HOUSTON — Spacewalking cosmonauts Dmitry Kondratyev and Oleg Skripochka spent five hours outside the Russian segment of the International Space Station on Jan. 21 installing communications equipment and retrieving science experiments. The cosmonauts encountered few difficulties as they worked nearly an hour ahead of schedule. Kondratyev, however, was unable to activate the bio-medical monitoring system in his spacesuit.
SAN FRANCISCO — A United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy lifted a bus-sized classified satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office into orbit from Space Launch Complex-6 (SLC-6) at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., at 1:10 PST Jan. 20 — the largest rocket ever launched from the West Coast.
As safety personnel try to figure out why the boom on an Airbus Military KC-30A broke during a refueling with a Portuguese F-16, they may be aided by the fact the incident involved a developmental aircraft.
Russia’s Electro-L geostationary weather satellite has reached its initial targeted orbit, reportedly at 76 deg. E. Longitude, and started normal checkout operations. The first domestic geostationary weather satellite launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome since the Geostationary Operational Meteorological Satellite (GOMS-1) on a Proton in 1994, Electro-L flew on a Zenit 2SB with a Fregat-SB upper stage. Launch came at 7:29 a.m. EST Jan. 20, and the spacecraft separated at 4:28 p.m. EST.
SATELLITE SETBACK: ViaSat has rescheduled the launch of its high-throughput Ka-band broadband satellite, ViaSat-1, to the summer, instead of in the first quarter of this year as previously planned. The delay was attributed to the need for additional tests and repairs after the spacecraft was damaged during testing. ViaSat says full costs for the postponement will be assumed by the manufacturer, Space Systems/Loral.
A Boeing company has lost its bid protest against a FLIR Systems company over a force protection system bought quickly by the U.S. Marine Corps under the Obama administration’s military surge in Afghanistan last year.
PUMMELLED POSEIDON: Boeing says flight testing of the P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft will continue expanding toward coverage of the full envelope, following the completion of full-scale static testing of the 737-based airframe on Jan. 7. The series of tests, which began in May 2009, put static vehicle S1 through 154 different conditions in which it sustained loads equal to or greater than those expected during operational flight.
In an effort to clean ship hulls of bugs, slime and other unwanted material, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) is developing the Hull BUG, an unmanned underwater vehicle designed to conduct anti-fouling missions and “groom” about 80% of a ship’s hull.
CYBER SQUAD: The Estonian government has approved the creation of a cyber defense unit within its Defense League, a voluntary adjunct to the armed forces. The organization will be staffed by volunteers. Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo notes the organization will have broad reach and will work not just with the government, but will also interact with the private sector and other entities. The Estonian government has been working on cyberwarfare activities since the country fell victim to a massive cyberattack in 2007, which was traced to Russia.
While the U.S. Navy moves forward with its dual-block-buy plan to acquire its new fleets of Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), both versions of the vessel require substantial improvements, according to the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Testing and Evaluation (DOT&E).
HOUSTON — Bids are being sought for a U.S. Army program to demonstrate a 5,000-10,000-shp.-class engine that could power future iterations of the Boeing CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopter. A solicitation for the Future Affordable Turbine Engine (FATE) program was released in mid-January by the Army’s Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (AATD), with contract award planned for the third quarter of 2012.
Republican members of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology named a freshman Mississippi congressman who represents many workers at NASA’s Stennis Space Center as chairman of the subcommittee overseeing the space agency. Rep. Steven Palazzo of Biloxi will chair the panel’s subcommittee on space and aeronautics. The 40-year-old Gulf War veteran is a certified public accountant by training. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) held the post when Democrats controlled the House.
LONDON — The start-of-the-year slew of acquisitions is not letting up, with BAE Systems announcing its purchase of all of Fairchild Imaging for $86 million in cash.
Raytheon saw its share price decline 8% in 2010. It gained all of it back in the first seven days of 2011. Investors may have soured on defense stocks as budget pressure mounts in the U.S. and Europe, but some of them are having second thoughts about whether the sell-off has gone too far.
