On the job for only four days, new Defense Department acquisition chief Ashton Carter laid out his priorities at a roundtable with select reporters at the Pentagon April 30, starting with a fresh look at DOD’s portfolio. A program-by-program review is “job one,” Carter said. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on April 6 made his budget recommendations known. Now it is time for “spinning out the implications of those decisions,” Carter said.
The cancellation of the Transformational Satellite (TSAT) program tees up a crucial test for the national security space community as it tries to move on from its traditional emphasis on monolithic, “one-size-fits-all” space systems, according to a DOD space and intelligence official.
DESTRUCTION RECONSTRUCTION: The U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency (CMA) says it will destroy its two-millionth munition in coming months. CMA also announced April 28 the destruction of 60 percent of the declared U.S. stockpile under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which means CMA has cut the overall continued storage risk from the nation’s stockpiled chemical weapons by 94 percent.
NO SMALL DELIVERY: Ducommun said April 28 that it has delivered flight-ready nanosatellites to the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command-Army Forces Strategic Command in Huntsville, Ala. The company said the delivery marks the completion of the first Army satellite development program since the Courier 1B communications satellite in 1960. The Miltec subsidiary responsible for the delivery worked with the Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center for flight qualification and subsystem testing.
MOVED UP: Senior NASA managers formally set a May 11 launch date for the space shuttle Atlantis on the final mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope, advancing the target date by a day to gain as much time as possible for launch attempts before a range conflict on May 13. Liftoff on May 11 would come at 2:01 p.m. EDT.
If there is a cyberattack on the United States, network specialists would not know where it came from, if it were really an attack or even how to contain it, according to a group of blue-ribbon business, legal, scientific and military specialists who authored a new National Research Council (NRC) paper. And right now, if the U.S. wanted to launch a cyberattack there would be no policy to shape it, no laws to control it and very little idea of its second- and third-order effects.
MAY DAY: The Pentagon’s latest budget request could be unveiled next week, possibly May 6 or 7. One indication: the National Defense Industrial Association has re-scheduled its popular “Annual Budget Directors Briefing” for May 14. The no-press event had to be moved from February after DOD briefers were forbidden from speaking while Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the Obama administration worked out their own rough draft. The long-awaited fiscal 2010 budget — once thought to be a pro forma extension of the George W.
Stung by criticism in Washington over the VH-71 presidential helicopter program that U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates wants to scrap and reassess, AgustaWestland is firing back and arguing, essentially, that there is no reason to start all over.
LOS ANGELES — A U.S. Air Force Space Command-led team is close to completing definition of the requirements for Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) systems and expects to publish its initial findings in June. The capabilities-based assessment for Rapidly Deployable Space is expected to set firm requirements for capabilities in space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, as well as space situational awareness and satellite communications. Work on the project began last October, and has involved 15 different studies.
CANNES, France — French space agency CNES is refining a concept for a new multifunction satellite bus that could serve a wide variety of low-Earth orbit missions. The bus, suitable for spacecraft in the 350-900 kilogram (770-1,980-pound) class, would replace the Proteus platform, developed in the late 1990s. Thales Alenia Space, which supplies Proteus, has built six of the spacecraft. Four of them — the Jason 1 and 2 altimetry missions, the Calipso A-Train spacecraft and the Corot planet-finding mission — are in orbit.
LONDON — BAE Systems is axing more than a quarter of its remaining U.K. land systems staff as the company reacts to delays in a key U.K. program, as well as a slowdown in other business. Up to 500 jobs are being cut and three British sites closed within the company’s Global Combat Systems (GCS) Vehicles and Weapons business. Plants at Guildford, Leeds, and Telford are to close, and there will be some job losses at other sites. The company cut 200 jobs from its U.K. GCS staff in late 2008.
During her final days in office, former U.S. Air Force acquisition chief Sue Payton fired off a letter to Northrop Grumman saying she was “increasingly concerned” about the company’s management of the Global Hawk high-altitude unmanned aerial system program.
LOS ANGELES — Officials from the U.S. Defense Department’s operationally responsive space (ORS) office say an upcoming military utility assessment study of the soon-to-be-launched experimental TacSat-3 satellite will be conducted to help bolster support for the Pentagon’s low-cost spacecraft concept.
The Obama administration has cleared NASA to use $150 million of the $1 billion in economic stimulus package funding it will receive this year to advance possible commercial human spaceflight to the International Space Station (ISS)
PARIS — The slowdown in civil aerostructures business is forcing Saab to restructure and lay off another 300 employees, with more job terminations possible. “There has been too low production volume,” Saab Chief Executive Officer Ake Svensson says. As a result “we are reviewing the organization of the whole aeronautics segment,” he says. More focus will be put on aerosystems and the continued push to sell more Gripen fighters.
PARIS — Airbus Military has completed testing of receiver flight control laws demonstrating the ability of the manufacturer’s A330-200 multirole tanker transport (MRTT) to be refueled by French air force Boeing KC-135 tankers.
ISTANBUL, Turkey — The AgustaWestland AW-149 has grown in weight and cabin size since its unveiling two years ago, as the rotorcraft maker has made changes to better meet customer expectations. Whereas the AW-149 two years ago was defined as a 7-8 metric-ton maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) platform, MTOW has now reached 8.1 metric tons and could grow further.
If Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) development prototypes do not get lighter, the U.S. Marine Corps will not participate in the program, according to the armed service’s commandant. Gen. James Conway told reporters at the Pentagon on April 29 that the Marines “will not buy a vehicle that’s 20,000 pounds.” Depending on what the “evolution of development looks like, we may have to depart that buy and rehabilitate what we’ve got,” he said.
USAMS II: Six prime contractors are being identified for U.S. Strategic Command’s Systems and Mission Support II (USAMS II) program. The multiple-award contract, worth up to $900 million, is for advisory and assistance services support for management and professional services such as studies, analysis and evaluations, as well as engineering and technical services. CACI said it received one of the indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity deals — which allows it to compete for task orders later — with a one-year base period and four one-year options.
