Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, December 8, 2014

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER/JOHNSON SPACE CENTER — NASA’s new Orion crew capsule flew its first test in space with clocklike precision Friday, using two unmanned orbits that took it deeper into space than any human spacecraft has gone since Apollo 17 before a bull’s-eye splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

President Obama on Dec. 5 named Ashton Carter to become the 25th secretary of defense, taking over from Chuck Hagel. “He’s a reformer who’s never been afraid to cancel old or inefficient weapons programs; he knows the Department of Defense inside and out. All of which means that on day one, he’s going to hit the ground running,” the president said. Hagel resigned Nov. 24, but will stay on until Carter is confirmed.

As events direct greater U.S. attention to Europe and radical Islamic groups in the Middle East, they threaten to erode the focus on U.S. Navy needs in the Asia-Pacific region, says Ronald O’Rourke, a naval expert and analyst for the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

LONDON — Italy has become the latest nation to join the European Air Transport Command (EATC), pooling its military air transport and aerial refueling aircraft with five other European states. Italian air force chiefs signed a note of participation during a ceremony in Rome on Dec. 4, transferring operational control of all four of Italy’s KC-767 aerial refueling tankers, seven C-27J Spartans and all of Italy’s C-130J Hercules to the control of EATC.

U.S. Transportation Command’s command and control networks have experienced hostile intelligence probes and data theft, and a new cyber monitoring center in the command is giving its leader an unprecedented view of these activities, command chief U.S. Air Force Gen. Paul Selva says. The joint cyber center is a 24/7 operation optimally manned by roughly 40 people from the command as well as from the intelligence and law enforcement communities; roughly two-thirds of the billets are now filled. Its establishment is indicative of how threatened U.S. networks are.

The Pentagon needs to get its shipping container management under better control, a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report says. “DOD (Department of Defense) uses DOD or commercial carrier shipping containers to transport supplies worldwide,” GAO notes in its report, “Greater Awareness of Recommendations and Improvements in Data Quality Needed to Resolve Container-Management Challenges,” released earlier this month.

It serves the mutual interests of both Japan and the Republic of Korea to maintain proper defense of the Korean Peninsula, says the regional analyst from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

AIRBUS SAFRAN LAUNCHERS is being formed at Issy-les-Moulineaux (near Paris) in 2015 by Airbus Group and Safran to manage existing Ariane 5 program and develop new Ariane 6 space launcher family as required by the European Space Agency. ATK and ORBITAL SCIENCES received clearance from U.S. Department of Justice for their proposed merger. ROCKWELL COLLINS has $26m U.S. Navy contract to upgrade E-2D Advanced Hawkeye Integrated Training System (HITS).

HOUSTON – A multinational research team reports evidence of organic material of biological origin within the crevices of a fragment from Tissint, a more than 26-lb. meteorite of Martian origin that was witnessed falling into Morocco on July 18, 2011 and recovered just three months later. The analysis by French, Chinese, German and Japanese researchers raises anew the debate over whether Mars, now cold, dry and with a thin atmosphere rich in CO2, was once suitable for microbial life.

Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) 3 USS Fort Worth arrived in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations earlier this month, U.S. Navy officials in Japan confirmed, marking a key initial milestone in the ships 16-month rotational deployment in support of the Indo-Asia-Pacific rebalance with different aircraft and additional aerial experience.

It serves the mutual interests of both Japan and the Republic of Korea to maintain proper defense of the Korean Peninsula, says the regional analyst from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).