ANOTHER TRY: Rockwell Collins has resubmitted a proposal to the U.S. Air Force to upgrade navigation and air traffic management equipment on the KC-10 refueler. The company is competing against Boeing and a GE Aviation/L-3 team for the work. The Air Force stopped work in October on Boeing’s $216 million contract after a problem was found with last year’s source selection. Revised bids are now being assessed, and a winner will be announced by June, according to the Air Force. The service expects to have all 59 refuelers upgraded by September 2015 (Aerospace DAILY, Jan.
HTV LAUNCH: Japan’s second H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-2) launch is now rescheduled for approximately 2:38 p.m. on Jan. 22 (Japan Standard Time). An earlier launch target had to be scrapped due to expected icy clouds over Tanegashima Space Center. The HTV-2 will be the second Japanese cargo ship to dock with the International Space Station, following the successful visit of the first HTV in September 2009.
Soon to join the “A-train” constellation of Earth-observation spacecraft is a $424 million mission to continue measuring the solar energy reaching Earth’s atmosphere and track natural and man-made aerosols to gauge their impact on climate.
NEW DELHI — India’s first homegrown carrier-borne fighter effort is moving toward a first flight in March of this year, after missing its target of achieving the milestone last year. The naval variant of India’s Light Combat Aircraft (LCA-N) completed systems integration tests, ground tests and slow-speed taxi trials following its ceremonial rollout last July, but missed its December 2010 first flight deadline because of concern over the platform’s landing gear and other critical systems; those uncertainties appear to have been resolved.
U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao have agreed to continued engagement between their military and spaceflight organizations as part of the Washington summit between the two leaders Jan. 19. The summit’s formal joint statement, released by China’s foreign ministry, calls for Gen. Chen Bingde, chief of the general staff of the Peoples Liberation Army, to visit the U.S. “during the first half of 2011,” and notes the “successful” visit of U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates to China earlier this month.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The U.S. Air Force has given Space Florida its first task under a $48 million Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract: develop a logistics strategy plan for solid-fuel rocket launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Launch Complex 46. The work, which is valued at $30,000, will pave the way for launches of Minotaur and other solid-fuel rockets from pad 46, which is managed by Space Florida, a state-backed space development and operations agency.
YEOVIL, England — Concerns are mounting in the U.K. that anti-submarine warfare (ASW) skills are beginning to erode because of competing operational demands and equipment decisions. The fear, voiced by government and industry officials, goes beyond the decision last year to cancel the Nimrod MRA4 maritime patrol aircraft project. Some high-end skills to hunt submarines are no longer getting adequate training, warns an industry official.
NEW DELHI — Delays in India’s acquisition process are hurting the critical needs of its homeland security forces, with a program to supply transport aircraft for border security caught up in a turf battle.
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) says it will launch its Falcon 9 rocket at least 17 more times before it is ready to fly humans, with nine of those flights carrying the Dragon capsule it is developing for cargo missions to the International Space Station.
FIGHTER WORRIES: Brazil’s recent decision to overhaul its AMX fighters is prompting speculation that the government may shelve its F-X2 fighter competition, which is being fought over between the Boeing F/A-18E/F, Dassault Rafale, and Saab Gripen. Embraer plans to fly and deliver the first of the structurally enhanced AMX prototypes next year. The program is a follow-on to the electronics upgrade of 43 of 56 AMXs into the A-1M standard. The new effort focuses on structural enhancements and replacing obsolete parts (Aerospace DAILY, Jan. 19).
The U.S. Navy’s San Antonio Class Amphibious Transport Dock ships operate perfectly well in safe seas, but questions still exist about the fleet’s worth during more risky operations, according to the Pentagon’s Director of Operational, Test and Evaluation (DOT&E). It’s a longstanding DOT&E criticism that has particularly rankled the Navy, which points out that the ship is not meant to operate alone in contested waters, and has already completed missions successfully at sea.
