Astronaut John (Danny) Olivas used a surgical stapler and some stainless steel pins to tack down a ripped piece of thermal blanket on the tail of the space shuttle Atlantis June 15, easing concerns the damage could endanger the orbiter on reentry or delay its turnaround on the ground.
HORNET'S NEST: Boeing is offering the U.S. Navy what one Pentagon source calls a "tempting" deal for an all-time-low flyaway price of $49.9 million for new F-18E/F Super Hornets. The cost is guaranteed for a third multi-year buy of 170 aircraft, but this is nearly double the Navy's stated commitment for 92 more. Still, the deal "is going to be pretty tough for the Navy to turn down," says a Pentagon official. The proposal comes as Pentagon leaders worry that the cost of Lockheed Martin's Joint Strike Fighter will continue to grow.
BORDER UAVS: In an apparent bid to sway conservatives in his party into backing a so-called comprehensive immigration bill, President Bush threw his support behind $4.4 billion in immediate additional funding for securing U.S. land borders and enforcing immigration laws. Funding would come from the fines and penalties to be collected from illegal immigrants, he announced June 14.
TSAT RFP: The U.S. Air Force released the final request for proposals (RFP) for the Transformational Satellite (TSAT) Communications System space segment production contract late June 14. Responses from competitors Lockheed Martin and Boeing are due July 30, with a contract award expected before the end of the year.
INVESTIGATE: Leaders of a House Science subcommittee are recommending a Justice Dept. investigation of NASA General Counsel Michael Wholley, for obstruction of justice and destruction of government records. Wholley destroyed video records of an April 10 meeting between NASA Administrator Michael Griffin and the staff of the Office of the Inspector General.
BETTER LUCK: Astronauts working on assembly of the International Space Station (ISS) on June 14 made progress retracting the solar arrays on the old P6 truss element temporarily mounted on the top of the outpost.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has pushed its deadline back three weeks, to June 27, to submit proposals for a high altitude unmanned aerial system (UAS) to detect and deter shoulder-fired missiles aimed at commercial aircraft. DHS also pushed back the date for selecting proposals from June 29 to July 20. The department's Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate now plans to award a contract or contracts by Sept. 3 instead of Aug. 17.
Sea Launch expects to resume missions in October with the launch of the Thuraya D3 mobile services satellite. The Odyssey launch platform, which was damaged in the Jan. 30 explosion of a Zenit-3SL booster (DAILY, Feb. 1), and the Sea Launch Commander control ship were due in Vancouver, B.C., June 14 for repairs. The platform was to undergo heavy industrial repairs and painting, while the Commander was due for routine maintenance.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. - A NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) peer review of Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) reentry heating and aerodynamics work finds that critical areas lack sufficient "risk management processes to guide decision making" as the agency works on the hypersonic reentry thermal and aerodynamic advancements necessary for the CEV development.
The two cosmonauts on the International Space Station (ISS) shut down the computers on the Russian side of the orbiting facility June 14, deferring by a day work to restore critical command and navigation systems that crashed June 13. Loss of the Russian-side computers, which actually were built in Western Europe, could force an evacuation of the station, although managers considered that unlikely and certainly undesirable.
SCRUBBED: The failure of a ground-based command encoder June 14 at Cape Canaveral forced the launch postponement of two National Reconnaissance Office ocean surveillance spacecraft on board a United Launch Alliance Atlas V. The U.S. Air Force's 45th Space Wing, which operates Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, plans to fix the problem in time for a second launch attempt June 15 during a 30-minute launch window that opens at 11:04 a.m. EDT.
While Pentagon officers acknowledge China is building and improving its cyber skills, they disagree over how the growing Asian power plans to employ those capabilities. While the recent annual Defense Department report on China points toward a military use of those capabilities, the Air Force general in charge of setting up the service's new Cyber Command sees it differently.
The $2 billion contract scored by the C-27J Spartan team to initially build 78 Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA) for the U.S. Army and Air Force likely will be a springboard for Alenia North America to enter the U.S. defense market and for the aircraft to penetrate the international market. Army officials announced June 13 that the contract had been awarded to the Spartan team, an international union of L-3 Communications, Alenia North America and Boeing (DAILY, June 14).
After years of inter-service feuding and continual speculation that the program would be grounded, the U.S. Army and Air Force have agreed to buy up to 78 C-27J Spartans for the Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA) program. The C-27J Team - consisting of L-3 Communications, Alenia North America and Boeing - beat out the Raytheon/EADS North America-led Team JCA and its aircraft, the C-295.
NRO LAUNCH: Two top secret National Reconnaissance Office/U.S. Navy ocean surveillance spacecraft to track terrorist movements at sea are being readied for launch from Cape Canaveral June 14 (DAILY, April 30). Liftoff from Launch Complex 41 is planned between 11:18 a.m. and noon EDT on board a nearly 200-foot-tall U.S. Air Force Atlas V Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle. The rocket was scheduled be rolled to the launch pad late June 13. The loading of tons of kerosene, and liquid oxygen and hydrogen propellants will begin early June 14.
Northrop Grumman Corp., L-3 Communications and Lockheed Martin Corp. have successfully completed the first in-flight communications link with an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, Northrop announced June 13. "We took our targeting radar and turned it into a "talking" radar by enabling it to transmit and receive unprecedented amounts of information," said Teri Marconi, vice president of Northrop Grumman's combat avionics business unit.
Controllers and flight crews on the International Space Station/Space Shuttle Atlantis hope to finish retracting an old solar array June 14, after getting a good start the day before by carefully applying lessons learned from a mirror-image mission in December 2006 that wrestled half of the array back into its box. Astronauts Patrick Forrester and Steven Swanson systematically lined up folding solar-array panels to get them in the best position to retract at the tedious beginning of the second spacewalk in the ongoing STS-117 station assembly June 13.
USCG RHIBS: Aluminum Chambered Boats said June 13 that it was awarded a $9.88 million, U.S. Coast Guard contract for 47 rigid-hull, inflatable boats for the Cutter Boat-Large (CB-L) fleet. The five-year contract calls for the first boat to be delivered within three months.
The U.S. Navy is eyeing a "Future Weapon System Concept" that could provide a far smaller, long-range, submarine-based ballistic missile that is "very distinguishable," provides "near precision accuracy" and is "extremely responsive," according to Navy Rear Adm. Stephen Johnson, director of strategic systems programs. The "notional design" revolves around a 40-foot, two-stage booster missile carrying a payload of 500 to 1,000 pounds up to 3,000 nautical miles, Johnson said June 13 at a National Defense University Foundation (NDUF) briefing on Capitol Hill.
FAA released its concept of operations for the Next Generation Air Transportation System, dubbed "NextGen," on June 13 while government and industry leaders urged Congress to find funding before the agency's authorization runs out Sept. 30. "We've got 109 days, guys, to get it done, so let's get at it," FAA Administrator Marion Blakey told a packed gathering of Capitol Hill lawmakers, staff and industry representatives.
