JOHNSON SPACE CENTER – Robotics operators on the International Space Station (ISS) were set to move Dextre, the station’s big new Canadian robot, to its orbital home on the U.S. Destiny laboratory late March 18. Spacewalkers Rich Linnehan and Bob Behnken finished assembling Dextre on the third extravehicular activity (EVA) of the ongoing STS-123/1J/A ISS assembly mission March 17, attaching a camera assembly and a tool-holder to the front of the 12-foot-tall “special purpose dexterious manipulator.”
The U.S. military needs to rethink and restructure national security roles and missions for the 21st century – and Congress needs to reconsider how it will oversee and pay for them, a congressional panel says.
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ALTAIR STUDIES: NASA has chosen five companies to receive a total of $1.5 million in study contracts to evaluate NASA’s in-house design concepts for its Altair lunar lander. The selected companies are Andrews Space, Boeing, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Northrop Grumman and Odyssey Space Research. Each company received no more than $350,000, NASA says. The Altair is intended to deliver four astronauts to the lunar surface by 2020.
The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee says he is frustrated with the continued slowness of the Iraqi military in taking the lead in combat operations. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who just completed an assessment visit with U.S. and Iraqi civil and military leaders, said March 17 that Iraqi troops still don’t have sufficient equipment to take over a leading operational role.
RUSSIA’s F-117: What are the Russians going to do with their F-117, now that the U.S. has retired all theirs? The Russians bought their F-117 stealth fighter from the Serbs in pieces after it was shot down during the Kosovo conflict. At the time of the shootdown, U.S. Navy and Air Force operators said the F-117s were flying the same route out of Serbian territory every night. The Serbians set up an ambush along the exit route and brought down the fighter with a salvo of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs).
The U.S. Air Force’s changes last year to source-selection criteria in the heated competition for refueling air tanker work raised eyebrows more than once at losing bidder Boeing, and nearly led executives there to pull out of the competition altogether, according to a company official. But the revelation runs contrary to comments last year from officials of both competitors, Boeing and Northrop Grumman/EADS North America, who publicly said before the award that they felt the Air Force was running a fair competition.
Australia will consider buying Boeing E/A-18G Growler electronic warfare aircraft following confirmation of its order for 24 of the standard two-seat version of the Super Hornet, the F/A-18F. In a review of air combat requirements, the Labor government now endorses the Super Hornet as “an excellent aircraft capable of meeting any known threat in the region,” even though Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon has spent months criticizing the hasty process in which the former Liberal National administration decided to buy it last year.
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER - Astronauts Rick Linnehan and Bob Behnken are set to put the finishing touches on the International Space Station’s (ISS) new special purpose dexterous manipulator late March 17, after a dicey weekend assembling the big Canadian robot. Nicknamed Dextre, the state-of-the-art teleoperated device is on track to be positioned on a power and data grapple fixture on the U.S. Destiny laboratory on March 18, where it will draw power directly from the ISS grid.
A new Proton M Breeze M launch failure has satellite operators again facing a dearth of launch capacity, and International Launch Services (ILS) facing new questions about the reliability of manufacturing and launch processes.
Lockheed Martin’s first Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) has reached another testing milestone with the completion of testing of the ship’s electric plant, Lockheed Martin announced March 17, paving the way for a late summer delivery of the ship.
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KIZUNA ORBITS: Japan’s WINDS high-speed-internet satellite, also known as Kizuna, has reached its geostationary orbit at 143 deg. E longitude. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency says an electrical problem in the main sun sensor was fixed on Mar. 8 by switching off a part of the backup attitude control system. The glitch was first found within the backup system and then spread to the main system. The project team is continuing the checkout of all instruments in preparation for normal operations, which are scheduled to begin late in June.
HELP JIEDDO: The Defense Department’s Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) is looking for help in training with airborne ISR platforms against the roadside bombs used by Iraq and Afghanistan insurgents. “From a training industry perspective, we need help with surrogates to provide realistic training without violating FAA rules,” says Navy Capt. Jeff Trumbore, JIEDDO technology and integrations requirements division chief. “We need persistent ISR capability on platforms that already exist.
Boeing tanker advocates are seizing upon growing concern on Capitol Hill with the U.S. military’s large appetite for oil, namely mobility demands under the Air Force, to drive up support for Boeing’s losing bid for the Air Force aerial refueling replacement tanker. A Boeing-backed study that the giant contractor announced March 17 claimed the Air Force would pay $30 billion more in fuel bills over 40 years to operate a fleet of 179 Airbus A330-200 aerial refueling tankers, compared to a similar number of tankers based on the Boeing 767-200ER.
Upgrades to the U.S. Air Force Global Positioning System constellation continued March 15 with the launch of the sixth “modernized” Lockheed Martin GPS block IIR-M spacecraft with dual civilian channel capability. The 254-ton Boeing Delta II carrying the new $75 million GPS IIR-19M thundered aloft from Launch Complex 17 at Cape Canaveral on 782,000 pounds of thrust at 2:10 a.m.
EXPORT CONTROLS: The Aerospace States Association (ASA), with the help of industry and academia, are mounting a fresh offensive in the perennial fight to streamline U.S. export control policies. At a hearing on Capitol Hill last week, about a dozen lieutenant governors heard the heads of major trade organizations, leading universities and media describe the negative impact that current export controls have had on different segments of the aerospace/defense industry.
RAPTOR-OUS NEED: F-22 supporters are getting antsy about what appears to look like the upcoming closure of the Lockheed Martin production line in Marietta, Ga. Though once the No. 1 acquisition priority of the Air Force, the Pentagon’s civilian leadership yanked funding for the stealthy twin-engine fighter in this year’s budget, leaving the likelihood that only four of the aircraft will be funded – and in a yet-to-be-crafted supplemental spending bill.
STEADY SIGNAL: The Pentagon needs to begin to look at how to improve Global Positioning System user equipment used on the ground, at sea, or in the air to counter the growing threat of hostile interference with the precision timing and navigation system, says Lt. Gen. Michael Hamel, director of the Space and Missiles Center in Los Angeles. The GPS signal is omnipresent, but weak and fairly easy to scramble with commercially available jammers. During the Iraq invasion, enemies tried to throw GPS-guided missiles off course with jammers with no success.
The White House and the Pentagon may finally have an agreement on the Navy and Marine Corps’ VH-71 presidential helicopter replacement program, but Capitol Hill itself could increasingly become a stumbling block. “It would appear that the entire basis of the contract award has been nullified,” said Rep. Duncan Hunter (Calif.), the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee. “I question whether the Navy and the contractor team can execute this funding, given the troubled history with requirements growth and past performance,” he said this month.
