MOONWALK: Forty years ago, on July 20th, 1969, Apollo 11 Mission Commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings to set foot on another planetary body when they stepped into the Sea of Tranquility on the moon. Armstrong descended the ladder from the “Eagle” Lunar Module at 10:56pm EDT, and he and Aldrin spent roughly 2.5 hours exploring the lunar surface while Command Module Pilot Michael Collins orbited above them. The mission achieved the late President John F. Kennedy’s goal of landing U.S.
NEW RADAR: Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon are working on six-month concept studies for an Air and Missile Defense Radar, which is described as a “scaleable, solid-state radar suite” for combat surface ships. It eventually is to be a meld of S-band (mid-frequency for long range) radar, X-band (high-frequency for precise targeting) radar and Radar Suite Controller. It is to improve defenses against advanced anti-ship, stealthy cruise and ballistic missiles. The U.S. Navy awarded $10 million contracts to each of the companies.
An industry team developing ways to deliver Global Positioning System (GPS) augmentation signals through the Iridium low Earth orbit communications satellite constellation has passed two significant milestones on the way to a system-level demonstration later this year.
Oil giant ExxonMobil has launched a $600 million program to research and develop biofuels, including jet fuel, from photosynthetic algae. The company is a major supplier of petroleum-based jet fuels, including JP-5 and JP-8. ExxonMobil has formed an alliance with biotech company Synthetic Genomics (SGI), founded by genome pioneer Craig Venter, and expects to spend more than $300 million internally and potentially another $300 million with SGI over the next five to six years to develop the capability for large-scale production of biofuel from algae.
MICRO DRIVE: The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is proposing establishing a center for collaborative development of bio-inspired micro air vehicles (MAV) with academia, industry and other Defense Dept. organizations, and has issued a request for proposals to identify potential participants. The collaborative center would design and build prototypes for flight testing on indoor and outdoor ranges. AFRL plans to demonstrate a bird-sized MAV by 2015 and an insect-sized vehicle by 2030.
FLYING AGAIN: The second Lockheed Martin F-35B short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing (STOVL) test aircraft, BF-2, is back to work following its return to flight on July 13. BF-2 had been in modification since its first flight on Feb. 25 and incorporates several hardware and software upgrades. Aerial refueling testing is planned to begin late this month. The first STOVL aircraft, BF-1, is expected return to flight by the end of July after completing modification and a propulsion-system checkout on the hover pit at Fort Worth.
A visit to Kennedy Space Center highlights the sense of dread that the space industry is feeling about the scheduled retirement of the space shuttle fleet next year. Contractors that have grown up around the program during the past 35 years are facing a huge drop in revenues, especially since a shuttle follow-on won’t be operational until at least 2015.
JAXA PLANS: Japan’s new space law mandates that the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) begin discussing a future human spaceflight program this year, aimed at launching a piloted Japanese space vehicle by 2020. JAXA’s H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV), scheduled for its first launch to the International Space Station (ISS) in September, is currently designed to burn up on re-entry. But the agency is exploring ways to backfit the vehicle with a thermal protection system (TPS), according to Shigeki Kamigaichi, program manager for JAXA’s manned space flight division.
ANTENNA DEPLOYED: TerreStar’s hybrid mobile telecom satellite service is inching closer to initial operation following deployment of the spacecraft’s 18 meter long unfurlable S-band antenna — said to be the largest ever deployed on a commercial satellite. TerreStar-1 was launched aboard an Ariane 5 rocket on July 1 and is expected to enter service toward year’s end.
Space shuttle experts are evaluating the heat shield protecting Endeavour following what appeared to be the worst release of insulating foam from its external tank since the Columbia accident.
LONDON — The British government on July 16 decided to abandon a hope to bring forward a medium-lift helicopter acquisition and instead will pursue a life-extension program — the same day a Parliamentary committee said this was exactly the wrong approach. Quentin Davies, the minister for defense equipment and support, threw the ministry’s medium helicopter acquisition program into turmoil in June when he insisted on an “eleventh hour” fundamental review.
UAS FLIGHT PLAN: U.S. Air Force and Defense Department personnel, as well as industry representatives, are to be briefed on the Air Force’s long-term unmanned aircraft systems road map, the UAS Flight Plan, over three days on July 28-30 in Herndon, Va. Approved by Air Force leadership on June 23, the Flight Plan outlines a vision to 2047 for integration of UAS across all the service’s functions, identifying unmanned alternatives for some manned missions.
U.S. Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) has formulated its requirements for a follow-on spacecraft to the initial Block 10 Space Based Space Surveillance (SBSS) satellite, although the service still hasn’t decided whether it will take the form of another identical satellite or an updated version.
NIGHT VISION: The U.S. Army awarded Lockheed Martin a follow-on Performance Based Logistics (PBL) contract to support the Target Acquisition Designation Sight/Pilot Night Vision Sensor (TADS/PNVS) and Modernized TADS/PNVS systems on the AH-64 Apache helicopter. The contract has a potential value of $89 million for 2009. The original PBL contract, awarded in early 2007, established a system of continuous improvements supporting the AH-64 Apache TADS/PNVS and M-TADS/PNVS programs.
SECOND CHANCE: The Utah congressional delegation, which jumped the gun by announcing in March that Hill Air Force Base would become the depot for Predator and Reaper unmanned aircraft, says the U.S. Air Force has now confirmed its decision to award the maintenance work to the base. Ogden Air Logistics Center at Hill will be responsible for MQ-1 and MQ-9 airframe structural repair, maintenance of the Predator ground segment, and overhaul of composite structures, hydraulics and landing gear for the RQ-4A Block 10 Global Hawk.
Intelsat’s choice of the medium-sized 702B satellite bus helps Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems (BSIS) stabilize employment at its El Segundo, Calif., satellite factory by reopening commercial sales opportunities in fixed and broadcast satellite services. The opportunity comes as government contracts are drying up. Although not officially terminated, the latest casualty was the $15 billion-plus Transformational Satellite Communications System (TSAT) program on which Boeing was competing with Lockheed Martin.
House defense appropriators, defying a White House veto threat, on July 16 included $369 million in the fiscal 2010 defense spending bill to build more F-22 Raptors. The Raptor appropriations, mirroring the actions of the House Armed Services Committee in its FY ’10 authorization bill, would fund parts acquisition as a down payment on 12 more of the stealth fighter aircraft.
The Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey is poised to receive $30 million in upgrades as part of two Defense Department contracts issued late July 15. These could be coming at a good time because of concerns about the aircraft’s maintainability and poor reliability recently raised by some in Congress and the U.S. Government Accountability Office (Aerospace DAILY, June 29).
The U.S. Senate confirmed former space shuttle astronaut Charles Bolden as the 12th administrator of NASA late July 15, along with Lori Garver as deputy administrator. Bolden and Garver were expected to be sworn in either July 16 or July 17. Bolden spent 34 years in the Marine Corps — reaching the rank of major general — and 14 concurrent years with NASA’s astronaut office. He flew on the space shuttle four times between 1986 and 1994, commanding two of the missions. His flights included the deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope.
NEW DELHI U.S. defense companies are eager for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to India July 17-21, with the prime focus on strengthening and broadening the two countries’ strategic partnership. Raytheon is one of these companies, as it strives for Patriot missile growth and to expand its presence in India.
TELSTAR: Telesat has picked Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) to supply Telstar 14R, a Ku-band satellite intended to replace Telstar 14/Estrela do Sol, which was launched in 2004 but suffered a solar array failure that has limited its service life. The 46-transponder, five-beam Telstar 14R, is to be orbited in the second half of 2011 to 63 deg. W. Long., where it will serve Brazil, the continental U.S., the Andean region, the southern cone of South America and the North and mid-Atlantic Ocean regions. It was the fifth order of the year for SS/L.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is not planning to support a proposal from Northrop Grumman to fund the first flight-test for the high-speed Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) program. MDA’s cost estimate for the first flight-test — the date for which had slipped several times and into next year — was about $120 million, according to the agency’s director, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly.
