BLENDED WING BODY: NASA, the U.S. Air Force and Boeing soon will begin ground testing of the X-48B Blended Wing Body (BWB) concept in preparation for flight testing early next year. Testing will take place at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in California, where two 21-foot wingspan unmanned prototypes have been delivered. The BWB resembles a tailless flying wing, featuring a wide airfoil-shaped body for maximum lift and minimum drag.
U.S. Air Force officials said that the multiyear procurement contract for the C-130J cargo aircraft has been converted from a Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 12 to a FAR 15 contract. The conversion, which recrafts the Lockheed Martin Corp. contract into a more traditional acquisition from less-rigid requirements, comes after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and other leading Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) members have pressed the Defense Department to default toward more accountable contracting (DAILY, Oct. 9).
STOVL DECISION: A high-level Pentagon decision over whether to delay the short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing (STOVL) version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is expected in the next two weeks, a program source says. Ahead of final fiscal 2008 budget-making, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England called an Oct. 26 meeting with secretaries and chiefs of staff from the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, as well as a few assistant and under secretaries of defense (DAILY, Oct. 27).
Orbital Sciences Corp. on Oct. 27 announced growth in revenues, operating profit and net income for the third quarter that company officials said could help make 2006 the best year ever for the company, provided fourth-quarter projections are met.
MISSILE POLITICS: Missile defense is sharing the spotlight with Iraq and other national security issues ahead of the Nov. 7 congressional elections. Sen. Elizabeth Dole (N.C.), chairwoman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, highlighted their parties' differences Oct. 25. Schumer - echoing President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - says the greatest threat posed by a nuclear North Korea is over proliferating technology and missiles.
ABL ROLLOUT: The Airborne Laser (ABL) team is "ready to go fly" following its Oct. 27 roll-out ceremony in Wichita, Kan., according to Pat Shanahan, vice president and general manager of ABL prime Boeing Missile Defense Systems. "We are ready to demonstrate the aircraft's ability to close the fire control loop against a flying target," Shanahan says. The U.S. Missile Defense Agency is developing ABL to shoot down ballistic missiles in their boost phase. Northrop Grumman is providing the chemical laser for the system.
The Air Force last week outlined plans for not only a near-term KC-135 refueling tanker replacement program, called KC-X, but also for a long-term strategy that will include two additional buys in later years called KC-Y and KC-Z.
FAB-T: Boeing has completed hardware and software integration of the Block 4 Software-Defined Radio for the U.S. Air Force's Family of Advanced Beyond-line-of-sight Terminals (FAB-T) for the B-2. FAB-T includes software-defined radios, antennas and user interface hardware to support a multitude of waveforms for data rates in excess of 300 Mbps.
CMWS: BAE Systems said Oct. 25 that it has received an additional $95.6 million from the U.S. Army for its Common Missile Warning System (CMWS) to protect Army fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft from heat-seeking missiles. BAE Systems received a five-year indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract, which gives the Army flexibility to order at various times any number of systems with a ceiling of $1.4 billion. To date, BAE Systems has delivered more than 600 CMWS units. The company said production is more than a year ahead of schedule.
Two NASA Stereo spacecraft are climbing outbound on the first of four loops to the moon's orbit to set up low altitude lunar flybys that will hurtle them far from Earth for the first 3D imaging of the sun. The piggyback mounted spacecraft were launched from Cape Canaveral's Pad 17B at 8:52 p.m. Eastern time Oct. 25 onboard a Boeing Delta II with nine solid rocket boosters.
U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Gor-don England hosted a high-level Pentagon meeting Oct. 26, which comes ahead of finalizing the fiscal 2008 defense budget request and after he met with the Pentagon's Cost Analysis Improvement Group and a special team assembled to study FY '07 congressional mandates. No decisions were reached, although the short takeoff and landing version was discussed.
ITALIAN TRANSITION: Sergio Vetrella will remain as president of the Italian Center for Aerospace Research (CIRA) but has stepped down as head of Italian Space Agency ASI with the recent change of government. It remains to be seen who Research Minister Fabio Mussi will select to replace Vetrella, or even if Mussi will do so, because the government may name someone from outside the ministry to perform a top-down ASI reorganization.
Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors onboard unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) show considerable promise for helping counter improvised explosive devices, although so far the technology has not been used to its full potential by soldiers in theater, according to Lt. Col. Reed Young, product manager for robotic and unmanned sensors at Ft. Monmouth, N.J.
Questions about the position of an orientation antenna on the Progress resupply vehicle that arrived at the International Space Station Oct. 26 delayed hatch opening until Oct. 27 and required a partial station powerdown, but posed no other major issues for either spacecraft.
NASA is quickly mounting an alternate effort to develop thermal protection system (TPS) materials to protect the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) during a return from lunar orbit, after having disappointing results from the primary development program.
HOT BIRD 10: Astrium will build Eutelsat's Hot Bird 10 high-power broadcast satellite, set for launch in the first quarter of 2009. The Paris-based satellite operator says it will place the new spacecraft at 13 degrees East Longitude, where it is already broadcasting 950 television channels and 540 radio stations to Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.
Regarding the story "With Navair chief leaving, cost-savings plan up in air" (Oct. 24), the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command expects to save $2.5 billion from fiscal 2006-2011 by implementing corporate business practices in managing aviation programs (DAILY, Oct. 24). For FY '06, Navair expects to have squeezed $500 million more through its Naval Aviation Enterprise reforms, which comes after bookkeeping savings of $283 million in FY '05.
BAN LIFTED: The Defense Department has issued a final rule amending its own acquisition regulations to remove Libya from the list of terrorist countries banned from DOD contract awards. The change follows the State Department's removal of Libya from the list of countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism, which comes after Libyan leader, Col. Muammar al Qadhafi, agreed in December 2003 to abandon the North African nation's nuclear weapons program.
The U.S. Air Force has awarded Northrop Grumman Mission Systems almost $21.2 million worth of contract modifications regarding the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) propulsion replacement program. One $16 million award is for Northrop Grumman to identify and provide for the procurement of government furnished property components for Minuteman IIIs that are known to be in short supply and are needed to preclude production shortages under stage-five full-rate production. That award runs through March 2008.
Boeing Integrated Defense Systems' (IDS) revenue rose 4 percent during the three months ending Sept. 30 on higher Precision Engagement & Mobility Systems and Support Systems volume, but Network & Space Systems revenues dropped on lower volume in the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GBMD) program and fewer planned milestone completions in the commercial satellite business, executives said Oct. 25.
The objective of the Stereo Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory mission, which was set for launch late Oct. 25, is to position its Stereo A and Stereo B satellites, each weighing 1,412 pounds, so they can simultaneously image the sun - and the 93 million miles spacing the Earth and sun - from different angles million of miles apart.
