HOUSTON — The Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Dragon capsule has concluded the first International Space Station (ISS) resupply mission flown by a U.S. commercial provider, finalizing a significant upswing in private sector capability to shoulder U.S. civil space activities, with a May 31 splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the southern California coast.
After years of complaints about the U.S. having no cyber-attack plans, policies, weapons or legal guidance, the White House and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) are both announcing new initiatives. Plan X is a broad program being launched by Darpa to create cyber-attack schemes, define their operational employment and deflect counterattacks. The program is expected to put $110 million into research over the next five years to support offensive military operations.
MALMEN AIR BASE, Sweden — India will build a stealthier version of its Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), but in the near term it is getting ready to build the Mk. 2 version of the aircraft, with the goal of reaching operational clearance in 2016.
The U.S. Air Force may have stopped work on its Blue Devil 2 surveillance airship, but the U.S. Army says Northrop Grumman is making progress in assembling its hybrid-airship Long Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle (LEMV). Without giving a date for the first flight, originally expected in mid-2011, Army Space & Missile Defense Command (SMDC) says “the team is assembling the airship and integrating motors and electronics onto and into the vehicle.
LONDON — Ultra Electronics has resumed its process of making niche acquisitions with the purchase of satellite communications terminal provider Giga Communications. The price of the deal, £12.4 million ($19.3 million), could rise by another £24.6 million depending on earnings delivered in the next two years. Ultra expects the deal to start adding to its bottom line this year.
NEW DELHI — U.S. aerospace giant Boeing has extended a contract with India’s Bharat Electronics Ltd. (BEL) after it recently delivered to the U.S. Navy the first EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft with a cockpit subassembly made by the Indian company. The subassembly provides cockpit floodlighting compatible with the aircraft’s Night Vision Imaging System (NVIS). Boeing had awarded BEL an initial contract in March 2011 for work on F/A-18E/F Super Hornet cockpit subassemblies.
COMING HOME: Preparations for the mid-to-early June landing of the U.S. Air Force’s second reusable X-37B space plane mission are under way at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., the service says. The precise landing date and time depends on technical and weather considerations. “Space professionals from the 30th Space Wing will monitor the deorbit and landing of the Air Force’s X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle mission, called OTV-2,” the service said in an announcement. The spacecraft was launched on March 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral.
EMBRAER LEADERSHIP: Jose Antonio Filippo on June 4 will become Embraer’s CFO, filling a position vacated in April with the departure of Paulo Pinto Marques to a previous employer just months after taking the role. Filippo, who Embraer notes is an engineer by training, joins the manufacturer from Brazilian retailer Pao de Acucar where he was CFO. “Filippo is a great addition to our team. His expertise and experience will be of real value to the process of growth and development of the company,” says Embraer President and CEO Frederico Fleury Curado.
While the U.S. Defense Department (DOD) has taken much-needed steps to reduce costs, the Pentagon should do much more, says the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) think tank. “In early 2012, DOD released new strategic guidance and a corresponding budget reflecting $487 billion in cuts over 10 years,” CNAS notes in its report, “Sustainable Pre-eminence Reforming the U.S. Military at a Time of Strategic Change,” released this week.
HOUSTON — Astronauts aboard the International Space Station re-sealed the hatch to the Dragon spacecraft on the eve of the capsule’s May 31 departure and the rapid series of events that will transfer control of the landmark commercial-supply flight back to SpaceX for re-entry and a Pacific Ocean splashdown and recovery. If the final leg of the nine-day test flight unfolds as planned, Dragon and a 1,400-lb. return cargo will splash down 560 mi. southwest of Los Angeles shortly before 12 p.m. EDT.
SAN FRANCISCO — Preparations are under way for the low-energy launch of a high-energy X-ray telescope developed to count black holes in the Milky Way, study how particles are created when massive stars explode and how their particles are accelerated to nearly the speed of light. The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuStar) is to be drop-launched June 13 by an Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL from the company’s modified L-1011 “Stargazer” aircraft at 8:30 a.m. PDT.
The U.S. Coast Guard is continuing to stake its claim for protecting the nation’s interests in Arctic waters. The USCG is better positioned for the job than its U.S. Navy partners, says Vice Adm. John Currier, Coast Guard vice commandant.
The newly discovered Flame computer worm is quickly replacing 2010’s Stuxnet as the offensive cyber weapon of greatest notoriety, but digital combat veterans in the U.S. say it has been effective and undetected for two years or more because the Middle Eastern targets were well chosen and the type of exploitation was tailored for a foe without top-of-the-line cyber defenses.
The Pentagon is wrangling with the question of how to reconcile its diverse intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) forces as the U.S. prepares to withdraw from Afghanistan and focus on preparing for a high-end, near-peer threat in the Pacific region.
NEW DELHI — Russian firm United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) has signed a contract with India’s Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) to make 205 multi-role transport aircraft (MTA) in the 15-20 ton-class for both countries’ air forces as well as other potential customers. The companies have roped in another Russian firm — Multirole Transport Aircraft Ltd. (MTAL) — as the third partner in the joint venture.
NEW DELHI — Unlike its Agni-V ballistic missile, do not expect New Delhi to draw a lot of international attention to upcoming testing of its Nirbhay cruise missile, even as the weapon holds far more significance to the Indian weapons program than is widely appreciated. In August, the country is scheduled to conduct the first test of its little known Nirbhay (“fearless”), a subsonic weapon with a maximum range of 1,000 km. Designated secret, the weapon’s development has remained concealed ever since its existence was first revealed in 2006.
