Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ recent firing of the top two U.S. Air Force officials was about “accountability” over the service’s nuclear weapons mishandling, but Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Adm. Mike Mullen also acknowledged that the move could go to rebalance the air service’s priorities. In particular, the Pentagon official and four-star USAF general who Gates has tapped to become acting secretary and chief of staff, respectively, are not manned-fighter oriented.
LONG MARCH: A Chinese Long March booster has successfully lifted a Thales Alenia Space-built telecom satellite into orbit. The spacecraft, Chinasat 9, employs a bus that is free of U.S. components, allowing it to skirt U.S. International Trade in Arms Regulations (ITAR). The U.S. Congress is attempting to pass legislation that could bar suppliers of such ITAR-free technology from selling defense hardware to the Pentagon (Aerospace DAILY, June 2).
NEW FALCONER: Piasecki Aircraft has turned to Congress for help to push its X-49A SpeedHawk high-speed compound helicopter even faster. The company wants to take over ownership of the aircraft from the government so it can demonstrate its speed potential. Funded by the Army, the X-49 is a Navy Sikorsky SH-60 helo modified with Piasecki’s vectored-thrust ducted propeller.
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER – Crew members on the space shuttle Discovery and the International Space Station (ISS) closed the hatch between the two spacecraft June 10 and prepared to undock at the end of a highly productive station-assembly mission. “The mission has gone phenomenally well,” said Matt Abbott, lead shuttle flight director for the STS-124/1J flight, as the crews in space enjoyed a few hours of off-duty time.
The U.S. Defense Department’s Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) Office has chosen SpaceDev’s Trailblazer spacecraft bus as the primary payload to fly on its Jumpstart mission, slated for launch on the next mission of SpaceX’s Falcon 1 later this month.
NASA’s recent broad agency announcement (BAA) for lunar surface systems studies seeks new ideas to solve some of the challenges to be faced by future lunar astronauts, including maximizing stowage space, storing energy and moving lunar soil. “NASA is attempting to reach entities not traditionally engaged with the space industry, but who have applicable expertise and innovative ideas that can be incorporated into NASA’s lunar surface systems planning,” the agency says in its BAA, released late last week.
SAN DIEGO – When U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) operates unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the national airspace, the enterprise is governed by assessments of risk, retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael Kostelnik said. “What you fly, when you fly and where you fly [are] important criteria for determining risk,” Kostelnik told an audience at the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) show here June 10. “The last ‘W’, why you fly, has everything to do with how much risk you’re willing to take.”
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HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT: Northrop Grumman has partnered with NASA’s Ames Research Center and several university science partners to test the company’s Hyperspectral Airborne Tactical Instrument (HATI). The HATI was integrated onto a NASA Piper Navajo and flown over San Diego State University’s Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve (SMER) to collect test data. Scientists will be able to use the data to obtain a close-up view of environmental changes.
RANCHO BERNARDO, Calif. – Northrop Grumman will equip its company-owned Fire Scout test bed, called the White Tail, with nondevelopmental radar to demonstrate the capability for the U.S. Coast Guard. Northrop Grumman has been pitching the Fire Scout to the Coast Guard since the service cancelled the EagleEye. “We think the Fire Scout’s a great fit [for the Coast Guard],” said Mike Fuqua, Fire Scout business development manager for Northrop Grumman. “They could leverage a considerable investment the Navy has made.”
ALGERIA CHOOSES: Surrey Space Technology Ltd says it has concluded a preliminary agreement to supply a third imaging satellite, Alsat 1b, to Algeria. A final agreement is expected by year’s end. The company lost out to Astrium for the second Algerian spacecraft, after winning the first. SSTL also reports it was selected to supply a multispectral imager for the European Space Agency’s Earthcare satellite, which Astrium was recently picked to supply. In April, Astrium agreed to acquire the British smallsat manufacturer.
CANNON FODDER: The U.S. Army expects eight Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon (NLOS-C) prototypes this year and next will be produced and provided for “rigorous” testing of its artillery and Manned Ground Vehicle (MGV) class of common chassis and related technologies. Soldiers at the Army’s Evaluation Task Force will receive 18 NLOS-C test vehicles starting in 2010, program officials said June 9. In announcing the successful completion of full-prototype integration of the first NLOS-C, officials promoted the planned weapon’s use in counterinsurgency and urban warfare.
Boeing is rethinking its decision to back out of a deal with L-3 Communications and Alenia North America to build C-27Js for the U.S. Air Force and Army. Last week, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems President Jim Albaugh is said to have decided to pull out of the partnership to build the Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA) over disagreements concerning Boeing’s work share. Boeing was in talks to establish a new production facility for the aircraft in Jacksonville, Fla. (Aerospace DAILY, June 6).
NEW TRAINERS: The Pentagon has notified Congress of its plans to sell 25 T-6A trainers to Israel at an estimated cost of $190 million. Israel’s fleet of Zukit aircraft has become increasingly expensive to maintain and the new T-6A Texans are expected to reduce training and fuel requirements by 66 percent. The single-engine aircraft made by Hawker Beechcraft (formerly Raytheon Aircraft) is already being procured by the U.S. Air Force and Navy for their training requirements, and it began operation for the Air Force in 2000.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has identified his choices for the top uniformed and political positions of the U.S. Air Force following last week’s surprise resignation of the secretary and chief of staff. Michael Donley, the director of administration and management for the Defense Department, is Gates’ choice for the service’s top political-appointee position, and the cabinet member has requested that President Bush designate Donley as the acting Air Force secretary effective June 21.
ARMY BAE Systems, Tactical Vehicle Systems Limited Partnership, Sealy, Texas, was awarded on May 30, 2008, a $1,656,794,781 firm-fixed price and cost-reimbursement contract for 10,000 medium tactical vehicles, program support and federal retail excise tax. The work will be performed in Sealy, Texas, and is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2010. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. One bid was solicited on Nov. 5, 2007. U.S. Army TACOM, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (W56HZV-08-C-0460).
Boeing again has to delay delivery of the first 737 Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) Wedgetail aircraft to the Royal Australian Air Force. Earlier this month, Boeing officials were still hoping to hold a March 2009 delivery date for the first Wedgetail, but that’s now slipped to July, according to Chris Chadwick, who heads Boeing’s precision engagement and mobility unit. “We’ve been having technical challenges,” he concedes.
Rolls-Royce has completed the preliminary design review (PDR) on its variable-cycle engine for the U.S. Air Force’s Adaptive Versatile Engine Technology (ADVENT) demonstrator program. The project aims to demonstrate an unreheated, 25,000-30,000 pound-thrust-class engine that varies its cycle from low bypass-ratio for high thrust to high bypass-ratio for low fuel burn, enabling aircraft that can combine high speed with long endurance.
The U.S. Army in August is expected to award rival Northrop Grumman and Raytheon teams development contracts worth as much as $15 million over 11 months under the service’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS). The program is a first step toward a potentially five-year, $1 billion-plus integrated air and missile defense capability for the Army, and possibly a joint system with the Navy and others in later iterations. About a year after the August award, the Army should choose a winning contract team. Tying together
VANDENBERG AFB, Calif. – The Pentagon’s only designated space-based sensor collecting intelligence on other spacecraft in orbit ceased operations last week.
Boeing hopes to finalize a contract to sell two C-17s to Qatar soon, including options for two more of the airlifters. Qatar wants the aircraft as soon as possible, says Dan Page, Boeing’s director of C-17 business development, and currently the first two production slots not spoken for are aircraft 208 and 209, with delivery projected for Aug. 5 and Aug. 27 next year.
