The Army remains committed to fully funding aviation modernization and transformation as it crafts future budgets in the ongoing program objective memorandum (POM) process for fiscal 2008 through FY '13, according to the director of Army Aviation, Brig. Gen. Stephen Mundt.
China's Beijing Spot Image and Apogee of Australia will distribute radar imaging data and services from Germany's TerraSAR-X remote sensing satellite under exclusive agreements signed last week with operator Infoterra. The agreements follow an earlier pact with Pasco of Japan and a general agency agreement with Spot Image, which like Infoterra is controlled by EADS.
Lockheed Martin will launch the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover for NASA in late 2009 on an Atlas V under a nearly $195 million contract covering spacecraft integration and launch services. NASA selected the Atlas V for the mission over a Boeing Delta IV. The 3,000-kilogram (6,613-pound) launch mass for the MSL rover is about triple the launch weight of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers both launched on Delta IIs in 2003. The launch will be carried out at Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 41.
SUPPLEMENTAL: House and Senate appropriators were scheduled to meet late June 6 to try to hammer out details of their fiscal 2006 supplemental budget compromise. Capitol Hill newspapers reported without attribution that negotiators have reached an agreement to keep the overall bill near President Bush's and the House's top-line figure of about $95 billion. Congressional staff wouldn't comment officially ahead of an agreement.
The Pentagon's latest cost estimate for the scaled-back National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) program is $11.5 billion through 2020, according to a U.S. Air Force spokeswoman. NPOESS is built by Northrop Grumman and managed jointly by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Air Force and NASA. Plagued by sensor development problems, NPOESS breached the 25 percent Nunn-McCurdy cost growth cap last year.
VICE COMMANDANT: Coast Guard Vice Adm. Vivien Crea has assumed the duties of vice commandant, becoming the highest-ranking woman in the U.S. armed forces. Crea has flown the HC-130 Hercules turboprop, HH-65 Dolphin helicopter and Gulfstream II jet. She relieved Vice Adm. Terry M. Cross, who retired after 36 years of Coast Guard service.
The House International Relations Committee could soon report out legislation that would further push foreign governments to secure or eliminate man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) and other conventional weapons that pose a proliferation, security or humanitarian threat. Specifically, the bill would impose sanctions on U.S. foreign and military assistance to offending governments. The president would retain waiver authority for national security reasons.
United Space Alliance and Kennedy Space Center engineers have replaced a faulty electronics box in the space shuttle Discovery's left solid rocket booster.
A National Research Council review of critical technology accessibility, chartered to look at alleged U.S. weapon system vulnerability to foreign sources of supply, has essentially concluded that while there may be a supply chain issue, there is not necessarily a foreign vulnerability concern. "Globalization is a fact of world economic activity," said an executive summary of the National Academy of Sciences publication.
SAT CONTRACT: EADS Astrium and Alcatel Alenia Space have been awarded a contract for a satellite to replace Badr-1 (Arabsat 4A), which was lost in an ILS Proton launch incident earlier this year. The new satellite, Badr-6, will enter service in 2008 at Arabsat's prime video hotspot at 26 degrees east longitude. As with Badr-1 and 4 (Arabsat 4B), to be orbited in the third quarter, Astrium will be responsible for in-orbit delivery and supply the bus, based on the Eurostar 2000+ model, while Alcatel will provide the telecom payload.
LONG RANGE STRIKE: The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory's Air Vehicles Directorate has advanced its studies of generation-after-next manned bomber concepts to the point where pilots are "flying" notional supersonic vehicles in simulators. Under the service's three-phase Long Range Strike strategy, the "far-term" or Phase 3 effort is exploring "various innovative control options for future platforms," according to Keith Numbers, a Primary Aerospace Engineer in the directorate.
A new report from the National Research Council urges NASA to "create a more balanced split" as it allocates aeronautics research funding between in-house work at its field centers and external work performed by industry or academia. "As of January 2006, NASA seemed intent on allocating 93 percent of NASA's aeronautics research funding for in-house use," the report says.
AEGIS BMD: To date, the U.S. Navy and Missile Defense Agency have outfitted 10 Aegis destroyers with a ballistic missile defense (BMD) long-range surveillance and tracking capability and have certified them for tactical deployment against short- and medium-range missiles. Ultimately, 15 Aegis destroyers and three Aegis cruisers will be outfitted. Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Aegis BMD Signal Processor is in development and will be installed on Aegis BMD ships beginning in 2010.
NEW PRESIDENT: Lin Zuoming has been named president of China Aviation Industry Corp. I, the largest of China's state-owned aerospace research and manufacturing groups. He was an AVIC I vice president for five years, and before that general manager of Shenyang Liming Aero-Engine Group Corp. Lin is a representative to the national People's Congress and an alternate member for the Chinese People's Congress Central Committee. He is taking over for Liu Gaozhuo, who will retire and become an adviser to AVIC I.
