Spacehab Inc., which made its name renting pressurized cargo modules to NASA for space shuttle missions, is changing its name to Astrotech Corp. The Houston-based company’s payload-processing subsidiary near Kennedy Space Center, Vandenberg Air Force Base and the Long Beach, Calif., Sea Launch homeport was called Astrotech Space Operations.
The Defense Department will pursue 15 Joint Capability Technology Demonstrations (JCTDs), including seven new-starts and five rolling starts, for fiscal 2009, as well as three rolling starts that began at the end of fiscal 2008.
BITING NEED: The U.S. Air Force estimates that an unidentified foreign government has “stolen” 10 to 20 terabytes of information from unclassified military networks, according to a Northrop Grumman executive. Speaking at the 2009 Armed Forces Communications and Electronics West Conference, Linda Mills, corporate vice president and president of Northrop’s Information Systems sector, called for increased government spending and attention for what she called “cyber intelligence.” In particular, Mills suggested even more development of so-called cyber ranges for testing.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicated new calendar listing.) Feb. 22 - 26 — IDEX 2009, Middle East defense conference and Exhibition, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. For more information go to www.idex2009.com Mar. 3 — AVIATION WEEK Laureate Awards, Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, Washington, D.C., http://www.aviationweek.com/conferences
Germany will participate in a new NATO anti-piracy operation off the coast of Somalia in the spring, but under European Union (EU) command. The German frigate Emden and an oiler will participate in the NATO operation under these complicated arrangements to get around the fact that the anti-piracy mandate agreed to by the Bundestag, the German parliament, only covers the EU.
BANKRUPTCY AVERTED: Liberty Media’s $530-million rescue last week to help Sirius XM avoid bankruptcy leaves room for the satellite radio provider to come up with a better deal. And that means a bidding war could yet emerge for the troubled company. Liberty made $250 million available to Sirius right away to retire $175 million in debt due last week, but a second loan — to the old XM subsidiary — has to go through for Liberty to get its 40 percent stake in Sirius.
UAV COMMS: Astrium Services will supply Ku-band up- and –downlink bandwidth for France’s SIDM medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles deployed in Afghanistan under a deal concluded with the French armed forces. Astrium already provides such service for SIDMs based in France. The Afghan SIDMs were accepted in January and recently flew their first mission, Astrium said.
On the eve of a major Washington decision on the fate of Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor, Lexington Insitute Analyst and Lockheed Advisor Loren Thompson continues to extoll the virtues of the stealthy fighter. The fiscal 2009 defense authorization act requires the Obama administration to tell Congress by March 1 whether it wants to build more Raptors beyond the 183 already ordered, or close down the line.
HELP WANTED: The Professional Services Council (PSC), a prominent Washington-area trade association for government contractors, will announce “several immediate and longer-term recommendations” for the federal acquisition work force on Feb. 24. The effort comes as the trade and lobby group voices concerns with the government’s ability to manage the almost $790 billion economic stimulus bill just enacted.
BIOMETRIC BRIEFING: The Pentagon is unveiling the Next Generation Automated Biometric Identification System (NG-ABIS), which will include “multimodal capabilities and advanced functionality.” NG-ABIS has been developed and will officially be in place on Feb. 24 when officials from the Biometrics Task Force, Project Manager Biometrics, Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Army Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems brief reporters in Arlington, Va.
The Estonian government is reducing defense spending by around 14 percent due to the country’s declining economy. The actions by the coalition government have forced the defense ministry to give back 667 million Estonian kroons ($54 million), bringing the top-line down to 4.23 billion kroons ($345 million).
FEDERAL STIMULUS: The new U.S. Customs and Border Protection Unmanned Aircraft Operations Center in Grand Forks, N.D., will rely on and help promote local aviation infrastructure and the academic community there, federal officials said this week in formally opening the center.
The U.S. Navy is dusting off its interest in improving its probe-and-drogue aerial refueling method, with plans to demonstrate an actively stabilized drogue for use with unmanned aircraft. The Navy investigated controllable drogues under fiscal 2007 small business innovation research (SBIR) contracts with Arizona Paradrogue Systems and Nielsen Engineering & Research, but did not proceed beyond Phase 1 studies.
Sukhoi is reporting its Su-35 multirole fighter test program is on schedule, with 87 flights performed by two prototypes during the first year of testing. The flights allowed officials to adjust and check the aircraft’s complex control system and avionics package. Handling characteristics of the aircraft also were validated. This year a third aircraft will join flight-tests, enabling officials to bring the number of flights up to 160 by year’s end.
BIG BURST: NASA’s Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope has imaged a gamma-ray burst with the greatest total energy ever witnessed. The explosion, designated GRB 080916C, took place at 7:13 p.m. EDT on Sept. 15, 2008, in the constellation Carina. Working in tandem, Fermi’s Large Area Telescope and Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor instruments provided a view of the blast’s initial emission from energies between 3,000 to more than 5 billion times that of visible light.
GPS OCX: Northrop Grumman announced it has completed a system design review for the Global Positioning System (GPS) Next Generation Operational Control Segment (OCX) program, the final major milestone under the Phase A contract, in preparation to bid for a Phase B contract. The U.S. Air Force is expected to select either Northrop or competitor Raytheon for Phase B, which will include system development, deployment and sustainment.
PARIS – French legislators say that despite deep misgivings about President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to rejoin NATO’s integrated command structure, they are unlikely to block it. Members of the ruling UMP party complain that NATO commitments to give France leadership of the Allied Command Transformation office in Norfolk, Va., and a NATO regional command in Portugal do not constitute sufficient payback for giving up France’s military independence.
Kepler, NASA’s wide-field, planet-hunting orbiting observatory, was moved to Pad 17 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Feb. 19 in preparation for a March 5 liftoff on a United Launch Alliance Delta II booster. High winds prevented mounting the 2,320-pound spacecraft, which is due for a 10:48 p.m. EDT launch. Launch will be into a solar orbit trailing Earth by about 9 million miles, from which it will take a “planetary census” by staring at a field of 100,000 target stars in the Cygnus-Lyra region of the Milky Way.
BUSHMASTERING: A ”number” of countries are showing “keen” interest in Australian-built Protected Mobility Vehicles like the Bushmaster, claims Greg Combet, Australian parliamentary secretary for defense procurement. Meanwhile, Dutch defense officials are visiting Thales Bendigo this week to review production progress under their country’s existing Bushmaster contract. Besides the Netherlands, Bushmasters have also been exported to the United Kingdom.
TRAINING, SIMULATION: The U.S. Army has awarded Northrop Grumman a contract to provide simulation and training products to U.S. and coalition forces. Northrop’s award is part of the larger Simulation, Training and Instrumentation Omnibus Contract II, a multiple-award contract with a ceiling value of $17.5 billion over 10 years.
Space Shuttle Flights and ISS Assembly Sequence Space Shuttle Flights and ISS Assembly Sequence Launch Target AssemblyFlight Launch Vehicle Element(s) No earlier than Feb.
NOW HIRING: The Australian parliamentary secretary for defense procurement, Greg Combet, says the government is looking for a “commercial director” for the Defense Materiel Organization (DMO), a new position to manage strategic commercial issues and acquisition strategy for a more “businesslike focus” throughout DMO. “With a significant reform program to be put in place in the coming years, and over $110 billion to be spent on procurement and sustainment over the next decade, the successful applicant will have their hands full,” Combet says.
Australian Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said Feb. 19 that retirement of the air force’s remaining 13 DHC-4 Caribou airlifters will be moved forward to December, a plight he blamed on the conservative predecessor government. “The government has been left with little choice but to retire the Caribou and has reluctantly agreed to do so despite the fact that poor planning by the former government has denied us the opportunity to produce a replacement aircraft before 2013,” Fitzgibbon asserted.
