SAN FRANCISCO — Into clear, balmy skies, an Orbital Sciences Minotaur IV lifted the U.S. Air Force’s Space-Based Space Surveillance satellite into a 335-mi. high orbit inclined 98-deg. from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., on Sept. 25. Built by Boeing and Ball, SBSS weighs close to 2,200 lb. and features a gimbaled telescope on a beryllium mount that provides a high degree of agility for its 2.4 megapixel focal plane shutter to slew across the sky to image spacecraft and space debris without obstruction or vibration.
AIR FORCE Raytheon Technical Services Co., Indianapolis, Ind., was awarded a $42,000,000 contract which will provide 65 AN/AAQ 29A forward looking infrared production kits and 15 initial spares in support of the HH-60G helicopter. At this time, the entire amount has been obligated. WR-ALC/GRUKB, Robins Air Force Base, Ga., is the contracting activity (FA8530-08-D-0012-0005). ARMY
U.S. Air Force managers in charge of keeping the Global Positioning System at peak performance say the Government Accountability Office (GAO) overstated the risk to the on-orbit constellation of position, navigation and timing spacecraft in a recent report. Lessons learned from the troubled GPS IIF development program have been applied to the follow-on GPS IIIA spacecraft, which recently completed its critical design review two months ahead of schedule, according to Col. David Buckman, Air Force Space Commander lead for positioning, navigation, and timing.
Australia’s decision to pre-wire half of its F/A-18Fs for the electronic-attack mission is generating interest in the option among potential international buyers of the Super Hornet, Boeing says. The first of 12 aircraft equipped with wiring for conversion to the electronic-attack mission has rolled off the production line in St. Louis and will be delivered to Australia by year’s end, says Kory Mathews, F/A-18 programs vice president.
LOS ANGELES — Scaled Composites is poised to resume captive carry flight tests of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo (SS2) with the return to flight of the WhiteKnightTwo (WK2) launch aircraft. WK2 was damaged Aug. 19 in a landing gear failure.
ULTRALIGHT ACTION: Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) is pushing legislation in Congress that would beef up criminal punishment for using ultralight aircraft for drug smuggling across the southwest border. She said on the House floor there have been at least 135 cross-border ultralight incursions from Mexico from October 2009 through last April. In a May incident, U.S. Northern Command/North American Aerospace Defense Command even dispatched two F-16s to intercept another ultralight suspected of drug smuggling and force it back across the border. Rep.
MOSCOW — Ulyanovsk-based Aviastar-SP is performing major overhauls on three Russian air force Antonov An-124 heavy transports, with the work due to be complete by the end of 2011. The aircraft manufacturer expects another contract that covers seven transport overhauls and upgrades to be performed by 2015, according to Sergei Dementyev, Aviastar’s general director. Of the 22 An-124s listed in the Russian air force inventory, only four are in operation.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) SEPT. 28 - 29 — Society of Experimental Test Pilots — Society of Flight Test Engineers Fourth Annual European Flight Test Safety Workshop, Royal Aeronautical Society, London, U.K. For more information go to http://www.aerosociety.com/conference Sept. 28 - 30 — AVIATION WEEK MRO Europe 2010, ExCel, London, U.K. For more information go to http://www.aviationweek.com/events
LOS ANGELES — A concept demonstrator for a robotic explorer designed to hop—rather than rove—over a planetary surface is being prepared for a 20-meter (66-ft.) hovering flight at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, Mass.
PARIS — Thales Alenia Space (TAS) is seeking to tighten its ties with Russia’s space sector, in particular with long-time partner ISS Reshetnev, that would grant Russian firms greater access to the global market while giving the Franco-Italian satellite maker a firmer foothold in the Russian marketplace.
HOUSTON — Russia’s Mission Control rescheduled the undocking of the Soyuz TMA-18 from the International Space Station (ISS) for late Sept. 24, following onboard repairs to the latching mechanism that failed to release the capsule with Expedition 24 crewmembers Alexander Skvortsov, Mikhail Kornienko and Tracy Caldwell Dyson onboard late on Sept. 23. The Soyuz spacecraft and its three passengers were slated to touch down under parachute on the plains of Kazakhstan on Sept. 25 at 1:21 a.m. EDT, ending a 175-day mission.
SPEAKING OF JSF: After months without an official public affairs official on staff, the U.S.-led F-35 program is finally welcoming a new spokesperson next month. Joe DellaVedova will be coming into the Lockheed Martin-led Joint Strike Fighter program straight from duty ushering press around Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A major technical review is due to the Defense Acquisition Board in November and is expected to rebaseline the entire program.
Boeing’s win of the U.S. Navy’s $43.7 million Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (Stuas) contract was a significant victory for the company in a burgeoning market area, according to Boeing Military Airc`raft President Chris Chadwick. Meanwhile, the loss this month of a deal worth tenfold for a precision guided munition could be of less strategic importance to the company, he says.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will allow Greenwood Village, Colo.-based Open Range Communications to keep using existing wireless spectrum until Jan. 31 to give it time to search for alternate frequency for a proposed hybrid satellite/terrestrial wireless service.
Evidence is mounting that not only have long-range cyberweapons capable of inflicting physical damage been invented, they also are being used both in tests and operationally.
U.S. Aerospace, the company fighting for admittance to the U.S. Air Force’s $35 billion KC-X competition after submitting an allegedly tardy proposal, is forging a strategic partnership agreement with one of the many arms of Aviation Industries of China (Avic).
SAN FRANCISCO — A successful launch of the Boeing/Ball Aerospace Space-Based Space Surveillance (SBSS) satellite will “revolutionize the way we track objects in space” by giving the U.S. Air Force a high-powered telescope unrestricted by Earthly constraints to watch satellite maneuvers and buildups of space debris.
CATEGORY 5: The U.S. outlook for future science, technology, engineering and mathematical competitiveness has worsened since a 2005 call-to-arms, according to a new report by some of the same committee that issued the previous declaration. In “Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category 5,” members say while progress has been made in certain areas, the ability to fix problems already identified has been severely diminished by the economic recession and the growth of national debt since then.
JPSS-1 Contracts awarded: Ball Aerospace won a sole-source contract from NASA, acting on behalf of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for the first Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS-1). The fixed-price contract for the civilian portion of the restructured National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite system (NPOESS) – a copy of the NPOESS Preparatory Project satellite – is worth $248 million. Meanwhile, NASA awarded two Raytheon units separate contracts for JPSS work.
CYBER NOISE: The debate over the seriousness of cyber threats continues with widely varying viewpoints. A major consulting firm this month says its research shows the level of alarm within industry and government has risen “considerably” in recent years, and now “paralysis has set in” over how to react. Moreover, the aerospace and defense industry is experiencing cyber threats “unmatched by virtually all other industries,” according to Alastair MacWillson, global managing director of consulting firm Accenture’s Security Practice.
Minnesota-based BRS Aerospace, manufacturer of whole-airplane parachutes, has been contracted to integrate and help certify its parachute recovery systems for India’s Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) HPT-32 basic training aircraft used by the Indian Air Force. “This represents a strong market opportunity for BRS to install lifesaving parachutes on training aircraft, civilian or military,” said Gary Moore, BRS Aerospace vice president for sales and marketing.
JetBlue Airways and ViaSat Inc. plan to launch a new high-speed broadband telecommunications service on JetBlue’s fleet and market the service to other carriers, as well.
