NASA’s upcoming $17.5 billion request for funds in fiscal 2015 will include a request for “pre-formulation” work on missions to exploit recently discovered water geysers over the south pole of Europa and sophisticated techniques to gauge the effects of dark energy on the observable Universe, along with stay-the-course spending on continuing major programs.
MOORESTOWN, N.J. — To develop Aegis Ashore, a team of Lockheed Martin, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency and other contractors had to discern ways across the board to do in hours what it would take days to do for previous shipboard Aegis installations. “It was such a tight schedule,” Brendan Scanlon, Lockheed Martin Aegis Ashore program director, tells the Aviation Week Intelligence Network. “We had to find ways to do things faster.”
MD Helicopters (MDHI) is studying the possibility of producing a hybrid-powered helicopter, its owner says. Speaking at Heli-Expo 2014 in Anaheim, Calif., Feb. 25, owner and CEO Lynn Tilton said company engineers were examining what options and technologies are available, and that 3D printing of components was also being considered.
USCG CHIEF: President Obama plans to nominate Vice Adm. Paul F. Zukunft as the 25th Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard to replace Adm. Robert Papp, who is slated to turn over command this spring. A 37-year veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard, Zukunft coordinated the federal response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. He now commands U.S. Coast Guard Pacific Area, is a graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and holds advanced degrees from the U.S. Naval War College and Webster University.
With the Pentagon in its fiscal 2015 budget request beginning to put programmatic spending behind its strategy of emphasizing future military technology over near-term force structure size — i.e., capability over capacity — the military departments’ research chiefs are outlining where they want to go.
The National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI), a NASA-funded nonprofit, is seeking applicants for its First Award Program, which grants early career two-year research fellowships in support of competitively selected biomedical and biotechnical projects addressing health issues faced by astronauts assigned to long-duration or deep-space missions. Deadline for submissions is June 6, according to a Feb. 28 NSBRI announcement.
Turkey has begun firing trials of an indigenously produced, precision-guided, air-launched anti-tank missile. The first live firings of the Mirsak-U, also known as the Umtas—developed by Turkish missile manufacturer Roketsan—were announced by Turkey’s Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM) on March 3. The firings saw the weapon launched from a Turkish land forces AH-1S Cobra attack helicopter, and fly some 3,500 meters (11,500 ft.) to impact the target.
Japan launched the Global Precipitation Mission (GPM) Earth-science spacecraft without a hitch Feb. 27, setting up unprecedented coverage from space of rain and snowfall from a slot in the sun-synchronous “A-train” satellite constellation.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) Mar. 3 — SpeedNews 4th Annual Aerospace Raw Materials & Manufacturers Supply Chain Conference, Beverly Wilshire, Beverly Hills, Calif. For more information go to www.speednews.com/all/conferences Mar. 3 — Aviation Week's Laureate Awards, Washington, D.C. For more information go to www.aviationweek.com/events
The last of 33 NanoRacks’ cubesats commercially delivered to the International Space Station aboard Orbital Sciences‘ Orb-1 Cygnus mission in January were successfully deployed from the orbital lab’s Japanese Kibo module early Feb. 28.
A hurry-up launch in 2021 for a human flyby of Mars proposed by pioneer space tourist Dennis Tito would make a good “bridge” between the International Space Station and more sustainable missions closer to Earth, according to experts testifying before a skeptical House Science Committee Feb. 27.
Aerospace and defense companies feature prominently as partners in two public-private advanced manufacturing institutes launched by the Obama administration. Led by EWI and headquartered in Detriot, the American Lightweight Materials Manufacturing Innovation Institute (ALMMII) is a 60-member consortium that includes Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Electric and United Technologies Research Center.
Lockheed Martin is working on a series of upgrades to the Desert Hawk small, hand-launched unmanned aircraft system principally used by the British army in Afghanistan. A digital data link to improve signal quality and increase information security will be demonstrated soon, says Steve Fortson, the company’s small UAS business development manager.
DRYDEN RENAMED: NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., will be formally renamed the Armstrong Flight Research Center, in honor of the late Apollo 11 astronaut, on March 1. The late Hugh L. Dryden, the center’s namesake since 1976, will continue to be memorialized in the renaming of the center’s 12,000-sq.-mi. Western Aeronautical Test Range as the Dryden Aeronautical Test Range, NASA says. The redesignation of the center, which is located on Edwards AFB in Southern California, was directed in legislation drafted by Rep.
Romania’s ARCA has begun flight testing the Air Strato electric-powered, high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) unmanned aircraft. The vehicle is aimed at surveillance and scientific missions. The aircraft made a short first flight on Feb. 13, reaching an altitude of 25 meters (80 ft.) and speed of 72 km/hr. (39 kt.). The takeoff was from rough ground and the right main gear suspension system was damaged on touchdown, ARCA says.
Flight-simulator manufacturer CAE is to receive a C$250 million ($225 million) repayable investment from the Canadian government to support its Project Innovate program to develop new modeling and simulation technologies. Investment in the company’s research and development program, which will continue into 2020, is being made under the federal government’s Strategic Aerospace and Defense Initiative (SADI).
The U.K.’s Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd. (HAV) has begun reassembling a large airship acquired from the U.S. Army, following cancellation of the Northrop Grumman-led Long-Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) program. Cardington-based HAV plans to use the 302-ft.-long HAV304 hybrid airship, which flew only once in August 2012 at Lakehurst, N.J., as a prototype and demonstrator for its planned Airlander 50 commercial heavy-lift airship. The first U.K. flight is expected by year’s end.
Roboticists developing satellite-servicing technology at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center have completed a ground-based teleoperations demonstration that transferred corrosive nitrogen tetroxide (NTO) through a standard satellite-fueling valve at Kennedy Space Center (KSC), using a robot controlled from Goddard.
