A new report from the National Academy of Sciences warns that NASA's plan to refocus most of its aeronautics program on fundamental research, while reasonable given budgetary realities, risks losing the support of crucial industry stakeholders. Without industry support, NASA aeronautics "cannot compete effectively for resources in a constrained budget environment," says the report from the National Academies' National Research Council.
The U.S. Air Force provided details this week on the quarter-scale Hybrid Launch Vehicle (HLV) demonstrator that the service hopes to develop as a follow-on to ongoing HLV trade studies. The suborbital demonstrator, tentatively scheduled to fly in fiscal 2012, will allow the service to "learn a lot about how to integrate the constituent technologies and a lot about the potential cost of a real system," according to Col. James Painter, director of strategic and developmental planning at the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center.
NASA formally approved its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) to proceed into the next phase at the program's mission confirmation review May 17, the agency announced. The next major milestone is its critical design review later this year. The spacecraft is scheduled to launch in October 2008 to map the moon's surface in unprecedented detail and scout for resources that could be used by future astronauts. Its mission will include sending two impactors down into a lunar crater to test the theory that ancient water ice lies buried there (DAILY, April 11).
Sens. John Warner (R-Va.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) have granted their blessing on the Air Force's conversion of the C-130J multiyear award toward a regular contract bearing traditional Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) oversight.
NATO EXERCISE: The NATO Response Force plans to conduct a small exercise in June in Cape Verde to continue proving its readiness, Lt. General Horst Martin, deputy commander of Allied Air Component Command Ramstein, NATO, said May 18. Martin was attending Aviation Week's MRO Military Europe Conference in Berlin. Cape Verde is a group of island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the west coast of Africa. The NATO Response Force, created in 1999, is comprised of land, air and sea components and is designed to deploy quickly anywhere in the world.
BERLIN - The U.K.'s Hercules Integrated Operations Support program for 50 C-130Ks and C-130Js "has removed the inertia from the system and saved money," Group Capt. Mark Hobbs, Hercules IPT leader for the Defense Logistics Organization, said May 17. He said this is because "there is no need to have everyone pulling in different directions - it's a fully integrated system." Hobbs was attending Aviation Week's MRO Military Europe Conference.
ROCKETDYNE: NASA has picked the Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne RS-68 engine to power its planned heavy-lift Cargo Launch Vehicle (CaLV) on future missions to the moon and beyond, rejecting a "production" version of the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME). NASA says it picked an upgraded version of the engine, already used on Boeing's Delta IV, because at $20 million a copy it represents "a dramatic cost savings" over the SSME, which is also manufactured by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne.
The British Defense Ministry has used the ScanEagle unmanned aerial vehicle for a series of naval warfare trials as part of its Joint UAV Experimentation Program (JUEP). Trial Vigilant Viper was conducted off the west coast of Scotland, with the ScanEagle launched and recovered by the British navy's HMS Sutherland, a Type 23 frigate. Imagery from the UAV was monitored in real time by a Sea King Mk7 helicopter.
The White House on May 18 formally asked Congress for $1.948 billion for boosted border security, a move that could derail additional funds from the Coast Guard's recapitalization effort while triggering delays to future military acquisition and research and development.
Researchers will analyze isotopes of oxygen and other elements found in the tiny fragments of the comet Wild 2 returned by NASA's Stardust mission to determine which originated in the solar system and which formed around other stars. Preliminary data presented at a three-day workshop near San Francisco this month suggest the samples returned Jan. 15 contain grains of refractory materials formed at high temperatures near both the sun and other stars.
Johnson Space Center engineers are beginning to use a rudimentary Crew Exploration Vehicle simulator for rapid prototyping of CEV cockpit displays and window configurations.
BERLIN - Military aircraft retirements will start outpacing deliveries in about three years and probably will continue doing so for the next decade, Kevin Michaels, an AeroStrategy official, predicted May 17 at Aviation Week's MRO Military Europe Conference. The global military aircraft fleet numbers about 38,000, with 23 percent of the active fleet based in Europe, Michaels said. The Tornado represents 15 percent.
The U.S. Navy, already under intense budget pressure to fund what could be an unrealistic shipbuilding plan, will be a main "bill payer" for the Bush administration's new border security effort, according to a high-level Navy acquisition official. On May 18, the White House officially requested $1.948 billion in off-budget "emergency" funding to further secure U.S. borders. But the White House said the funds are offset by reductions elsewhere in the administration's latest supplemental request now in congressional conference.
The House Appropriations Committee has sided with its homeland security subcommittee chairman and sliced $41.6 million from the Coast Guard's $934 million Deepwater recapitalization request for fiscal 2007, largely due to the now-delayed Fast Response Cutter (FRC) and a growing maritime patrol boat gap.
House appropriators have approved $373.2 million for operations, maintenance and procurement by the Homeland Security Department's newly consolidated Customs and Border Protection's Air and Marine (CBP A&M) division, $35.5 million above the Bush administration's fiscal 2007 budget request but $23 million below the current fiscal year.
Ronald L. Endicott has been appointed strategic director of the Acquisition Management Division within the company's' LEADS business unit. Clovis G. Gault has been named executive director of intelligence programs for the LEADS business unit.
The launch of the new Boeing/NOAA GOES N weather satellite from Cape Canaveral on a Boeing Delta IV will slip several days to no earlier than May 24 to allow Boeing to complete replacement of two actuators on the launch vehicle's first stage. Technical problem
