LOS ANGELES — Boeing is sending a full-scale mockup of its CST-100 spacecraft to Johnson Space Center in Houston this week for tests with NASA flight crew, while simultaneously wrapping up proof-pressure tests of a vehicle at its Huntington Beach, Calif., facility. A range of other testing has been completed, marking rapid progress for the fledgling Boeing commercial crew development (CCDev) effort. “We started in January and already we’re doing a systems design review as well as a number of demonstrations,” says Boeing CCDev Program Manager Keith Reiley.
PHOTO OP: The Deep Impact spacecraft beamed the first images of the Hartley-2 comet on Sept. 5 as part of the Deep Impact Extended Investigation (DIXI), NASA officials announced at the First Comet Encounter Symposium Sept. 10 in Washington. The spacecraft, which is set to rendezvous with Hartley-2 on Nov. 4, will use two digital color telescopes and an infrared spectrometer to gather more than 64,000 images of the comet during its 78-day encounter.
NATIONAL AEROSPACE WEEK Sept. 12-18, 2010 From Takeoff To Liftoff and Beyond, The Aerospace and Defense Industry is powered by people. AEROSPACE AND DEFENSE: THE STRENGTH OF LIFT AMERICA. www.NationalAerospaceWeek.org Aerospace Industries Association Click here to view the pdf
HOUSTON — The U.S. Labor Department will make up to $5.4 million available to assist an estimated 600 workers facing layoffs from Johnson Space Center-related duties as a result of NASA’s plans to retire the space shuttle. The grant, awarded to the Texas Workforce Commission for implementation through the Gulf Coast Workforce Development Board, is intended to assist workers from more than a dozen contractors with skills assessments, basic skills training and career counseling.
GROWING BIRDS: Boeing says Intelsat has converted an option to expand C- and Ku-band capacity on IS-21, one of four 702 MP satellites acquired in a batch order last year. According to Boeing, the move will put IS-21 in the 60-transponder range, at the top of the 6-12-kw. 702 MP line. Two other spacecraft in the order — IS-27, equipped with a UHF hosted payload for the U.S. Navy, and IS-22, with an Australian UHF payload — will be in the 45-48-transponder class, in the middle of the 702 MP range. The fourth spacecraft remains to be assigned.
PARIS — Sea Launch President/General Manager Kjell Karlsen says the launch provider expects to exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in mid-October, once U.S. government approval for sale of the company to Russia’s Energia and legal details are complete.
LONDON — BAE Systems is looking to cut more than 900 jobs at two of its divisions, to reflect already announced defense program changes and also to prepare for further adjustments looming from the U.K.’s Strategic Defense and Security Review. The bulk of the cuts, 740 positions, are coming from the Military Air Solutions (MAS) business, with five sites affected. The Integrated System Technologies (Insyte) division will shed another 206 positions by the end of 2011. BAE Systems last year already announced the elimination of more than 2,300 positions.
LAND LAUNCH: Discussion of what to do with Land Launch, the land-based Zenit-3SLB variant that operates from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, will be taken up by the Sea Launch board once Chapter 11 is complete, Sea Launch President/General Manager Kjell Karlsen says. Land Launch is owned by Space International Services, which is owned by Zenit’s Russian and Ukrainian builders, but the marketing rights are owned by Sea Launch.
MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. — NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center expects to enter a second phase of flight tests of Boeing’s tailless flying-wing X-48B as early as next week. Those tests are a prelude to introduction of a revised version of the hybrid-wing aircraft in about a year that will be more fuel efficient, have lower emissions, and more closely resemble NASA’s ideal for hybrid wing-body aircraft.
The first Orion capsule passed a structural proof pressure test at the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, La., on Aug. 30. The proof test article will be used for ground and flight evaluations, which will correlate test data with analytical models to validate Orion’s flight design engineering. Tests included pressurizing the spacecraft up to 15.55 lb. per sq. in. (1.05 atmospheres) to check for leaks in the friction-stir welded aluminum-lithium alloy structure.
