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.
NASA is working with FAA and the industry to plan an operational demonstration of fuel-saving approach procedures using automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) at an airport with high air traffic density. The objective of Airspace Technology Demonstration 1, planned for fiscal 2015, is to accelerate the return on investment for early adopters of avionics required for NextGen, says John Cavolowsky, director of NASA’s Airspace Systems Program.
Hawaii is benefitting from U.S. government efforts to kick-start an advanced biofuels industry and reduce its dependence on imported oil. While Honeywell company UOP has begun construction of a biofuel demonstration plant in Hawaii, which is backed by $25 million in funding from the Department of Energy, a $510 million government initiative to produce aviation and marine biofuels has highlighted the need to create a supply chain on the island state.
THE SHRIKE: AeroVironment has unveiled the Shrike quadrotor vertical-takeoff-and-landing small unmanned aircraft, the result of four years of work under the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Stealthy Persistent Perch and Stare program. The 5-lb., battery-powered Shrike can hover for 40 min. carrying a high-resolution camera, or provide several hours of video by perching and staring.
Several surprises are expected from the U.S. Air Force’s next-generation, long-range strike program, including its links to the Navy’s unmanned, carrier-based strike aircraft.
CAPE CANAVERAL — A test flight of the Launch Abort System (LAS) for NASA’s Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle will shift from U.S. Army White Sands Missile Range, N.M., to a Florida-operated pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The flight, called Ascent Abort-2, is slated for late 2013 or early 2014. The successful Orion LAS Pad-Abort I test was conducted on May 6, 2010, at White Sands.
The Ingalls Shipbuilding division of Huntington Ingalls Industries has begun the fabrication of the U.S. Coast Guard’s fourth National Security Cutter (NSC), WMSL-753 Hamilton. With this shipbuilding milestone, Ingalls has cut and fabricated 100 tons of steel with a robotic plasma arc cutting machine at its yard. Ingalls received the $480 million contract to build Hamilton in November 2010. The ship is scheduled to be delivered to the Coast Guard in the fall of 2014.
HOUSTON — Canada’s Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator, a two-armed robotic handyman, completed its first repair effort outside the International Space Station early Aug. 30, changing out a remote power control module (RPCM), or circuit breaker.
John Shannon, who managed NASA’s space shuttle program in the wake of the Columbia accident and returned the remaining orbiters to flight, will oversee a near-term effort to tighten plans for future international space exploration. With the retirement of the shuttle fleet, Shannon will evaluate design reference missions (DRM) developed by the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG).
Despite growing interest from some senior U.S. Air Force leaders in exploring new architectures for the Pentagon’s satellite constellations, chances are that this “disaggregation” concept is not likely to take root any time soon, according to one senior procurement official. Lt. Gen. Mark Shackelford, the outgoing military deputy in the Air Force acquisition office, says that the momentum today in the Air Force is behind sustaining current satellite programs in production.
The U.S. Army’s Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program is facing further budget cuts, even after potentially getting $50 million slashed from its requested $172 million budget in fiscal 2012 “We’re looking to take more money out than that,” says Col. David Bassett, the Army’s project manager for tactical vehicles.
MOORESTOWN, N.J. — Defense contractor yards and plants along the U.S. East Coast bounced back quickly after going through the weekend wash cycle of Hurricane Irene. Raytheon’s facility in Marlborough, Mass., and the company’s unit in Portsmouth, R.I., were closed Aug. 29 due to a power outage caused by the hurricane, corporate spokeswoman Carolyn Beaudry says. Marlborough union employees – and employees of Raytheon’s Integrated Defense Systems working there – had to report for work at Raytheon’s facility in Sudbury, Mass.
