Failure of a second reaction control wheel on NASA’s Kepler planet-finding space telescope has ended data collecting with the spacecraft, but not analysis of the “terabytes” of data already captured.
LONDON — EADS Cassidian says the signals intelligence system developed for the German Euro Hawk program could be repackaged for use on another platform. The Integrated Signals Intelligence System (ISIS) was developed by Cassidian for installation onto the Euro Hawk, a version of the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk that the German government planned to use as the country’s next-generation airborne intelligence platform.
SINGAPORE — As the U.S. gets ready to move 10 more ships to the Asia-Pacific region as part of its plan to shift more of its forces to this part of the world, the Navy is looking at getting additional capability from those ships — as well as aircraft and related assets — says Adm. Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations. For example, the pivot includes more amphibious ships and resources, Greenert said during a May 14 media briefing aboard the first Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1), the USS Freedom, one of the linchpin vessels for the Pacific pivot.
LOS ANGELES — Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser engineering test article (ETA) is being reassembled at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB, Calif., in preparation for the start of approach-and-landing flight tests later this summer. Sierra Nevada is competing with the lifting body vehicle against alternative capsule designs developed by Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Boeing for NASA’s commercial crew program under a $212.5 million Commercial Crew integrated Capability (CCiCap) contract awarded last August.
TURIN, Italy — The CEO of Alenia Aermacchi says Italy is moving ahead aggressively with plans to develop a new, armed, medium-altitude/long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aircraft to replace Italy’s fleet of MQ-1s, which are slated to finish service at the end of the decade. This reinforces comments made last week by Lt. Gen. Claudio Debertolis, secretary general of defense and national armaments director for Italy, to Aviation Week, saying that Rome was in talks with potential partners on a “black program” for an armed UAV (Aerospace DAILY, May 10).
LONDON — The German government is set to face a capability gap in its airborne intelligence gathering when it exits the billion-dollar Euro Hawk program. The German defense ministry is expected to announce to the defense committee of the German government on May 15 that it plans to exit the program over fears that the unmanned Euro Hawk aircraft — a variant of the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk — would not be certified to fly in European airspace, press reports have suggested.
HAWK WATCHING: Two lawmakers are appealing to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to shake loose U.S. Air Force funding for three Global Hawk Block 30 aircraft. Last year the Air Force sought to block additional funding for the high-altitude UAV made by Northrop Grumman. Congress directed the Air Force to purchase three more aircraft, but during a hearing last week, Air Force leaders said they are appealing that law. That has Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), a senior member of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, and Rep.
HOUSTON — Developers report a favorable conclusion to the first phase of the long-running Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM) under way outside the International Space Station, the joint NASA/Canadian Space Agency initiative intended to demonstrate technologies to extend the operations of aging satellites.
TURIN, Italy — The Neuron combat unmanned aircraft demonstrator is being tested for its stealthy characteristics at a facility in France before restarting flight testing, according to Alenia Aermacchi officials.
HOUSTON — Canada’s first space mission command came to a successful close late May 13, as a Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying Canada’s Chris Hadfield, U.S. astronaut Tom Marshburn and cosmonaut Roman Romanenko departed the International Space Station and descended safely to Earth. Their TMA-07M capsule landed under parachute in southern Kazakhstan at 9:31 p.m. EDT, or May 14 at 8:31 a.m. local time, ending a 146-day mission.
LONDON — Air traffic controllers have guided a UAV through U.K. airspace for the first time as part of the Astraea project. The Autonomous Systems Technology Related Airborne Evaluation & Assessment (Astraea) program was launched in 2006 to look at how unmanned aircraft could be integrated into airspace shared with other air traffic.
SINGAPORE — Top Chinese officials have signaled that they support “an early adoption of a code of conduct for the South China Sea,” Singapore Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen said May 14 during his kickoff speech here at the International Maritime and Defense Exhibition (Imdex) Asia 2013. Local defense ministers, he says, met earlier this month in Brunei to discuss, among other things, “measures to reduce tensions in the South China Sea, including keeping the channels of communication open so as to avoid escalation and miscalculation.”
LONDON — U.K.-based general aviation specialist Patriot Aerospace has purchased British International Helicopters (BIH). The deal, announced May 13, will make Patriot the U.K.'s largest domestically owned helicopter operator. Terms of the agreement were not revealed, although according to Patriot, Newquay-based BIH will become an integrated part of Patriot Group, which also includes Veritair and London Helicopter Centers.
CYBER CRACKDOWN: A bipartisan group of senior defense hawks in the U.S. Senate is pushing a bill to try to fight foreign cyberespionage of U.S. commercial data and knowledge. The Deter Cyber Theft Act of 2013 would require the director of national intelligence to develop watch lists of foreign countries, their state-run entities and individuals who engage in economic or industrial espionage in cyberspace for U.S. trade secrets or proprietary information.
A time-management trick learned by the Skylab 4 crew almost 40 years ago continues to work on the International Space Station today, according to commanders of missions on each orbital laboratory. Gerald Carr, the Skylab 4 commander, told an audience marking the 40th anniversary of the Apollo-era space-station program that his three-man crew held “the first sensitivity group in space” after controllers in Houston overloaded them with work.
ROME — Alenia Aermacchi has lost its second of three pre-production prototypes of the M346 transonic trainer in a crash over the weekend. The lone pilot ejected safely and no one on the ground was hurt. Company officials declined to answer questions, but said in a statement that the cause is a “technical problem” that occurred about 20 min. after takeoff from Turin-Caselle airport. The crash site is in Val Bormida, between the provinces of Cuneo and Savona, company officials say.
Turkish missile manufacturer Roketsan has signed up to cooperate on the development and supply of Diehl Defense’s Interactive Defense and Attack System for Submarines (IDAS) missile system. The two companies, along with ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, signed an agreement at the IDEF defense show in Istanbul on May 9.