VEGA: Arianespace has contracted with the European Space Agency for the qualification flight of the Vega light launch vehicle. The flight is planned for mid-2011 carrying an Italian experimental payload. Arianespace also signed a framework contract with prime contractor ELV, a joint venture of Avio and Italian Space Agency ASI, for the first five Vega commercial launches to be performed under ESA’s Verta program.
NEW DELHI — India is quietly working on a new ramjet-powered cruise missile, which could test how the country’s missile development sector has evolved. The long-range cruise missile (LRCM) is apparently designed to be capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to a range of 1,000 km. (620 mi.) with speeds of Mach 3.2. Weapon schematics that are now emerging indicate the liquid-fueled ramjet under development by India’s Advanced Systems Laboratory (ASL) is designed for surface-to-surface, air-to-surface and anti-ship roles.
HOUSTON — The National Institutes of Health, the latest of five federal agencies to partner with NASA in the use of the International Space Station as a National Laboratory, has announced the first of its Biomedical Research on the ISS grant awards. The three awards total $1.32 million for the ground-based precursor activities leading to flight experiments intended to address health issues faced by the general population as well as by astronauts.
LONDON — The Dutch government is moving forward with a long-planned mid-life update of its 17 Cougar transport helicopters to keep them viable until 2026. One of the main drivers is the fact that Cougar components will reach the end of their sustainable life and no longer be supported by Eurocopter, the Dutch defense ministry tells parliament. Affected are the navigation computer, data storage system and related software. Equipment also has to be added to comply with new navigation requirements.
PARIS — Work is officially underway on Gokturk, an optical imaging intelligence satellite ordered last year from Thales Alenia Space by the Turkish ministry of defense. Thales Alenia sister company Telespazio is prime contractor for the 70-cm. class satellite — the Turks are keeping actual spatial resolution secret — which is to be launched in 2013. Thales Alenia is supplying the imager, derived from the one designed for France’s Pleaides, along with the spacecraft bus, based on the Proteus platform.
PARIS — The European Space Agency (ESA) has recovered full use of the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite, permitting it to resume its mission. A July communications malfunction, thought to involve a link between the processor and the telemetry modules on the main computer, had threatened continuity of the mission with a third of Earth-gravity mapping still to be completed.
NEW DELHI — India and Russia are in the process of finalizing a deal for the joint development and marketing of a Multi-role Transport Aircraft (MTA), AVIATION WEEK has learned. This follows an intergovernmental agreement on the joint development of the MTA signed in 2007. Russia will hold a 53% share in the joint venture, while India will hold 47%.
BROADBAND GRANTS: The U.S. government has awarded four satellite operators over $100 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grants to help deploy high-speed Internet to rural communities. The biggest of the grants — the first awarded for satellite broadband — went to Hughes Network Systems to support 259,000 households nationwide. Other operators receiving stimulus money were ViaSat affiliate WildBlue, Echostar and Spacenet.
Lockheed Martin and NASA are drawing up a list of contingency plans for the Orion spacecraft that, depending on funding, could still allow for a stripped-down version to fly an orbital test flight in mid-2013.
A requirement for a low-flying, slow attack aircraft is emerging to support homeland defense missions, the commander of U.S. Northern Command says. At issue is a “gap” in the ability to properly interdict low-flying, slow threats, such as general aviation aircraft, small unmanned aerial systems or helicopters, says Adm. James Winnefeld, Northcom chief. He spoke to reporters during a Sept. 9 Defense Writers Group breakfast in Washington.
NEW DELHI — The Indian navy has issued a request for information (RFI) for procurement of six conventional submarines under its Project 75 (I) program. The estimated value of the eventual contract is $11 billion. Submissions are due by Sept 30. Companies expected to respond include Rosoboronexport (Amur shipyard), France’s DCNS, Germany’s HDW and Spain’s Navantia.
BAE Systems is planning to propose its single-engine Hawk trainer as the U.S. Air Force begins to move slowly toward a competition for a T-38 replacement. The average age of the T-38 last year was 42 years, but financial pressures in the Pentagon are forcing the Air Force to push off its plans for a replacement until 2012 at the earliest.
