TILT & FIRE: With flight testing of BAE Systems’ Remote Guardian all-quadrant defensive gun system on the Bell Boeing V-22 tiltrotor already underway, the company is eyeing other potential platforms for the weapon, including the Boeing CH-47 and Sikorsky CH-53 helicopters. “They need the same capability,” says Sean Bond, president of BAE’s Platform Solutions division. With a 360-degree field of fire, the remotely operated weapon is being tested on a U.S. Air Force special-operations CV-22, but the U.S. Marine Corps has also ordered a small number to equip its MV-22s.
The Senate Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) Appropriations subcommittee approved a fiscal 2009 CJS spending bill June 19 that includes $17.8 billion for NASA and more than $4 billion for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
UCAS THREAT: Northrop Grumman says its X-47B naval unmanned combat air system (UCAS) demonstrator “is on plan, on schedule, and on cost,” adding that “more than $1 billion has been invested in this program after many stops and starts during J-UCAS” - the U.S Air Force and Navy Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems program cancelled in 2006. Northrop is defending UCAS amidst U.S. Navy threats to remove funding for the program from its fiscal 2010 budget plans.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicated new calendar listing.) June 23 - 25 — 2nd Annual Network Centric Homeland Security Conference, “Interagency Coordination on the Operational Level,” Hilton Alexandria, Old Town, Va. For more information go to www.networkcentrichomelandsecurity.com
The data continuity in ocean surface mapping that U.S. and French scientists have sustained since 1992 is set to continue following the 12:46 a.m. PST June 20 liftoff of Jason-2 on a Delta II from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. In orbit checkout is underway for the 1,113-pound Thales Alenia spacecraft, which was lofted into an orbit about 10 miles below its predecessor, the still operating Jason-1, launched in 2001. While Jason-1 continues to operate, Jason-2 will track its readings; when Jason-1 dies, Jason-2 will succeed it.
ROLL OUT: U.S. Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Richard Cody will be first to fly the Apache Block III aircraft at Boeing’s roll-out party in Mesa, Ariz., July 9. The Block III aircraft incorporates upgrades including composite rotor blades, T700-701D engines and other general system improvements, unmanned aerial vehicle connectivity, a fused sensor package and Future Combat Systems compatibility (Aerospace DAILY, July 25, 2007).
The Phoenix Mars lander has confirmed that water ice critical to the mission’s life habitat studies lies under only 4 centimeters of soil all around the spacecraft. The finding has been confirmed using the stereoscopic imager. The initial adjoining “DoDo” and “Goldilocks” trenches dug with the lander’s robotic arm have a distinctive white band that lies just 2-4 centimeters (0.8-1.6 inches) under the soil. When the dig was completed, chunks of the white material also fell into the trench.
TRANSPORT SUPPORT: Diehl Aerospace, Liebherr, Safran, Thales and Zodiac will form a joint venture to provide through-life support for military aircraft. The venture, to be known as OEM Defense Services, will be earmarked in particular for European cooperative programs like the A400M, Tiger attack helicopter and NH90 transport/frigate rotorcraft and outsourcing applications. Diehl, Liebherr, Thales and Zodiac already are involved in a commercial after-market support venture, OEM Services, aimed at primarily at the A380 widebody transport.
UMBILICAL CORDS: A-10 aircraft equipped with Precision Engagement (PE) kits will be upgraded with Gore Umbilical Assemblies, in a fifth contract award for the company since 2005. MIL-STD-1760 umbilicals incorporate ITT’s Field Replaceable Connector Assembly (FRCS) to provide better performance and more reliable store releases. The assemblies are designed to withstand harsh fighter aircraft environments and have a proven flex-life in excess of 100,000 flexes, according to Gore.
The Bush administration and the House of Representatives appear to be headed for a clash over NASA’s fiscal 2009 authorization bill, due largely to the bill’s addition of three space shuttle flights to the baseline flight manifest. The full House passed the authorization (H.R. 6063) by a vote of 409-15 on June 18. The legislation authorizes $20.21 billion for NASA – $2.6 billion above the Bush administration’s request – including $1 billon to accelerate the development of the Orion and Ares vehicles. (See chart p. 7)
Because of a lack of internal oversight, U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) cannot guarantee the true net worth value of some $4.5 billion in equipment the command has purchased, a recent Pentagon Inspector General (IG) report says.
