PARIS — Prospective bidders continue to jostle for ProtoStar-2, a Boeing 601HP spacecraft being auctioned off by Bermuda-based ProtoStar, following the sale of ProtoStar-1 to Intelsat at a premium price. Heavy interest has allowed troubled ProtoStar to prolong the bidding for the second spacecraft until the end of the year. The company was forced to auction off the two units after filing for Chapter 11 in July.
OMAHA, Neb. — U.S. Air Force and Strategic Command officials are embarking on a “Launch Enterprise Transformation” that aims to improve the responsiveness of today’s fleet of rockets, according to Lt. Gen. Larry James, commander of the 14th Air Force. Officials are building a road map that will lay out what technologies and decisions must be made. One concept officials are exploring is how to reduce the time to launch.
ICBM CRYPTO: Boeing announced Nov. 3 that it has delivered upgraded cryptography devices to Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Air Force for the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) system. The devices provide additional communications security between the missile system’s launch control centers and launch facilities. The new devices are part of the ICBM Cryptography Upgrade program for ICBM missile wings. Boeing designed, developed and delivered the replacement units and supporting technical data, trainers, support equipment, and code processing system modifications.
The U.S. Navy recently awarded Lockheed Martin a $9.9 million contract to produce a preliminary design for the Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP) Block 2 Upgrade by June 2010.
VIRTUAL OSPREY: The U.S. Navy has awarded Boeing and Bell Helicopter a contract to upgrade the Air Force’s CV-22 tiltrotor Cabin Part Task trainer with modifications including an Aircrew Flight Simulation that fuses video images and virtual reality. The upgrade will be delivered to Air Force Special Operations command at Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque, N.M.
BROKEN LUG: General Electric/Rolls-Royce has traced turbine damage that halted testing of the F136 engine on Oct. 2 to a tiny lug that broke loose from the diffuser ahead of the combustor (Aerospace DAILY, Oct. 9). A component that connects the diffuser to the combustor will be modified and the team expects to resume ground tests of the alternative engine for the F-35 before year’s end.
Opticomp Corp., of Zephyr Cove, Nev. was awarded a $5,543,337 contract which will develop a semiconductor optical amplifier structure that is integrated monolithically with OptiComp Corp.’s prototype antenna demonstration. At this time, $1,974,000 has been obligated. Det 8 AFRL/RVKS, Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M. is the contracting activity (FA9453-10-C-0202). NAVY
DANGER ZONES: While U.S. Army aviation mishap financial costs were higher in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past year and a half, the most dangerous country in terms of the number of accidents or incidents has continued to be the United States. There were 404 mishaps in U.S. territory between Jan. 1, 2008, and July 28, 2009, according to an Aerospace DAILY analysis of Army aviation accident data. Iraq ranked second during that time period with 286 mishaps, while there were 193 in Afghanistan. Over the past 30 years, U.S.
Retired U.S. Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former head of Central Command and current chairman of BAE Systems Inc., says he does not think that the case for the war in Afghanistan has been made, politically, to the American people. “I’m still waiting for the fireside chat,” he said, adding that the case has to be made not only to the American people, but to NATO allies as well. He spoke at the annual meeting of the International Peace Operations Association, a governing body for private military contractors, last week near Washington.
PHOENIX — The principal Pentagon advisor on all matters relating to the defense industrial base insisted Nov. 2 that the Defense Department is boosting his office’s role in the near future, and that the office will pursue a bolder, albeit nuanced, approach to several endemic issues.
NEW DELHI – Dr. K. Radhakrishnan became the new head of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on Oct. 31, taking over from previous chairman Dr. G. Madhavan Nair.
The U.S. government is trying to determine what single-engine turboprop aircraft may be available to meet a requirement to provide the Afghanistan National Army Air Corps with up to 20 advance flight trainer/light attack aircraft. The sources sought notice is for an initial batch of six aircraft, with options for a further 14. The U.S. Air Force, which is managing the potential acquisition program, says it is looking for an off-the-shelf aircraft and wants to know how quickly a contractor could deliver the product.
PARIS — The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite and Project for Onboard Autonomy (Proba-2) were successfully launched Nov. 2 from Russia’s Plesetsk Cosmodrome on a Rockot launcher. The launch took place at 2:50 a.m. Central European Time (8:50 p.m. EST Nov. 1), with SMOS separating 70 minutes later. The upper stage performed two more burns before releasing Proba-2, around 180 minutes into the flight. SMOS was placed in a 760-km (470-mile) sun-synchronous orbit, with Proba-2 at 725 km.
TOKYO — Japan’s unmanned H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) finished the final leg of its mission in a blaze of glory on the morning of Nov. 2 Japan Standard Time, burned up by temperatures of 2,000 degrees centigrade as it entered the Earth’s atmosphere. The re-entry concluded Japan’s first demonstration mission of its vehicle for supplying the International Space Station (ISS).
The Defense Department often relies on Analyses of Alternatives (AOA) for weapon systems, but the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) says this process may not be providing enough in-depth assessments.
The senior civilian overseeing the U.S. Air Force says the service is spending too much money on support contracts, and some of this work may be subject to fixed price contracts in the future or be shifted back to government entities for execution to contain costs.
FIXED PRICE: U.S. Air Force Secretary Michael Donley says the service will continue to consider the use of fixed-price contracts where suitable; this is especially useful for the Pentagon with the budget squeeze brought on by fighting two wars, and with flattening procurement funding expected. “As we go forward, I think we’ll try to put more pressure on our suppliers to keep cost down,” he tells Aviation Week.
FUTURE WATCH: The Pentagon’s director of defense research and engineering, Zachary Lemnios, says the next big technology breakthrough may have to do with “our ability to communicate with systems in a very natural way.” In a Defense Dept. article Oct. 29, Lemnios explains how some computer systems already approach the ability to mimic human language understanding, and in some cases learning and reasoning.
PARIS — The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is embarking on a vast program to build a fleet of telecommunications and Earth observation satellites that it eventually hopes will morph into an operational and industrial capability. The program is one of a growing number of space initiatives in the Middle East, all driven by growing instability in the region, a perceived Iranian threat and a desire to spur local technology development. But the UAE program is one of the broadest and deepest in the region, covering commercial as well as government needs.
