SUPPLEMENTAL DELAY: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) says the latest $193 billion war spending bill may have to wait until after the week-long Memorial Day break to be considered. The Senate would have to vote on the controversial legislation by May 22 and get it back to the House for approval before it can go to President Bush for his signature. Senate aides think that’s looking unlikely with the Memorial Day recess looming. Pentagon officials say they will have to start laying off civilian personnel in mid-June without an infusion of cash.
SEATTLE – Boeing’s A160T Hummingbird unmanned rotorcraft flew for 18.7 hours on an overnight flight May 14-15, setting what the company believes is a world endurance record for a UAV in its weight class.
Congressional investigators believe at least 422 former Defense Department officials could have worked on defense contracts related to their former agencies and that at least nine could have worked on the same contracts for which they had oversight responsibilities or decision-making authorities while at DOD.
The Australian parliamentary secretary for defense procurement, Greg Combet, said $1.065 billion of the Australian military’s major acquisition efforts have been pushed into later years from 2008/09, as well as another $1.767 billion in future-year estimates.
F-22 DESIRE: Senior Japanese officials tell Aviation Week they might give up their demand for F-22 Raptors from the United States if they can get sufficient industrial participation in F-35 Joint Strike Fighters to satisfy Japanese industry and labor unions. Japan plans to replace its 50-odd Phantom interceptors with new multirole fighters, which it says must be fifth-generation aircraft – implicitly, either Lockheed Martin’s F-22 or F-35, although the Japanese also have said the Eurofighter Typhoon is a contender (Aerospace DAILY, April 18).
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope and NASA’s Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) believe they have detected about half of the stray protons, neutrons and other subatomic particles known as baryons that were formed during and shortly after the Big Bang but didn’t coalesce into galaxies.
EADS has decided against trying to outbid Finmeccanica for DRS Technologies, averting a potential showdown between two of Europe’s largest defense contractors. Officials at EADS’ North American unit had been pushing hard for their company to counter last week’s $5.2 billion bid by Finmeccanica for DRS, a 10,000-employee defense electronics contractor based in New Jersey. They worried that DRS would give their Italian rival a beachhead in the U.S. military market and allow it to surpass EADS in the military electronics business.
Mike Turner, chief executive officer of the U.K.’s BAE Systems, was intercepted upon entering the U.S. via George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston last week and handed a subpoena by the U.S. Justice Department, company officials confirmed May 20. His personal electronic devices also were examined during the encounter at the airport. A group of BAE Systems officials as well as officers working for BAE Systems plc, the parent of the company’s U.S. arm, headquartered in Rockville, Md., also were subpoenaed last week.
The Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM)/Jason 2 spacecraft is gearing up for a June 15 launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on a mission to help scientists better monitor rises in global sea level and more accurately predict climate change. The $432 million mission is a collaboration between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the French space agency CNES, and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT).
If Congress fails to pass a fiscal 2009 defense appropriations bill – leaving military spending at 2008 levels for the near term – it would cause numerous planning and contracting problems, the Pentagon’s top civilian and uniformed officials said May 20.
A fiscal 2009 NASA authorization bill cleared in record time by the agency’s main oversight panel in the House of Representatives could form the basis of a bipartisan road map in space for the next U.S. president. Adopted unanimously by voice vote by the only three members of the House Science space and aeronautics subcommittee who showed up for the six-minute legislative markup session, the bill would restore NASA spending to the level envisioned in the last NASA authorization to pass Congress – in 2005 – plus inflation, for a total of $19.21 billion.
The discovery of hydroxyl on Venus has scientists scurrying to detect whether there is also an abundance of ozone on the planet. The discovery – the first on another planet – was made in a thin layer of the Venusian atmosphere 100 kilometers (60 miles) above the planet by the visible and infrared imaging spectrometer on the European Space Agency’s Venus Express probe.
LOOPHOLE FILLING: The Bush administration is beginning to close a supposed loophole in a proposed federal regulation that would have exempted federal contractors who carry out their contracts overseas from being required to self-report criminal activity they are involved in, according to Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). McCaskill and Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) have been pushing related language on Capitol Hill amid a slew of acquisition reform legislation and regulations.
CHINOOK VANDALISM: A worker at Boeing’s Ridley Park, Pa., helicopter plant has been charged in the vandalism of a U.S. Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter, according to press reports. Prosecutors at a news conference said the worker apparently was upset about being reassigned to another line, and cut a bundle of wires in the aircraft on the morning of May 10. The damage was discovered May 13, prompting a brief shutdown of the production line (Aerospace DAILY, May 15, 16). Another Chinook was found with a suspicious washer, but that case is still under investigation.
Bell Helicopter will upgrade another 27 OH-58D Kiowa Warriors under the Safety Enhancement Program (SEP) as the U.S. Army moves to bring all of the armed scout helicopters up to the same standard by fiscal year 2012.
The U.S. Department of Defense has notified Congress of a possible sale of 24 new and 24 used Lockheed Martin F-16C/Ds to Romania, valuing the deal at $4.5 billion. The F-16 is competing against the Dassault Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon and Saab Gripen as Romania searches for a replacement for its Israeli-upgraded MiG-21 Lancers. A decision is expected this year. Romania wants its new fighter to enter service in 2010.
Language tacked onto the House Armed Service Committee’s (HASC) fiscal 2009 defense authorization bill rejects the U.S. Navy’s request for a waiver to dip below its own requirement for 11 aircraft carriers next decade. If enacted, the provision – sponsored by Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) – would forbid retiring the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) in fiscal 2013, although lawmakers acknowledge the “significant schedule and cost implications” of maintaining the flattop, which has limited nuclear-powered life remaining.
Sikorsky will develop more durable rotor blades able to withstand sand and rain erosion under a 42-month, $11.4 million contract from the U.S. Army’s Aviation Applied Technology Directorate. The program is aiming for a blade life of 1,000 hours in erosive environments, compared with the 200-300 hours being achieved in Iraq. Sikorsky will explore new materials, coatings and treatments for the blade leading edge and tip cap and deliver a set of four main rotor blades and two tail rotor blades for testing on a UH-60L Black Hawk.
The Textron-Boeing-SAIC industry team revealed its design for the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) to reporters May 19, highlighting its offering’s parallel hybrid drive, center-positioned driver and semi-active suspension.
Senior NASA managers have set a May 31 launch date for the space shuttle Discovery, following a review of preparations for the STS-124/1J mission to deliver Japan’s Kibo laboratory module to the International Space Station (ISS). Liftoff will come at 5:02 p.m. EDT on that day, weather permitting, for a nominal 14-day mission that will return to Kennedy Space Center, Fla., on June 14.
NOT HELPING: Washington watchdog Winslow Wheeler, Straus Military Reform Project director, claims that the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps have received $174 billion more than was anticipated for the 2001-2009 period, while the Air Force received $200 billion more in the same time frame. But the additional monies – which do not include more than $95 billion for Iraq operations and $80 billion for Afghanistan – have not helped the departments grow stronger, Wheeler asserts.
Expedition 17 crew members on the International Space Station (ISS) are ready to begin unloading more than 2.3 tons of supplies from a new Russian Progress cargo vehicle after a safe robotic docking. Progress M64/29P docked without incident to the nadir port on the Zarya module at 5:39 p.m. EDT May 16, and crew members later opened it and set up ventilation gear.
The NASA Ames Research Center team that invented PICA and SIRCA thermal protection system coatings for Stardust, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) and, probably, the Orion spacecraft have been honored with the 2007 NASA Government Invention of the Year award.
