With the second U.S. Navy/Boeing P-8A Poseidon ground-test aircraft set to go through fatigue tests this year, officials familiar with the program expect to see a low-rate initial production contract for six of the next-generation maritime patrol and antisubmarine-warfare planes to be awarded in the coming weeks.
Orbital Sciences is beginning to integrate the 1,160-lb. Glory climate-change satellite it built for NASA onto a Taurus XL launcher at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., in preparation for a Feb. 23 flight. Besides building the spacecraft and launcher, Orbital will provide mission control from its Dulles, Va., headquarters. Glory is to be lifted into the high-inclination orbit occupied by the “A-Train” of NASA and European Space Agency spacecraft conducting long-term climate-change studies of Earth’s oceans, land surfaces and atmosphere.
LONDON — The U.K. Ministry of Defense this month is expected to address the scale of the spending discrepancy between budgets and plans in the wake of last year’s Strategic Defense and Security Review. A senior panel of ministry officials will convene on Jan. 25 to discuss the issue. There are clear indications that the cuts in the SDSR still leave a defense program that outstrips budget plans, but the size of the gap is still being debated.
LONDON — Norway is dispatching a group of senior officials to the U.S. this week to better understand the effects of the Pentagon’s latest restructuring of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, but overall there has been little concern expressed by the program’s international partners.
SAN FRANCISCO — NASA’s Kepler observatory has located the most Earth-like planet yet discovered beyond the Solar System, but it is so hot that it streams material into space like a comet’s tail. Called Kepler-10b, the planet is 1.4 times the size of Earth but orbits its star, called Kepler-10, 20 times closer than Mercury is to our Sun. Radiation from its star prevents Kepler-10B from having an atmosphere.
The assassination attempt Jan. 8 on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) apparently had nothing to do with her work in the space arena, but it nonetheless at least sidelines an energetic and thoughtful advocate for the U.S. space program.
HOUSTON — Space shuttle managers called for “radius block” modification to all 108 of the structural stringers on Discovery’s external tank (ET) on Jan. 10, the next step in the troubleshooting that has had the senior NASA orbiter’s 11-day mission to the International Space Station on hold since Nov. 5.
ARMY EADS North American Defense, Arlington, Va., was awarded a $52,509,992 firm-fixed-price contract on Dec. 23, 2010. The award will provide for 12 UH-72A Light Utility Helicopters, 12 Airborne Radio Communication systems and two Engine Inlet Barrier Filters. The work will be performed in Columbus, Miss., with an estimated completion date of April 30, 2012. One bid was solicited with one bid received. The U.S. Army Aviation & Missile Command, Contracting Center, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (W58RGZ-06-C-0194).
SUB SALES: Consultancy Forecast International projects that 111 submarines worth $106.7 billion will be produced through 2020, with the average cost of each boat growing based on increasing complexity. With both Britain and the U.S. planning to replace their strategic SSBN fleets, 13 such subs are expected, representing almost 12% of the total market in terms of numbers, but $26 billion (24.5%) of the total value. Forecast sees 27 SSN attack subs, 24% of the total number, valued at $48.32 billion (46% of the total).
HOUSTON — Steep post-shuttle reductions in NASA’s astronaut corps, training facilities and aircraft could jeopardize U.S. stewardship of the International Space Station as well as the nation’s ability to prepare for new exploratory missions, top officials at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) told a National Research Council (NRC) study panel.
LONDON — In its second acquisition of the year, Ultra Electronics is acquiring 3e Technologies International under an arrangement worth up to $31 million. Having announced plans on Jan. 4 to buy Adapative Materials, a fuel-cell provider, Ultra Electronics is this time looking to expand its secure communications and other security activities. The deal, under which Ultra will buy Rockville, Md.-based 3e Technologies from EF Johnson Technologies in a cash transaction, should close in 45 days, but still requires regulatory approval.
BENGALURU, India — India’s Tejas Light Combat Aircraft received its much-awaited initial operational clearance (IOC) in Bengaluru on Jan. 10. Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony handed over the Release to Service Document to Indian Air Force (IAF) Chief Air Marshal P.V. Naik, signaling a new phase in the program.
The U.S. Air Force’s newly retired ISR chief says the rate of Chinese progress will continue to accelerate even as Washington’s defense spending stagnates, bolstering China’s ability to deny airspace to U.S. warfighers.
The U.S. military growth industries for the next decade will be the cyber, electronic warfare and ISR technology realms, which is expected to be a boon for the scant few new combat aircraft programs that may emerge , which are sure to focus heavily on those areas.
MICROSAT APPROVED: French space agency CNES has approved full-scale development of a microsatellite mission, dubbed Taranis, aimed at studying magnetospheric-ionospheric-atmospheric coupling involved in lightning, sprites and other transient optical phenomena, as well as precipitated energy electrons. The U.S., Japan, Poland and the Czech Republic also will take part in the seven-instrument mission, which is scheduled to be orbited in 2016.
Electromagnetic railgun technology the U.S. Navy is developing as a maritime suborbital weapon system also could send communications relays into space for short-term connectivity, according to the chief of naval research. Rear Adm. Nevin Carr Jr. hints at even more ambitious uses for the technology, although in a briefing for reporters he stopped short of claiming it as an alternative to rockets for orbital launches. Instead, he noted that the technology is “scalable.”
HOUSTON — Without setting a new launch date, shuttle program managers agreed Jan. 6 that ongoing troubleshooting of shuttle Discovery’s external tank (ET) cracks will not be complete in time for an early February launch. The 11-day assembly mission to the International Space Station has been on hold since a Nov. 5 scrub because of eight small cracks found in five of the ET’s 108 aluminum-lithium support stringers.
The Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport runs the launch complex at Wallops Island, Va., that will host the first Orbital Sciences COTS demonstration for NASA. A Jan. 6 article misidentified the launch complex.
HOUSTON — Though the 30-year-old space shuttle fleet is headed for retirement this year, NASA’s director of flight crew operations and chief astronaut believe the agency should continue to fly a reduced fleet of aging T-38 supersonic jet aircraft based near Johnson Space Center as an essential part of future astronaut training.
ORLANDO, Fla. — NASA is preparing to install Ad Astra Rocket Co.’s prototype 200-kw. Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (Vasimr) engine on the International Space Station’s Z1 truss structure in 2014. About 100 NASA employees, primarily from the Extravehicular Activity (EVA) office, already have been assigned to work with Houston-based Ad Astra, and an agreement for additional engineering support from Johnson Space Center in Houston is pending, says company founder and chief executive Franklin Chang-Diaz, a physicist and former NASA astronaut.
