A new private space venture plans to send commercial customers into orbit for a week at a time using updated hardware based on 1970s-era Russian Almaz re-entry vehicle and space station hardware starting as early as 2013.
REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. — The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is planning to conduct the first two-stage Ground-Based Midcourse Defense Interceptor (GBI) flight verification trial next spring, a delay of plans for this summer. The reason is an added requirement, according to Carlos Kingston, MDA’s Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) program director. MDA will now marry this booster verification test with a flight trial of new software added to the GBI’s Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV).
SHUTTLE MEETING: Senior NASA managers, including Administrator Charles Bolden, worked into the night Aug. 18 on the flight readiness review (FRR) for the STS-128 space shuttle mission to the International Space Station, and were not expected to set a launch date until the following day. The FRR decided at the outset to slip the launch by one day to Aug. 25 to allow more time to complete normal processing.
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MOSCOW — Two Russian air force “Russian Knights” fighters — a single-seat Su-27 and a dual-seat Su-27UB — collided during an air show rehearsal at low altitude Aug. 16. Though all pilots ejected, the head of the group, Col. Igor Tkachenko, died. Two others were “at a satisfactory health condition,” the air force press service says. The incident happened ahead of the Moscow Air Show. One of the fighters reportedly fell onto a small country house, and there were some victims on the ground.The incident remain under investigation.
GENOA, Italy — AgustaWestland has gotten the nod to acquire Polish helicopter maker PZL Swidnik, with the goal of completing the transaction by year’s end. European antitrust authorities still have to rule, although the deal — long in the making — is expected to get the green light. The Polish government decided last year to privatize PCL Swednik, with 87.62 percent of the company up for sale.
REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. — The U.S. Air Force is considering funding continued development of a research project to build “sidecars” capable of relaying space situational awareness data into the U.S. space surveillance system from sensors not dedicated to that duty.
U.S. Coast Guard and national security officials and their industry partner believe they have proven the concept of satellite-based data relay for the ship-tracking automatic identification system (AIS), but now they are casting a global net for help and ideas on how to make it operational.
Every school child knows the theory that a meteor impact may have spelled doom for the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. But the discovery by NASA scientists of glycine on the comet Wild 2 is lending credence to an opposite thought — that comets and meteors delivered the ingredients for life to Earth.
At least one Scud D missile jointly developed by North Korea, Iran and Syria failed in a test shot in Syria in the second half of May, Japan’s Kyodo news wire reports, citing diplomatic and military sources. The guidance system malfunctioned in a Scud D that several sources agree was fired from southwestern Syria to the northeast.
LITTORAL COMBAT: Northrop Grumman, the U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center and Harris Corp. have demonstrated the integration of the AN/SPQ-9B radar and Naval Expeditionary Overwatch system sensor data into the Integrated Combat Management System (ICMS) at the Navy’s Center for Surface Combat Systems at Dam Neck, Va., Northrop announced Aug. 18. The demonstration illustrated the open architecture capabilities of ICMS to integrate both shipboard and off-board sensor data into a combat system network to support fleet combat operations, the company said.
GEORGIA IN MIND: Georgia will contribute an infantry brigade to Afghanistan for service under U.S. command in the International Security Assistance Force, according to State Department officials in Washington. Some U.S. Marines also have been arriving in Georgia to implement a training program starting in September to prepare the Georgians for service in Afghanistan. The 2008 conflict between Russia and Georgia has served to bolster U.S.-Georgian cooperation in modernizing and improving the Caucus country’s capabilities (Aerospace DAILY, July 16).
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The final Delta II launch for the U.S. Air Force sent a Global Positioning System (GPS) spacecraft toward its operational orbit early Aug. 17, capping a 48-mission series of flights with the Boeing-developed rocket. Liftoff with GPS IIR-21(M) came at 6:35 a.m. EDT from launch complex 17A at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. The spacecraft deployed nominally after a one-hour, eight-minute flight.
The United Kingdom hopes to get Eurofighter partners to define and approve another major round of Typhoon upgrades by the second quarter of 2010 to ensure the capabilities start to reach operator hands in 2014. A big ambition for Britain is to bolster the aircraft’s ground-attack capability. In particular, the Royal Air Force (RAF) wants to bring fielding of the Brimstone missile as far forward as possible within the upgrade cycle, according to the defense ministry’s assistant head of capability theater airspace, Group Capt. Tony Innes.
COLDER NUKES: A new U.S.-Russian nuclear arms reduction treaty will include “effective” verification measures drawn from the former Cold War adversaries’ experience in implementing the current Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty regime, according to Susan Burk, Washington’s special representative of the president for nuclear nonproliferation. “Achievement of a legally binding and effectively verifiable agreement will set the stage for further cuts and eventually a disarmament process that includes all nuclear weapon states,” she said in Geneva last week.
The U.S. Defense Department has failed to meet federal mandates that require the Pentagon to transfer about $260 million back to the Treasury Department, a recent DOD Inspector General (IG) report says. The money is part of the funds the DOD received for its Defense Emergency Response Fund (DERF) for the Global War on Terror (GWOT). By law the Pentagon was supposed to transfer DERF balances to the Iraq Freedom Fund (IFF) as of Oct. 31, 2003, through the Treasury Department, the IG says in its report, released last month.
ARMY BBN Technologies Corp., Cambridge, Mass., was awarded on Aug. 10, 2009 a $22,460,000 firm-fixed-priced contract for the procurement of 1,095 Boomerang Generation III Systems and 2,195 vehicle installation kits. The work is to be performed in Cambridge, Mass., with an estimated completion date of Feb. 28, 2010. One bid was solicited with one bid received. CECOM Acquisition Center, Fort Monmouth, N.J., is the contracting activity (W15P7T-09-C-M410). AIR FORCE
NORTHERN EXPOSURE: U.S. diplomats assert they are being effective in wielding their financial pressure on North Korea in response to the country’s recent nuclear and missile tests. In a press conference in Washington last week, Philip Goldberg, U.S. coordinator for implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874, said recent events point to some success. “There are a couple of examples, the most public of which was the Kang Nam 1 incident, where a North Korean ship was coming down toward Southeast Asia and eventually turned around,” he said.
AIR FORCE Lockheed Martin Corp., Marietta, Ga. was awarded a $140,300,000 modified firm fixed contract to provide two additional C-130J-30 aircraft for the Iraq government. The undefinitized contract action also includes nonrecurring engineering and integration tasks associated with the new Iraq-peculiar configuration. At this time no funds have been obligated. 657 AESS, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8625-06-C-6456/P00098).
European radar manufacturer Selex Galileo has conducted the first airborne trials of a preproduction standard of its Seaspray 5000E active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar. The 5000E is the smallest member of the Seaspray AESA family so far developed, and is aimed at the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and rotary wing markets. The Seaspray 5000E is being targeted at a number of upcoming U.S. requirements for both UAV and helicopter applications.
