CECOM AWARD: The U.S. Army's Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM) in Fort Monmouth, N.J., has awarded DataPath Inc. a $16.7 million contract to establish a nationwide Joint Incident Site Communications Capability (JISCC) for the Army National Guard. In partnership with Applied Global Technologies, DataPath's communications networks will enable first responders to establish full command and control capabilities at the site of a disaster within hours anywhere in the U.S., the company says.
A new space shuttle tile inspection method devised by Ames Research Center that uses wireless scanners that relay information to a computer database is replacing manual inspection, NASA announced Aug. 7. Technicians have used six new scanners to look for cracks and other imperfections in some of the 24,000 tiles that cover shuttle Endeavour, as the orbiter is prepared for launch from Kennedy Space Center Aug. 8 on mission STS-118.
The House Appropriations Committee (HAC) is concerned about the continued lack of an integrated defense of the homeland against cruise missiles, other low-altitude aircraft and short-range missile attacks. The committee added additional $15 million to the Bush administration's fiscal 2008 defense request for homeland cruise missile defense development, although the plus-up reportedly did not survive in the final House version of the defense appropriation bill passed Aug. 5.
The joint U.S. Navy-Marine Corps STUAS/Tier II request for proposals (RFP) has slipped into June/July 2008, Rick Ludwig, director of business development for unmanned systems at Northrop Grumman, told reporters at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International's (AUVSI) show in Washington Aug. 7. However, Marine Corps Lt. Col. Ben Stinson, the STUAS integrated product team lead, told the DAILY Aug. 7 that there had been "no set date" for the RFP and the original late fall 2007 date was only "notional" (DAILY, June 8).
Advocates for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) research at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) hope that the modest request of $3.3 million for UAV activity at the agency in fiscal 2008 will plant the programmatic seeds for the extensive use of UAVs in support of weather prediction and global warming research.
The U.S. Air Force recently took delivery of its first Battlefield Air Tactical Micro Air Vehicle (BATMAV) micro unmanned aircraft system from AeroVironment, Inc. as part of the service's Beyond Line of Sight (BLOS) program. The Wasp III air vehicle, part of the BATMAV system, has a wingspan of 29 inches and weighs only one pound, yet manages to carry forward- and side-looking electro-optical color cameras.
HYBRID BOOSTER: French space agency CNES has performed the first launch of an experimental hybrid booster that could become the basis for a future nanosatellite launch system. Developed with student groups and defense research industry Onera, the "Perseus" demonstrator was orbited from a French military base last week. The booster could be air launched, perhaps using a high-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle under study at Onera, and would be capable of lofting at least 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of payload into sun synchronous orbit by 2015.
MOVING PROENZA: House Science subcommittee chairmen Brad Miller (D-N.C.) and Nick Lampson (D-Texas) have written National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrator (NOAA) Conrad Lautenbacher requesting that if controversial National Hurricane Center Director William Proenza is removed from his position, he be returned to his previous job as Southern Region chief of the National Weather Service rather than made training chief of the "little-noticed" Office of Climate, Water and Weather services.
SECOND SARLUPE: Germany's second SARLupe radar recon satellite has entered service, a month after it was launched atop a Cosmos 3M rocket from Plesetsk, Russia. Together with the first spacecraft, orbited in December 2006, the new sub-meter resolution unit will permit the German forces to begin using SARLupe for routine operations, notably in Afghanistan. A third satellite is to be launched on Nov. 1 and the remaining two next year.
TANKER HOLDUP: The U.S. Air Force has delayed a decision to select a contractor for its future refueling tanker to as late as December. Earlier plans called for selecting a design in October. It is unclear how much the delay will affect the service's plans to outfit its first squadron as soon as 2013. The Air Force is choosing between a Boeing KC-767 and a Northrop Grumman/EADS North America KC-30.
Delta One, the first E-2D Advanced Hawkeye development aircraft, completed its first flight at St. Augustine, Fla., on Aug. 3. Built for the U.S. Navy by Northrop Grumman, the E-2D will provide joint U.S. forces and coalition partners' airborne battle management command and control from the sea, in both over-land and over-water environments. The $408 million pilot production contract for three aircraft was awarded on July 9 and follows the $2 billion System Development and Demonstration (SD&D) contract awarded August 4, 2003.
NASA's Phoenix Mars lander is undergoing initial checkout following its predawn launch from Cape Canaveral Aug. 4 on a United Launch Alliance Boeing Delta II that fired the spacecraft toward Mars at nearly 7 miles per second. The telemetry for all the spacecraft's systems show excellent performance, right in the middle of what the engineers would call the "sweet spots," says Ed Sedivy, Lockheed Martin's program manager for the flight.
COLLISION AVOIDANCE: The U.S. Air Force will integrate its new auto-ground collision avoidance system (Auto-GCAS) on the F-16 Fighting Falcon, F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II. In testing, the software-based program has proven 98 percent effective at avoiding controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) accidents, according to the Air Force. Unlike other systems, Auto-GCAS will take control of and recover the aircraft when it determines the aircraft is within 1.5 seconds of a "point of no return."
Administrator Michael Griffin says NASA is taking allegations of preflight alcohol abuse by astronauts seriously, but three weeks after an outside medical panel briefed him on the charges he says he's getting exactly the opposite picture from the astronaut corps.
AIR FORCE Hawker Beechcraft Corp., Wichita, Kan., is being awarded a firm-fixed-price contract for $9,586,312. The action provides for the Engine Life management Plan (ELMP) Data Acquisition Program. The ELMP will forecast engine overhauls in a timely manner and recommend how to manage fleet assets. At this time, $4,793,156 has been obligated. The work will be complete by July 2009. Air Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8617-07-D-6151-0004).
Although the U.S. Navy picked Northrop Grumman's entry in the unmanned combat air systems demonstration (UCAS-D) competition over Boeing's X-45, Pentagon officials say they could still use the Boeing technology. "The Boeing activity and general body of work in unmanned combat aircraft is not going to go to waste. It's being applied in a number of different areas," said Dyke Weatherington, acting director of air warfare in the Under Secretary of Defense's office, in Washington Aug. 2.
