BALTIMORE, Md. - The U.S. Air Force has begun exploring the possibility of developing a weapon that would perform much like the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) but that could be carried inside two stealthy jets under development, according to a service official.
Companies developing concepts for hypersonic weapon systems have received solicitations for the next stage of work, according to a spokeswoman for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
DIGITALGLOBE and GLOBEXPLORER, a subsidiary of Stewart Information Services Corp., will make QuickBird high-resolution satellite imagery available to customers through GlobeXplorer's Internet server technology. The companies are offering cloud-free QuickBird imagery of U.S. metropolitan statistical areas and most international cities, compressed in JPEG2000 format, the companies said.
Timken Aerospace has been named the approved bearing repair service provider for Rolls-Royce Corp.'s AE 3007 jet engine, the company said April 13. Rolls-Royce will handle bearing repair sales, but Timken will perform repair services at its Lebanon, N.H., facility, an FAA-approved repair station. Timken Aerospace is the first outside supplier of repair services for Rolls-Royce in North America, the company said. The company already repairs Rolls-Royce RB211 engines at its facility in Wolverhampton, United Kingdom, Timken said.
Boeing Co. followed the intent of congressional law in its strategy to provide new tanker aircraft to the U.S. Air Force, officials told The DAILY in a continuing defense of the deal. "The intent of Congress was that the Air Force and Boeing work together using widely accepted commercial practices to find a way to deliver 100 tanker aircraft to the warfighter far sooner than traditional non-commercial DOD practices allow," Jim Albaugh, president and CEO of Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, said of the lease-buy arrangement for KC-767A tankers.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN CORP.'s AstroMesh deployable reflector system has successfully deployed aboard the MBSAT, the company said. Space Systems/Loral built MBSAT for the Mobile Broadcasting Corp. of Japan and SK Telecom of Korea. The 40-foot-diameter AstroMesh reflector focuses S-band radio frequency energy into a pattern on the ground, the company said. "Our AstroMesh reflector product is an enabling technology for new space-based services," Susan Fuhs, general manager of Astro Aerospace, said in a statement.
Northrop Grumman broke ground April 13 on a new facility in Mississippi that will produce the company's RQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for the U.S. Army and Navy starting next year. The 39,000 square foot facility is located at Trent Lott International Airport in Jackson County. Northrop Grumman will begin hiring the plant's initial workforce of 35 people toward the end of this year, according to company spokeswoman Cynthia Curiel.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter's gun system may be equipped to use a third type of ammunition so it can destroy more targets, program representatives said April 14. The Defense Department is considering adding the PGU-25/U High Explosive Incendiary (HEI) to the JSF gun design to give it an air-to-air capability, program spokeswoman Kathy Crawford told The DAILY. A decision is "probably about a year away," she said.
ELBIT SYSTEMS LTD. and GILAT SATELLITE NETWORKS LTD., both of Israel, have signed a teaming agreement to cooperate on satellite communications for defense and homeland security markets. The agreement integrates Gilat's commercial satellite-based Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) technology with Elbit Systems' defense technologies, the companies said. The joint effort already has resulted in the introduction of a new product, GlobaLight, a man-packable VSAT terminal for broadband data, voice and video, the companies said.
In a bid to keep hypersonics alive at NASA, the team working on the agency's X-43A "Hyper-X" program is developing a plan for a modest follow-on effort that would begin in 2006. The future of hypersonics at NASA has been in doubt following the announcement of President Bush's new vision for space exploration, given its apparent focus on expendable rockets. A follow-on to the X-43A, the larger X-43C, already has been canceled by the agency's new Office of Exploration Systems to free funding for other uses (DAILY, March 19).
TESSADA AND ASSOCIATES of Springfield, Va., will provide logistics management services to NASA under a $38 million, Small Business Administration Section 8 contract, NASA said. The work will be done at Ames and Moffett Field, Calif., sites, NASA said.
