FINAL LANDING: Regulators at the U.S. Defense Department have issued a final rule changing the conditions under which DOD may waive a prohibition on entering into a service contract to acquire a military flight simulator. Section 832 of the fiscal 2007 defense authorization act banned the award of a defense service contract for simulators unless DOD determines that a waiver is necessary for national security purposes and provides an economic analysis to the congressional defense committees.
BRITISH TRAINERS: Boeing and the U.S. Air Force celebrated the opening of the F-15E Mission Training Center (MTC) at Royal Air Force Lakenheath in Suffolk, U.K., on Sept. 30. The center began operations in April 2008 and has supported 350 training missions so far while maintaining a 100- percent availability rate, the company says.
Lockheed Martin is studying widebody derivatives of its Hercules military airlifter able to carry larger loads, but believes the “C-130XL” would only be a niche product and not a replacement for its C-130J tactical transport. The C-130XL is one of several concepts being studied to fill the “white space” requirement for intra-theater transport of heavy U.S. Army equipment in the 2020 timeframe, says Jim Grant, vice president of business development for global mobility.
NASA is facing major disruption to its planned space shuttle and Ares 1-X test flight schedules triggered by the Sept. 26 system failure on the Hubble Space Telescope, and will not know the full extent of the delays until Goddard Space Flight Center engineers complete health checks of a replacement part.
The U.S. Army’s long-term budget plan for fiscal 2010-2015, called the Program Objective Memorandum (POM), shows nearly $45 billion in plus-ups for the controversial Future Combat Systems (FCS), at the expense of legacy platforms like Stryker and Abrams. The Army is presenting its modernization goals to DOD for evaluation, with billions of dollars devoted to fielding all of FCS. The first so-called “spinout” set of technologies is supposed to be on its way to lighter infantry brigade combat teams (IBCTs), while heavier-equipped BCTs are next in line.
The U.S. Air Force is considering initiating a second government-industry cooperative project to host an experimental ballistic missile warning sensor on a commercial spacecraft after crafting a first-of-a-kind deal earlier this year, according to a senior service official.
KILLER BEE: Raytheon Company’s KillerBee unmanned aircraft system (UAS) demonstrated its interoperability, integration and functionality during a test in early September. During the demonstration, Raytheon flight operations crew simulated a combat environment by delivering the KillerBee system to a remote location via Humvees. The mission used U.S. Marine Corps combat operations center hardware and an operator controlled the KillerBee with a variant of Raytheon’s Universal Control System.
European Space Agency engineers will have to wait several days to determine the actual impact of debris from the Jules Verne Automated Transfer Vehicle, which performed an otherwise flawless controlled destructive re-entry Sept. 29, culminating a successful six-month logistics mission to the International Space Station.
GLASGOW, Scotland – China’s human spaceflight program plans to build on the success of the Shenzhou 7 mission to launch a simple orbiting “space lab” by 2011 and assemble a human-tended space station from several of the labs by 2020. Sun Laiyan, administrator of the China National Space Administration, said here Sept. 29 that his country plans “step-by-step progress, because we have to lay a solid foundation for our next step.
To help battle terrorists and insurgents, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has a suggestion for U.S. allies unwilling or unable to send troops and equipment to Afghanistan: send money.
GENOA, Italy – The Pentagon has awarded Alenia North America a $287 million contract to refurbish and deliver 18 former Italian air force G-222 tactical transport aircraft for the Afghan National Army Air Corps. The deliveries are to start in mid-2009 and be completed by 2011, according to Alenia officials.
Over the next decade, booming demand for diverse military communications systems — a market that covers voice, data, video and imagery — could result in an estimated $3 billion market, according to Forecast International.
A ground test last week validated design changes to the control nozzle and pressure vessel of the Kinetic Energy Interceptor’s (KEI) second stage, according to industry executives. The third of five static firing tests of the second stage took place Sept. 25 at an Alliant Techsystems (ATK) facility in Elkton, Md. ATK designs and builds the second stage. Two more static tests each for the first and second stage are slated to take place prior to the first KEI flight-test next summer.
The South Africa Air Force (SAAF) has taken delivery of the first four of 26 Gripen NG advanced fighter aircraft ordered at the biennial Africa Aerospace and Defense show in Cape Town, South Africa. Nine of the fighters are two-seaters and 17 single-seaters. Deliveries are scheduled through 2012. Armaments
The New York Air National Guard (ANG) has begun operating a ski-equipped Lockheed Martin LC-130H Hercules with new Hamilton Sundstrand NP2000 propellers, the first of 12 to be retrofitted to improve support for remote deep-field camps in Antarctica. Flight tests of the eight-blade composite propellers on the C-130 were conducted earlier this year at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., on a Wyoming ANG aircraft, demonstrating increased performance and reliability, and reduced noise, vibration and fuel consumption, the company says.
Congress on Sept. 27 passed a continuing resolution (CR) funding NASA until early March of next year that includes an extended exemption to the Iran, North Korea, Syria Non-proliferation Act (INKSNA) that will allow the space agency to continue purchasing Russian Soyuz trips to the International Space Station. The INKSNA waiver extends the previous deadline of Dec. 31, 2011 out to July 2016, covering the projected gap in U.S. human spaceflight capability between the retirement of the space shuttle and the scheduled 2015 debut of the Orion spacecraft.
Problems with the Russian-made RD-180, the main engine for the Lockheed Martin Atlas V booster design, came to light earlier this year during routine analysis after the April launch of ICO Global Communication’s G-1 satellite, according to U.S. Air Force officials. The spacecraft, designed by Space Systems Loral, is providing mobile communications.
LRIP TWO: The U.S. Navy has awarded Northrop Grumman a $32.9 million contract for the second year of low-rate initial production (LRIP) on its MQ-8B Fire Scout. This is the second of three planned LRIP buys. A series of program milestones had to be met in order for Fire Scout to qualify for the LRIP 2 award, the company said Sept. 29. Key requirements included a demonstration of Fire Scout electro-optical/infrared capability using a Tactical Common Data Link, which was successfully completed in August 2008.
China’s Shenzhou 7 spacecraft made a safe parachute landing Sept. 28 in northern China, capping off a mission that marked the country’s third manned spaceflight and included its first spacewalk. Astronauts Zhai Zhigang, Liu Boming, and Jing Haipeng spent a total of 68 hours in space, including the 20-minute spacewalk on Sept. 27, according to China’s Xinhua news agency. The spacecraft orbited the Earth 46 times.
The Falcon 1 commercial rocket successfully reached orbit for the first time Sept. 28, after three failed attempts since 2006. Developer Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) says the successful Flight 4 makes the low-cost launcher the first privately developed liquid-fuel rocket to orbit the Earth.
