CUBED RFP: The U.S. government should issue a request for proposals June 16 for the design, manufacturing, testing and delivery of two space-qualified CubeSats with integrated space environmental monitoring payloads. “The U.S. Air Force is interested in exploring and assessing concepts of operation for collection of space weather phenomena and ingestion into existing and/or future space weather models while constraining the spacecraft to the size, weight and power (SWaP) of a 3U CubeSat form factor,” said a May 12 document available on FedBizOpps.gov.
GPS IIF: The U.S. Air Force is planning to launch its first Boeing GPS IIF satellite May 20 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. The window for the launch of the Delta IV rocket begins at 11:29 p.m. EDT and will remain open for 19 minutes. GPS IIF will provide a new civil safety-of-life signal called L5. It also will provide higher accuracy with advanced atomic clocks. The Air Force plans to buy 12 GPS IIF satellites.
ARMY Oshkosh Corp., Oshkosh, Wis., was awarded on May 7 a $410,066,021 firm-fixed-price contract for the production of 2,634 Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles; 2,230 trucks; and 404 trailers. The work is to be performed in Oshkosh, with an estimated completion date of March 31, 2012. Bids were solicited on the World Wide Web with three bids received. TACOM LCMC, Warren CCTA-ATB, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (W56HZV-09-D-0159)
SES World Skies is preparing a pair of orbital maneuvers designed to minimize disruption from a wandering Intelsat spacecraft. The wayward satellite, Galaxy 15, has been drifting away from its orbital slot at 133 deg. W. Long. since it went out of control on April 5 and began threatening to interfere with surrounding satellites (Aerospace DAILY, May 12, 17). SES World Skies’ AMC-11, located at 131 deg. W., is the nearest spacecraft at risk in the geostationary belt, about 22,000 mi. from Earth, where telecom satellites typically orbit.
Fresh off a stint as chief of staff for NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, George T. Whitesides is picking up the reins as CEO at Virgin Galactic, the startup space tourism company that is part of Richard Branson’s Virgin Group.
WORK ON SITE: BAE Systems, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and SAIC are among 11 companies receiving indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts supporting information technology for the defense intelligence and greater intelligence communities under the Solutions for the Information Technology Enterprise (SITE) program. SITE will have a ceiling of $6.6 billion over five years. Competition among the firms for task orders under the SITE program will begin this summer.
HOUSTON — Spacewalking astronauts struggled May 17 to install a communications antenna atop the International Space Station, a task that was interrupted briefly by a command and control computer problem aboard the orbiting laboratory. The seven-hour spacewalk, the first of three excursions planned this week by the crew of the shuttle Atlantis, came to an end at just after 3 p.m., EDT, with the new antenna still in need of some work.
LONDON — The U.K. likely remains months away from granting initial approval to replace its Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarine. Nuclear deterrent is one area that is having to be carefully negotiated by the U.K.’s new coalition government. The Conservatives support a submarine-based ballistic missile deterrent, while the Liberal Democrats opposed a “like-for-like” replacement, instead expressing an interest in alternative systems (Aerospace DAILY, April 15).
NEW DELHI — India is turning to Europe for support of the naval version of its Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) after its initial choice of the U.S. was stymied by an inability to gain the requisite approvals from Washington. India selected Lockheed Martin as the winner of a bid for consultancy work on its naval LCA, but failure to secure U.S. State Department licensing approvals — at least in a timely fashion — now has resulted in EADS being in negotiation for the work.
PARIS — Arianespace has replaced Sea Launch as the launch provider for Intelsat 17. It was the fourth telecom satellite contract of the year for Arianespace. The Paris-based company also was chosen earlier this year to orbit 10 Galileo satellite-navigation spacecraft.
SAVINGS BANK: BAE Systems has picked up a £150 million ($221.5 million), five-year Eurofighter Typhoon avionics support contract from three of the four partner nations. The contract was placed by Eurofighter GmbH on behalf of Germany, Spain and the U.K. The arrangement incentivizes BAE to deal with problems more quickly and cut down on the amount of repair work carried out. Securing savings in through-life support costs was a key element of the Tranche 3A production agreement secured in 2009.
NATO PLANS: The North Atlantic Council on May 17 will receive a report with recommendations for NATO’s new strategic concept. Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has led the study group. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen will draw on the recommendations to start drafting the new strategic concept during the summer. The goal is to present it to alliance members during the Lisbon Summit planned for November.
LITTLE BIRD: The Jordanian government has announced plans to acquire an undisclosed number of Boeing AH-6i light attack and reconnaissance helicopters; the “i” version is the export derivative of the U.S. Army special operations AH-6 Little Bird. The helos are to replace about 30 AH-1 Cobras in Jordanian air force inventory.
PREDATOR PATROL: FAA on May 14 gave approval to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to begin flying Predator B UAVs along the southwest Texas border beginning June 1, 2010. Last month, U.S. Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) wrote a letter to FAA Administrator J. Randolph Babbitt encouraging him to give priority consideration to CBP’s certificate of authorization for UAV operations in Texas.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) May 19 - 21 — AVIATION WEEK NextGen Ahead 2010, Renaissance Washington, DC, Washington, D.C. For more information go to http://www.aviationweek.com/events May 17 - 20 — 2010 Joint Armaments Conference, Exhibition & Live Fire Demo, Hyatt Regency Dallas, Dallas, Texas. For more information go to www.ndia.org/meetings/9930
MULTIYEAR HORNETS: The Pentagon will pursue a new multiyear production (MYP) contract covering 124 F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighters and EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft, Congress was informed May 14. The MYP would cover production orders through 2013, with the last aircraft to be delivered in 2015.
LOST GALAXY: The FAA says it is studying options to remedy the loss of a GPS Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) transponder onboard the wayward Galaxy 15 satellite, which has been drifting out of its orbit since it went out of control April 5 (Aerospace DAILY, May 12). The agency says 16 airports, chiefly in northwestern Alaska, are affected by the failure, but will be able to accommodate localizer performance with vertical guidance approaches with GPS only, although there may be service interruptions.
NAMING NAMES: The British Conservative-led coalition with the Liberal Democrats is now in the process of populating all the ministerial offices of government — and throwing up some intriguing combinations. The Conservatives’ Liam Fox is the new secretary of state for defense. He is an avowed Atlanticist and strongly supports the retention of a submarine-based ballistic missile nuclear deterrent. Fox is joined in his team by the Liberal Democrats’ Nick Harvey as the minister for the armed forces.
APACHE FIRST: The first fully equipped AH-64D Apache Block III helicopter took its first flight May 10 at Boeing’s facility in Mesa, Ariz. The company has been flying the many components of the Block III upgrades on a variety of test aircraft in the past few months. The test aircraft, identified as PVD027, flew fully loaded with all the avionics, performance and structural upgrades that will comprise the Block III.
LONDON — Defense ministers from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have stressed the need for their three countries to undertake more joint purchasing and to hike defense spending. In particular, the three ministers have expressed the desire to increase defense spending to around 2% of gross domestic product. To help foster more common procurement, the ministers vowed to draft proposals for areas where joint action may be possible. The goal is to have that list in hand by this fall to help build future defense budgets.
WATCH IT: Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), chair of the appropriations panel that funds NASA, warns White House Budget Director Peter Orszag to be careful about spending Fiscal 2010 money at the space agency to shut down the Constellation Program in Fiscal 2011. “Deeply troubled” by word that NASA is directing contractors to retain funds to cover termination liability, Mikulski urges Orszag to adhere to appropriations language prohibiting termination of Constellation this year.
The list of what the Pentagon knows about cyberwarfare appears to be much smaller than the one listing all the problems and unknowns. Falling into the area of unresolved problems is network situational awareness of the battlespace, which involves how knowledge is displayed, interactions of the services’ networks and the commercial network grid as well as understanding and dynamically illustrating the physical condition of the global infrastructure, according to Vice Adm. Bernard McCullough, III, commander of the cyber-warfighting 10th Fleet.
