A new U.S. plan for future overhead imaging capabilities calls for multiple high-end satellites being bought by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) as well as additional agreements with commercial imaging services providers in the U.S., according to government officials. The NRO intends to sign a contract within months for the purchase of more than one classified electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) imaging satellite that will extend the life of the government’s overhead collection architecture, according to senior intelligence officials.
Vindication for former Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) came six months late and an election short. Once one of the most influential members of the Senate, sitting on the Commerce, Homeland Security and Appropriations committees, Stevens was convicted of seven felony corruption charges last year, just weeks before he sought reelection for an eighth term. Last week, a federal judge dismissed the ethics conviction—at the request of the Justice Dept. The judge also appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the lawyers that prosecuted Stevens, 85.
Launch of Europe’s Herschel-Planck dual telescope mission has been rescheduled for May 6. The launch, most recently slated for Apr. 16, was postponed because of the need to conduct additional satellite flightworthiness checks.
The chief designer of China’s manned space program, Zhou Jiaping, says more tests of the spacesuit used in his nation’s first spacewalk are upcoming, along with upgrades planned to meet long-term requirements for lunar exploration. Speaking at the National Space Symposium, Zhou also adds that China plans to continue using the Russian-made Orlan suit as a backup. Describing the Chinese-developed suit used in the Sept. 27, 2008, extravehicular activity, Zhou says it is pressurized to about 5.8 psi. and provides life support for 6 hr.
Irregular warfare may be the new buzz word for Pentagon planning, but Defense Secretary Gates will have none of it in his own house. He says he will not tolerate what he calls “guerilla warfare”—armed services officials independently arguing for their parochial interests on Capitol Hill. The worst offender recently was the Air Force, which publicly argued last year for more F-22 Raptors than the number endorsed by the president. Apparently, Gates surprised even himself in managing to keep a lid on his program hit list until he announced the decisions last week.
EP-X—the Navy’s replacement for the aging EP-3E Aries II signals and communications surveillance aircraft—is being designed to carry a large-aperture AESA radar that will allow it to move into the world of network-centric warfare and the increasingly esoteric field of information operations.
Obituary: USAF Lt .Col. (ret.) David P. Cooley, a Lockheed Martin F-22 test pilot, died in the Mar. 25 crash of his aircraft during a test mission just north of Edwards AFB, Calif. He was 49. Cooley had been involved in both operational and developmental flight test since 1989, participating in the F-111, F-15, RU-38, F-117 and F-22 programs, training and mentoring future test pilots.
The first Hawker Beechcraft MC-12W has been delivered to the U.S. Air Force and will receive its payload at L-3 Integrated Systems. The so-called Project Liberty effort had been scheduled for delivery in March and deployment in April. The turboprop-based intelligence collection system was designed last year to swiftly provide support for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Aircraft 1-7 will be built on the King Air 350 platform, with Aircraft 8-37 based on the 350ER.
Madhu Unnikrishnan (Washington), Robert Wall (Paris)
The movement to cap emissions of greenhouse gases may have had a head start in Europe, but the debate is now shifting to Washington, where two powerful lawmakers are aiming to fast-track legislation that could have a costly price tag for the airline industry.
Teledyne Continental Motors (TCM) is addressing a long-standing concern within the piston-powered aircraft community: the possible termination of leaded avgas production. The engine maker’s solution was simple: use unleaded gas. TCM made history on Mar. 25 when it flew a G36 Beechcraft Bonanza out of Mobile (Ala.) Downtown Airport, its home field, burning 94-octane unleaded avgas. It claimed this was the first test flight of a certificated aircraft using unleaded avfuel, as opposed to automobile gas. The aircraft has flown several times since, burning unleaded fuel.
Since its purchase by H3 Aerospace, Grob Aircraft is making strides to rebuild its trainer aircraft business. Its first transaction under the new corporate banner covers the sale of more than 20 G115 trainers to VT Aerospace. The contract value through the life of the program tops €10 million. VT Aerospace has a fleet of 97 Grob aircraft. Deliveries are scheduled to begin toward year-end.
Some aerospace contractors have dubbed Apr. 6 “Black Monday,” because of Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s announcement that he plans to scale back or terminate dozens of Pentagon programs in order to reshape the U.S. military. Nevertheless, the outlook for Pentagon aviation may not be as dark as it seems: Programs are being killed and some jobs will be lost, but Congress won’t approve the plan without a fight.
An article on the satellite telecom sector mistakenly attributed a comment on the impact of falling automobile sales (AW&ST Mar. 23, p. 43). The opinion is shared collectively by several analysts. An article on maritime mobile satellite service in the same issue (p. 45) misstated the title of Arduino Pattachini. He is director of multimedia services at Eutelsat. The article also incorrectly described a new tactical networking system introduced recently by ViaSat. It will enable cell phones to dial directly to a military phone.
Ejection of the oval-shaped dust cover that protected Kepler’s telescope and photometer is allowing spacecraft’s mission control at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder, Colo., to begin a couple of weeks of calibration exercises before scientists can start using the observatory to hunt for exoplanets.
USAF Lt. Gen. (ret.) Michael Hamel, formerly of Air Force Space Command at Los Angeles AFB, has been named to receive the Goddard Astronautics Award as part of the Reston, Va.-based American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics ’ (AIAA) Aerospace Spotlight Awards. Other recipients will be: Reed Aeronautics Award, Anatol Roshko, retired professor at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena; Foundation Award for Excellence to The Challenger Center, Alexandria, Va., which will be accepted by June Scobee Rodgers, founding director/chair; Elmer A.
Utah State University’s Space Dynamics Laboratory and Analytical Graphics Inc. (AGI), a software provider for analysis of space, defense and intelligence assets, have teamed to provide a new sensor modeling capability that will enable users to model ultraviolet, visible and infrared sensors for observing space objects from the ground, air and space platforms.
Astrium Services CEO Eric Beranger says his company is looking at various solutions, including Spain’s Ingenio, to ensure continuity of medium-resolution wide-swath imaging data currently provided by its Spot 5 satellite, which has exceeded its five-year design life. Contracted last fall to sister company Astrium Satellites, Ingenio (formerly called Seosat) will supply 2.5-meter (8.2-ft.) panchromatic and 10-meter multispectral land imagery for civil and government applications, similar to the specifications for Spot 5.
A clue may have emerged during last week’s hearing on Army aviation about the size of the Future Combat Systems (FCS) program in the revised Fiscal 2010 budget. The Army-Air Force Joint Future Theater Lift (JFTL) program was originally supposed to handle a payload of about 20 tons, which fit the profile of early, lightweight FCS vehicles. As the vehicles grew in weight, so did the JFTL requirement, ballooning to 30 tons. Gen.
Engineers have started analyzing boundary layer transition data collected by the space shuttle Discovery as it streaked over the Gulf of Mexico to its Mar. 28 landing at the Kennedy Space Center, adding a post-flight benefit to the 13-day mission that could one day be used by vehicles returning from the Moon.
USAF Maj. Gen. Michael C. Gould has been nominated for promotion to lieutenant general and appointment as superintendent of the U.S. Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs. He has been director of operations and plans at Headquarters U.S. Transportation Command, Scott AFB, Ill. Maj. Gen. Stephen P. Mueller has been appointed director of the Air Component Coordination Element of ACC in Kabul, Afghanistan. He was director of operational capability requirements/deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and requirements at USAF Headquarters at the Pentagon.
Randy Babbitt, President Barack Obama’s nominee to be the 16th administrator of the FAA, is by necessity a man in a hurry. The length of his term is five years, but time will pass quickly because there is so much to do. Nobody knows this better than Babbitt himself (see p. 34). Babbitt faces two big challenges: fielding the first elements of NextGen, the radically modernized air traffic control system for the mid-21st century; and repairing the FAA’s fractured labor relations, particularly with the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. (Natca).
Boeing is working on a fix to a signal processing system on its first GPS IIF satellite. Launch has repeatedly slipped, but is now set for November, says Craig Cooning, vice president of Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems. Lockheed Martin, meanwhile, has completed 61 of 71 preliminary design reviews under the GPS III contract it won over Boeing nearly a year ago. A final system design review is slated for next month. The first GPS III is expected to launch in 2014. Eight satellites are included in the first block, with more expected with future enhancements.
In the next 18 months, airline IT security departments will be focused on complying with the new Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, according to the SITA Global Airline IT Security Survey 2009. Major credit card companies—American Express, Discover, JCB, Master Card Worldwide and Visa International—devised the new standard after incurring the loss of millions as a result of “fraud, breaches and other vulnerabilities,” according to Mark Prince, SITA director of consulting for security, voice and convergence.
