The scheduled Sept. 18 launch of the DigitalGlobe Worldview 1 spacecraft has quite a bit riding on the Delta II rocket. The Worldview I represents a commercial partnership, anchored by a $500 million investment by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). The NGA also bankrolled a similar project, the Geoeye-1, now scheduled for launch for the late first quarter or early second quarter of the coming year (See related story on page 2).
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin says he believes China will return to the moon with human explorers before the U.S. accomplishes that goal with its Constellation Program, as the economic competition fueled by spaceflight activities intensifies.
Top Pentagon leaders are talking about far more troop reductions from Iraq than just what was formally outlined last week as a Democratic-controlled Congress is undergoing a rush of defense lawmaking. "My hope is that when he does his assessment in March, that General [David] Petraeus will be able to say he thinks that the pace of drawdowns can continue at the same rate in the second half of the year as in the first half of the year," Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a group of reporters during a Pentagon press briefing Sept. 14.
WAR SPENDING: For 2008, funding for national defense is projected to absorb about 4.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), according to analyst Steven Kosiak of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. By comparison, the Korean War at its peak consumed 14.2 percent of GDP and during Vietnam the figure was 9.4 percent. The Korean and Vietnam wars cost the United States some $456 billion and $518 billion (fiscal 2008).
QDR REVIEW: The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is recommending that that DOD's future Quadrennial Defense Reviews (QDRs) use methods targeted at conducting "a more thorough analysis of force structure and risk," following GAO's review of the 2006 QDR. That was the first QDR undertaken since the military become been involved in Iraq and Afghanistan. GAO found three key weaknesses in the Feb.
TWEAKING TAIWAN: Washington needs to clarify its policy on Taiwan and prevent its client state from dragging the United States toward a confrontation with China, as well as convince the island to start paying in earnest for its own defense, the CATO Institute think tank says. "Taiwan's overall investment in defense - approximately 2.6 percent of GDP - is woefully inadequate given the ongoing tensions with mainland China. ...
INTELSAT FUTURE: Intelsat chief executive David McGlade says the company's huge $12 billion debt load - due to grow by another $3.85 billion with the acquisition of the company by BC Partners - isn't necessarily a bad thing. "It makes us focus on highest return projects," he says, noting that the operator recently readjusted its capital expenditures upward, despite weaker free cash flow.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected] Sept. 18 - 19 -- Rapra Technology's International Conference on Polymers in Defense and Aerospace 2007, Holiday Inn Airport, Toulouse, France, For more information go to www.rapra.net/products__and_services/ Conferences. Sept. 18 - 20 -- AIAA Space 2007 Conference & Exposition, Long Beach Convention Center, Long Beach, Calif. For more information go to www.aiaa.org.
NASA managers from the space shuttle and International Space Station (ISS) programs will decide Sept. 17 whether to add a fifth extravehicular activity (EVA) to the upcoming STS-120 shuttle mission to allow testing of an untried thermal protection system (TPS) repair technique.
CAS: Close-air support will get a boost from a $45.5-million U.S. Navy contract for Rockwell Collins Network Enabling Software. The project is to support development and deployment of the Tactical Air Control Party (TACP), Close Air Support System. The product will provide digital communications between the TACP, aircraft and command and control systems by 2012.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England has halted the U.S. Air Force's controversial push to take over management of the Pentagon's growing Unmanned Air System (UAS) fleet. USAF Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley made the proposal in a March 5 memo to take over management of all Pentagon UAS programs. It was met with ire from officials in the Army and Navy (DAILY, March 26).
JAGM FUNDS: The Pentagon's Joint Air-to-Ground Missile, the reincarnated Joint Common Missile, is on its way to receiving most - if not all - of the $68.5 million in research funds that defense officials sought for fiscal 2008. Senate appropriators last week agreed to fund at least $53.5 million in Army research, although the fate of another $15 million requested by the Navy was not immediately confirmed. House colleagues fully funded both requests in May.
The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) successfully launched the SELenological and ENgineering Explorer (Selene) on the morning of Sept. 14 local time at Tanegashima Space Center, kicking off the most intense era of international study of the moon since Apollo. The liftoff also marked the first launch by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) since the company took over the previously government-led H-IIA rocket launch operations as a private business Apr. 1.
The U.S. Navy will pursue a suite of unmanned vehicle (UV) "Sentry" platforms to protect its proposed fleet of new warships, which would operate as distributed assets or together in supposed sea bases for U.S. military forces. The goal is so-called "collaborative autonomy," the ability of teams of vehicles to coordinate their activities without human oversight and little overall human supervision of the system.
WAR FUNDS: With House and Senate appropriators ostensibly agreeing to appropriate about $459 billion to defense spending under regular appropriations for fiscal 2008 - despite differences over subjects including shipbuilding and new-technology efforts - Capitol Hill's attention will turn quickly to a record-setting defense supplemental bill. The additional, off-budget appropriations are supposedly for warfighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Democrats gave the Bush administration a taste of their desire to keep it as such in the spring during the last FY '07 supplemental.
ADAPTING AESA: Raytheon will adapt the active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radar technology (which can see farther and detect smaller objects) to optical energy, in particular lasers, under a $16 million DOD contract. The project is to build an array of sub-apertures in which each element can transmit, receive and rapidly steer spatially phased optical energy and images. The company also will demonstrate a modular architecture that can be scaled to large apertures and high powers.
The Pentagon continues to have shortfalls in its Information Assurance (IA) protections that need to be addressed, the Defense Department's Inspector General (IG) is reporting. The Sept. 12 report summarizes information assurance weaknesses that the Government Accountability Office, the DOD Office of Inspector General, the Army Audit Agency, the Naval Audit Service, and the Air Force Audit Agency reported between August 1, 2006, and July 31, 2007.
FRC RFP: An amendment issued September 10 will affect prospective proposals due Dec. 4 from industry regarding the U.S. Coast Guard's Fast Response Cutter B (FRC-B). The Coast Guard has reduced the number of FRC-Bs it anticipates obtaining to between 24 and 34 ships, a reduction in the 55 originally requested in June. Under the 5-7 year contract, the Coast Guard suggests one lead cutter, three optional Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP) cutters and up to thirty optional Full Rate Production cutters.
AEROSPACE SUPPORT: The Aerospace Corp. has been awarded $840 million to exercise a fourth option on a current contract to provide scientific, engineering and technical efforts in support of the U.S. Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base, along with other Defense Department programs. The option would extend the contract for one year, although no funds have yet been obligated.
The European Commission's Director General for Energy and Transport, Mathias Ruete, says China's decision to deploy its own satellite navigation system, Compass, will require renegotiation of a cooperation deal on Europe's Galileo network. Ruete says talks already have begun to discuss changes in the initial agreement, which covers the four In-Orbit Validation (IOV) spacecraft that are currently under construction and the Galileo Joint Undertaking (GJU), the development management entity that was disbanded in December 2006.
