global Positioning System spacecraft to reach orbit, GPS IIF-2, following its launch at 2:41 a.m. from Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., on July 16. The company expects to officially turn over operation of the spacecraft, which has been renamed SVN-63, to the U.S. Air Force 50th Space Wing and the 2nd Space Operations Squadron this fall. The spacecraft was lifted into orbit by a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Medium+ rocket flying for the eighth time in a 4-2 configuration.
HOUSTON — The four-member STS-135 crew bid farewell to the six U.S., Russian and Japanese astronauts aboard the International Space Station on July 18, the eve of a departure maneuver that will take the shuttle Atlantis in a sweeping arc over the top of the orbiting science laboratory’s long axis for an unprecedented photo documentation session.
LONDON — The U.K. Defense Ministry has secured another £3 billion ($4.8 billion) in post-2015 modernization spending to help plug a financial mismatch between procurement plans and resources. The additional money, announced July 18 by Defense Secretary Liam Fox, represents a 1% uptick in military spending in real terms, but it may not go far enough to provide the funding needed to create the so-called Future Force 2020.
About 30 NASA engineers from across the agency will work with counterparts from United Launch Alliance (ULA) under a new agreement to begin qualifying the Atlas V rocket as a human-rated launch vehicle for private spacecraft being developed under the second round of the Commercial Crew Development (CCDev-2) effort.
LONDON — Continued problems with U.K. defense ministry accounting have led the government’s auditor general to refrain from fully signing off on the organization’s books. For the second year running, the move was anticipated, and defense officials have previously acknowledged that they need to do more to put their fiscal house in order. But the July 18 decision was not uniformly bad news for the ministry. Comptroller and Auditor General Amyas Morse also notes that progress is being made with compliance on accounting standards.
LONDON — The U.K. saw a drop in defense exports in 2010 over 2009 levels, but still maintained its position as the second-largest exporter of defense products and services. The U.K. Trade and Investment (UKTI) department reports that U.K. industry won around £6 billion ($9.65 billion) in business last year, down from more than £7 billion in 2009.
SINGAPORE — The Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) is hoping that Kawasaki Heavy Industries can ramp up production of C-2 military transports once first deliveries start.
A long-delayed Russian astrophysics observatory was launched atop a Russian Zenit-3M from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, July 18, reaching its intended orbit 340,000 km (210,000 mi.) above Earth after being released from the rocket’s Fregat-SB upper stage, according to the Russian space agency Roscosmos. The Spectrum-R astronomy satellite, built by the Lavochkin Association of Moscow under Russia’s RadioAstron program, was initially slated to be launched in 2004, but it encountered multiple delays during construction.
AIR FORCE Raytheon Company of Marlborough, Mass. is being awarded a $21,070,808 firm fixed price contract for: a wide area multilateration en-route airway surveillance system for the Republic of Kyrgyzstan in support of the United States combatant forces in Afghanistan and the Kyrgyzstan Republic; air traffic control tower construction at Manas International Airport; and relocation of exist Kyrgyz Aero Navigatzia equipment to the new tower. The contracting activity is ESC/HBAK, Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass. (FA8730-11-C-0017).
LONDON — NATO should consider establishing a center of excellence for remotely piloted aircraft, argues Gen. Mark Welsh, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe. The facility would help bring systems owned by member states together to work on interoperability issues. Such a move also could fix shortfalls in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), Welsh says, adding that “I can’t stress the need for ISR enough.”
International Launch Services (ILS) lofted an SES-3 commercial communications satellite and the KazSat-2 satellite for the government of Kazakhstan atop a Proton M rocket on July 16. The launch from Pad 39 of the Baikonur Cosmodrome marked the first commercial shared flight aboard Proton M for Reston, Va.-based ILS. The Russian rocket’s Breeze M upper stage released the 3,150-kg (6,940-lb.) SES-3 satellite into geostationary transfer orbit 8 hr. 1 min. after launch.
SINGAPORE — Japanese operators have started to speak to aircraft manufacturers with a view to replacing tsunami-damaged aircraft, particularly those at Sendai Airport and the Matsushima airbase, industry executives say. The tsunami that devastated northeast Japan in March caused salt water flood damage to military and general aviation aircraft. The Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF), Japan Coast Guard, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) and Civil Aviation College lost the most aircraft.
SINGAPORE — It appears Australia may order a sixth Boeing C-17, and there is a possibility New Zealand may also operate it. Australia plans to issue a document in late July or early August asking for pricing and slot availability for a sixth aircraft, according to officials familiar with the situation. The country already has a firm order for a fifth C-17, which is due to be delivered in August.
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is orbiting the asteroid Vesta after a successful gravity capture July 16, becoming the first probe to orbit a main-belt asteroid. While data from the probe confirm that it is in orbit around the large object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, the precise time of its capture must await a better determination of Vesta’s mass and gravity, NASA says. The probe was designed to be captured by the protoplanet’s gravity as it approached it, rather than firing thrusters to slow itself into orbit.
