COTS PARTNERS: Orbital Sciences Corp. and Rocketplane Kistler announced July 24 that they have entered into a strategic relationship to pursue NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation System (COTS) program along with "other applications of [Kistler's] innovative space transportation system." Kistler's proposed reusable K-1 vehicle is one of six finalists in the COTS program, which is seeking commercial methods for supply and crew transport for the International Space Station (ISS).
The Pentagon is shifting its focus to airlifting supplies to Lebanon and relying on fast maritime ferries now that there's a greater demand for providing humanitarian aid than for evacuating people from the war zone, Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said July 24. Whitman would not say which platforms the Pentagon would be using for the changing mission, but President George W. Bush ordered helicopters to the region.
Lockheed Martin has completed the fifth of eight planned Global Positioning System IIR-M replacement spacecraft, with the second in the series set for a Sept. 14 launch. Built at the company's Valley Forge, Pa., factory, with some payload work at ITT Industries in Clifton, N.J., the GPS IIR series affords its U.S. Air Force customer and other military users two new signals and better encryption and anti-jamming capabilities. It also carries a second signal for civilian users of its navigation and timing capabilities.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on July 25 plans to discuss its new effort to develop a "biofuel" for military aviation that will help reduce the military's dependence on oil. The briefing is set to take place at an industry day in Denver.
China is planning a September launch of a recoverable satellite carrying seeds to see how their exposure to space radiation and cosmic rays affect growth and productivity back on Earth. The satellite will be put into orbit by a Long March 2D from the Jiuquan launch site. The spacecraft's re-entry vehicle will remain aloft for two weeks. The mission had originally been planned for 2002, but delayed by Chinese budget and other factors.
FIREFIGHTING: The Nebraska Army National Guard has deployed 57 people, a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter and a CH-47 Chinook helicopter to help fight wildfires in Valentine, Neb., the Defense Department said. The North Dakota Army National Guard deployed 24 troops, a UH-60 and UH-1H Huey helicopter and a Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck to support firefighting in Sioux County, N.D. And in Minnesota, 11 Army National Guardsmen were called to duty to provide wildfire control in the west-central part of the state.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., has partnered with the U.S. Army's Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center at Redstone arsenal to analyze broken helicopter parts to see what caused them to fail.
AIR FORCE Lockheed Martin Corp., Marietta, Ga., is being awarded a $10,500,000 firm-fixed-price, time and material, and cost reimbursement contract. This action provides for production and installation of stepped frequency microwave radiometer modification kits for 10, WC-130J. At this time, $5,250,000 has been obligated. The work will be complete by August 2007. Headquarters Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8625-06-C-6456). DEFENSE ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY
BILATERAL AGREEMENTS: After signing bilateral agreements with France, Russia and Argentina, Algeria has inked another accord with the United Kingdom. A motivating factor on the British side was undoubtedly the failure of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd earlier this year to clinch a deal for Algeria's Alsat-2 imaging satellite, after winning a previous award for Alsat-1.The eventual winner, EADS, is thought to have benefited from the French bilateral, also signed earlier this.
The U.S. Navy's Sea Talon diesel-submarine tracking system, a 2005 advanced concept demonstration effort, successfully completed a series of tests in April off the coast of Riviera Beach, Fla., the Naval Sea Systems Command said recently. The Sea Talon system is being developed for the Littoral Combat Ship's anti-submarine mission module (DAILY, Jan. 10, 2005). With two semi-submersible Remote Minehunting Vehicles (RMVs) developed under the AN/WLD-1 program as the backbone, Sea Talon creates an unmanned, distributed, underwater sensor network.
The shuttle orbiter Atlantis is set for rollout to Launch Complex 39B as early as July 31, following its transfer from the Kennedy Space Center Orbiter Processing Facility into the Vehicle Assembly Building on July 24. Atlantis was stacked on its modified external tank and solid rocket boosters, a major milestone toward its launch to the International Space Station as early as Aug. 27.
NASA and Raytheon successfully completed a 12-day data transfer and system compatibility test for the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP), the company announced July 24.
PLAY OUTSIDE: Space Adventures, which arranges commercial tourism trips to the International Space Station (ISS), claims it will be offering its clients the option of a 90-minute spacewalk during future visits to the orbital outpost. Candidates will have to spend a month in spacewalk simulations and training sessions, the company says. Whereas previous space tourists such as Dennis Tito have paid $20 million for 10-day visits to the ISS, the addition of a spacewalk will add six to eight days to the trip and another $15 million to the price, according to the company.
ATLANTIS: On July 24 space shuttle Atlantis will be moved out of the Orbiter Processing Facility and transported to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., in anticipation of flight STS-115, scheduled to launch no earlier than Aug. 27. Inside the VAB the shuttle will be mated to its external tank and solid rocket boosters before being rolled out to the launch pad. An 11-day mission, STS-115 will resume construction of the International Space Station, installing the Port 3/4 truss segment and its two large solar arrays.
POINT AND SHOOT: Controllers overseeing the New Horizons Pluto flyby mission launched in January have demonstrated its ability to image a moving target with the probe's cameras and compensate for optical "smearing" from high-speed photo-ops. On June 11 and 13, with only six weeks of planning after the opportunity presented itself, controllers commanded the spacecraft to image a tiny asteroid known as 2002 JF56 as it zipped past at a relative speed of more than 70,000 kilometers per hour (43,495 mph).
UNMANNED ROAD MAP: The Pentagon has started drafting its new unmanned vehicle road map, with the goal of releasing it in the summer or fall of next year. Historically focused on unmanned aircraft, future documents will try to pay more attention to unmanned ground and sea systems. By 2009, when yet another iteration of the document is slated for release, the Pentagon expects to shift the focus to unmanned systems as a whole, reflecting the goal to transition to a single type of control station that could be used for all sorts of unmanned vehicles.
EXPLORATION 'BRIDGE': NASA plans to use the expertise United Space Alliance has built up running the space shuttle program to help it begin switching to the follow-on Crew Exploration Vehicle and its Ares I launcher for the remainder of the decade. Under a no-bid contract extension announced last week, the agency will award the Boeing-Lockheed Martin 50-50 joint venture a wide range of support work as it develops requirements for the shuttle replacements. "USA is the only known source with the wide range of unique skills, analytical capabilities and expertise ...
CASTLE CRUSADE: Rep. Michael Castle (R-Del.) is raising his calls to rein in "billions of dollars in unearned bonuses and incentive fees in the defense contracting industry, which are shortchanging taxpayers and endangering soldiers." Both of the House's fiscal 2007 defense policy and spending bills contain related new requirements after Castle pushed their inclusion last month (DAILY, June 26). Castle claims his measures could save at least $8 billion over four years, but his provisions first must survive conference agreements with the Senate.
Northrop Grumman Corp. and Ball Aerospace & Technologies have completed vibration and acoustic testing on the primary mirror for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to ensure it can withstand the rigors of launch, Northrop announced July 21.
