A pair of spacewalking NASA astronauts spent more than six hours outside the International Space Station on Jan. 31 in the first of a series of three extravehicular activities (EVAs) aimed at replumbing the station's cooling system for long-term operations. Michael Lopez-Alegria, the Expedition 14 commander, and Flight Engineer Sunita Williams reconfigured one of two ammonia cooling loops to the U.S. Destiny laboratory module from its temporary setup using radiators on the P6 truss to the permanent system delivered with the P4/5 Truss element last year.
'TOTAL LOSS': The National Reconnaissance Office now considers a "total loss" the mission of a small experimental satellite - L-21- that is likely part of the Future Imagery Architecture (FIA), according to sources familiar with the program. The NRO lost contact immediately after the satellite was launched, the sources said. Rep. Terry Everett (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the HASC strategic forces subcommittee, declined to discuss the mission Jan. 31 with reporters, but said it shouldn't be linked to other FIA problems..
Although the offer is still open, space entrepreneur Robert T. Bigelow doubts that any company will enter his $50 million America's Space Prize contest now that NASA has made manned orbital transportation a downstream part of its COTS commercial orbital space transportation program.
MERGER APPROVED: The French government, Thales and shipyard DCN have agreed on a plan to merge Thales' naval systems business into DCN. Under the plan, Thales will transfer all of its French naval activities except equipment manufacture to DCN, along with 100 million euros ($129 million) in cash, in return for a 25 percent share in the naval systems contractor, and reserves the right to increase its stake to 35 percent for two years.
The U.S. Army only this fiscal year began truly tracking whether more than $38.6 billion appropriated since 2002 for equipment reset has actually gone to that purpose, and the service cannot be assured that its reset programs will provide enough equipment to train and outfit personnel for current or future foreign deployments, a leading congressional auditor said Jan. 31.
The U.S. Army National Guard and Air National Guard need a total of $40 billion to get their equipment up to "an acceptable level of readiness," according to National Guard Bureau Chief Lt. Gen. Steven Blum. An acceptable level would be if the Guard had 80 percent of its equipment on hand and ready for operations at any given time, Blum testified during the final hearing of the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves on Capitol Hill Jan. 31. Critical issue
The extent of damage to Sea Launch's Odyssey floating launch platform are unknown following the destruction at liftoff of the SES New Skies NSS-8, a Boeing 702 spacecraft, Jan. 31 from the company's Pacific Ocean launch site. The Russian Zenit 3SL inexplicably toppled as it was clearing the pad and creating a massive explosion. Sea Launch has established a failure review oversight board.
Analysts on Jan. 31 predicted even more partisan bickering in Congress and a return to interservice rivalries over the fiscal 2008 defense budget. While professing no inside knowledge of the Pentagon's budget request, scheduled for release Feb. 5 along with the rest of the Bush administration's fiscal 2008 budget, experts from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) said plans to increase the end strength of the Army and Marine Corps has the other services worried about where the money is going to come from.
SOYUZ DELAYED: Plans to begin flying Soyuz rockets from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, may slip a bit because of problems encountered in building a giant deflector under the new launch pad. According to Yannick d'Escatha, director general of French space agency CNES, which is supervising construction of the launch site for the European Space Agency, construction of the deflector has been delayed by the need to remove large granite blocks and consolidate loose soil that had not been detected during site exploration.
TEXAS PSA: General Dynamics Corp.'s Electric Boat shipbuilding unit is set to receive as much as $85 million for post-shakedown activity (PSA), as in post-sea trial repairs and modifications, for the Texas (SSN 775), the second submarine of the Virginia class. The PSA award runs through February 2008, the company said Jan. 26, and includes a $25 million contract modification announced by the Pentagon. The Navy awarded another $9.7 million modification for additional ship alterations days earlier (DAILY, Jan. 18).
The U.S. Air Force on Jan. 30 released its long-awaited request for proposals (RFP) for the KC-X competition to build 179 refueling tankers, and officials say they've allayed the concerns of Northrop Grumman/EADS North America that prompted threats to back out of the duel with Boeing.
DESIGNER AWARDS: The U.S. Navy has awarded General Dynamics Corp. a $257.4 million contract option to complete the detail design of the DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer, bringing the total effort to $337.4 million for the company. The Naval Sea Systems Command also awarded Northrop Grumman Corp. a $268 million contract, bringing that company's award to $307.5 million. The awards, announced Jan. 29, fund further DDG-1000 detail design and procurement of vendor-furnished information and long-lead materials, and run through 2013.
Nine companies have all received initial contracts from the Marine Corps to build 36 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) test vehicles within 60 days under a $34.6 million effort, the kickoff to an interim Army-Marine program for thousands of MRAPs and a later, larger vehicle acquisition. The awards come in an accelerated - and somewhat doubted - effort by military officials to meet an urgent need for armored personnel carriers ahead of plans to grow overall U.S. ground forces, let alone an increase in U.S. troops in Iraq (DAILY, Jan. 19).
SAT CONTRACT: Space Systems/Loral has won a contract to build a new direct broadcasting satellite for EchoStar. No date was announced for delivery of the spacecraft, EchoStar XIV. It was the second award for SS/L, which was earlier tabbed to provide a comsat for Intelsat.
The proposed U.S. missile defense site in Poland clearly is not "oriented toward Russia" and would not negate that country's ballistic missile arsenal, according to U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) Deputy Director Brig. Gen. Patrick O'Reilly. To be operational by 2011, the Polish site would host up to 10 interceptor missiles at a total cost of about $3.5 billion. Formal talks about the site are getting under way. Meanwhile, the U.S. also is in discussions with the Czech Republic about hosting the radar that would support the interceptors (DAILY, Jan. 26).
U.S. Navy Adm. William Fallon, head of Pacific Command, would emphasize greater missile defense, as well as naval and air superiority in the Persian Gulf and Middle East if he becomes head of Central Command, according to sentiments expressed at his Jan. 30 nomination hearing in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The U.S. Coast Guard is instituting procedures to avoid future cost overruns and structural problems in the troubled Deepwater fleet modernization program, the service's commandant told Congress Jan. 30.
The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration has taken control of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program's (DMSP) F-17 spacecraft, which was launched Nov. 4 on the first Delta IV to carry an unclassified payload from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. It was the second of the Block 5D-3 spacecraft that Lockheed Martin has built for the U.S. Air Force. The first, F-16, was launched in October 2003 on the last of the Air Force's Titan IIs.
