The dilemma of modern and future high-technology fighters designed to provide air supremacy and their effectiveness against immediate terrorist threats such as improvised explosives devices (IEDs) and counter-insurgencies continues to challenge military planners.
SpaceX's Falcon 1 rocket was lost on its long-awaited inaugural launch from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean on March 24. The rocket failed shortly after launch from the 7-acre Omelek Island. The low-cost rocket was carrying the FalconSat-2 spacecraft for the Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). "Clearly this is a setback, but we're in this for the long haul," said Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's vice president of business development, shortly after the mishap. No further details were available at press time.
March 28 - 30 -- Aerospace Corp.'s Spacecraft Ground System Architecture Workshop, Manhattan Beach (Calif.) Marriott, 310-336-6805, Fax 310-336-7055, www.aero.org/conferences April 7 -- British Columbia Aviation Council's Airports Workshop, Best Western Richmond Inn, 604-278-9330, Fax 604-278-8210, www.bcaviation.org April 3 - 7 -- ACI-NA/NTSB Media Relations & Crisis Communications Seminar, NTSB Academy, Ashburn, Va. For more information contact Pam Shepherd at 202-293-8500, email [email protected] or go to www.aci-na.aero.
WHEEL WOES: Rover controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are in a race with the sun as they maneuver Spirit toward a spot where it can catch rays for its power system during the coming Martian winter. The problem is complicated because one of Spirit's wheels stalled earlier this month after displaying intermittent problems since mid-2004, five months after landing. Controllers reversed the rover's direction of travel so it could drag the wheel, one of six that operate independently, and engineers continued to troubleshoot the problem.
A first-of-its-kind, high-level policy review conducted by Defense Department officials last week has reaffirmed the Air Force's proposed combat search and rescue (CSAR-X) aircraft competition, much to industry's relief, as competitors this week will explain how they'd spend an expected infusion to move up the development of Block 10 aircraft.
FOURTH PAYLOAD: Sea Launch has signed up a fourth payload for its new Baikonur-based Land Launch system, set to go into service at the Zenit facilities on the cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in mid-2007. The September 2007 mission for Malaysia's Measat 1R will be subcontracted through PanAmSat under a $44.2 million launch management contract. The 24-transponder C-/Ku-band spacecraft was ordered late last year from Orbital Sciences Corp.
KSC FATALITY: In one month a NASA investigation board is expected to deliver its report on the death of construction worker Steven Owens, who fell 16 feet while performing roof repairs at Kennedy Space Center on March 17 (DAILY, March 21). Owens was airlifted to a hospital in Orlando and died later that day. The five-member investigation board is chaired by veteran astronaut John Casper, manager of the Space Shuttle Management Integration and Planning Office at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) sent back its first pictures of the surface of the red planet on March 24 after arriving in orbit March 10. MRO pointed three cameras at Mars late on March 23 while the Lockheed Martin-built spacecraft was collecting engineering test data. The cameras are the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), Context Camera and Mars Color Imager.
REFURBISHMENT: DRS Technologies Inc. will refurbish M1000 Heavy Equipment Transport (HET) Army trailers returning from Iraqi under a $9 million order, the company said March 23. The order is part of a previously awarded contract to refurbish more than 1,000 of the trailers over a five-year period ending in 2008.The work will be done by the DRS Systems & Electronics unit in West Plains, Mo. The order was received from the U.S. Army's Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM), Warren, Mich.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has chosen Northrop Grumman to design an experimental supersonic flying wing aircraft capable of varying the sweep of its wing to maximize aerodynamic efficiency in different flight regimes. DARPA awarded the company a $10.3 million contract on March 16 for the 20-month first phase of the Oblique Flying Wing (OFW) program. The second phase of the program is planned to culminate in flight-tests of the first-ever supersonic tailless OFW aircraft in 2010 or 2011.
INDIAN LAUNCH: India will work with Russia to develop a new generation of Glonass navigation satellites and launch them on its Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) under an agreement fleshed out this month after two years of negotiations. The deal between the Indian Space Research Organization and the Russian space agency Roscosmos was signed following the visit of Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov to New Delhi on March 17.
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has rescheduled the first launch of its Falcon 1 rocket for March 24 after scrubbing a planned March 23 liftoff to allow more time to analyze test data. SpaceX didn't try to fly on the first three days of its launch period, which began March 21, as it was analyzing the results of a brief static test firing on March 18 at the tiny Omelek Island launch site in the Kwajalein Atoll.
The Pentagon is looking at providing countries in Africa with an interconnected IT network that will help them with maritime domain awareness, according to a senior Pentagon official. One of the ideas under consideration for funding as a fiscal 2007 Joint Capabilities Technology Demonstration (JCTD) is a proposal from U.S. European Command to help African countries in the Gulf of Guinea with maritime and port security, says Sue Payton, the deputy undersecretary of defense for advanced systems and concepts.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has awarded Raytheon a six-month study contract to develop conceptual designs and total cost estimates for the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS).
The U.S. Army is trying to improve the availability of truck armor for future operations through a long-term armoring plan, congressional investigators said March 22. The Government Accountability Office told the chairmen and the ranking Democrats of the congressional Armed Services committees that truck armor plans through 2018 are outlined in the Army Tactical Wheeled Vehicle Long-Term Armoring Strategy.
The first new-production aircraft under the U.S. Coast Guard's Deepwater recapitalization program, an EADS CASA HC-235A-300M medium-range maritime patrol aircraft (MPA), was formally rolled off its European production line March 23.
