JUST PASSING THROUGH: Skimming toward its closest approach on Feb. 25, The Philae lander on ESA's Rosetta probe imaged Mars's Syrtis region and took a self-portrait at the same time. Four minutes later, the spacecraft passed within 1,000 kilometers of the surface in a gravity-boost swing-by that will bring it back for another Earth flyby in November. The winding route is designed to take Rosetta and its lander to the comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014.
The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has awarded Lockheed Martin a $979 million contract to further develop the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Weapon System. The contract will cover the next phase of Aegis BMD development, which includes equipment and computer program development and incorporation of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense Signal Processor (Aegis BSP) into the AN/SPY-1 radar. The Aegis BSP is scheduled for installment on all Aegis BMD ships beginning in 2010.
LONDON - Britain will send 1,400 more troops to southern Afghanistan, as well as additional transport helicopters and strike and transport aircraft, British Defense Secretary Des Browne said Feb. 26. The additional deployment was at NATO's request, Browne said. It will bring the number of British personnel deployed in the country to 7,700. London has been pushing other NATO partners to contribute more to Afghanistan, but has been mainly unsuccessful.
Lawmakers looking to pay for multiplying spending demands could cancel the U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems, cutting $23 billion over the next five years from the Army's projected budget authority needs, according to several options listed in a new report from the Congressional Budget Office.
Congress must fund the Defense Department's second fiscal 2007 supplemental request for $93.4 billion before May or the Pentagon will start taking significant appropriations from other defense spending with the Army as the prime loser, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Senate appropriators Feb. 27. "If these additional funds are delayed, the military will be forced to engage in costly and counterproductive reprogramming actions starting this spring to make up the shortfall," Gates said.
NO ENGINE FAILURE: As FAA and National Transportation Safety Board representatives prepare to begin an investigation into the crash of the prototype Bell ARH-70A helicopter on Feb. 21, a Honeywell official says "at this point there is no indication whatsoever that the Honeywell turboshaft engine failed in flight, or that there was a loss of power due to any failure of the engine." The helicopter made a forced landing on a golf course in Mansfield, Texas, on its first flight. (DAILY, Feb. 23). There were no injuries to the two pilots or people on the ground.
Breaking its silence, the Air Force said Feb. 27 it believes it can "comply with the intent of the recommendations more narrowly" made by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) in the agency's decision to uphold the protest of the service's contract for more than 140 combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) aircraft worth between $10 billion and $15 billion.
A sudden hailstorm at Kennedy Space Center Feb. 26 damaged the big external tank on the space shuttle Atlantis as it waited on the pad for a planned March 15 launch to the International Space Station, forcing managers to delay the STS-117 mission at least a month for inspection and repair.
The U.S. Air Force says that its F-22 fighter's debut in a Red Flag aerial combat training exercise with coalition forces underscored the known attributes of the stealthy jet, though the demonstration did not include trials of its most exotic electronic attack capabilities. Employment of electronic attack tactics, which are inherently offered by the F-22's Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar, was not included in the exercise that took place this month at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev.
The Army wants to accelerate the technology and capabilities being planned for the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV), and it's looking for 18,000 better armored vehicles that would be a JLTV, a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle or some combination of the two, said service Brig. Gen. Charles Anderson, director of force modernization. The vehicles provide better protection against improvised explosive devices, currently the most lethal enemy weapon in Iraq.
NASA has added an unmanned orbital flight of the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) in March 2013 to gather additional data prior to the first manned Orion flight scheduled for that October. "We wanted to insert an unmanned orbital flight before we put humans onboard," Exploration Launch Manager Steve Cook told The DAILY, Feb. 27. The Orion will be boosted to orbit by the Ares I - a modified five-segment space shuttle solid rocket booster.
Iran is expected to develop an operative nuclear weapon by 2015, top U.S. officials told Congress Feb. 27. While al Qaeda poses "the greatest [terrorist] threat to U.S. interests," the directors of National Intelligence and the Defense Intelligence Agency told the Senate Armed Services Committee that because of their nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, Iran and North Korea "are the states of most concern to us."
WORKING EFFICIENTLY: Science Applications International Corp. identified itself Feb. 26 as one of four contractors chosen to bid for work under a $930 million, 10-year contract to help develop tactics, techniques and procedures for how the services can work more efficiently together. Other providers include Bevilacqua Research Corp., L-3 Communications' Titan Group and Wyle Laboratories Inc. (DAILY, Jan. 12). The multiple-award contract has a five-year base period of performance with five one-year options.
Bell Helicopter Textron is in the final stages of completing a nine-year, 7,000-hour fatigue test program for the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft. The tests, which began in April 1998, ensure that the Osprey's structural integrity meets a fatigue-life spectrum equal to 20,000 flight hours, or two service lifetimes.
The Australian defense department has finalized the in-service support contract for its yet-to-be delivered Airbus A330-200-derived refueling aircraft. Australian airline Qantas, which operates a fleet of A330, will provide the 20-year engineering, maintenance, supply and training support. The contract involves establishing small organizations at two sites - Royal Australian Air Force Base Amberley and Brisbane Airport.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) plans to expand a pilot program testing X-ray technology, which can detect weapons and explosives beneath a person's clothes, to airports in New York and Los Angeles. The TSA began its long-awaited test of the controversial backscatter X-ray passenger screening technology last week at Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX) with a closet-sized SmartCheck screening system manufactured by American Science and Engineering (AS&E).
PATHFINDER PLUS: The solar-electric Pathfinder-Plus unmanned flying wing developed by NASA and AeroVironment is now on permanent display at the Smithsonian Institution's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia. With a wingspan of 121 feet, the Pathfinder-Plus set several altitude records for propeller-driven aircraft. Its last work for NASA was a series of research flights completed in 2005.
AIR FORCE United Technologies Corp., Pratt and Whitney Aircraft Group, East Hartford, Conn., is being awarded a $49,625,682 cost plus fixed fee, firm fixed price and cost plus award fee contract. This action provides for F119-PW-119 Engine Lot 6, CY 07 sustainment undefinitized contract action. At this time, $24,763,215 has been obligated. The work will be complete by June 2007. Headquarters Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8611-05-C-2851). U.S. TRANSPORTATION COMMAND
LONDON - British Defense Procurement Minister Paul Drayson is renewing warnings that the U.K. spends too little on research and technology, which will eventually threaten its defense-industrial capabilities. Drayson made the remarks Feb. 26 during a Chatham House conference on Research and Technology in the Defense Acquisition Process. "I believe we are not investing enough in defense research and development, either in government or in industry," he said.
In the wake of the White House's recently unveiled aeronautics research policy, NASA and the Department of Defense (DOD) have agreed to develop a cooperative strategy for maintaining the government's aeronautical test facilities. NASA Administrator Michael Griffin and Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Kenneth Krieg signed a memorandum of agreement (MOU), called the National Partnership for Aeronautical Testing (NPAT), in January.
