Engineers on Boeing’s CST-100 commercial crew vehicle project are turning their attention to a forward heat shield jettison test and a hot fire of the capsule’s orbital maneuvering/attitude control engines.
AEHF SCRUB: The U.S. Air Force scrubbed an attempt to launch the second Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF-2) secure communications satellite on May 3 due to a lack of helium flow from ground support equipment into the Interstage Adapter compartment on the Atlas V rocket. Launch provider United Launch Alliance and the Air Force plan another attempt to lift off from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., on May 4 during a two-hour window that opens at 2:42 p.m. EDT.
The Airbus Military A400M has cleared an important certification milestone even as developers are exploring vibration believed to be linked to the transport’s engine.
NASA will contract with Boeing for an interim cryogenic propulsion stage to power at least the first two flights of its planned heavy-lift Space Launch System.
LONDON — BAE Systems is turning to its civil airborne electronics business to provide growth as it wrestles with falling defense spending in key markets. The company is hoping to take advantage of the increase in commercial aircraft sales, CEO Ian King says. The hybrid vehicle business and expanding government cybersecurity activities into the commercial domain are other areas of interest.
PROTECTING EUROPE: A cost estimate of the Obama administration’s phased adaptive approach (PAA) to missile defense was due in March but is not likely to be sent to Congress as required until the summer, according to Madelyn Creedon, the Pentagon’s assistant secretary of defense for global security affairs. Typically, program cost estimates developed by the Office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation involve individual programs.
The updated version of the Spawar Acquisition Integrated Logistics Online Repository (Sailor) 2.1 is impressing U.S. Navy brass. The U.S. Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command’s (Spawar) Sailor program features a self-help website for command, control, communications, computers and intelligence (C4I) systems that provides the fleet with the capability to complete training, troubleshoot software and equipment, and receive technical documentation and support online.
LANGLEY AFB, Va. — U.S. Air Force officials are narrowing their focus on new combinations of factors as they explore oxygen deprivation issues that have claimed the life of one F-22 Raptor pilot and have plagued the fleet for more than a year. The officials remain frustrated, however, that a “smoking gun” for the cause of pilot hypoxia is still elusive despite an extraordinary effort by the service to enlist help from scientists, doctors and fighter experts.
NEW DELHI — An Indian government panel is highlighting the lack of attack helicopters in the Indian army, contending that the country’s security is at risk. According to the report from the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defense, the army’s aviation unit faces a severe shortage, with a requirement of 18 Cheetah helos, one Chetak, 76 Advanced Light Helicopters and 60 ALHs with weapon systems.
A bid by SpaceX to carry out the first U.S. commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) is unlikely to lift off May 7, the latest target launch date, according to the company. “SpaceX is continuing to work through the software assurance process with NASA,” according to a May 2 update from company spokeswoman Kirsten Brost Grantham. Earlier, the company slipped a planned April 30 liftoff to allow more time to work software flight-control issues for the planned 18-day test mission.
PHILADEPHIA and ABU DHABI — Bell-Boeing is nearing closure of its first foreign deal with the United Arab Emirates for the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor after years of often turbulent development and marketing work to garner sales outside the U.S.
LONDON — The Australian government has allocated an additional A$12 million ($12.5 million) to foster locally developed defense technologies for potential military application. The effort is part of the A$45 million Priority Industry Capabilities activity that provides repayable, matched grants to companies. The program is in its second of eight years. In announcing the latest funding recipients, Jason Clare, defense minister for materiel, says “This is an investment in cutting-edge defense technologies developed here in Australia.”
The U.S. Air Force will not turn any missions over to the Navy — such as airborne radar surveillance of the air or ground — even though those missions are currently conducted by an aging, underfunded fleet of E-3B AWACS and E-8C Joint Stars aircraft. Some USAF officials have gone so far as to tell Aviation Week that airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) is in crisis. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz disagrees, but he does concede that ISR is fully occupied.
HOUSTON — Spaceflight brings a whole new meaning to dressing for success. An astronaut’s garments must be functional, yet as comfortable as possible, whether the flier is sealed inside a spacecraft or on a spacewalk. As NASA envisions a future of deep-space exploration and missions stretching from months to years, the list of wardrobe requirements soars as well.
Participants in a Pentagon Defense Acquisition Board meeting scheduled for May 3 are expected to approve the U.S. Army’s plan to evaluate available helicopters before deciding whether to buy off-the-shelf aircraft or extend the life of the Bell OH-58D to meet its Armed Aerial Scout requirement. “I am fairly certain we are moving forward,” says Jose Gonzalez, Defense Department deputy director for land warfare and munitions, speaking at the American Helicopter Society International Forum 68 in Fort Worth.
BEIJING — China plans to add three more satellites to its Compass positioning system this year, following the successful launch of two sats by a single Long March 3B rocket on April 30.
Not everything in the Libyan campaign worked as planned. An emerging issue is the erosion of a fundamental U.S. Air Force skill — targeting — that surfaced in a recent Air Combat Command review.
Lockheed Martin has launched a small precision-guided weapon from an AAI Corp. RQ-7 Shadow 200 tactical unmanned aircraft under a company-funded R&D program. The 11-lb. class, laser-guided Shadow Hawk glide weapon scored a direct hit on the target, the company says. The test was conducted at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. The 2.75-in.-dia., 27-in.-long unpowered munition was released from the Shadow at 5,100 ft. altitude and impacted the target at 460 ft./sec.
Efforts to prevent terrestrial contamination of ice-covered solar system bodies with the potential to harbor life or its biological precursors deserve an overhaul, according to a new National Research Council (NRC) assessment of the current contamination odds-making as well as the science and technology gaps.
LOS ANGELES — The Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) office is pushing ahead with preparations for three more missions and continuing a key military utility assessment of the ongoing TacSat-4 tactical test spacecraft, despite uncertainty over its future after being zero-funded in the White House’s fiscal 2013 budget.
