The U.S. Coast Guard on Sept. 25 will take over the rotary wing air intercept mission handled by Customs and Border Protection and defend against low, slow-flying aircraft penetrating the National Capital Region's (NCR) airspace. Coast Guard crews based at Air Station Atlantic City, N.J., will fly HH-65 "Dolphin" short-range recovery helicopters and operate under both Title 10 (military service classification) and Title 14 (law enforcement) authorities.
Thomas Reiter of Germany, the first European Space Agency astronaut to join a long-duration expedition on the International Space Station, has set a new European space-endurance record. On Aug. 4, the 30 days he had spent on the ISS, plus the time he spent in 1995-96 on Russia's Mir space station, pushed Reiter over the record 209 days, 12 hours, 25 minutes held by Jean-Pierre Haignere, also of ESA. He already holds the distinction of being the first ESA astronaut to conduct an extravehicular activity from the ISS.
Kourou, French Guiana - A vital French military communications satellite and financially important JSAT Corp. broadcast spacecraft are undergoing in-orbit tests before being put into service following their Aug. 11 launch on an Ariane 5 ECA booster.
Intelsat Ltd. reported revenue of $310.5 million and a net loss of $42.7 million for the second quarter of 2006, results that don't reflect the company's acquisition of former rival PanAmSat in July. The net loss for the quarter was down from $53 million lost in the second quarter of 2005, an improvement the company chalks up to higher revenues and reduced operating expenses.
Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) engineers are in final preparations at the Uchinoura Space Center near Kagoshima for the planned Sept. 22 launch of the Japanese Solar-B spacecraft on an M-5 solid propellant booster. Solar-B is a sophisticated observational satellite equipped with three advanced solar telescopes. Its solar optical telescope is to have unprecedented 0.2 arc sec resolution for the observation of solar magnetic fields. With this capability, it could resolve 50 cm. features if pointed toward Earth instead of the sun.
The need for electronic warfare (EW)-based self-protection systems for aircraft is growing and will likely continue to do so for the rest of the decade, an analyst says. "It's already taken off," said Dave Rockwell, senior electronics analyst for the Teal Group. The U.S. Marine Corps, Air Force and Army are all in various stages of testing systems to save their aircraft from missile threats - especially portable rockets that can be fired by a single person.
NAVY Harris Corp., RF Communications Division, Rochester, N.Y.; is being awarded a $69,174,892 firm-fixed-price blanket purchase agreement order for the procurement of a multiband multimission radio. The work will be performed in Rochester, N.Y., and is expected to be completed by Oct. 25, 2007. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured and two offers received via NECO. The Marine Corps Systems Command, Quantico, Va., is the contracting activity (M67854-06-A-7001).
GLAST INTEGRATION: General Dynamics C4 Systems of Scottsdale, Ariz., will soon begin integrating the two instruments that make up NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (Glast) into the spacecraft, which will give astronomers their best view yet of the sources that produce the high-energy radiation associated with the collapse of massive stars to form black holes. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center has delivered the Glast Burst Monitor built in collaboration with Germany's Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics.
With a second successful flight-test under its belt, the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Extended-Range (JASSM-ER) program is lobbying Senate appropriators to try to stave off a potential $40 million procurement cut in fiscal 2007. The second flight-test for the Lockheed Martin cruise missile took place from a B-1B bomber at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., on Aug. 9. The first flight took place in May. Flight-testing is expected to extend through 2008, when the system will be turned over to the U.S. Air Force.
As the Defense Department prepares its 2008 spending plan for submission this month, the services are basing their investments and cuts on the Pentagon's Strategic Planning Guidance (SPG), which looks more at capabilities than service line items. The SPG outlines the Pentagon plan to best develop the capabilities it said it needed in its 2005 Quadrennial Review (QDR).
NASA tentatively plans an Aug. 18 announcement of its choice of a pair of proposals to pursue its Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) effort. COTS aims to encourage private industry in developing spacecraft that can deliver cargo and eventually crew to the International Space Station.
Four U.S. universities will share $100 million in NASA funds to develop payloads for a planned 2012 NASA mission to study near-Earth space radiation, an investigation that has also drawn support from the National Reconnaissance Office.
JAMMER REDUX: The U.S. Air Force is pursuing a plan to resurrect the B-52 stand-off jammer (SOJ) for the service's electronic warfare (EW) needs, industry sources say. The service wants to see if it can shoehorn the B-52 SOJ into the fiscal year 2008 budget plan, according to sources. Under the revised plan - which has the interest of the highest levels in the service - the new version of the B-52 SOJ would be scaled down, jamming in the frequencies that would be most useful in current conflicts, the sources say.
UNMANNED BOATS: The U.S. Navy will host an industry briefing Aug. 24 in Arlington, Va., on efforts to develop and deploy unmanned surface vehicles (USVs), a major element of the planned Littoral Combat Ship fleet. The briefing will focus on far-term functional requirements in mission areas using USVs to try to stimulate formal papers on the topic.
Following the space shuttle's next flight, STS-115, NASA hopes to free the orbiter from its current daylight-only launch restriction, instituted after the Columbia accident to allow clear photography of the vehicle during ascent. "With a good outcome on this flight ... we think we'll be a in a posture to move to 'anytime' operations, which is certainly something that you've got to have if you want to fly in the winter half of the year," Shuttle Program Manager Wayne Hale said during a news conference in Houston Aug. 11.
APACHE AMMO: Alliant Techsystems (ATK) has received a $38 million contract modification from the U.S. Army Joint Munitions Command at Rock Island, Ill., to produce lightweight 30mm high-explosive, dual-purpose ammunition for the Apache AH-64 helicopter. If all contract options are exercised, the total contract value could exceed $63 million, ATK says. The rounds are fired from ATK's M230 Gun System, which is mounted under the Apache's nose.
The U.S. Air Force has launched an initiative to look at developing or modifying its fleet structure to better fight insurgencies and terrorist operations. While the service itself has remained officially mum on the subject, Air Force leadership has been reaching out to experts in the field to see what needs to be done to better equip the service for such battles and operations. The service recently directed the RAND Corp. to do a study on counter insurgency (COIN) aircraft needs as part of RAND's Project Air Force program.
Despite experimenting with a variety of techniques, NASA is unlikely ever to develop a truly "certified" method for repairing the space shuttle's thermal protection system (TPS) in orbit, says Shuttle Program Manager Wayne Hale. "We are going to have some repair techniques, but I doubt that in the life of the shuttle program we will be able to achieve what we would normally call a 'certified' capability," Hale said Aug. 11 during a news conference at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
IRAN WATCH: U.S. intelligence agency analysts are using imagery from the eight or nine largest National Reconnaissance Office imaging spacecraft to keep an especially close watch on the several hundred miles of Iranian coastline along the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman. They worry that Iran, seeking to keep the pressure on the U.S. when fighting between Israel and Hezbollah begins to tail off, might mine shipping lanes or threaten anti-ship missile attacks, shutting down tanker traffic from the oil-rich region.
