The 13 astronauts and cosmonauts on the International Space Station (ISS) and the space shuttle Discovery continued transferring cargo from the Leonardo pressurized logistics module Sept. 2, after two of their number started an unprecedented on-orbit swapout of a depleted ammonia tank in a six-hour, 35-minute spacewalk late Sept. 1.
LONG REIGN: More than 150 attendees from 15 countries are expected to mark the 50th anniversary of the S-61 helicopter at the 12th annual International Sea King Maintenance Symposium in New Haven, Conn., this week. The first prototype flew in March 1959 after Sikorsky Aircraft developed it for the U.S. Navy. Today, more than 550 Sea King and S-61 commercial variants operate in more than 20 nations.
LONDON — The U.K. Royal Air Force (RAF) has lost a second Chinook helicopter in operations in Afghanistan in less than a month. Following a “hard landing” during a mission on Aug. 30 near Sangin, the aircraft was destroyed when safe recovery of the airframe was deemed impossible. None of the four crew and 15 troops onboard were injured. According to a British Defense Ministry statement, the helicopter “is believed to have … sustained damage to the undercarriage, nose and front rotor, which subsequently made it unflyable.”
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has delivered a communications unit to NASA that will enable the company’s Dragon spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station (ISS).
HIT THE SPOT: Boeing says the U.S Air Force’s Airborne Tactical Laser technology demonstrator “defeated” a ground target — an unoccupied stationary vehicle — during an Aug. 30 test flight over White Sands Missile Range, N.M. Damage assessment is under way, but the vehicle will “temporarily/permanently be unavailable for its intended use,” says 808th Armament Systems Group Director Elizabeth Thorn.
LONDON — Painfully aware of the vulnerability of British defense expenditures and the risk that 2010’s Strategic Defense Review will be driven by cost rather than capability, the U.K.’s Defense Industries Council (DIC) lobbying group is broadening its efforts to sustain government support for the sector, or at least limit the damage as budgetary pressures mount. In two documents published Sept. 1, the DIC argues that the sector provides an important — and undervalued — contribution to the U.K. economy, while supporting national security and foreign policy.
MORE ’BOTS: As part of the $286 million Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) xBot contract, iRobot Corp. has received an order for $35.3 million from the U.S. Army for 486 iRobot PackBot 510s with FasTac Kit, to be delivered by March 31, 2010. The total contract value to date under the IDIQ is about $125 million. The U.S. Army so far has taken delivery of more than 2,500 teleoperated Packbots, which are used for ordinance disposal, route clearance and other surveillance duties.
NEW DELHI — Last month’s export authorization from the U.S. government now permits Northrop Grumman to have discussions with the Indian navy on the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye, a platform that provides a highly adaptive form of airborne early warning and control (AEW&C). A U.S Navy representative, E-2 New Business Manager John Beaulieu, last week made an eight-hour presentation to the Indian navy on the E-2D after a request for more technical clarifications following a request for information last year.
Boeing’s appointment of Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) chief James Albaugh to lead the company’s Commercial Airplanes unit is the third time in the past two years that Boeing has tapped senior leaders from IDS to step in to guide its troubled commercial airplane programs.
A&D Programs Conference November 2-4, 2009 Phoenix, AZ A&D Finance Conference December 2-3, 2009 New York, NY Defense Technology & Requirements Conference February 17-18, 2010 Washington, DC AVIATION WEEK Laureates Awards March 17, 2010 Washington, DC
POWER SWITCH: Boeing has received a $405,000 U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) contract to modify its ScanEagle Compressed Carriage (SECC) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to take a fuel-cell propulsion system. The folding-wing SECC is a development of the surface-launched ScanEagle designed for air launch, and has up to 24 hours endurance on its standard heavy-fuel engine.
Raytheon has reached an agreement to acquire BBN Technologies, a privately-held security software company that specializes in advanced networking, speech and language technologies, information technologies, sensor systems and cybersecurity, for an undisclosed price.
AUSTRALIAN SUPPORT: The Australian minister for defense personnel, materiel and science officially opened BAE Systems’ new aircraft maintenance center at Townsville Airport in North Queensland on Aug. 27. The facility is the home of BAE’s support program for the Australian Army’s Black Hawk and Chinook helicopter fleets. “I’m proud to announce that the Black Hawk rate-of-effort for the last financial year was an 11 percent increase over the previous financial year and the highest for more than six years,” Minister Greg Combet said in praising the company.
NOT APPLICABLE: A Northrop Grumman spokesman told reporters Sept. 1 that the upcoming World Trade Organization report over a U.S. complaint about Airbus subsidies does not and should not affect the U.S. Air Force’s beleaguered KC-X acquisition. “This dispute has no relevance to and should have no impact on the Defense Department’s tanker replacement program,” spokesman Randy Belote asserted in a teleconference.
PARIS — Indonesian telecom operator PT Indosat is attempting to recover a new spacecraft needed to maintain and expand satcom service to Southeast Asia following the failure of a Long March rocket Aug. 30.
Astronauts from the space shuttle Discovery and the International Space Station (ISS) combined forces to begin eight days of docked activities late Aug. 31, plugging the Leonardo pressurized logistics module into the station’s Harmony node for unloading.
Putting the Orion crew exploration vehicle atop a new rocket would require a year or two more work to get back to its current stage of development, project managers said Sept. 1. NASA experts completed their preliminary design review (PDR) on the four-seat capsule Aug. 31, and cleared project engineers to begin work on detailed design of the intended replacement for the space shuttle as the agency’s route to space for humans.
The U.S. must increase its strategic competence, which has suffered in recent decades, to meet multifaceted security challenges facing the nation, according to a new report from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA).
Some data in an Aug. 26 DAILY article on the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite mission was incorrect and additional data has become available. LCROSS was launched with 306 kilograms (675 pounds) of stationkeeping fuel and lost 140 kilograms when its inertial reference unit suffered an anomaly. The mission has an estimated 50 kilograms of fuel remaining (with a plus/minus error factor of 12 kilograms). The mission team needs about 26 kilograms to achieve full mission success. Both its IRU and star tracker systems are now functioning nominally.
