The Phantom Ray and Phantom Eye represent two of Boeing’s approaches to unmanned flight that are designed to influence the development of future combat aircraft. In particular, they are expected to funnel new technology into both the U.S. Air Force’s next-generation, long-range-strike project and the U.S. Navy’s unmanned, carrier-based surveillance and strike (Uclass) programs.
WARTIME CONTRACTING: The congressionally chartered Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan and some of its legislative sponsors have unveiled the results of a long-running report on U.S. security and aid spending in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Total spending on outsourced contracts and grants in the combat theaters has grown to more than $190 billion since fiscal 2012, and the contractor workforce has at times exceeded 260,000 personnel, outnumbering uniformed military deployed to the Asian countries, according to a statement by Sen.
U.S. Special Operations Command (Ussocom) is interested in seeing what industry has to offer in a “highly mobile, CH-47 transportable” ground vehicle, according to a solicitation posted on a government website. Publicly available details are few, and while the announcement is not a formal request for proposals (RFP), the document does say that Ussocom is planning to hold an industry day, and that the command anticipates holding a “full and open competition with the intent of awarding an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity type of contract.”
A fourth team is to join Boeing, Bell-Boeing and Sikorsky in competitively studying concepts for the Joint Multi Role (JMR) medium utility rotorcraft, which could replace U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters beginning late next decade. Boeing, Bell-Boeing and Sikorsky were awarded 18-month configuration trades and analysis contracts at the end of June. Each is worth around $4 million, with industry contributing a similar amount.
HOUSTON — Power surged through Robonaut 2 (R2) on the legless humanoid’s perch inside the International Space Station (ISS) on Sept. 1, but the astronauts and NASA’s Mission Control team stopped short of a hoped for “first motion” when they observed a need for further adjustments of the robot’s force sensors.
HOUSTON — The threat to the International Space Station (ISS) and global satellites from accumulating orbital debris has reached a destructive “tipping point,” according to a Sept. 1 report issued by the National Research Council (NRC).
A new class of unmanned air vehicle is to be fielded, with the award of a $4.9 million U.S. Army contract to AeroVironment to supply Switchblade loitering munitions for rapid fielding to deployed forces. The backpackable, battery-powered Switchblade is launched from a tube, unfolds its tandem wings and sends back video from an electro-optical sensor, while being controlled from AeroVironment’s standard small unmanned aircraft system ground station.
In the aftermath of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle’s (EFV) cancellation, the U.S. Marines are charged with coming up with an amphibious vehicle that is actually affordable and fast. Their answer to the challenge could put a crimp on the Pentagon’s intractable problem of requirements creep.
The Sept. 1 failure of Raytheon’s new SM-3 IB ballistic missile killer to intercept a target during its first end-to-end flight test is the latest disappointment for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) flight-test program.
NEW DELHI – India’s space agency on Sept. 1 announced plans to build a new class of powerful communication satellites. K. Radhakrishnan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), says the new spacecraft will feature an upgraded power system to accommodate more transponders. “ISRO has plans to integrate new technologies in them and get into higher bands,” Radhakrishnan says. ISRO is aiming to introduce these technologies during the next five-year plan (2012-17) that starts next April.
HOUSTON — The U.S. and Russian space agencies have firmed up plans to return three of the International Space Station’s six astronauts to Earth on Sept. 16, a week later than initially envisioned because of the recent loss of the Progress 44 resupply mission.
FAA has granted Orbital Sciences Corp. a license to launch a Taurus II rocket from Wallops Island, Va., carrying a Cygnus cargo carrier on its first mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
Three companies picked to provide suborbital scientific flights for NASA have selected Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) to integrate payloads into their vehicles. Virgin Galactic, XCOR Aerospace and Masten Space Systems all will use SwRI expertise to mount payloads flying under a $10 million program funded by NASA’s Office of the Chief Technologist (OCT).
A segment of the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) market has been expanding using commercial aircraft – from personal airplanes to regional airliners and light military transports. Some of these conversions are complex, involving multiple sensors, several operator stations and defensive countermeasures.
A congressionally chartered blue-ribbon panel is warning that U.S. government spending to sustain war projects, such as the $35 billion effort to train Afghan security forces, could provide massive opportunities for future waste. In a 240-page report out Aug. 31, the Commission on Wartime Contracting says the U.S. is already squandering up to $60 billion on contracts to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
LOS ANGELES — A further step has been taken toward forming an international body that could plan for and respond to the threat of an asteroid impacting Earth. The late August meeting in Pasadena, Calif., involved NASA, the European Space Agency and national space agencies from Germany and France. These are members of the United Nation’s Action Team-14, co-organizer of the workshop along with the Secure World Foundation (SWF) and the Association of Space Explorers.
As intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance expands into new sections of the electromagnetic spectrum, new capabilities are emerging – often within existing programs – to take on missions in cyber, electronic and information warfare.
More details of the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound are emerging — this time concerning the long-range communications and planning for the assault — with the sources coming from an intelligence agency and the aerospace industry.
HOLD YOUR MONEY: While the U.S.’s handling of the conflict in Libya has struck some observers as a model for future wars, financial analysts at Capital Alpha Partners are telling clients not to bet all of their money just yet. While there “have been and will be conflicts where air power and support, coupled with non-U.S. ground forces, can overthrow a government,” like the initial U.S.
BUILDING ICESAT-2: NASA awarded Orbital Sciences Corp. a $135 million contract to build the second Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (IceSat-2), designed to measure the thickness of sea ice and the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The first IceSat, which orbited from 2003-10, found the sheets thinning. Orbital won the award through the Rapid III “satellite catalogue” procurement program run by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
An interim report on the open-ended “technology road maps” NASA is developing to enable exploration beyond low Earth orbit suggests more emphasis on “evolutionary improvements” and testing to reach “intermediate goals,” as well as more attention devoted to getting new technologies in the hands of commercial companies.
