CIVIL AIR PATROL: Lawmakers in Congress are looking into bolstering the Civil Air Patrol’s role in U.S. homeland security. Similar House and Senate language promoted by Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) and Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.) would ask congressional auditors to report on the auxiliary Air Force branch’s ability to better help Homeland Security Dept.-led aerial reconnaissance, border security, and search and rescue. An initial effort a year ago passed the House but died with the 110th session of Congress.
SEATTLE Even though its first flight still isn’t slated until the second quarter of this year, the U.S. Navy’s P-8A Poseidon is already being redesigned. Poseidon’s Increment One is the basic aircraft. However, the Navy has designed a software baseline that can be upgraded every 2-3 years. To support these serial upgrades, the aircraft has 50 percent extra electrical, cooling and computing power. There also is room for 12 tons of growth.
ROCKET SET: The top 100 student rocketry teams in the country will compete in the final round of the Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC) May 16. The seventh annual TARC will take place at Great Meadow in The Plains, Virginia. The final competition gives middle and high school students a chance to earn part of a total package of $60,000 in scholarships and other prizes. A total of 653 teams from 45 states and the District of Columbia took part in the competition’s qualifying rounds.
NAME GAME: NASA will announce the new name for the Node 3 module aboard the International Space Station on April 14. The agency will make the announcement with the help of ISS astronaut Suni Williams on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” which will air at 11:30 p.m. EDT. Fans of host Stephen Colbert, at his urging, flooded NASA’s naming contest website with write-in requests that the module be named after him rather than the NASA-suggested names Serenity, Legacy, Earthrise or Venture. “I certainly hope NASA does the right thing,” Colbert says.
MINSK GROWLER: Belarus could become the first export customer for the Russian Almaz Antey S-400 (SA-21 Growler) surface-to-air missile system, according to Russian news agency RIA Novosti. It cites a senior air force official as suggesting the S-400 will be supplied as part of a broader agreement to create an integrated air defense network covering the two countries.
ZUMWALT COMMENT: Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), who chairs the House Armed Services seapower and expeditionary forces subcommittee and has been openly critical of the U.S. Navy’s handling of its shipbuilding programs, expressed his support April 7 for the service’s decision to end DDG-1000 production in favor of restarting the DDG-51 line. “The Navy will realize additional cost savings through economies of scale in constructing larger numbers of DDG-51s in series production rather than three or less DDG-1000s,” Taylor said in a statement.
The U.S. Air Force together with Northrop Grumman will mark the 50th anniversary of the first test flight of the developmental YT-38 on April 10. The milestone comes as the Air Force waits for companies to respond later this month to a request for information (RFI) for a future Advanced Pilot Training (APT) “family of systems” that will replace it.
THAAD DAY: Lockheed Martin says it will roll out the first Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) weapon system launcher and fire control system April 13 at the company’s THAAD launcher integration complex in Camden, Ark. The defense contractor said “several governmental and civic dignitaries” were invited to participate, although it did not name who would appear.
STRAIGHT ARROW: Representatives from the Israeli Missile Defense Organization and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency collaborated on a test launch of the Arrow II interceptor missile April 7 in Israel. The Arrow, a joint venture between Boeing and Israel Aerospace Industries, intercepted a target missile simulating an Iranian Shehab-3 ballistic missile over the Mediterranean. This was the sixteenth test of the Arrow. Israel also is working on a higher-end interceptor to destroy longer-range Iranian ballistic missiles with higher closing velocities. The U.S.
National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) Director Scott Large is resigning his post effective April 18. He notified Defense Secretary Robert Gates on April 8. Large was appointed to the post in October 2007. As NRO director, he has been responsible for overseeing procurement and operation of the nation’s classified satellite fleets, and he has managed a massive secret budget.
The gradiometer aboard the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) is online and gathering data, as the spacecraft gears up to begin science operations this summer.
GOSAT SCIENCE: The “Three Parties” behind Japan’s Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (Gosat) — JAXA, the National Institute for Environmental Studies and the Ministry of Environment — have issued their second research announcement for scientists using data from Gosat’s Thermal and Near IR Sensor. Launched in January, Gosat is the principal orbiting observatory focused on carbon dioxide and methane emissions monitoring. Gosat focuses on the sources of emissions.
Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL), a nonprofit research and development corporation owned by Utah State University, is preparing to deliver the main sensing unit of NASA’s upcoming Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) to Ball Aerospace for integration into the spacecraft. SDL pioneered the “solid hydrogen” cooling technology at the heart of the WISE spacecraft, which is due to be launched in November to survey the entire sky in four mid-infrared bands spanning from 2.8 to 26 microns.
COUGAR UPGRADES: Force Protection received a $158 million contract modification from U.S. Marine Corps Systems Command to supply Force Protection Cougar Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles with the Oshkosh Corp. TAK-4 Independent Suspension Kits. Force Protection, Oshkosh and MRAP Joint Program Office engineers collaborated to integrate the TAK-4 system onto the Cougar, with the intention of providing the vehicle with better mobility and maneuverability in Afghanistan’s difficult terrain. The work is expected to be complete by December 2009.
PARIS – EADS is hoping to reach its 50 flight hour target with the Marshall Aerospace C-130 serving as the flying test bed for the A400M’s TP400D turboprop engine before July. The goal to reach that milestone in the second quarter is not easy, though. So far the test bed has flown about 15 hours since its first flight in mid-December. But improving weather should allow the pace of flight-testing to increase.
With the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) industry still struggling to find heavy-fuel engines that are competitive with gasoline powerplants in power-to-weight ratio, Aurora Flight Sciences has won a contract to study a high-output turboelectric diesel engine for small UAVs. Heavy-fuel engines are the holy grail for UAV makers as they run on JP-8 or diesel fuel already in the military logistic pipeline. But according to Aurora, they are currently too heavy for use in small UAVs, which instead run on automotive or aviation gasoline.
JAXA has begun a series of pad tests for its H-IIB launcher at the Tanegashima Space Launch Complex with a 10-second captive firing of the Mitsubishi twin-motor first stage. With Mitsubishi Heavy Industries as its partner, JAXA is developing the H-IIB to lift the H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) to the International Space Station. The effort is JAXA’s first public-private partnership.
The German navy has taken delivery of the overhauled Rottweil, which has been converted from a mine-clearance vessel capable of deploying unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) to a platform for divers skilled in anti-mine operations. It is the first vessel of its type within NATO, the German navy says.
The Pentagon has been a little too loose with procedural controls over certain cash reporting accounts, a recent Pentagon Inspector General (IG) report says. Specifically, the IG questions internal controls over DOD Statements of Accountability (SOA) and the reporting of Cash and Other Monetary Assets (COMA) on the department’s Agency-Wide financial statements.
LONDON — After being purchased by H3 Aerospace, Grob Aircraft is making strides to rebuild its trainer aircraft business and has now secured the first sale under its new corporate banner. The deal covers the sale of more than 20 G115 trainers to VT Aerospace, Grob says. The contract’s value through the life of the program tops €10 million ($13.5 million). VT Aerospace has a fleet of 97 Grob Aircraft. The company provides training support to the British Royal Air Force.
