COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — President Barack Obama will spend about 45 minutes on the ground in Florida April 15 explaining his administration’s “game-changing” space policy, and from comments heard by Aviation Week at the 26th National Space Symposium here, even many of the invitees in his hand-picked audience will be skeptical.
REFORM II: The U.S. House Armed Services Committee (HASC) is introducing acquisition reform legislation of its own that, if enacted, supposedly would address the remaining 80% of the defense acquisition system not covered by last year’s Senate-borne Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act. Aides say the bill would require the Pentagon to begin to “comprehensively manage the defense acquisition system and acquisition workforce to save taxpayer dollars and ensure that the right materiel gets to warfighters sooner.
GOVERNING OBJECTION: Several state governors are objecting to Pentagon plans to transfer 12 C-130 cargo aircraft from Air National Guard units to the active duty Air Force. “The proposal’s failure to consider the mission-critical needs of the National Guard, as well as the lack of consultation with states ... are deeply troubling,” the National Governors Association stresses in a letter. USAF generals say they have been discussing the move within headquarters and expect an announcement over the next week or so.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Air Force Secretary Michael Donley says he is close to making some decisions on how to shore up management and oversight of military space activities.
Boeing’s fourth GPS IIF satellite will enter the company’s pulse production line in the next couple of months, says Craig Cooning, vice president and general manager of space and intelligence systems for Boeing. The pulse line concept is fashioned after Boeing Commercial Airplanes’ production plan for the 737 airliner, he says. It is designed to reduce manufacturing time and streamline work by shifting satellites along a series of “pulse” points, at which specific tasks are done.
LONDON — The Conservative Party would “re-evaluate” British participation in the European Defense Agency (EDA) as part of an effort to save on “unnecessary and bureaucratic EU (European Union) defense initiatives.” The party’s election manifesto — published April 13 — claims “the hopeless mismanagement of defense procurement by this government has wasted billions of taxpayers’ money and left our Armed Forces underequipped and dangerously exposed.”
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Hypersonic propulsion technology about to be tested in the X-51A WaveRider program could take a step toward operational use as a hypersonic missile under a U.S. Air Force study called Riptide.
DUEL BIDS: Lockheed Martin Corp. and Austal submitted their bids April 12 for the Fiscal 2010-2014 batch of Littoral Combat Ships (LCS). The Lockheed Martin team was awarded a contract to build the Navy’s first and third LCS, while Austal, teamed with General Dynamics, is on contract for the second and fourth ships. This new contract will provide for 10 ships and combat systems for five additional ships. The award for the estimated $5 billion program is anticipated in July.
MIXED DATA: A new Rasmussen public poll claims that a plurality of American adults surveyed by telephone believe the space shuttle program was worth the price, and they overwhelmingly support NASA. But nearly half (49%) now say that given the current state of the economy, the U.S. should cut back on space exploration. That number is similar to the result found in January but it is up six points from last July. About a third (34%) do not see a need for America to cut back, while 18% are undecided.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — U.S. Strategic Command is in urgent need of an additional missile-warning system in orbit, according to Lt. Cmdr. Steve Curry, a spokesman for the command.
LANGLEY AFB, Va. — Requests from combat commanders in Afghanistan are not all for esoteric weapons and sensors. “The requests I have been getting are in the arena of limited-effect [grenade-size explosions without fragmentation] kinetic weapons that are all-weather, day/night, high precision and low collateral damage,” says Brig. Gen. Dave Goldfein, Air Combat Command’s (ACC) director of air and space operations (A3).
LOOKING GOOD: Forecast International projects the civil and commercial remote sensing satellite market worldwide to be worth $16 billion through 2019. The most important consumers of satellite imagery data remain government and military agencies, the firm said April 12. Internationally, partnerships continue to blur the line between government and industry.
EADS North America’s plans to quickly secure a U.S.-based strategic partner for its prime contractor bid for the U.S. Air Force KC-135 replacement contract appear to be encountering significant headwind.
A key Senate defense authorizer has advised military leaders that Congress is likely to mandate more fourth-generation-based fighter spending than the Pentagon or even the White House envision in coming years due to setbacks in the Joint Strike Fighter program.
The F-16 Falcon’s 2010 availability is coming under more scrutiny as the U.S. Air Force has unveiled stress tests to study the aircraft’s availability while the U.S. Air Force’s Joint Strike Fighter slips, service leaders testified on Capitol Hill. The aircraft’s availability is 67%, a panel of leading generals testified at an April 13 hearing of the Senate Armed Services airland subcommittee. Falcons are known to develop bulkhead cracks, particularly near landing gear, but the service does not anticipate a significant fleet-upgrade effort, they say.
Startup company AVX Aircraft is proposing to upgrade the Bell OH-58D Kiowa Warrior with coaxial rotors and ducted fans to meet the U.S. Army’s Armed Aerial Scout (AAS) requirement. Hoping to persuade the Army to fund a demonstrator, the company is making its debut and unveiling its concept at this week’s Army Aviation Association of America convention in its hometown of Fort Worth, Texas. Founded in 2005, AVX is made up mainly of former Bell Helicopter engineers and managers.
Activity on Northrop Grumman’s RQ-4 Global Hawk program is accelerating as several versions of the high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) unmanned aircraft approach critical milestones this year. The first Euro Hawk signals-intelligence version of the Block 20 Global Hawk for the German air force has begun taxi tests at Palmdale, Calif., and is expected to fly in May and ferry to EADS’s Manching, Germany plant in November for payload integration and testing.
SCIENCE HAWK: NASA’s first science flight using a former U.S. Air Force Northrop Grumman Global Hawk UAV was completed over the Pacific Ocean on April 7. The flight was the first of five scheduled for this month’s Global Hawk Pacific mission to study atmospheric science over the Pacific and Arctic oceans. During the 14-hr. flight, the UAV reached an altitude of 60,900 ft. and flew about 4,500 nm. along a flight path that took it to just south of Alaska’s Kodiak Island.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The first Russian cargo to fly from Kennedy Space Center to the International Space Station is being prepared for launch aboard space shuttle Atlantis’s final planned flight, STS-132, targeted for liftoff on May 14.
HOUSTON — Spacewalking astronauts from the shuttle Discovery finished plumbing a newly installed coolant tank outside the International Space Station (ISS) April 13, but a stuck nitrogen valve prevented NASA’s Mission Control from reactivating the replenished thermal control system. Control center engineers were assessing options for a future spacewalk to replace the nitrogen tank assembly with the balky internal valve as well as their preference for a ground command strategy.
Discovery astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Clay Anderson plan to finish the installation of a new ammonia coolant tank as their first task early April 13, when they venture outside the International Space Station for their third mission spacewalk. The connection of four ammonia and nitrogen lines was deferred during their 7.5-hour space walk on April 11, when the two men struggled to align four bolts securing the 1,700-lb. tank to the station’s right side truss.