NPOESS WOES: Congressional auditors say that the beleaguered U.S. civil/military National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) could see its price tag rise another $1 billion, to $13.5 billion.
An international team of researchers has discovered a new mineral in a sample of comet dust collected in the stratosphere by NASA’s high-flying ER-2 aircraft. Dubbed Brownleeite after Donald E. Brownlee, a professor of astronomy at the University of Washington, Seattle, who pioneered the study of interplanetary dust particles (IDPs), the material is a manganese silicide.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) decision to side with much of Boeing’s protest and ask the U.S. Air Force to recompete the KC-X aerial refueling tanker program has touched a congressional nerve and appears increasingly likely to push lawmakers to weigh in – an outcome that was more doubtful before the surprise decision.
Romania plans to select a new multirole fighter this year, but expects the procurement of 48 aircraft to replace its aging MiG-21 Lancers to fill the gap until the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter becomes available. “The F-35 JSF is under consideration as a long-term solution,” says the Romanian ministry of defense, adding that it is “seeking solutions to cover the gap of 10 to 15 years until the first F-35 aircraft may be operational.”
The new U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) is facing some problems that its commander doesn’t want to talk about, and high on that list is China and South Africa. During a June 19 breakfast in Washington, Army Gen. William E. Ward, AFRICOM’s commander, brushed off questions about harnessing South Africa’s network of air bases, positive air control, training schools and pool of pilots, as well as China’s sale of arms to anyone in Africa with money or something to trade. “I have opinions,” he allowed. Officials speak
NETWORK STARS: In 2009, the Defense Department’s Network Enhanced Telemetry (iNET) program office will complete standards development for new data link, ground and airborne network standards for its Telemetry Network System (TmNW). On June 19 DOD announced the completion of the TmNW network architecture, designed to help the military research, test and evaluation community with new radio spectrum-enhancing technology.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) will “redefine the concept of multirole strike” aircraft, Lockheed Martin officials say, but they offer few details to flesh out that claim. Still, while the future concept of operations, electronic attack (EA) capability and derivative options remain undefined, at least publicly, some capabilities can be picked out of their purposely vague descriptions.
Orbcomm has orbited six replenishment satellites for its 29-unit mobile satellite tracking and positioning system. The spacecraft, launched from Kasputin Yar, Russia, on a Cosmos 3M booster, include a demonstration satellite equipped with an automatic identification system that will enable the U.S. Coast Guard to monitor international shipping on a global basis, and five standard Quick Launch units.
PLUTOIDS: The International Astronomical Union, which knocked Pluto off its official list of planets in 2006, has decided to name the whole class of dwarf planets in the trans-neptune region “plutoids.” Defined as objects orbiting the sun beyond Neptune with enough gravity to assume a near-spherical shape, but not enough to clear the “neighborhood” around their orbits, only Pluto and Eris fit the bill as plutoids at the moment. “It is expected that more plutoids will be named as science progresses and new discoveries are made,” the IAU states.
Phoenix Mars Lander computer and engineering teams at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Lockheed Martin took decisive action June 18 to prevent a computer problem from swamping science data return. They caught a potentially serious flash memory situation developing on the vehicle and acted to prevent the event from worsening. The problem was traced to complicated interactions in how the software counts Application Identifiers (ADIPs). These are engineering data packets automatically placed in the flash memory of the spacecraft for relay to Earth.
NASA picked a team headed by Oceaneering International Inc. (OII) to build its next-generation spacesuits because it felt the team’s systems engineering and management plans are more likely to get the job done than those proposed by veteran suitmakers Hamilton Sundstrand and ILC Dover.
Lockheed Martin and Savi, a wholly-owned subsidiary specializing in radio frequency identification (RFID), are demonstrating an Item Unique Identification (IUID) software system for the Defense Department. The tests use embedded sub-assemblies shipped with a DOD-compliant passive RFID label and loaded into a mock container. The assemblies include full tag and data information tracked with sensor-enabled active RFID technology from Savi.
