HOUSTON — Russia’s Progress 38 cargo capsule departed the International Space Station Aug. 31, clearing the aft docking port for the arrival of a replacement supply ship on Sept. 10. Progress 38, which undocked at 7:22 a.m. EDT, will undergo a series of Russian engineering evaluations until Sept. 6, when it will make a destructive re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere with its cargo of trash and space station discards.
Armadillo Aerospace and Masten Space Systems together will get about $475,000 in NASA funding to flight test advanced vehicles for the agency’s Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research (CRuSR) program, which hopes to use private vehicles to take agency-backed experiments to the edge of space for microgravity and other research. With its share of the award money, Masten, which edged Armadillo in NASA’s lunar lander Centennial Challenge competition, plans to send its Xaero vehicle as high as 18 mi. above Mojave, Calif., in four test flights this winter.
BENGALURU, India — The chief of the Indian Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), V.K. Saraswat, is calling on industry and government partners to follow an integrated approach to production programs for the next five years. In Bengaluru on Aug. 21 to receive a Distinguished Alumni Award from the Indian Institute of Science Alumni Association, Saraswat — who is also the scientific adviser to India’s defense minister — said a centralized infrastructure for production partners will meet the needs of all common requirements.
EXPORT ENFORCEMENT: President Barack Obama is issuing an executive order to create an Export Enforcement Coordination Center that will “coordinate and strengthen” the U.S. government’s export enforcement efforts. The move follows the latest iteration in the administration’s plans to reform export licensing (Aerospace DAILY, Aug. 31). “While there is still more work to be done, taken together, these reforms will focus our resources on the threats that matter most,” the president said in a videotaped message to a Commerce Department conference Aug. 31.
PROMONTORY, Utah — NASA and Alliant Techsystems (ATK) conducted the second test of the fully developed Ares five-segment solid rocket motor, known as Development Motor-2 (DM-2), on Aug. 31 at ATK’s test facility in Promontory, Utah.
LONDON — Four European countries will begin operations of an integrated European Air Transport Command (EATC) to gain efficiencies in the use of tactical and strategic airlift starting Sept. 1. The EATC will formally commence its duties at Eindhoven air base in the Netherlands, where Belgian, Dutch, French and German officials will work together. The command was created through a defense ministerial agreement in February.
PRECISION AWARD: Raytheon said the U.S. Army’s $23 million award to finalize design of the 155-mm. precision-guided Excalibur Ib came after proving “unwavering reliability and robust capability.” The company was set up to defend its Excalibur incumbency against Alliant Techsystems after numerous problems emerged in recent years, and officials once expected to make a decision by last March (Aerospace DAILY, April 14). Raytheon said Aug. 30 that its program met the Army’s cost reduction goals and increased its reliability by using fewer parts and simpler manufacturing.
When Lt. Gen. William Caldwell took over as commander of the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan and Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan more than half a year ago, he thought his job would be straightforward: train the Afghan security forces. What he did not realize is just how basic that training would be.
Specially fitted cargo trucks are now carrying the U.S. military logistics load in Afghanistan. Designed to be stronger and more survivable than earlier designs, Oshkosh Defense’s Palletized Load Systems (PLS) vehicles have become a mainstay for the rough and rugged terrain in the country’s remotest regions. “It has become [the] backbone of over-the-road logistics for Afghanistan,” says Mike Ivy, Oshkosh vice president and general manager for Army programs.
The government’s potential liability for the Small Diameter Bomb II program, if an overrun exceeding 130% occurs, would be $510 million. An article published in the Aug. 26 DAILY quoted a Raytheon official saying this figure is $470 million. Col. Brian Buell, SDB II program manager for the Air Force, says the government would continue to pay declining profit in the event of an overrun until reaching a ceiling price of $510 million.
President Barack Obama is detailing a new “approach” to export controls policy that ranks U.S. exports by tiers, end-uses and end-users, and which the White House claims will “end most, if not all, jurisdictional disputes and ambiguities that have come to define our current system.” The U.S. Munitions List (USML) and the Commerce Control List (CCL) will be structured as “positive lists,” using objective criteria, such as horsepower, rather than subjective, catch-all lists designed around intent-based criteria.
BEIJING — A Japanese advisory panel has renewed the push for the country to drop its ban on arms exports, a move that would open the way for it to participate in international weapons development. Adoption of the recommendations would greatly improve the economics of Japanese industry developing improved versions of the Eurofighter Typhoon or Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and F-15E Eagle family for the country’s F-X fighter requirement, since the resulting aircraft could also be sold to close allies.
AIR FORCE DTS Aviation Services, Fort Worth, Texas, was awarded a $42,265,329 contract modification which will provide maintenance of T-38C, T-6 and T1A aircraft at Columbus Air Force Base, Miss. At this time, no funds have been obligated. 14 CONS/LGC, Columbus Air Force Base, is the contracting activity (FA3002-05-C-0016).
BENGALURU, India — Next year, Russian space agency Roscomos plans to test the lander that will be part of India’s second Moon mission, Chandrayaan-2, Roscosmos Deputy Head Anatoly Shilov says. Scheduled to be lofted in 2013, Chandrayaan-2 will have an orbiter, a lander and a rover. It is slated to fly on a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle from Satish Dhawan Space Center on Sriharikota Island. While the lander will be provided by Russia, the orbiter and the rover are being built by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
SIGN UP: Odd-couple Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Ron Paul (R-Texas) — who made news in early July by announcing a joint effort to roll back defense spending — now are asking their congressional colleagues to sign a letter to President Barack Obama’s deficit commission to make sure defense spending is considered in the bipartisan panel’s recommendations for federal cuts. The letter will be open for signatures until mid-September, according to the anti-war Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL).
The U.S. Air Force’s newest protected satellite communications spacecraft will likely reach operational status 7-8 months later than planned, after a liquid apogee engine designed for orbit raising was deemed useless after two failed burn attempts.
MARITIME EYES: Sentient, an Australian imagery analysis software developer, says it has the technology to make unmanned maritime patrol aircraft more effective at spotting small objects in the water — from submarine periscopes to sailors washed overboard. Sentient’s Kestrel Maritime, which automatically analyzes electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) imagery in real time, can spot moving objects below a patrolling UAV and alert its operator to them by highlighting the image of the object of interest in a red outline box.
BENGALURU, India — The final certification process for Tejas, India’s Light Combat Aircraft, has begun ahead of its crucial initial operational clearance (IOC), program official P.S. Subramanyam tells AVIATION WEEK.
CYBER SCARE: The biggest scare out of the admission last week by Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn III that the U.S. military was the victim of a serious cyberattack two years ago is the fact that the same vulnerability pervades much of the rest of the federal system, according to Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), a senior member of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee and avid cybersecurity lawmaker.
NAVY Eagle Industries Unlimited Inc., Fenton, Mo., is being awarded a maximum $18,496,842 firm-fixed-price contract for enhanced small arms protective inserts plate carrier spares. The work will be performed in Puerto Rico, and is expected to be completed by August 2011. Contract funds will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract is being awarded on a sole-source basis. The Marine Corps Systems Command, Quantico, Va., is the contracting activity (M67854-10-C-3034).
