China is donating data receiving stations for its weather satellites to seven countries in a bid to garner more influence among Pacific Rim and Indian Ocean nations. The stations, which can receive data from Chinese polar and geosynchronous orbit weather satellites, are being given to Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Mongolia, Pakistan, Peru and Thailand.
JPALS TEAMING: Honeywell said March 27 that it has agreed to team with Boeing Co. and Sierra Nev-ada Corp. to pursue the system development and demonstration phase of the Joint Precision Approach and Lan-ding System (JPALS) program. Honeywell said it will serve as team leader and provide its Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) -Satellite Landing System (SLS) technology. Sierra Nevada will contribute to commercial and military DGPS ground station development and manufacturing, while Boeing's expertise includes avionics development and aircraft integration.
A fuel leak of "unknown origin" was responsible for the loss of Space Exploration Technologies' (SpaceX) Falcon 1 rocket shortly after liftoff on its inaugural flight March 24, according to company founder and CEO Elon Musk. Twenty-five seconds after ignition, the fuel leak caused a fire around the top of the main engine that cut into the first stage helium pneumatic system, Musk said in a statement. When pneumatic pressure dropped too low, the engine shut down 29 seconds into the flight.
NAVY BAE Systems Information and Electronic Systems Integration, Lansdale, Pa., is being awarded a not-to-exceed $24,349,779 letter contract for the procurement of 13 Low Band Transmitters (LBTs) and LBT spare and repair parts for the EA-6B aircraft. Work will be performed in Lansdale, Pa., and is expected to be completed in April 2008. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity (N00019-06-C-0096).
MILITARY ED: The U.S. military must provide improved military education and training programs to help avoid becoming a "hollow force," a panel of commentators at the Heritage Foundation said March 27. But in its attempt to be equipped and prepared for countless contingencies, the military also could stretch itself thinner. "We are trying to add more to the plate of the military" like legal and sociology expertise, "and it risks losing core competencies," said Daniel Goure, vice president of The Lexington Institute.
NASA has authorized contract extensions for the development of the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) that could bring the value of the Phase 1 contracts awarded to Lockheed Martin and the Northrop Grumman/Boeing team up to $60 million each. Both teams recently submitted their final bids to NASA on the CEV, which the agency hopes to bring online by 2011 or 2012 and use for manned lunar missions starting in 2018.
ANTENNA ANNIVERSARY: On March 30 NASA will commemorate the 40th anniversary of the 70-meter (230-foot) antenna at the Deep Space Network complex in Goldstone, Calif. The antenna has relayed data from a number of historic NASA missions, including the first missions to Mars and the television transmissions from the Apollo moon landings. Originally built 64 meters across, the antenna was enlarged to 70 meters in 1988 so it could receive signals from Voyager 2, which at the time was nearing Neptune.
Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) avionics, software development and key subsystem tests would be based near Johnson Space Center, Houston, if Lockheed Martin wins the CEV contract, the company says. A Lockheed Martin team is competing against Northrop Grumman/Boeing for the contract, which could be worth $104 billion over the next 15 years. NASA plans to announce the winner in July.
HOG MAKEOVER: The U.S. Air Force plans to begin testing a new weapons delivery system designed by Lockheed Martin that will allow its A-10Cs to dispatch smart weapons for close air support missions as early as next year. The Digital Stores Management System will automate functions handled manually by pilots today and will integrate with the Sniper and LITENING targeting pods on the Warthog.
COSTLY CLOTH: There are reasons why defense spending is so hard to predict. Air Force officials are documenting how a slightly flawed technical order and a small piece of cloth caused $6.7 million in damage to the engine of a brand-new F-22. The 27th Fighter Squadron from Langley Air Force Base, Va., was on the F-22's first operational deployment, evaluating use of the JDAM weapon at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. After the engines of one of the aircraft were started for a night mission, a crew chief realized that a nose landing gear pin was still in place.
SAT SYSTEM: Boeing's commercial transport products may not be the only U.S. business at risk in the wake of the Dubai Ports World brouhaha. Also at stake could be a lucrative deal to supply an intelligence satellite system to the Gulf Cooperation Council, for which a Lockheed Martin-led team is in the running. This twin-satellite optical/radar system, known as Hud-hud and to be bid jointly by the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia through the GCC, is one of the few spysat deals for which U.S.
NEXT NAVY: Adm. Mike Mullen, chief of naval operations, tells naval aviators and their industry that building the future Navy is the biggest challenge due to budget constraints and a constantly changing war environment. "I believe that this is the maritime century and that the Marine Corps-Navy will be in position to make a difference, to be dispersed, netted, disaggregated, aggregated, depending on whether it's a theater, a security engagement kind of operation, or whether it's a major combat operation," he says.
SPACE TECH INVESTMENT: NASA says it received a "strong response" to its request for information on possible public/private venture-capital schemes to spur new technology for space exploration. Now the agency hopes to pick a partner by the end of April. Derived from Administrator Michael Griffin's experience as president and CEO of In-Q-Tel, a CIA proprietary set up to find new technology for the nation's spooks, the Red Planet Capital Fund already has an $11 million public-fund stake.
BRITAIN FINGERED: British government and senior defense officials are less than happy to be fingered in a recent U.S. briefing identifying the U.K. as a "third site candidate" for ground-based ballistic missile interceptors. Lt Gen. Trey Obering, director of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, listed the U.K. as a potential site among his international-activity highlights. It was not a highlight, however, for the U.K. government, which has been trying to keep a lid on the issue of whether it would consider playing host to anti-missile missile batteries.
UAV PATROLS: The departments of Defense and Homeland Security are anxious to mount more patrols by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) over the U.S., but the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been reluctant to allow pilotless aircraft in the national airspace for safety reasons. While negotiations continue among the federal agencies, Congress will take up what can fly and where this week. House aviation subcommittee chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) has scheduled a hearing on UAVs and the national airspace system for March 29.
