Measat 3a, a Malaysian communications satellite that was damaged in a crane accident at Baikonur Cosmodrome last August, reached its geostationary transfer orbit June 21 after launch from Baikonur on a Land Launch Zenit 3SLB rocket. Liftoff came at 5:50 p.m. EDT, sending the 2,366-kilogram (5,216-pound) satellite on the first step of its flight to a final operating position in the geostationary orbital slot at 91.5 deg. E. Long.
CRYO DEMO: The European Space Agency (ESA) has issued a 20 million euro ($28 million) follow-on award to a team led by Snecma, Astrium and Avio for a high-thrust first-stage technology demonstrator to be tested under ESA’s Future Launcher Preparatory Program. The award will permit testing of subsystems intended to prove the reliability and cost-effectiveness of the demonstrator design, which employs cryogenic propulsion. The 33 million euro project is expected to define a reference design by mid-2010 and to test fire a midscale demonstrator in 2014.
The U.S. Air Force general in charge of U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) says he needs multirole aircraft to perform his varied missions, meaning the newest U.S. fighter is not necessarily the answer. Those missions include maritime surveillance and air patrol and interdiction, Gen. Victor Renuart told Aviation Week after a speech last week on Capitol Hill. “Part of this air sovereignty mission is identification and nonkinetic enforcement. It’s diverting airplanes away. It’s identifying unknowns in our system. That doesn’t always require an F-22,” he said.
SENSITIVE PREDATOR: The U.S. Air Force is awarding a $71 million cost-plus-incentive-fee contract to Northrop Grumman Mission Systems’ Electromagnetic System Laboratory of San Jose, Calif., to provide MQ-1 unmanned aerial system (UAS) communications intelligence airborne signals intelligence Payload-1 C scaled sensors for the Predator UAS. The Reconnaissance Systems Wing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity.
PARIS — The Rafale fighter could be one step away from securing its first export order, following submission last week to the French government of final technical requirements for a 6 billion-10 billion euro ($8.3 billion-$13.8 billion) 60-aircraft purchase by the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
PARIS AIR SHOW — Despite continued fussing over procurement and politics, planners expect satellites and launch vehicles for Europe’s Galileo satellite navigation system to be contracted by year’s end, and the rest of the system early next year.
SO FAR, SO GOOD: The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is still studying the fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill approved June 17 by the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), but a preliminary estimate indicates minimal direct spending effects. CBO estimates that only one provision would “significantly affect” direct spending. The measure, passed 61-0 by the HASC, would repeal a section of the FY ‘09 authorization that shifted some military retirement payments from one fiscal year to another.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) Jun. 22 - 25 — 2009 Joint CBRN Conference & Exhibition, Ft. Leonard Wood, Saint Roberts, Mo. For more information go to http://exhibits.ndia.org Jun. 23 - 24 — Small UAS Symposium, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md. For more information go to www.auvsi.org/events/
STEER CLEAR: The European Defense Agency has kicked off a 48-month, 50 million euro ($70 million) study to explore the ability of UAVs to fly safely in civil airspace. Known as Midcas (Mid-air Collision Avoidance System), it will comprise 14 companies and institutes from five European nations led by Saab Aerosystems.
BIG BIRD: Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) has landed awards to build a big new broadband spacecraft for Hughes Network Services (HNS) and a pair of new telecom satellites for a big Intelsat expansion in the Asia-Pacific revealed earlier this month. Intelsat 19, to be orbited in 2011, will provide Ku- and C-band capacity to Australia and other Asia-Pacific regions, for a range of applications, notably Intelsat’s fast growing mobile maritime service. Intelsat 20, to be launched in 2012, will meet Ku- and C-band needs in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Worried about the integrity of the information, federal agencies shy away from giving past performance data its just due in granting contracts, according to a recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). And while the Defense Department has been better than some other agencies about using past performance criteria, concerns remain. Agencies are still falling short in developing a reliable Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS), GAO says.
COTS SUBCONTRACT: Thales Alenia Space has been contracted by Orbital Sciences Corp. (OSC) to build nine pressurized cargo modules for NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program, intended to resupply the International Space Station using private services through 2015, when the space shuttle successor is expected to be ready. The modules will be carried aboard OSC’s Cygnus spacecraft.
Another pair of visitors to the moon got a clean liftoff June 18 on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V, as NASA looks for safe landing sites and extends its search for water. It will take four days for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) to achieve its polar mapping orbit of the moon, which it will occupy over the next year in a position of continuous sun. The orbit will be from just 50 kilometers (30 miles) above the surface.
LASER KILLS: U.S. Navy officials declare they successfully tracked and destroyed a threat-representative unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) while in flight June 7 at the Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, Calif. Two additional UAVs were engaged and destroyed in flight June 9, with two more shot down June 11, the sea service announced. Researchers used the prototype version of the Surface Navy Laser Weapon System (LaWS) and fired the laser through a beam director on a Kineto Tracking Mount.
DECK LANDINGS: DCNS and Thales are embarking on the second phase of an effort to study automatic deck landings using vertical takeoff and landings unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Funded by French armaments agency DGA, the 24-month study, which uses a Boeing AH-6U Little Bird UAV, will test the system on a fixed and moving ground test demonstrator. The contract followed a six-month feasibility studied begun last December. Sea trials using French naval vessels will follow in 2011 to prepare for operational use aboard the new Franco-Italian Horizon and Fremm frigates.
NOT YET: House and Senate appropriators are split over the Obama administration’s plan to save money by terminating the terrestrial-based, long-range radio navigation (Loran-C) system. The administration wants to terminate the Word War II-era navigation system for mariners and aviators to help offset a requested $802 million budget increase in the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) budget to pay for more passenger and baggage screening.
The U.S. Coast Guard would get $8.9 billion in a fiscal 2010 homeland security spending bill approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee. After passing the measure June 18 as part of a wider $42.9 billion spending bill for Homeland Security Department operations, the panel sent it to the Senate floor for action this week. The bill will still need to be reconciled with the $42.6 billion version under consideration in the House.
PARIS AIR SHOW — French armament agency DGA and MBDA France this week will begin the critical design review of its LEA hypersonic test program that — if successful — will likely clear funding out to the end of the planned flight-test phase. LEA began in 2003, with both the date and number of flight tests having shifted on several occasions. The overall aim of the program is to validate dual-mode ramjet performance from Mach 4-8. Originally due to be flown from 2009-15, flights of the LEA vehicle are now expected in the 2013-15 period.
