CLANDESTINE OPS: A secret operation in Hungary has moved 341 pounds of highly enriched uranium (HEU) from the Soviet era, in the form of used nuclear fuel, to a secure Russian nuclear facility. Under the responsibility of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the spent fuel was moved by truck, rail and cargo vessel with the cooperation of several international organizations. It was the largest shipment of HEU under NNSA’s global threat reduction initiative. Other shipments were made from the Czech Republic, Latvia and Bulgaria during the past year.
VEGA MOTOR: A modified Zefiro 9 third-stage motor earmarked for the European Space Agency’s (ESA) new Vega light launcher has been successfully fired, improving chances that the three-stage solid fuel rocket can make its first flight from ESA’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana by the end of next year. The Zefiro 9 failed in a test in March 2007, contributing to a six-month delay in the inaugural mission.
LUNAR RETURN: LRO Engineers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., will spend the next five weeks checking out the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) in a spacelike environment as preparations continue for its planned April 24 launch on an Atlas V rocket. LRO has been placed in Goddard’s four-story-tall thermal vacuum chamber for the tests, which will include mission simulations to continue training the controllers who will operate the spacecraft in orbit around the moon.
Northrop Grumman is to lead Boeing and Lockheed Martin in studying energy-optimized aircraft with integrated hybrid-electric system architectures under the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Integrated Vehicle Energy Technology (INVENT) program. Goals of the five-year INVENT Spiral 1 program include extending range and endurance 10-15 percent, increasing power and thermal capacity by 10-30 percent, overcoming cooling challenges in low-observable platforms, and reducing lifecycle costs. (See charts pp. 6-7.)
GOCE DELAYED: An investigation into an anomaly in the guidance and navigation system (GNS) of the Breeze KM upper stage on the Rockot launcher that is to carry aloft the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gravity Field and Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) has determined that fixing the problem, discovered Sept. 7, will take longer than thought. ESA now says it will be necessary to make more extensive hardware changes that will require two months or more of additional work by the GNS manufacturer, pushing the launch back until at least February 2009.
UNMANNED EXPERIMENT: The U.S. Navy is trumpeting its SSGN Ohio-class of Trident ballistic missile submarine’s recent reconfiguration to better support Navy commandos and covert missions, and upcoming tests with unmanned vehicles. The USS Michigan will deploy later this month to take part in exercises to demonstrate the ability of an SSGN to control unmanned aerial vehicles and experiment with unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs).
WAIT TRADE ORGANIZATION: A decision on the Airbus versus Boeing subsidy battle (formally a case between their government proxies, the U.S. and European Union) will not be resolved this year as initially planned by the World Trade Organization. The trade body has determined it can’t work through the case in time.
PARIS French lawmakers say they may ask the government to hike commitments for research and development (R&D) and on-condition maintenance foreseen under the country’s new multiyear defense spending plan.
SPRINGFIELD, Va. Rising demand for C4ISR programs is butting up against harsher budgets, resulting in a zero-sum game, according to a new Government Electronics and Information Technology Association (GEIA) forecast.
The first three astronomers have been named by the Universities Space Research Association for NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), the converted 747SP that will carry a 2.5-meter diameter infrared telescope at 40,000 feet operating altitudes for deep-space observation.
The U.S. Army is looking at further development of its combat-proven Joint Counter Radio Controlled Improvised Explosive Device Electronic Warfare (JCREW) program to use its common technology baseline over a range of EW and electronic attack (EA) missions. “We’re looking at our JCREW capabilities and spiraling that into our first family of integrated electronic warfare systems,” says Col. Laurie Buckhout, chief of the Army’s EW division. “We’ll have something better and more efficient on our [unmanned aerial systems].
Faced with the prospect of not fielding its primary missile defense effort on time, NATO is considering an interim step to provide a limited capacity to commanders. At issue is progress on the Active Layered Theater Ballistic Missile Defense program, an architecture and command-and-control effort to provide missile defense to deployed forces. ALTBMD will not acquire intercept systems, which are provided through member states, but it provides the system to integrate those disparate sensors and firing units. Fielding plans
Flight-testing of the U.S. military’s latest software-defined radio has demonstrated its ability to interoperate with existing hard-wired data network terminals via Link 16. The tests validated that waveforms defined by software in the new radio were identical to those generated by hardware in the current terminal.
Astronomers expect to squeeze as much science as they can out of the Hubble Space Telescope instrument that will be replaced on the upcoming STS-125 servicing mission, provided controllers at Goddard Space Flight Center can get the telescope working again.
Notions that the U.S. Air Force is planning to cut into its planned fighter force while boosting its ranks were reinforced Oct. 20 by the armed service’s new chief of staff, Gen. Norton Schwartz. Speaking to service personnel on a tour of the Middle East, Schwartz said “we are probably going to do some of that” – referring to cuts in force structure – “and there will be pushback.” The problem, Schwartz said, is that the service’s earlier attempt to reduce costs by dropping as many as 40,000 active billets to free money for acquisitions has failed.
The first Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) spacecraft bound for geosynchronous (GEO) orbit has completed its acoustic and vibration testing, which wrapped up Oct. 17 at Lockheed Martin’s Sunnyvale, Calif., manufacturing plant.
HEAVY PENETRATOR: Boeing on Oct. 23 announced the successful July testing of a fuze well and fuze for high-speed penetrator warheads. Along with industry partners Applied Research Associates, L-3 KDI Precision Products and Ellwood National Forge Co., Boeing tested its design in a bomb that penetrated reinforced concrete at supersonic speeds. Boeing’s new fuze design is a result of data collected from a 2006 test, when Boeing propelled an 1,800-pound penetrator warhead at more than 2,300 feet per second through high-strength reinforced concrete.
TEAMING UP: Mechtronix Systems will work as a subcontractor to Spain’s Indra infotech supplier in the construction of a flight training device (FTC) for the Spanish Ministry of Defence’s Bombardier 415 amphibious firefighting aircraft. In January, Spain ordered two additional 415s, raising its total Bombardier firefighting fleet to 22 aircraft. Mechtronix was first to make an FTC for the 415s.
SPRINGFIELD, Va. – The U.S. must destroy oil as a strategic commodity to gain energy freedom, according to former CIA director James Woolsey, now an advisor to John McCain’s presidential campaign.
PARIS – France aims to return to the top ranks of arms exporters now that its overseas sales are once again on the rise due to recent reforms. In a report to parliament released this month, the defense ministry said it had signed off on nearly 4 billion euros in export contracts as of Sept. 30 and is on track to meet its goal of 6 billion euros for 2008, slightly above figures in 2006-07 and almost double the level in 2004, when exports reached rock bottom.
DEFENSE SUPPORT: The U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center awarded Northrop Grumman a $206 million support and sustainment contract for the operational Defense Support Program (DSP) spacecraft, primary infrared sensor and mission analysis. Northrop Grumman built the DSP infrared sensors in Azusa, Calif., and integrated them with the DSP spacecraft in Redondo Beach, Calif. DSP support and sustainment will continue at both sites. The first DSP was launched in 1970 and the final DSP was orbited in 2008.
BASIC SHUTDOWN: U.S. House and Senate defense appropriators have thrown a wrench in the Pentagon’s plans to field two commercial-class imaging satellites for launch as soon as 2012. They pulled nearly $1 billion of funding for the Broad-Area Space-Based Imagery Collection (BASIC) system, confirms Michael Birmingham, an official working for the U.S. director of national intelligence. BASIC is a two-satellite program to fill a gap in overhead imaging capacity left after the collapse of the Future Imagery Architecture program.
The U.S. Navy is exploring ways to increase its ability to monitor maritime traffic off the pirate-plagued coast of Somalia, according to Navy and Coast Guard sources, and one idea under consideration is deploying sensors on aerostats that are tethered to barges.
