WARMING UP: Prospective international partners are warming up to the idea of cooperating with NASA on lunar exploration given the agency's demonstrated commitment to the International Space Station (ISS), says Deputy NASA Administrator Shana Dale.
DOD LAUNCH SITES: U.S. Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, the next likely head of U.S. Strategic Command, is calling for more spending to upgrade the military's two key launch sites at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., and Cape Canaveral, Fla. "And I would support efforts to explore how we might better leverage other launch ranges such as Wallops, Kwajalein, White Sands and Kodiak," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee at his nomination hearing Sept. 27. The panel endorsed his nomination.
LOGISTICS AWARDS: Boeing, GE Aviation, Raytheon, and their respective military customers have won this year's Performance Based Logistics (PBL) Awards sponsored by DOD and the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA). Boeing and the Navy won the System Level Award for the F/A-18 Integrated Readiness Supply Teaming program that saw mission capable rates increase to 73 percent in May 2007 from 57 percent in May 2000.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has denied Raytheon's protest of the U.S. Army and Air Force's decision to award the Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA) program to the C-27J team of L-3 Communications, Alenia North America and Boeing. "We did not find any basis to sustain the protest," GAO Managing Associate General Counsel Michael Golden told Aerospace Daily & Defense Report on Sept. 27. GAO hopes to release a public version of the decision by the end of next week.
Having secured two elements of its maritime surveillance program with development of the P-8A patrol aircraft and the review of proposals for an unmanned maritime surveillance aircraft, the U.S. Navy is turning its attention to replacing the P-3 Orion fleet as the remaining pillar of the service's recapitalization.
LONG-RANGE IR: Massachusetts-based FLIR Systems received a $47.6 million contract from U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) for Hand-Held Imagers-Long Range (HHI-LR) and associated items. The contract covers five to 705 HHI-LR, a thermal/infrared imager system for long-range target detection and viewing. Work is expected to be finished in September 2012.
HYDERABAD, India - European industry and government officials are scrambling to head off a clash over procurement and other issues that could torpedo a European Commission (EC) plan to reorganize and refinance the troubled Galileo satellite navigation system. Leaders from the European Space Agency (ESA), leading national space agencies and the industry prime contractor team were to meet in Paris to iron out a procurement policy proposal acceptable to the 25 European Union nations before the EC transport ministers meet on Oct. 2 to discuss the EC plan.
HYDERABAD, India - Early settlers on the moon could use their relative isolation to try new forms of governing themselves, much as European colonists in 17th century North America sought religious freedom, according to a young researcher who works on small lunar missions at NASA's Ames Research Center.
If NASA is funded under a continuing budget resolution by Congress for the second fiscal year in a row, the effect on the agency would be "devastating," according to Deputy Administrator Shana Dale. NASA was funded under a continuing resolution (CR) for fiscal 2007 that essentially froze spending at FY '06 levels, giving the agency a topline budget of $16.3 billion and amounting to a $500 million cut from the agency's overall request. Another CR for FY '08 would amount to a $1 billion cut from NASA's $17.3 billion request.
Bell Helicopter has been given one final opportunity to right its troubled Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) program, a course of action U.S. Army Secretary Pete Geren calls "the best of the difficult choices we had."
NPOESS CHIEF: Dan Stockton has been named the new program executive officer for the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). Stockton, who replaces Brig. Gen. Susan Mashiko, will be responsible for overseeing NPOESS and the NPOESS System Program Director and serve as the Fee Determining Official for the next-generation civil/military weather satellite program. Before being named PEO, Stockton served for two years as the system program director (SPD) for NPOESS, as a colonel in the U.S. Air Force.
The Pentagon's top acquisition official is calling for a new approach to the Defense Department's costly development programs and is pressing the armed services to fund more technical prototyping longer in early program phases. In a Sept. 19 memo to the services, defense agencies and combatant commands, John Young directs them to "formulate all pending and future programs with acquisition strategies and funding that provide for two or more competing teams producing prototypes through Milestone B."
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is beginning checkout of the 2,685-pound Dawn spacecraft's ion propulsion system following launch from Cape Canaveral Sept. 27 onboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II Heavy booster. With Dutch Space solar arrays spanning nearly 65 feet, Dawn is a Discovery-class mission using innovative solar electric/ion propulsion to penetrate the asteroid belt. It will orbit the asteroid Vesta in 2011 and Ceres in 2015.
After months of wrangling between the U.S. Air Force and Lockheed Martin over the price of the troubled C-5 re-engining program, Air Force acquisition chief Sue Payton announced Sept. 27 the effort has breached congressionally mandated cost limits and will have to go through the arduous task of a recertification to move forward.
CONTINUING RESOLUTION: Congress is passing a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the federal government until at least Nov. 16 at fiscal 2007 appropriations, which means FY '06 levels in most cases outside the defense and Homeland Security departments. Among other effects, CRs do not allow for starting new acquisition programs or for changes to approved spending levels. However, this CR provides $5.2 billion toward Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, which Defense Secretary Gates testified was needed to make sure nothing impeded industry's production lines.
The U.S. cyberspace intelligence network is battling a growing threat to its cyberspace assets, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) Director Vice Adm. Robert Murrett says. "The trend is real," Murrett said Sept. 26 during a breakfast roundtable briefing with defense reporters in Washington. "It is significant," he added, saying the intelligence community has to tackle the issue "with an increasing sense of urgency."
The U.S Air Force Research Laboratory is eyeing a 20,000-pound multimission unmanned aerial system (UAS) that would provide a cost-effective way to fill a looming void for a loitering, weapons-enabled platform, service researchers said Sept. 25.
Arianespace officials say the launch of the second Galileo satnav system test satellite, Giove B, will be deferred until March because of upper-stage delivery delays affecting the spacecraft's Starsem Soyuz Fregat booster.
The U.S. Air Force was never intended to be the primary user of the radar frequency currently occupied by the B-2 bomber radar, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has ordered the Defense Department to vacate the band within the next five years. The B-2 is operating within the frequency on a waiver, which could be pulled at any time, at which point the Air Force would have six months to stop operating on the frequency in Iraq.
The U.S. Air Force will allow the combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) helicopter program competitors to include updates on pricing, cost and other program-related information in new proposals, service officials confirmed Sept. 26. The changes, to be part of a planned updated request for proposals (RFP), could include past performance history and schedules, according to Sue Payton, chief Air Force acquisition officer, and other service officials.
