With law enforcement agencies eager to snap up new UAVs, Congress and the FAA are still in the early stages of trying to handle the resulting fears about the new form of surveillance. Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), both first-term lawmakers, are sponsoring companion legislation that attempts to lend industry a hand by setting rules for the domestic use of UAVs before they proliferate widely. The bills would essentially require police to obtain a warrant for surveillance with UAVs as they currently do to wiretap phones.
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — Boeing has begun discussions with the U.S. Air Force and international customers about becoming involved in upgrading Lockheed Martin F-16s as the current fighter fleet ages and needs to be kept viable. The company believes the experience it is gaining on the QF-16 program, turning retired fighters into target drones, is giving it the intellectual know-how to become involved in upgrading and extending the service life of F-16s, says Torbjorn Sjogren, vice president for Global Maintenance and Upgrades at Boeing.
NRO LAUNCH: United Launch Alliance and the U.S. Air Force launched the National Reconnaissance Office’s (NRO) classified NROL-38 satellite from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral at 8:28 a.m. EDT June 20 aboard an Atlas V rocket. The mission marks the second of four NRO launches scheduled to take place over a space of five months this year. The next is slated for June 28. Launch had been delayed from an earlier target of June 18 to allow for a valve replacement that required the rocket to be rolled back from the pad.
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — The U.S. government is expected to give the green light soon to equip three C-17s operated by NATO’s Strategic Airlift Capability (SAC) partnership with directed infrared countermeasures. Clearing the NATO group to fit the Northrop Grumman Large-Aircraft Infrared Countermeasures (Laircm) self-protection system has been a slow process, in part because the 12 countries that are part of the SAC consortium include two non-NATO members.
RADAR LOVE: Northrop Grumman has received an $87.8 million foreign military sales contract for APG-68(V)9 radars to upgrade six Royal Thai Air Force Lockheed Martin F-16s, plus radars for new-production F-16s for Iraq (22) and Oman (15). Deliveries are to be completed by March 2015.
ANNAPOLIS JUNCTION, Md. — Boeing still expects to fly its company-funded MC-12S Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance Surveillance System (Emarss) risk-reduction prototype this year pending a decision by the contractor on full-rate production, says Roger Krone, president of Boeing Network and Space Systems.
HOUSTON — The NASA-funded National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) has selected seven U.S. medical researchers to lead focused studies of the top health issues faced by astronauts assigned to long-duration missions, including musculoskeletal deterioration, cardiovascular changes and radiation effects. The seven-year appointments require that each of the leads have direct research involvement in their space health focus.
ARLINGTON, Va. — Boeing is considering additional layoffs this year in anticipation of a broad decrease in U.S. defense spending should legislators fail to agree to $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction and trigger an automatic budget cut known as sequestration.
India’s armed forces are set to become highly reliant on Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA), with plans to increase their use in a phased manner. “Given the threat perceptions along the borders, the country is likely to possess a fleet of around 30 attack RPAs in the next couple of years,” a defense ministry official says.
With six months until the government imposes a $1.2 trillion reduction to all federal programs — from the Pentagon’s Joint Strike Fighter to the FAA’s NextGen air traffic modernization and NASA’s commercial crew development — lawmakers are debating how to best study the effects of that kind of budget cut.
While the U.S. Navy shipbuilding plan helps alleviate submarine and destroyer shortfalls, it still envisions a force below the level the service has said it needs, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS). CRS suggests what many defense analysts have maintained for some time — the Navy’s review of the ship-fleet force it needs and can afford will likely be much lower than what the service has desired over the past several years.
Looking at the shape of the U.S. defense budget markup at the account level, Army ground vehicles and missiles are especially favored by House lawmakers. The ground vehicle account gets a 25% increase over the fiscal 2013 request, from both the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) mark and the spending bill from the House Appropriations Committee (HAC). The House approved the HASC policy-making bill on May 18.
SINGAPORE — Arianespace Chairman and CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall dismisses talk of consolidation among satellite makers. “In Europe there used to only be two main manufacturers of satellites,” Le Gall told Aviation Week June 19. “A few years ago people were wondering ‘When will they merge?’ The thinking was that it was better to have one rather than two, but then we ended up with three in Europe.”
If the U.S. and its allies launch a bombing attack on Iran’s nonconventional weapons capabilities, the targeted facilities would likely include missile and missile engine development operations run by the specialized Qods Force — an extralegal Iranian Revolutionary Guards organization that remains beyond the control of Tehran’s elected government, say both U.S. and Israeli officials.
HOUSTON - The success of the SpaceX/Dragon resupply mission to the International Space Station has not been lost on Ad Astra Rocket Co., which envisions a similar NASA initiative to foster commercial missions to deep space. (Photo: NASA)
PARIS — After several nail-biting weeks, the cross-shaped south solar array on the Intelsat 19 telecommunications satellite deployed on June 12. “We also deployed the communication payload antennas,” said Intelsat Chief Technology Officer Thierry Guilleman in an interview. “We are in good shape to enter into the in-orbit testing phase right now,” a process that will take 2-3 weeks, he says. The deployment occurred following four apogee maneuver firings on June 11.
NRO A GO: United Launch Alliance and the U.S. Air Force are preparing to launch the National Reconnaissance Office’s classified NROL-38 satellite at 8:28 a.m. EDT June 20 from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. Launch was set for June 18 but was pushed back to allow the replacement of an environmental control system duct, which required the Atlas V rocket to be rolled back from the pad. Forecasters showed a 70% chance of favorable weather conditions for launch.
The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) will face hurdles in revamping the current Dun & Bradstreet Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) as a unique identifier for government contracts, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). In 2011, the federal government spent more than $1 trillion on contracts and grants, relying on DUNS to keep track of the contractors for those deals, GAO notes in a June 12 report.
ARLINGTON, Va. — Boeing is looking for both additional U.S. purchases of F/A/-18E/Fs and export campaigns to sustain that production line and the F-15 beyond their currently expected lives. The current F/A-18E/F multiyear program with the U.S. Navy runs until around 2015, but Dennis Muilenburg, CEO of Boeing Defense, Space & Security (BDS), sees the possibility of additional sales of the electronic-attack EA-18G version to the Pentagon to extend production. Whether there is enough demand for a fourth multiyear contract is unclear, he notes.
Upcoming U.S. commercial human spaceflights will be licensed by FAA for launch and reentry, but until private companies start sending their own crews and paying customers into orbit, NASA will decide if their vehicles are safe enough for astronauts. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and acting FAA Administrator Michael Huerta announced an agreement between their agencies June 18, outlining roles and responsibilities as NASA advances its plans to buy transportation for U.S., Canadian, European and Japanese astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).
