EA-6B SPARES: The first operational deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan of VAQ-139's EA-6Bs, upgraded with the ICAP-III airborne electronic attack system, was successful enough that the U.S. Navy has ordered $22 million in spares from Northrop Grumman. The Electronics systems division in Baltimore, which manufactures the ALQ-218 receiver subsystem, will do much of the production work, which is to be completed by the end of 2009. The ALQ-218 and its package of advanced algorithms allows selective-reactive jamming and geolocation of enemy emitters.
Task-saturated U.S. Air Force pilots forgot to put down the landing gear at a forward operating base and crashed their B-1, causing $7.9 million in damage to the aircraft, $14,000 in damage to the runway and a minor back injury to the co-pilot, an Air Force investigation report says. The B-1s are now in Qatar, but have operated from Oman and Diego Garcia. The aircraft was from the 7th Bomb Wing at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas.
DNEPR FLIGHT: Russia's Dnepr light launcher is expected to return to flight at the end of November carrying Germany's new dual-use high-resolution radar satellite, TerraSAR-X. A preliminary report issued last week by a Russian state committee investigating a July 26 Dnepr failure that grounded the booster said it was caused by defective heat insulation on a heptil line between the motor and the pump hydraulic drive serving a first stage thrust vector combustion chamber.
The Drug Enforcement Administration is bringing its own rotary-wing aircraft into Afghanistan to fight drug lords, a U.S. military commander says. Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, commander, Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan, called the air assets critical in the battle against the Taliban and other enemy forces in Afghanistan at a Sept. 21 Pentagon briefing. Coalition forces there have used the helicopters for troop transportation, intelligence gathering and medevac missions, he said.
NO COMPLACENCY: The national missile defense debate is not over, proclaims Baker Spring of the Heritage Foundation. There is a "misguided perception in Congress, particularly among some supporters of missile defense, that the debate over missile defense is all but over and that the side backing missile defense has won. The facts do not warrant such complacency," he says.
Sept. 26 - 27 -- Managing the Threat of Suicide Bombers and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), NRECA Executive Conference Center, Arlington, Va. For more information go to www.homelanddefensejournal.com/hdl/conf_terrorismsept06.htm. Sept. 26 - 27 -- Global Forces 2006: Second Australian Strategic Policy Institute International Conference, Hyatt Hotel, Canberra. For more information call +61 (26) 270-5100 or go to www.aspi.org.au.
Vladimir Sergeevich Syromyatnikov, a Russian aerospace engineer who developed the docking mechanism that linked the U.S. space shuttle to the Russian Mir orbital facility and later to the International Space Station, died Sept. 19 of leukemia. He was 74.
TOW 2B: The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command has awarded Raytheon Missile Systems an $18.7 million contract for TOW 2B Aero and TOW 2B Aero Gen 2 missiles. The work on the sole-source contract, initiated on Oct. 11, 2005, will be performed in Tucson, Ariz. It is expected to be completed by June 30, 2012, the Defense Department said Sept. 20.
FCC AUCTION: The Federal Communications Commission has concluded a one-month auction of 90 MHz of 2 GHz intended for next generation mobile broadband applications. The auction brought in almost $14 billion, nearly as much as expected. The big winners were mobile phone and cable operators, while the big losers were satellite TV operators EchoStar and DirecTV, which were forced out of the bidding by the high prices.
LUNAR PRIORITIES: A special panel of U.S. scientists convened to set priorities for lunar exploration says NASA's new program can answer some basic questions about the origins of the solar system if it is properly organized. "The moon today presents a record of geologic processes of early planetary evolution in the purest form," says an interim report of the Space Studies Board of the National Research Council.
SPACE VEHICLES: NASA is studying other objectives besides the moon and Mars for its planned new generation of human space exploration vehicles, with near-Earth objects (NEOs) a prime candidate. Jeff Hanley, manager of the Constellation Program overseeing development of the exploration fleet, says a comet or asteroid in Earth's neighborhood could be a worthy objective for the Orion crew exploration vehicle (CEV) and its Ares I launcher, even though the Ares/Orion stack is being developed for a return to the moon.
RISKY IT: The Joint Tactical Radio System's Ground Mobile Radio, the Army's Global Command and Control System, the Customs and Border Protection's SBInet and the Homeland Security Department's entire Science & Technology Directorate are some of several federal information technology efforts that have made it on the latest White House Office of Management and Budget's "High Risk Investment List." Projects on the list are not necessarily "at risk," OMB officials stress, but require "special" attention from the "highest" level of agency management.
UAV QUESTIONS: Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley has ordered a study that could affect the size and shape of the service's unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) force. A central question is the future of the medium-altitude UAV mission, now handled by the General Atomics Predator. After years of unfettered support on Capitol Hill - Congress earmarked money for both the A and more powerful B models above Air Force requests - some question whether the service has put the cart before the horse. Moseley is interested in exploring a larger view of UAV operations.
Production of two Joint Strike Fighters -- three shy of the five requested by the Bush administration -- will be appropriated for fiscal 2007, according to a congressional compromise for defense spending that also fulfilled the White House's request for dual lead DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyers and included other contentious decisions.
NEW MEMBERS: STS-114 Commander Eileen Collins, former White House Science Advisor Edward David and former Sandia National Laboratories Director Paul Robinson are among nine new members just appointed to serve on the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) by NASA Administrator Michael Griffin. Collins, the first female pilot and commander of the space shuttle, will serve on the NAC's Space Operations committee, which Robinson will chair. David will chair the Science committee. Other new additions to the NAC include retired Air Force Lt. Gen.
ABIZAID'S ASSESSMENT: Central Command chief Gen. John Abizaid fears that a number of U.S. vulnerabilities in the Middle East could be important in a conflict with Iran. For example, U.S. network-centric capabilities have become a target. "The longer we fight in the Middle East, the more our enemies go to school on us," Abizaid says. "They understand how we fight, what we do, where our linkages are. In the event of a more serious conflict in the region, with a major power, I would expect our networks to come under attack." Intelligence-gathering is limited.
The Kennedy Space Center (KSC) plans Oct. 2 to ask several new space tourism and commercial space launch companies for data on their horizontally launched/runway recovered suborbital and orbital concepts to evaluate opening the KSC shuttle runway for use by such innovative space business operations. The plan is for Kennedy and the Federal Aviation Administration to use the data to smooth the bureaucratic path for commercial space business use of the 15,000 x 300-foot Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) runway.
CONTROL CENTER: The U.S. Air Force's Space Control Center (SCC) will move from Cheyenne Mountain Air Station (Colo.) to Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., and become part of a recently activated Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC). Run by Air Force Space Command's (AFSPC's) 1st Space Control Sqdn., the SCC is the command and control focus for all U.S. space surveillance activities, such as tracking space debris and satellites, and monitoring all launches. The SCC merger with JSpOC is expected to streamline AFSPC's support of combatant commanders.
ENGINE PRODUCTION: United Technologies Corp. of Hartford, Conn., has been awarded a $455.1 million contract modification for F-22/F119 engine (48) Lot 6 production and CY06 field support and training, the Defense Department said Sept. 21. The work is set to be finished by December 2006. The contract was awarded by Headquarters Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
PROPULSION UNIT: Avio has handed over the propulsion unit for the Sicral 1b military communications satellite to prime contractor Alcatel Alenia Space. Set to be orbited early next year, the new spacecraft is intended to provide additional SHF, UHF and EHF bandwidth to support Italy's growing overseas forces and meet an Italian commitment to supply SHF and UHF capacity to NATO together with France and Italy. Sicral 1a, in service since May 2001, does not meet NATO hardening requirements.
A B-52 Stratofortress, with two of its eight engines fueled by a blend of synthetic kerosene and JP-8, will conduct at least two more test sorties after a mechanical problem cut short the initial flight on Sept. 19. An all-engine test, using the synthetic, will be performed in coming months if all test points are covered and the fuel proves out, said Maj. Gen. Curtis Bedke, Air Force Flight Test Center commander at Edwards Air Force Base.
