The space shuttle Atlantis is en route to the International Space Station (ISS) with Europe’s Columbus laboratory module, following a weather-dodging launch Feb. 7. A threatening cold front failed to arrive at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) before the 2:45 p.m. EST launch time. Fixes to a technical glitch that held Atlantis on the ground in December worked as planned, clearing the orbiter to launch.
LITTLE RAVEN: AeroVironment (AV) won a $45.8 million order Feb. 7 from the U.S. Army for RQ-11B Raven small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and associated services, with the service exercising an option under an existing contract. Each Raven UAS consists of three aircraft, a ground control station, system spares and related services. The option was submitted under an existing Army program of record for AV’s Raven and will provide systems for the Army and the Marine Corps. The program allows for contract additions from the Army, Special Operations Command and other U.S.
The U.S. Army is counting on expected congressional earmarking to help fund some desired, yet somewhat parochial, research and development efforts during fiscal 2009. “I suspect we’ll get some help in this account this year,” Army budget director Lt. Gen. David Melcher told attendees at an Association of the United States Army’s (AUSA) Institute of Land Warfare breakfast Feb. 7, speaking about the Army’s research, development, testing and evaluation (RDT&E) request for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, 2008.
ACCIDENT REPORT: A preliminary report into the explosion that killed three Scaled Composites workers during development tests of the SpaceShipTwo (SS2) rocket engine last July points to oxidizer tank failure as a potential cause. The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (Cal/OSHA) bureau of investigation, which delivered the preliminary report Feb. 7, also submitted evidence for review to the Kern County district attorney’s office, which is deciding whether to press criminal or civil charges against Scaled.
Westar Aerospace & Defense Group has received a task order from the U.S. Army Aviation & Missile Command (AMCOM) to provide the Apache Attack Helicopter Project Manager’s Office (PMO) with technical, systems engineering and management support.
PARIS – SES appears to have failed in a bid to acquire Space Communications (Spacecom) of Tel Aviv, operator of the Amos telecom satellite network, although the future shareholding structure of the Israeli company remains unclear. The Spacecom board of directors said Feb. 7 that it had rejected an unsolicited, nonbinding tender submitted by SES Jan. 22 as part of a strategy of seeking modest acquisitions to fill holes in its global satellite network, the world’s second largest after Intelsat/PanAmSat.
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The Pentagon’s inability to come up with a proper contingency plan for information system problems could cost the Defense Department dearly during key mission moments, a new Inspector General report (IG) says.
NOORDWIJK, Netherlands – European Space Agency (ESA) officials say a revamped undertaking to prepare basic technologies for future-generation launch systems is proceeding on schedule, but the road map ahead, including implementation of work done to date, will ride on important upcoming budget decisions.
PARIS – French press reports indicate a U.S. Foreign Military Sale of 24 Lockeed Martin F-16 fighters, won against France’s Rafale, could be on the rocks. According to defense newsletter TTU and daily Les Echos, the subprime financial crisis is making it difficult to raise private funding to back the $2.4 billion deal, which carries no sovereign guarantee.
LONDON – The United Kingdom’s 16 Air Assault Brigade will be deployed to Afghanistan in April to replace units currently in theater, British Defense Secretary Des Browne said Feb. 6. London and Washington are also looking to partners in Afghanistan to bolster their force commitments.
NEW DELHI – The first prototype of the Light Combat Helicopter being designed and developed by India-owned defense manufacturer Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) will be ready for its initial test flight by March 2009. “This will be a fast development. It is 16 months since we started. We plan to involve the private sector to reduce time required for development and certification,” HAL Chairman Ashok Baweja said at the Heli Power India show here.
The Air Force’s Battle Control System-Fixed (BCS-F) air defense command-and-control system is at risk of further delay and its development is in jeopardy because the service cannot keep on schedule, a recent Director, Operational Test & Evaluation (DOT&E) report says.
Lockheed Martin did not ask for a crucial key performance parameter (KPP) change to a deployability requirement for the U.S. Air Force’s $15 billion combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) helicopter fleet replacement program, company officials said. The Air Force had included Lockheed correspondence in a Dec. 5, 2007, briefing before the House Armed Services air and land subcommittee as proof that the company had wanted the change.
LONDON – Britain is proposing to host a five-nation conference on the technical and verification aspects of nuclear disarmament. Des Browne, the British defense minister, made the offer Feb. 5 during an address to the Conference on Disarmament held in Geneva. Despite being in the throes of replacing its own strategic nuclear capability, Browne claims the U.K. still has a long-term goal of nuclear disarmament.
BALL LASER: Ball Aerospace was awarded a $42 million contract by the U.S. Air Force on Feb. 4 for research and development into Laser Effects Vulnerability Research (LEVR). The project will examine both analytical modeling and experimental tasks to accurately predict the effects of lasers on various threat targets. Laser vulnerability assessments on space, tactical/ground, missiles, systems, subsystems and components will be completed to accurately predict the consequences of laser interaction with these targets.
SOLID STATE: The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has awarded Northrop Grumman a contract for the second phase of a five-and-a-half year program to develop the Advanced Track Illuminator Laser (ATILL), a six-kilowatt-class, solid-state, pulsed laser designed for advanced MDA missions. The four-phase program will support MDA and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory (MIT/LL) in building the next-generation Cryo Yb: YAG (ytterbium: yttrium aluminum garnet) solid-state laser track illuminator while improving packaging density and electrical efficiency.
LIMITED EMERGENCY: Federal regulators are gathering public comment for a new acquisition rule to limit the length of contracts awarded noncompetitively under unusual and compelling circumstances to the minimum contract period necessary to meet the requirements. Such so-called emergency contracts would run no longer than one year unless approved by the head of the contracting activity.
LONDON – The United Kingdom has spent 2.6 billion pounds ($5.09 billion) so far on 796 urgent operational requirements to support combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The figures, provided at a recent Parliamentary Defense Committee hearing, cover programs for all three armed services, though land systems projects likely predominate.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Feb. 6 he intends to keep the F-22 Raptor line in Marietta, Ga. open through 2010 even though the Pentagon’s planned cap of 183 stealthy fighters “is probably the right number.”
A Government Accountability Office (GAO) analysis of 11 DOD weapon systems uncovered poor practices on the part of defense contractors and resultant quality issues with the weapon systems, leading to cost overruns, excessive delays and decreased capabilities in-theater.
Thales Alenia Space says engineers have managed to place the Rascom-QAF1 satellite in final orbit, following a helium leak that occurred after its late December launch, but at the cost of a sharply reduced lifetime. Engineers last week said four weeks of apogee motor firings, beginning with a main motor burst and followed by 18 apogee maneuvers using smaller backup thrusters, had moved the pioneering African telecom spacecraft into its intended orbit at 2.85 degrees east longitude (DAILY, Jan. 9).
The U.S. Air Force has made significant changes in its source selection procedures and policies, effective March 31. The changes affect how the service will gauge and grade criteria like capability, cost risk and past performance, with some of the measures targeted for source selection shortfalls identified in recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) protest decisions, including those pertaining to the combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) helicopter program, according to a service briefing obtained by Aerospace Daily.