SUB WORK: General Dynamics Electric Boat will continue submarine maintenance and repair work at the Naval Submarine Support Facility, Groton, Conn., under a $7.7 million contract modification awarded by the U.S. Navy, the company said. The initial contract, awarded in 2001, will be worth more than $153 million over five years if all options are funded, the company said.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Northrop Grumman is ahead of schedule in the Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS) program and expects to integrate components of the first of two flight demonstration satellites by the end of the year, according to Patrick P. Caruana, vice president for missile defense of the company's Space Technology unit.
THE BOEING CO. of Houston will continue payload integration work for the International Space Station under a NASA contract extension worth $70 million. NASA plans to exercise the fiscal year 2005 option, the aerospace agency said, bringing the total value of the International Space Station Payload Integration Contract (IPIC) to $203.7 million. Work covered under the extension will continue through September 2005.
SPACE IMAGING has completed a comprehensive asset management system for the Marion County, Fla., engineering department. The work, valued at $2.8 million, is to help the county manage a rapidly developing infrastructure to support a rising population, the company said. One-meter resolution data from the company's IKONOS satellite allowed Marion County officials to locate, map, inventory and determine the value of the county's road and storm sewer assets, the company said.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) hopes to see action this year on tax legislation to promote commercial investment in space, an aide said April 14. H.R. 914, the Zero Gravity Zero Tax Act bill, has been referred to the House Ways and Means Committee but no date has been set for action on the bill. Richard Dykema, Rohrabacher's chief of staff, said cost estimates on the bill from the Congressional Budget Office, which he described as "huge," have been exaggerated.
Defense and aerospace suppliers need to catch up to prime contractors in the application of lean development and manufacturing processes, according to a recent report from the Government Electronics and Information Technology Association (GEIA). Lean processes create greater production efficiencies by emphasizing value-added activities while minimizing waste. While 50-60 percent of defense and aerospace prime contractors use lean principles and practices, only 10-15 percent of subcontractors do, according to GEIA.
BOEING SPECTROLAB said its multi-junction solar cells have been inducted into the Space Technology Hall of Fame, established by the U.S. Space Foundation in cooperation with NASA. Spectrolab, a subsidiary of Boeing Satellite Systems, said its Ultra Triple Junction solar cells can convert more than 28 percent of the sunlight reaching them into electricity.
BOEING INTEGRATED DEFENSE SYSTEMS, St. Louis Keith Reiley has been selected as the lead systems engineer for Boeing NASA Systems, located in Washington, D.C. NASA, Washington Garry M. Lyles has been named deputy director of Project Constellation, and is responsible for the development of transportation and support systems needed for the agency's moon-Mars exploration mission. Charles J. Precourt has been named program director of the Crew Exploration Vehicle. ORBITAL SCIENCES CORP., Dulles, Va.
BALTIMORE, Md. - The U.S. Army is looking for ways to improve the durability of its missiles to ensure they survive when they are shipped to a theater of operations, according to a service official. Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson, the Army's deputy for acquisitions/systems management, said April 14 that about 10 percent of the missiles the Army sent to the Middle East for the 2003 Iraq war were rendered unusable by harsh environmental conditions or improper handling.
Payload Systems Inc. has launched a new company and terrestrial technology called GreenFuel Technologies Corp., the companies announced April 12. GreenFuel has developed a patented system for removing pollutants from industrial air streams using algae. "The GreenFuel system is designed to efficiently remove nitrogen and carbon compounds, as well as other pollutants, from smokestack flue streams, releasing clean air and producing high quality, commercially valuable algal biomass in the process," the companies said in a statement.
NASA is embracing the recommendations of a report on how the agency can transform its culture and make employees less fearful to speak out on safety issues, according to Administrator Sean O'Keefe.
Within the next few months, the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) plans to follow a number of legislative issues, including those regarding acquisition policy, tax bills and "Buy American" legislation, according to Jonathan Etherton, AIA's vice president of legislative affairs. AIA is concerned with commercial product acquisition policies and contractor ethics as they relate to situations like the Boeing tanker lease-buy deal, Etherton told The DAILY.
