DEFENSE REFORM: The House and Senate have passed defense acquisition reform legislation endorsed by President Barack Obama after defense authorizers reached a compromise on their competing versions of the bill. Negotiators for both legislative bodies worked out the language for the combined legislation May 19. The Senate passed it the next day, 95-0, and on May 21, the House passed it by an overwhelming majority. Obama, who endorsed reforming the Pentagon’s procurement system in April, wanted a bill to sign before the Memorial Day holiday.
WASTE NOT: NASA has given the Expedition 19 crew aboard the International Space Station the formal go-ahead to begin drinking the water from the station’s urine recycling system. Mission control in Houston radioed the good news to the crew May 20. The move is a key milestone toward supporting the six-person crew that will be occupying the orbiting outpost by the end of this month, and also will help reduce water transport requirements in the post-shuttle era.
The Pentagon spent more than $2.7 billion on “miscellaneous items” in 2008 for which the contractor was listed as “not available” — a rare omission for Defense Department documentation — according to an Aerospace DAILY analysis of an independent national database of government contracting data.
STONEWALL OSPREY: The U.S. Marines were scolded and sent home by Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, May 21 when the service arrived unprepared for a hearing.
Even though the Pentagon has decided to scrap all manned ground vehicles in the U.S. Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS) program, the service plans to go ahead with fielding the program’s network centric technologies, a top acquisition official said May 21. “We plan to continue efforts to further develop, produce and field FCS capabilities in the form of early spin-outs to seven infantry brigade combat teams,” David Ahern, the Defense Department’s director of portfolio systems acquisition, told the House air and land forces subcommittee.
PARIS — French defense officials expect the first flight of the upgraded engine for the Tiger helicopter before summer. The powerplant, designed to deliver more thrust for the heavier Hélicoptère d’Appui Destruction (HAD) version, was recently qualified. The engines are now being installed on a prototype by Eurocopter, says Maj. Sophie Le Berre, program manager for the HAD program at French defense procurement agency DGA.
PARIS — The French government is exploring whether it should rent EC225s to provide vital helicopter lift capability to bridge a gap before fielding of the NFH90. The rented EC225s — the civil version of the military EC725 — would be used to avoid a shortfall in at-sea rescue capacity, says Col. Pascal Point, who oversees helicopter programs for the French joint staff. France has been struggling with reliability on the aging SA.321 Super Frelons, which will be removed from service next year as the replacement NFH90 is brought online.
The General Electric/Rolls-Royce team developing the F136 alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has begun flight clearance work for the start of the test program in early 2011, despite being targeted for cancellation for the third time in the latest U.S. defense budget.
A low pressure system in Florida is making an on-time May 22 landing of Shuttle Atlantis at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) appear somewhat unlikely, although the orbiter itself is clean and ready. “I’ll tell you, it doesn’t look great,” STS-125 Entry Flight Director Norm Knight said of the weather during a press conference at Johnson Space Center in Houston May 21. “We’re waiting for that system to move out. We expect it’s going to improve over the next couple of days, but again, it’s just a matter of waiting and seeing.”
2008 Pentagon Spending On Miscellaneous Items 2008 Pentagon Spending On Miscellaneous Items Contractor Number Of Contracts And Modifications Total Amount Average Amount Per Transaction “Not Available” 6,475 $2,738,526,043 $422,938
CLEARED TO LAND: On-orbit inspections of the thermal protection system on Space Shuttle Atlantis revealed no problems that would preclude a safe re-entry and landing on the morning of May 22. The STS-125 crew performed end-of-mission inspections of the wing leading edges and nose cap on May 19 after releasing the Hubble Space Telescope following its final servicing, and NASA spent that night and the following morning reviewing the data.
Boeing is refining a variant of the 737-based P-8A maritime patrol aircraft for the U.S. Navy’s EP-X signals intelligence (Sigint) requirement, but it says smaller platforms are again on the table for the Army, which wants a twin turboprop solution for a proposed revival of its Aerial Common Sensor (ACS) program.
The U.S. Air Force used an Orbital Sciences Corp. Minotaur 1 launch vehicle to orbit its TacSat-3 research spacecraft and a pair of piggyback NASA payloads, after weather and technical delays kept the mission stuck on the ground at Wallops Flight Facility for two weeks. Liftoff from the site on Virginia’s Eastern Shore came at 7:55 p.m. EDT May 19, and the four-stage launch vehicle performed as expected.
The new U.S. Huey and Cobra helicopters grounded in early May are being repaired, and with the problem identified, the Marine Corps said cost and schedule will not be affected. U.S. Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) issued a temporary grounding bulletin on six UH-1Y Hueys and one AH-1Z Cobra after discovering extensive damage to the main rotor gearbox on two of the new Hueys (Aerospace DAILY, May 4). Program Manager Col. Harry Hewson said one of the Hueys was cleared immediately of problems, leaving only six aircraft grounded in total.
More battlefield communications capabilities, jammers, infrared satellites and F-35 spares and support equipment are among the $1.9 billion in unfunded priorities for the U.S. Air Force along with the fiscal 2010 budget request sent to Congress this month. The list was sent to Congress May 18 by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz in response to a request from Rep. John McHugh (N.Y.), the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee.
The U.S. Marine Corps’ CH-53D Sea Stallion fleet is facing a higher scrap rate on its rotor blades than in the past, and the service is juggling priorities to avoid a gap in capability. An Improved Rotor Blade (IRB) program will eventually replace D-model blades with those flying on the CH-53E Super Stallion. Program Manager Capt. Rick Muldoon said the D-blade scrap rate has spiked more than 80 percent.
DARPA BUDGET: Plans to move rapid-deployment and ultra-endurance unmanned aircraft, hypersonic-vehicle engines and anti-ship missiles into flight demonstration programs will significantly boost the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s planned spending on advanced aerospace systems in fiscal 2010, although its overall budget request is up just under 4 percent from FY ’09, at $3.25 billion.
Defense acquisition reform legislation endorsed by the Obama administration is edging closer to enactment with the Senate and House reaching a compromise on their competing bills. Negotiators for both bodies reached agreement May 19 on language for combined legislation. It must now be passed separately by both the House and Senate before it can go to President Barack Obama’s desk for his expected signature.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — Final elements of the International Space Station (ISS) are moving toward completion in NASA’s Space Station Processing Facility (SSPF) here, where near-term work is focused on completing the payload for STS-127, scheduled for a June 13 launch.
Boeing has again asked the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate NASA’s award of the next-generation Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-R) space segment prime contract to rival Lockheed Martin. Boeing originally protested Lockheed’s win of the weather satellite contract in December, but before GAO could complete its review process the agency elected to redo the source selection on its own.
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