EUROPASAT: International Launch Services (ILS) will launch the S-band EuropaSat spacecraft for Inmarsat aboard a Proton rocket in early 2011 under a newly signed contract. Thales Alenia Space of France is developing the 5,700-kilogram (12,600-pound) EuropaSat based on its Spacebus 4000C3 platform. The satellite will provide mobile broadcast and two-way telecommunications services throughout Europe.
CLOSING WINDOW: The closing window of opportunity for Senate ratification of the U.S.-U.K. Defense Trade Cooperation Treaty is focusing minds on whether the deal will be approved under the present U.S. administration. The treaty has been submitted to both the British Parliament and the U.S. Senate, but has yet to be cleared. Whether there is enough space in the remainder of the U.S. legislative calendar – and whether the Senate will of a mind to approve the treaty – is the source of considerable interest in London.
SNIFF TEST: The U.S. Army Research Development and Engineering Command is awarding General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products around $15.7 million for the first year of a six-year contract for Joint Service Lightweight Standoff Chemical Agent Detector (JSLSCAD) systems and spare parts. General Dynamics’ technology uses a passive infrared detection system that automatically searches for chemical agent vapor clouds.
FLYING HIGH: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading Edge (EAGLE) task order vehicle is too important for technology vendors to ignore, according to Washington-area consultancy Input, especially in fourth quarter FY’ 08, when industry watchers expect a spending spree through EAGLE. Fourth quarter FY ‘0 7 spending through EAGLE was “exceptionally” high, skyrocketing to $2.4 billion, Input says. This is almost quadruple the spending from the previous three quarters of the year combined.
SECURITY DEBATE: Foreign policy and national security will be the topics when Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) hold their first televised national debate Sept. 26. They will square off at the University of Mississippi for a 90-minute event moderated by Public Television Service newscaster Jim Lehrer. The debate will be broken into nine 9-minute segments. The moderator will introduce a topic and allow each candidate two minutes to comment, followed by five minutes of open discussion. Different formats will be used at the other debates on Oct.
American, French and South Korean aircrews are getting a close look at one of the world’s fabled aircraft – the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) Su-30MKI strike fighter. An Indian air force group of 50 pilots and weapon systems officers – flying eight Su-30MKIs, two Il-78 tankers and an Il-76 transport – are just finishing a month-long deployment to the United States with a training cycle at the latest, annual Red Flag aerial combat exercises based at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. (Aerospace DAILY, July 10).
ATACMS BOOST: Lockheed Martin has received an $80 million contract from the U.S. Army Aviation & Missile Command for more Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) Unitary missiles. Deliveries for this order, the first since a $194 million order last fall, will begin in August 2010 and end in March 2011. Each ATACMS missile is approximately 13 feet long and two feet in diameter. One missile can reportedly defeat company-sized targets beyond the range of conventional tube or rocket artillery, Defense Technology International reported in June.
The U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) apparently is having difficulties using performance-based contracting (PBC), ensuring competition and transparency in its overall contracting, and handling the agency’s pending Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) move from Northern Virginia to Ft. Meade, Md., in 2010.
Russia has claimed humanitarian motives in its use of the International Space Station (ISS) to collect overhead imagery of South Ossetia shortly after it invaded the breakaway Georgian province. On Aug. 9 Cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko used a digital camera equipped with an 800mm telephoto lens and a video camera to photograph “after-effects of border conflict operations in the Caucasus,” according to the ISS status report for that day published by NASA on its website.
Combat that’s been talked about for the last century – unmanned systems destroying other unmanned systems – is now a reality following the destruction by an MQ-9 Reaper of a vehicle carrying a remotely controlled explosive device in southeast Iraq. A week ago, the Reaper – the larger, higher-flying, faster and better-armed version of the MQ-1 Predator – dropped a 500-pound laser-guided GBU-12 on the vehicle.
QUICK, SLOW: Second guessing continues as to just when the U.K. Defense Ministry will complete what it originally billed as a quick review of its procurement commitments prior to launching into Planning Round 09. The output is now anticipated in the “autumn.” The Labour Government’s continuing poor performance in the polls – it lags far behind the Conservative opposition – also is calling into question the long-term validity of the review effort.
The competitors for the U.S. Air Force’s $15 billion combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) helicopter replacement program can get even higher marks for their proposals if they give the service more than what it’s asking for – but they do so at their own risk.
INTELSAT ORDER: Intelsat has picked Orbital Sciences Corp. to build the Intelsat-18 (IS-18) communications satellite. To be based on Orbital’s STAR-2 platform, IS-18 will carry 24 C-band transponders to cover the Northern and Southern Hemispheres and 12 Ku-band transponders to provide services to the United States, French Polynesia, Australia, New Caledonia and other Pacific Islands. IS-18 will replace Intelsat’s IS-701 spacecraft.
The past is the future for Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., where remotely piloted aircraft operations began in 1947, and which is now on the cusp of becoming home for the next Unmanned Aircraft System Formal Training Unit (FTU).
The Forward-Based X-Band Radar-Transportable (FBX-T) radar, which Washington is proposing to position inside the Middle Eastern ally, will be operated entirely by U.S. military personnel to be stationed in a segregated location, according to sources in Israel. The U.S. personnel’s location would be off-limits to Israeli access, similar to proposed radar and missile bases in Poland and the Czech Republic and other U.S. military bases worldwide. The radar station will be established in a remote area in the southern Negev desert.
CRYPTO KEEPER: General Dynamics will design, develop and test a new combat key generator for the U.S. Air Force Cryptologic Systems Group (CPSG). The advanced information assurance (IA) technologies will enable the next-generation Combat Key Generator (CKG) for tactical U.S. military radio users who manage and control the exchange of classified keying information. The CKG will be interoperable with existing and next-generation IA products and equipment used in military vehicles, aircraft, ships and fixed-site applications.
A significant plans-and-funding mismatch between the base defense budget and the current defense plan will force the U.S. Defense Department to make some hard choices, a new report from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) suggests.
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) remained closed for a second day Thursday morning as Tropical Storm Fay dumped as much as 30 inches of rain on the area. The U.S. space agency reported no early reports of injuries to personnel or damage to flight hardware at the Florida launch facility. The center will re-open no earlier than 8 a.m. EDT Friday, NASA said. Mission-essential personnel who had been instructed to report for duty at 10 a.m. Thursday were advised instead to check on the center’s status by telephone or emergency-operations website after noon.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has formally dismissed a protest brought by Hamilton Sundstrand and ILC Dover over NASA’s selection of an Oceaneering International team to build the next U.S. spacesuit, following NASA’s termination of the contract growing out of the procurement.
Lockheed Martin says the first flight for its Flexible Target Family (FTF), a set of at least eight new targets designed for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA), is on track for 2009, having slipped from its original goal of this fall. Lockheed Martin confirmed the slip with Aerospace DAILY but directed all further questions to MDA.
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ROMANIAN RADAR: The site acceptance for the third of five Romanian Air Force AN/FPS-117 long-range surveillance radars is planned for late August. Lockheed Martin announced Aug. 21 it completed upgrading the signal and data processing capability on the first two of the L-band surveillance radars. The work included upgraded platform electronics cabinets, new displays and remote maintenance centers. Formal site acceptance tests, including flight tests, were conducted on June 26 and July 23 in Romania.
Tactical dominance may no longer be relevant as automated systems and weapons threaten U.S. training superiority, according to Barry Watts, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA).
