The European Space Agency (ESA) and its Italian counterpart, ASI, will hold a three-day international workshop in November to discuss puzzling data related to the presence of methane on Mars and plan possible strategies for more in-depth study of Martian methane mechanisms.
CHINOOK LOSS: A British Royal Air Force Chinook has been destroyed in Afghanistan as the result of an engine fire shortly after takeoff during operations near Sangin. The aircrew made an emergency landing just more than a half mile from the takeoff site, and all four personnel were recovered by a second helicopter. The Chinook was then destroyed by a “coalition airstrike” to stop it from falling into the hands of the insurgents. The incident occurred Aug. 19. The U.K. Defense Ministry has not yet ruled out “enemy action” as the cause of the engine fire.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) officials actually plan to buy 54 three-stage ground-based interceptors (GBIs) altogether — not just the 44 production GBIs garnering headlines since the program’s restructuring was announced in April. Of the 44 production missiles ordered from Boeing, 10 were allocated for flight-tests. The remaining 34 now include 26 for Ft. Greely, Alaska, four at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., and four spares.
NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) are analyzing data from an unprecedented experiment with their lunar orbiters to determine if their first joint observation turned up evidence of water ice at the moon’s north pole. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and ISRO’s Chandrayaan-1 were only about 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) apart when they focused their synthetic aperture radars (SARs) on the bottom of the Erlanger Crater Aug. 20, looking for the brightness characteristic of water ice.
MOSCOW — Static fatigue tests already are under way here on a Sukhoi T-50 prototype airframe, according to Col. Gen. Alexander Zelin, the chief of the Russian air force. The T-50 is being developed by Sukhoi to meet the air force’s fifth-generation fighter requirement, known as PAK FA. The Russian air force commander says that a first flight is due in November.
Intelsat has warned shareholders that it may experience an increase in launch expenses if it has to switch one or more missions from Sea Launch to another provider following Sea Launch’s Chapter 11 filing. In reporting first half results last week, Intelsat said it has one satellite, IS 15, scheduled to go up on Sea Launch’s land-based derivative in the fourth quarter, and has contracted and paid deposits for three Sea Launch missions in all.
PARIS — Airbus Military has achieved power-on on the second KC-30A tanker for the Royal Australian Air Force, the lead customer for the A330-based refueler. The aircraft had undergone modifications in Getafe, Spain, from an airliner into a militarized aircraft, with the addition of the refueling boom system and the wing-mounted hose-and-drogue pods. The first two A330s are being modified by Airbus Military in Spain.
The 2008 Russia/Georgia conflict has become a defining event in network warfare, with a new report released this week revealing even more details. For example, altered Microsoft Corp. software was fashioned into cyberweaponry and hackers collaborated on U.S.-based Twitter, Facebook, and other social-networking sites to coordinate the attack on Georgian digital-based targets, according to the report by the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit (USCCU).
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GIGABIT ETHERNET: The U.S. Navy recently awarded Boeing a $14.6 million contract to produce six shipsets of the Gigabit Ethernet Data Multiplex System (GEDMS) AN/USQ 82(V) as part of a modernization effort of its DDG-51 destroyer fleet. The equipment will be retrofitted on three U.S. ships and three foreign navy vessels. Boeing has worked with the U.S. Navy on GEDMS and predecessor systems for more than 35 years, the company says.
After achieving “first light” in flight of the 747-400F-based high-energy Airborne Laser (ABL), Boeing officials say they expect to shoot down a ballistic missile target in flight with the system later this year as planned. The system has had myriad technical hurdles, setbacks and cost overruns, but the team is looking forward to finally engaging a ballistic target with the goal of destroying it in boost phase; ABL is the Missile Defense Agency’s only publicly acknowledged boost-phase development project.
WAESCHE AT SEA: The second Northrop Grumman-built National Security Cutter, Waesche, completed Builder’s Trials Aug. 17 after testing in the Gulf of Mexico. The trials involved extensive testing of propulsion, electrical, damage control and combat systems. The ship will return to sea in September for acceptance trials and is expected to be delivered to the U.S. Coast Guard in the fall.
Senior NASA managers, including incoming Administrator Charles Bolden, have cleared the space shuttle Discovery for launch Aug. 25 on a 13-day mission to outfit the orbiting laboratory for long-term scientific operations. Bolden took part in the debate at Kennedy Space Center Aug. 18 on whether foam loss from the external tank during the previous shuttle launch in July warranted a rollback of the Discovery stack to the Vehicle Assembly Building for more testing. Ultimately, managers decided the rollback wasn’t necessary.
The U.S. Navy says the cost to keep a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier (CVN) in Mayport, Fla., will be about 25 percent higher than initially thought, according to a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The prognosis for the U.S. Marine Corps’ troubled Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) is not good, according to Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. After his presentation to the Space and Missile Defense Conference here Aug. 19, Cartwright said the close-to-finished Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) is looking at EFV in the context of “amphibious writ large,” and the high-speed combat vehicle “will have a significant challenge moving forward.”
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Boeing officials are unveiling a mobile Ground-Based Interceptor design as an option while the White House mulls the future of deploying an additional set of defenses designed to protect the United States and Europe from the threat of an Iranian long-range ballistic missile. The company included a small model of the concept at its exhibit for the Space and Missile Defense Conference 2009 here this week. Program officials also spoke about it publicly for the first time at the conference.
COLOMBIAN BREW: The United States and Colombia are crystallizing a bilateral agreement to promote U.S.-Colombian cooperation against counternarcotics, transnational crime and terrorism, according to State Department officials in Washington. “What we’re discussing would provide access to Colombian military facilities in order to undertake mutually agreed upon activities,” says a State Department spokesman. “If we are successful in this, it will be similar to agreements we have with many other close friends around the world.”
By the end of 2009, Boeing subsidiary Insitu will have fielded a prototype of a ScanEagle unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) equipped with a new payload that enables high-quality imagery at night. The so-called NightEagle is a modified ScanEagle equipped with a midwave infrared (MWIR) payload. Eric Edsall, Insitu’s director of international business development, says the company is simply responding to requests from customers.
U.S. Defense Department officials and the National Defense Industrial Association will host two days of briefings near the Pentagon in early September for the Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV). DOD’s Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) Task Force is interested in entering into a funding agreement with an industry consortium to develop and test new ISR capabilities, beginning with LEMV, according to NDIA.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — A study of options to manage the Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI) industrial base in light of the Pentagon’s decision to end the buy at 44 is being briefed to senior U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) officials.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Discussions among Pentagon management and Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) partners Germany and Italy to look at options for the troubled program are under way, according to a senior program official.
