NEW BLOOD: Three new flight directors are joining the ranks at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where they will manage space shuttle flights and International Space Station expeditions. Dina Contella, Scott Stover and Ed Van Cise “are senior flight controllers who have lead management experience and an average of 10 years of flight control experience,” says John McCullough, chief of the Flight Director Office at Johnson. One of the new flight directors will be the 80th in the history of U.S. human spaceflight, NASA says.
DEJA VU: The Swiss will again have a nationwide vote on whether to hold a moratorium on fighter purchases. Swiss pacificist group has secured enough signatures to force the vote on its proposal for a 10-year moratorium. In 1993, a similar effort to block the Swiss purchase of F-18s was rejected by voters. Switzerland is scheduled to select between the Dassault Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon and Saab Gripen early in 2010. The vote is expected to take place in 2011.
Two House defense authorizing subcommittees have bucked the Obama administration’s wishes and directed the Pentagon to continue the alternate engine program for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and buy more carrier-based aircraft to close a fighter jet shortfall.
Intelsat plans to purchase four new satellites to replace five aging spacecraft serving the Asia-Pacific region. Three of the aging satellites were launched in 1998-2001. They were initially earmarked for renewal in 2010-12, but the decision was made to replace them early. Capital expenditures were raised by $75 million to pay for the accelerated renewal. In first-quarter results, Intelsat reported a $499 orbital asset impairment and said it was raising 2009 capital outlays by another $100 million.
WARTHOG SUPPORT: The U.S. Air Force is dividing responsibility for modernizing and sustaining its A-10 attack aircraft over the next 10 years among three “associate prime contractors”: Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Lockheed has been the prime since 1997, but in 2007 Boeing won the contract to re-wing the aircraft. Now all three companies will compete for individual task orders under the overall Lifecycle Program Support contract, which is worth up to $1.6 billion over the initial four years.
HALE HYDROGEN: By the end of June, Boeing and Aurora Flight Sciences plan to begin a three-phase ground test program with the liquid-hydrogen propulsion system for a high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) unmanned aircraft. This is to culminate next summer in the demonstration of four days’ continuous operation of the complete propulsion system, including nacelle and propeller, at a simulated 60,000 feet in an altitude chamber. Boeing’s twin-engine HALE concept is designed to carry a 2,000-pound payload for seven days or 500 pounds for 10 days.
LONDON — The British Defense Ministry is considering retaining its Nimrod R1 electronic intelligence aircraft for three years beyond its notional out-of-service date, as it attempts to identify a replacement. At the same time efforts are underway to conclude delivery of the Nimrod MR2 successor, the MRA4 maritime reconnaissance and attack aircraft, up to six months in advance of the previous schedule.
PROJECT LIBERTY: The U.S. Air Force’s first MC-12W flew its first combat sortie in Iraq on June 10. The service began developing the so-called Project Liberty aircraft last year after calls from U.S. Central Command for more intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support. This is the first of 37 MC-12Ws expected. The first seven are built on the Hawker Beechcraft KingAir 350 with the remainder based on the 350ER. These aircraft will carry a combination of electro-optical and infrared sensors as well as laser illuminators and designators for targeting.
CLEAR TO TRAIN: National guardsmen and emergency responders will be able to train in the use of unmanned aerial systems (UASs) for search and rescue following FAA approval to fly the AAI Aerosonde in unrestricted airspace over Crisis City, a mock-up disaster zone near Salina, Kansas. Previously the UAS was limited to flying in restricted airspace over the adjacent Smoky Hills Weapons Range. The UAS is operated by Flint Hills Solutions jointly with Kansas State University, which is setting up the UAS Technology Evaluation Center.
SECURITY DETAIL: EADS has named the suppliers of the security and support (S&S) mission equipment package to be installed in 200 of the U.S. Army’s 345 planned Eurocopter UH-72A Lakota light utility helicopters. The package includes an L-3 Communications electro-optical/infrared sensor, Sierra Nevada video downlink, LCX Systems moving map and Ranger Rotorcraft touchscreen displays and voice recorder. Army National Guard units will use S&S-equipped UH-72s for homeland defense and other missions.
PARIS — Honeywell officials are finalizing arrangements for an additional U.S. Army order of T-Hawk unmanned aerial systems, which are designed to be carried via backpack and deployed short distances for surveillance. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency helped to develop the aircraft, which is a ducted fan propulsion design. The 17.5-pound air vehicle is capable of up to 50 minutes of flight at a maximum speed of 40 knots. The datalink has about a 10-kilometer radius.
A NASA-funded study found that a human-rated Delta IV heavy rocket could be a cheaper route to the International Space Station than NASA’s Ares I crew launch vehicle. But the human-rated United Launch Alliance rocket would be less expensive only if the Ares V heavy-lift moon rocket development is deferred, the Aerospace Corp. study reports. And the Delta IV alternative could add two years or more to the “gap” in U.S. human access to orbit if it starts this year, according to the unreleased study obtained by Aviation Week.
The commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps says the V-22 Osprey “will be a magnificent airplane” in Afghanistan and will be there as long as there are Marines there, but first the Corps has to feel it out aboard a deployed ship.
The U.S. Army’s military deputy for budget says that despite economic pressures related to the global recession and the Obama administration’s shifting of spending priorities, he’s confident that Defense Secretary Robert Gates will restore modernization funding starting next year.
TRAVEL LOGGED: Washington watchdogs, led by the Center for Public Integrity (CPI), have issued a report that says Defense Department personnel routinely accept free flights, accommodations and hospitality from private and foreign interests that do business with the department. “These free trips have become riddled with conflicts of interest and are in need of stronger oversight and stiffer regulations,” CPI says.
TOKYO — Japan’s Kaguya moon probe smashed into the lunar surface as planned at 3:25 am JST June 11, concluding a 21-month mission that began with launch on an H-IIA rocket from Tanagashima Space Center on Sept. 14, 2007. The satellite crashed at 1.6 kilometers per second (3,600 mph) at an angle of 10 degrees on the southeast quadrant of the near side of the moon, near the Gill Crater at 80.4 degrees east longitude and 65.5 degrees south latitude.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) wants to explore putting Airborne Laser (ABL) technology on a smaller aircraft than its current jumbo jet platform, MDA’s director said June 11.
BALLISTIC ANNIVERSARIES: Lockheed Martin celebrated the tenth anniversary of the first successful intercept of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) weapon system and the 25th anniversary of the first hit-to-kill intercept of a ballistic missile outside the Earth’s atmosphere June 10. On June 10 in 1999, a THAAD missile intercepted a ballistic missile target over White Sands Missile Range, N.M. And in 1984, the U.S.
PRESIDENTIAL PARDON: A recent report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) is proof enough for Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) that the White House should’s scrap the Increment 1 VH-71 helicopter. Restructuring the program, which has been officially canceled by the Navy, to procure the additional helicopters for a 19-aircraft fleet (nine have been built) is “the least costly and time-consuming option available,” he said in a statement June 8.
Researchers modeling the wet chemistry on Mars may have found a link between the strange blobs photographed on the legs of Mars Phoenix lander and ravines and gullies imaged from orbit above the Red Planet.
OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea — In the shadow of continuing North Korean provocations, U.S. and South Korean military leaders are reassessing missile and air defenses on the peninsula and planning which warfighting capabilities to improve next. Critical fixes are needed in close air support, training ranges, digital communications, interoperability and the introduction of precision weapons and advanced sensors, top officials here say.
