Crewmembers on the International Space Station have been experimenting with the use of ultrasound scans to image their spines, a new application for the technology that could prove useful on the ground as well. Briefing members of the Senate Commerce space subcommittee Tuesday, Expedition 35 Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn said the ultrasound instrument can help flight surgeons learn about the sometimes painful spinal recompression experienced by spacefarers when they return to gravity.
SPACEX LEASE: SpaceX signed a three-year lease for land and facilities at New Mexico’s Spaceport America for flight testing its reusable Grasshopper vertical-takeoff-and-landing rocket. Gov. Susana Martinez announced the agreement Tuesday, noting that the Hawthorne, Calif.-based company wants to expand its test envelope now that it has completed low altitude tests at its facility in McGregor, Texas.
The U.S. Navy’s Northrop Grumman X-47B unmanned combat air system (UCAS) demonstrator completed its first arrested landing at NAS Patuxent River, Md., on May 4. The shore-based test paves the way for operations from an aircraft carrier later this month. Arrested landings are the final step in shore-based testing before the X-47B deploys for sea-based testing, “catapulting from the carrier deck and potentially completing landings” on the USS Bush, says Naval Air Systems Command.
U.S. Air Force officials are preparing by year’s end to begin flight testing of a communications gateway technology designed to solve the vexing problem of allowing stealthy aircraft to communicate with legacy fighters, though they operate using different protocols.
The U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) has developed something “similar to a master remote control for military ground, air and undersea unmanned systems that will work across the services,” the Navy acknowledged earlier this month. The data model is based on software that enabled development of the Common Control System, which is comprised of many different common control services, ONR says.
The launch of the European Space Agency (ESA) Proba-V Earth observation satellite atop a Vega light launcher was scrubbed May 3 due to unfavorable weather over the Guiana Space Center, Europe’s equatorial spaceport in French Guiana on the northeast coast of South America. The mission, which was constrained to a 1-sec. launch window at 11:06:31 p.m. local time, is also carrying Vietnam’s VNREDSat-1 Earth observation spacecraft and the ESTCube-1 solar-sail demonstrator for Estonia.
EXELIS POSITIONED: ITT’s defense information and technical services spin-off Exelis believes it is positioned to meet the Pentagon’s move toward sustaining legacy systems as it shies away from major new programs, but it does have its hopes up over one new weapons system, according to Wall Street analysts who met with Exelis management recently.
The U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) needs to do a better job overseeing its Global Battlestaff and Program Support (GBPS) contract, a recent Pentagon inspector general (IG) report says. “The lack of appropriate contract award and administration put USSOCOM at risk of not getting the best value for GBPS services and improperly executing future task order options, valued at $206 million,” the IG says in its April 26 report. The contract is worth about $231 million.
The U.S. Navy this month officially marked the establishment of the service’s first composite expeditionary helicopter squadron to include both manned and unmanned helo components. Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM)-35 has been officially established to include both the MH-60R Seahawk and the MQ-8B Fire Scout Vertical Take-off and Landing Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (VTUAV) on Naval Air Station North Island in California.
The NASA researcher alleged to be spying for the Chinese was exonerated by a U.S. federal court charge of lying to federal investigators. The charge against Bo Jiang was dropped after a six-week investigation by the FBI in which nine computers and storage devices were examined. Computer files that Jiang tried to bring to China in March 2013 did not contain classified, export-controlled or proprietary NASA information, according to a statement from the National Institute of Aerospace.
BEIJING — China is planning development of a cargo aircraft under the designation Y-19 with a payload of 30 metric tons (66,000 lb.), according to new research that confirms and expands on earlier, unsubstantiated reports.
The U.S. Navy is basing its investments on how they best fit in the “kill-chain” strategy, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations, says in a recent blog. “You’ll hear me speak about a ‘kill-chain’ approach,” he says. “We use ‘kill chains’ to help decide how we should invest our time, money, and other resources to build our capabilities and gain an advantage over our adversaries.”
U.S. China-watchers believe the U.S. can expand cooperation with China in space without harming national security, and in fact ease the tense relationship in a manner comparable to the approach President Richard Nixon used in the run-up to the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975.
CARTER SPEAKS: This week, the U.S. military industrial complex should get some insight into what its future could look like with Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s highly expected speech May 7 at the National Press Club at 10 a.m. The deputy defense secretary, formerly the Pentagon’s acquisition czar, will speak about the ongoing Strategic Choices and Management Review he is leading for relatively new Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, as well as efficiency initiatives the Defense Department is undertaking.
