CHINA PORTRAIT: The Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review says China is a potential military threat, and China is unhappy about it. Beijing says it promotes peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region, and the U.S. is trying to mislead world opinion. The Pentagon is unrepentant. "It's difficult to know exactly what they're doing," says C. Ryan Henry, principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy. "They continue to increase their [military] budget. It looks like they are preparing for something other than a political solution to the Taiwan problem.
The Boeing Co. said Feb. 9 that it is closing its Melbourne, Ark., facility, in part because of the expiration of its contract supporting the U.S. Navy's E-6 aircraft program. The shutdown affects 103 workers, who the company will help find jobs at other Boeing operations. The facility is set to be completely closed down during the second quarter of this year. Remaining work now done in Melbourne will be transferred to the company's Salt Lake City facility.
The Defense Department plans to slice $1.66 billion from the Transformational Satellite Communications (TSAT) program, the next generation of military satellite communications, over the next five years, according to the White House. "The program will be restructured so as to reduce the emphasis on new technology and apply an incremental approach to near-term satellite development and system testing," a document says.
Baring unforeseen weather difficulties, pilot Steve Fossett was on track late Feb. 10 to complete the longest nonstop unrefueled flight in history with a Feb. 11 landing in England. Fossett was scheduled to land the Scaled Composites/Virgin Atlantic aircraft at Kent International Airport near London as early as 6:30 p.m. local time Feb. 11 to complete a flight around the world, topped off with a second Atlantic crossing for the extra distance to set the record.
EDELMAN CONFIRMED: Eric Edelman, tapped by the Bush administration to be undersecretary of defense for policy, has been confirmed by the Senate. The voice vote, late Feb. 9, comes after Edelman had been serving in the position since last August under a recess appointment. But his term would have expired next January, when the next Congress takes office (DAILY, Aug. 11, 2005). Edelman is Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's chief policy adviser on myriad issues, including the DOD framer of Iraq policy.
NASA's $500 million program to encourage commercial International Space Station (ISS) logistics and supply is aimed at a day when private industry outstrips governments in space exploration and routinely provides infrastructure and services on the moon.
NEAR-SPACE: The U.S. Army is interested in pursuing near-space systems with the Air Force, says Air Force Space Command head Gen. Lance Lord. The Air Force has been studying the operational usefulness of near-space, typically defined as altitudes between 65,000 and 300,000 feet, and last year tested near-space communications relay balloons (DAILY, March 21, 2005). There is money for near-space in both the fiscal 2006 Air Force budget and the FY '07 budget request, according to Lord. If the technology is proven, a deployment overseas is likely.
EYEING FISCAL 2009: U.S. Air Force budgeters have plugged $6 million into their proposed fiscal 2007 spending plan for an F-15E Radar Modernization Program. The money will pay for low-level risk-reduction work until the full-blown effort kicks off in FY '09, the service says. But the Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar block upgrade for the service's older F-15C/D fleet won't go ahead because the Air Force has "higher fiscal priorities." Congress added money for the C/D effort in FY '05.
The first of four converted U.S. submarines, specifically designed to help special forces perform covert missions, returned to the Navy's fleet for service on Feb. 7. The USS Ohio, converted by General Dynamics Corp.'s Electric Boat unit, is the first of four nuclear-powered ballistic missile subs (SSBNs) to be converted into cruise missile-laden, special forces-friendly SSGNs. The other three -- the USS Michigan, USS Florida and USS Georgia -- are slated to rejoin the fleet by 2007. Ohio was returned to service at a ceremony in Bangor, Wash.
NASA still hasn't decided to launch its STS-121 space shuttle mission in May, the next available window for the daylight photography conditions mandated after the Columbia accident, or in the follow-on July window. But regardless of when that test flight occurs, if it demonstrates the problems that felled Columbia are solved, NASA will be back in the space operations business in earnest.
FALCON 1: SpaceX's Falcon 1 rocket is tentatively scheduled to make its next attempt at a debut flight from Kwajalein Atoll on Feb. 10 during a seven-hour launch window opening at 3 p.m. Eastern time. The low-cost launcher is carrying the FalconSat-2 spacecraft for the U.S. Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The last of several aborted flight attempts for the Falcon 1 was in December, when a fuel tank partially buckled inward as it was drained (DAILY, Dec. 20, 2005).
The Bush administration appears to be acquiescing to congressional opposition to a new nuclear bunker-buster bomb, known as the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP). For FY '07, no RNEP funds were explicitly requested for either the Energy or Defense departments. But the Navy has asked for $77 million for the Hard and Deeply Buried Target Defeat System (HDBTDS) after it received $7.2 million for FY '06 and $9.6 million in FY '05.
The timeliness of commercial imagery data is becoming the next issue over which the U.S. government may want to exercise "shutter control," according to Air Force Col. Anthony Russo, chief of the space division at U.S. Strategic Command. "The argument has shifted," Russo said during a Feb. 8 lunch in Washington sponsored by the Center for Media and Security. "It used to be the argument over whether we could release less-than-one-meter resolution imagery, which was military quality at the time. The issue now is about real time."
Technicians at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., plan to enshroud a trio of hatbox-sized satellites on the front end of an Orbital Sciences Corp. Pegasus launch vehicle next week, as they move a step closer to the day when scientists will use dozens of satellites working together to measure complex phenomena in space.
With congressional Democrats already critical of the Bush administration's proposed one-third boost to national missile defense spending for FY '07, to $10.4 billion from $7.8 billion this year, missile supporters will be charging up Capitol Hill. The Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance said it "endorses and will aggressively support this new budget amount." Still, despite the requested funding boost, President Bush was silent on the issue in his State of the Union address this month.
The U.S. Navy is developing a master plan for unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) that should be complete in June, according to Jim Thomsen, program executive officer for littoral and mine warfare. The master plan follows a similar plan for unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) released last year, which specified four classes of UUV that the service plans to acquire. The Navy wants to move toward standardized families of unmanned vehicles so as not to overtax support infrastructure, Thomsen said.
Pilot Steve Fossett's chances of setting a new unrefueled aircraft flight distance record in the Scaled Composites/Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer remain in doubt because of uncooperative winds and a repeat of fuel venting problems experienced on the aircraft's first around-the-word flight. GlobalFlyer was to reach the halfway portion of the trip while flying over Japan about 8 p.m. Eastern time Feb. 9. Finding good tailwinds over Africa, the Middle East and Asia has been difficult.
NASA's Centennial Challenges technology-prize program is gaining steam with a new series of purses as high as $5 million. Draft rules for the six new prizes cover competitions for a high-efficiency cryogenic fuel storage depot; a lunar "all terrain vehicle" (ATV); a low-cost spacesuit; a rechargeable power source that works over a 14-day lunar night; a "micro" re-entry vehicle to return samples from orbit, and a solar sail.
