The program manager for the Marine Corps' Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) has taken issue with congressional investigators' allegation of problems with the EFV's hull electronic unit (HEU), bow flap and system hydraulics, but acknowledged that the Marines' No. 1 priority ground system acquisition program has grown in cost and schedule.
The Senate Armed Services Committee late May 4 called on the Defense Department to develop a DOD-wide unmanned systems policy and to give preference to unmanned vehicles and devices in development of new defense systems.
SUTER ABSENT: Hints of secret activities the Pentagon thinks will improve its warfighting skills are usually provided at the annual Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. Focused on networking, the just-completed 2006 edition was also notable for what was not there. The "Suter 1, 2 and 3" series of communications network invasion and exploitation capabilities, initially associated with the EC-130 Compass Call electronic attack aircraft, were absent.
Lockheed Martin has reached an agreement to acquire Savi Technology Inc., a privately held radio frequency identification (RFID) logistics company in Silicon Valley. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. But JSA Research analyst Peter J. Arment, citing sources close to the deal, estimated the purchase price at about $400 million.
BANK OF DEFENSE: Washington lawmakers in both parties and both chambers appear increasingly willing to look at proposed defense budgets to offset domestic spending wishes. House GOP leaders could move $4 billion out of the fiscal 2007 request, while senators last week voted to cut $2 billion from the latest supplemental request. While small slices compared to the large defense accounts, the moves are a response to tightening budgets and President Bush's freeze on most nondefense discretionary spending.
Takao Doi, the first Japanese astronaut to perform a spacewalk, may get a chance for a repeat performance on the space shuttle mission that will launch the Kibo Japanese Experiment Module to the International Space Station.
TRAVEL PLANS: NASA Administrator Michael Griffin is off to India this week to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Indian Space Research Organization covering U.S. plans to mount two instruments on India's upcoming Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter. Griffin will tour ISRO space facilities in Bangalore, Thiruvananthapuram and on Sriharikota Island, which should get him in shape for his trip to China this fall. NASA, through the State Department, is still working out details of the visit, including the exact dates.
Three micro-satellites in the Space Technology 5 (ST5) constellation have started being maneuvered by controllers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center into their operational "string-of-pearls" formation after a checkout period lasting less than a month found everything nominal. Following their March 22 Pegasus launch, checkout of the three orbiting technology test beds was originally scheduled to take three months.
ORBIT RAISED: Russian controllers raised the International Space Station's orbit by 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) on May 4, using thrusters on the docked Progress supply vehicle. The 6 minute, 31 second thruster burn changed the station's velocity by 1.55 miles/second, slightly off the predicted 1.6 miles/second but still considered nominal. The maneuver set up orbit phasing for the planned June 18 launch of the next Progress to the station, which will be reboosted again on June 8.
NASA and Boeing Phantom Works soon will be wrapping up wind tunnel testing of a 21-foot blended wing body (BWB) aircraft at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., in anticipation of beginning flight-testing at Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., later this year.
DEFENSE OUTLAYS: Federal outlays for both defense and nondefense spending, excluding net interest, increased by about 6 percent through April, after adjusting for timing shifts, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO said May 4 that outlays last month were unusually low, at least $24 billion compared to a year earlier, because the first day of the month fell on a weekend, shifting roughly $17 billion in payments to the end of March. Defense outlays for April 2005 were $273 billion, compared with a preliminary count of $86 billion last month.
BAMS DAY: The U.S. Navy's Program Executive Office for Strike Weapons and Unmanned Aviation will hold an industry day for the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) program on May 17 at the Southern Maryland Higher Education Center in California, Md., near Naval Air Station Patuxent River. The Navy will brief attendees on the BAMS unmanned aerial vehicle program's requirements, concept of operations, competition timeline and technology maturity requirements. Speakers will include Vice Adm. Walter Massenburg, commander of Naval Air Systems Command.
SHUTTLE TARGET DOABLE: Space shuttle operators will have to meet their 25-year average flight rate to make the 16 flights that will be needed to finish the International Space Station before the fleet is retired in 2010. Given post-Columbia safety constraints, flying at that rate - and making a 17th flight to service the Hubble Space Telescope - will be difficult. But Boeing's shuttle program manager is optimistic it can be done, drawing on the lessons of the 1986 Challenger accident.
NO LOADING TEST: There will be no space shuttle external tank cryogenic propellant loading test on Pad 39 at the Kennedy Space Center pad in early June, NASA has decided. Some managers had argued for a test that would have been done about June 1 to assess the performance of tank sensor modifications under cryogenic thermal loads. But others were concerned that the test, along with one or more STS-121 launch countdowns, could itself increase chances of foam cracking in flight.
LPD 17 AIR: The U.S. Navy's newest amphibious ship, the first-of-class USS San Antonio (LPD-17), is being tested for certification for various Marine Corps aircraft. Testing began on April 10 and is expected to conclude in early June, with results expected to be released six months after completion, the Naval Air Systems Command said May 1. LPD 17s are supposed to be able to field the Marines' largest helicopter, the CH-53E, in addition to smaller helicopters such as the CH-46, AH-1H and the UH-1H.
May 8 - 9 -- SpeedNews Fourth Annual Aerospace & Defense Suppliers Conference, Park Hyatt, Century City, Los Angeles, Calif. For more information call (310) 203-9603 or go to www.speednews.com. May 8 - 9 -- American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' 12th AIAA/CEAS Aeronautics Conference (27th AIAA Aeronautics Conference), Hyatt Regency, Cambridge, Mass. For more information call (703) 264-7500 or go to www.aiaa.org.
Sweden's Esrange Space Center has recently added six polar-orbiting satellites at once for its controllers to track and launched two sounding-rockets in less than a month.
An award-term contract decision for the U.S. Coast Guard's Deepwater recapitalization program's next arrangement with Integrated Coast Guard Systems is expected to be announced soon, the latest Deepwater newsletter says. ICGS, a joint venture of Northrop Grumman Ship Systems and Lockheed Martin, expects another multiyear award like the five-year contract that ends in June 2007 (DAILY, March 29).
The House Armed Services Committee, in its version of the fiscal 2007 defense authorization bill, has included provisions sponsored by its Republican leadership that would require the Defense Department to carry out quick assessments of whether costly acquisition programs can compete parts or whole systems.
'SPACE FLORIDA': Florida is reorganizing its commercial space funding, management and economic development efforts under a new organization designated "Space Florida." The new organization will fall under Enterprise Florida, the state's privatized economic development organization. The state legislature is providing Space Florida with about $43 million in initial funding, most of it incentives that will be used to aid whichever contractor team wins the NASA Crew Exploration Vehicle competition late this summer.
BUMPER CROP: EADS Astrium CEO Antoine Bouvier is predicting Astrium will land five telecom satellite awards by mid-year as the company emerges from several years of slow satcom sales. Sources in India say one of these is likely to be a new order for a small satellite line being marketed in partnership with the Indian Space Research Organization's Antrix arm, set up in mid-2005. The first order under this alliance, for Eutelsat W2M, was placed in February. On May 4, Astrium was selected to supply Eutelsat's Hot Bird 9 - the manufacturer's third satcom win of the year.
