DISTANT VOLCANO: NASA's New Horizons probe is scheduled to return a trove of imagery from its Feb. 28 Jupiter flyby in the weeks ahead, but a view of a massive volcanic eruption on the close-in moon Io gives scientists a tantalizing preview of coming attractions. Collected at a range of 1.5 million miles, it shows the volcano Tvastar Catena spewing material 180 miles above the moon's north polar region.
SHADOW HEALTH: The U.S. Army's Aviation and Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal, Ala., has awarded Intelligent Automation Corp. (IAC) a contract to integrate its Health and Usage Monitoring Systems (HUMS) technology onboard the U.S. Army's RQ-7A/B Shadow 200 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The system is intended to help reduce maintenance, support and turnaround time by directly linking the UAV's health status to ground maintenance personnel.
GOME-2: The Gome-2 spectrometer on Europe's Metop-A polar orbiting weather satellite has begun supplying geophysical products showing ozone and nitrogen dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. The products, developed by German aerospace center DLR, are being released through Eumetsat's ozone satellite application facility, which generates, validates, archives and distributes timely and comprehensive records and predictions on ozone, trace gases, aerosols and surface ultraviolet radiation.
GPS UPGRADE: Raytheon Co. said March 7 that it will lead an industry team to compete for a $160 million contract to upgrade the next generation Global Positioning System Control Segment. The program will provide command, control, and mission support for current GPS Block II and III satellites, and support to existing and new interfaces. Two competitors are set to be chosen in late fiscal year 2007. The program is administered by the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif.
The U.S. Air Force risks further delay if it chooses to focus narrowly on the lifecycle costs issue in responding to the protests of its contract award of the combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) helicopter program to Boeing, Government Accountability Office (GAO) General Counsel Michael Golden said in a March 7 interview shortly before GAO released a fuller report of its findings.
Most of the world's space agencies are teaming up with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in using their Earth-observing space assets to support protection of UNESCO natural and cultural heritage sites worldwide. The agreement is a centerpiece in a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, coming up March 21 at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Paris event
FALCON 1: The second flight attempt for Space Exploration Technologies' (SpaceX) Falcon 1 launch vehicle is now set for March 19-22 from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, according to the latest update from company founder and CEO Elon Musk. The company had hoped to fly before the middle of the month until ground testing in late February uncovered a possible problem with one of the rocket's second-stage thrust vector control boards.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England confirmed March 6 that the Defense Department is demoting various aircraft requests as part of the $93.4 billion second supplemental request for fiscal 2007, possibly jettisoning the request's proposed Joint Strike Fighters and airlifters to pay for the troop increase in Iraq and other new needs like rehabilitating the military's medical system.
The world unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) market should grow from $2.7 billion to $8.3 billion a year by 2015, a defense analyst predicted March 6. The U.S. is the dominant customer, accounting for 78 percent of spending now, but that will drop slightly to 70 percent as other parts of the world increase their spending, Steven Zaloga told an aerospace market forum presented by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and Teal Group. 'Big chunk of money'
TESTS COMPLETED: The Herschel infrared telescope has completed a series of crucial tests intended to verify the performance of its vital cryostat. The 2.5-meter high, 2-meter wide cryostat must keep Herschel's instruments at 1.7 K (-271.3 degrees Celsius) so they do not emit infrared signals that can interfere with telescope measurements. Following bakeout to remove residual water, the cryostat went through a simulated launch campaign followed by tests to monitor its behavior in ambient and deep-space conditions.
Without air power, NATO would have "lost" in Afghanistan over the past 12 months, the head of the British armed forces says. Air Chief Marshal Jock Stirrup, the Chief of the Defense Staff, made it clear to British politicians that air power - from combat aircraft to support helicopters - was a critical element of Afghan theater operations. Stirrup appeared March 6 before the British Parliament's Defense Committee to answer questions on force commitments and resources, including funding.
TANKER ANALYSIS: Congressional auditors have concluded that the U.S. Air Force's decision to include a passenger and cargo capability in its replacement refueling aircraft was made without required analyses, according to a March 6 report from the Government Accountability Office. Mandatory Air Force policy requires its organizations to use a formal capabilities-based approach toward evaluating capabilities that compete for scarce funds.
SPEEDIER SUBS: The House Armed Services seapower and expeditionary forces subcommittee on March 8 will host a hearing about accelerating submarine production to two annually earlier than planned. The hearing comes after top U.S. Navy officials last week listed the acceleration as a top priority for any additional shipbuilding funds Congress provides over President Bush's budget requests.
The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) and seven other trade and business groups have teamed up to push the Bush administration to make regulatory and other administrative changes to "improve" the U.S. export control system. "We strongly believe that export control modernization is needed and that the opportunity is now," the coalition member associations said in a March 6 letter to President Bush. The changes could be made within current law, they said.
TANK FORECAST: Forecast International's (FI) Weapons Group projects that the international market for new military tanks will produce more than 7,600 main battle tanks worth more than $31.5 billion through 2016. Furthermore, while increased modernization and retrofit is becoming a significant portion of the international market, it "pales in comparison" with the prospect of new tank procurement, the group said.
Looking for a silver lining in the recent decision by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to sustain the contract award protest of the new combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) helicopter fleet, a senior Air Force official intimately familiar with the service acquisition said the issue appears to be one of arithmetic. The GAO only addressed the manpower input on lifecycle costs, the official said. While that could involve some tweaks to the bid review, the official added, there should be no need for a new request for proposals (RFP).
The cause of the Feb. 18 Chinook accident in Afghanistan that killed eight soldiers appears to have been a combination of engine failure and icing, according to an e-mail from a U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) colonel in command of one of the units involved. "The cause of aircraft accident appears to be catastrophic engine failure aggravated by icing conditions, but has not been officially determined," the colonel wrote in an e-mail to the AFSOC community shortly after the crash.
