COLLEGE PARK, Md. – U.S. Air Force senior leadership will be briefed this week by the year-old Air Force Irregular Warfare Task Force to help them begin sketching out a comprehensive irregular warfare strategy. “We, as a service, have to be ready to operate across a full range,” according to Maj. Gen. Bill Rew, director of operational planning, policy and strategy. “We’re looking at a wide spectrum of courses of action for irregular warfare.”
NASA Missions NASA Missions Kennedy Space Center/Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. (KSC/CCAFS)Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. (VAFB), Reagan Test Site (RTS) Wallops Flight Facility/Goddard Space Flight Center (WFF) Date / 2009 Mission Vehicle Launch Site Feb.
Boeing officials have shifted their strategy on future C-17 sales from reducing the annual production rate toward cutting per-unit cost instead, according to industry officials. The new focus is possible because of new opportunities in the international market, including, possibly, interest from countries disappointed in consistent delays by EADS in delivering its A400M airlifter (Aerospace DAILY, Feb. 12).
Saab is warning it may have to increase layoffs and is shifting to a more conservative accounting policy after earnings took a hit because of charges associated with development programs.
Controllers driving the Spirit Mars Exploration Rover will get some extra mileage in the coming weeks as it continues the search for silica deposits, following an apparently fortuitous wind that blew accumulated dust off its solar arrays. Fresh off a troublesome loss of control in January (Aerospace DAILY, Feb. 6), Spirit’s operators at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) noted a 30-watt-hour increase in Spirit’s power supply, which they believe is the result of lower dust accumulation on the arrays that generate the rover’s electricity.
Four spacecraft — two civilian communications birds and two military microsats — are in checkout today after the first Ariane 5 mission of the year Feb. 12. Liftoff of the Ariane 5 ECA from the European launch site near Kourou, French Guiana, came when the launch window opened at 5:09 p.m. EST. It was 7:09 p.m. local time, and the big rocket was clearly visible well into its ascent in the night sky.
A Feb. 10 story on the U.S. Coast Guard’s National Security Cutter (NSC) contained an error. It is the fourth NSC that has not had its request for proposals (RFP) issued, which is due to the adoption of a different contracting strategy and not because of the hull fatigue life issues noted in the Carderock report.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicated new calendar listing.) Feb. 22 - 26 — IDEX 2009, Middle East defense conference and Exhibition, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. For more information go to www.idex2009.com Mar. 3 — AVIATION WEEK Laureate Awards, Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, Washington, D.C., http://www.aviationweek.com/conferences
HEADY LOBBYING: French president Nicholas Sarkozy is trying to generate interest in exports for the Dassault Rafale fighter and used a tour of the Middle East to try lobby for the fighter. During recent a stop in Kuwait, Sarkozy said a deal for the sale of 14-28 Rafales is in the works and could be completed before year’s end. Kuwait once was a Mirage F1 customer, but now operates Boeing F/A-18s. Rafale also was on the agenda during the French president’s Oman stop. Rafale remains the only western-built, in-production fighter without an export order.
Discussions are underway to revive the White House National Space Council, says John P. Holdren, president Obama’s choice to oversee administration science policy.
March 26-27, 2009 Washington, DC What will it take to make NextGen and ADS-B adoption viable and cost-effective for all stakeholders? Takeaways: -- Making ADS-B a Reality -- The Latest on Airport Infrastructure Re-Design -- Making the Business Case for Airline Equipage and Financing Option -- Evaluating the Environmental Impact of ADS-B Flight Planning
The debate over whether foreign users of the U.S.-led F-35 attack aircraft can modify or replace the classified software that runs the stealthy design’s electronic warfare (EW) detection, identification, self-defense and attack systems may be winding down. The answer is “No,” says U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles Davis, program executive officer of the Joint Strike Fighter program.
Two Cosmo SkyMed Gen II earth observation radarsat are to be launched in 2014 and 2015 following the formal launch of the program by the Italian defense ministry and ASI, the Italian space agency. The executive agreement between the two bodies became operational Feb. 12, with the signature of General Vincenzo Camporini, chief of defense staff and of the ASI commissar, Enrico Saggese.
CIVIL CHALLENGES: Simulator manufacturer CAE, which emerged in the black for the quarter ending Dec. 31, says its role in the civil marketplace this year will be challenging due to decreased aircraft deliveries. Its outlook for its role in the defense market remains positive, says President and CEO Robert Brown. In the quarter, Montreal-based CAE reported a 23 percent increase in revenue to C$424.6 million ($339.7 million) and a 33 percent increase in revenues from continuing operations to C$53.3 million, compared with same period last year.
SUBMARINE BUY: Indonesia plans to buy a Russian submarine, the first of three that a senior official says the western Pacific country needs. Yusron Ihza, deputy chief of an Indonesian House of Representatives commission, says he has inspected several “submarine factories” in Moscow. It isn’t clear exactly what plants these were. The Russian capital is well inland. The Indonesian purchase will be made in stages, Yusron says.
CHINA SATS: Nigeria has contracted with China Great Wall Industry Corp. to build three more telecom spacecraft. The first, due for launch in the last quarter of 2010, will replace NigComSat-1, lost last year as the result of a power failure on China’s new DFH-4 high-powered bus. The other two, NigComSat 2 and 3, will be orbited six months and 12 months later, respectively.
The Defense Department’s Property and Equipment Policy Office (P&EPO) and U.S. Marine Corps racked up about $2.1 billion in unsupported acquisition costs because of procurement management problems, the Pentagon Inspector General (IG) says. “P&EPO and USMC did not have adequate controls in place over the USMC military equipment baseline,” the IG said it its Feb. 9 report. As a result of those management problems, the Pentagon says: • USMC valuation, rights and obligations, and completeness assertions were unsupported;
SPACE WORKFORCE: NASA managers are sharpening their pencils to come up with a plan for spending the $1 billion in new fiscal 2009 money the agency will get under the compromise economic stimulus package President Obama is expected to sign this week. While lower than the $1.3 billion in the Senate-passed version of the bill, officials believe they can secure roughly 7,000 “new or preserved” jobs with the aeronautics, Earth science and cross-agency spending contained in the bill.
GOSAT A GO: Japan’s GOSAT, renamed Ibuki now that it’s in orbit, has passed its initial imaging tests as the Japanese space agency JAXA marches through a three-month checkout period following the spacecraft’s launch Jan. 23. Initially named the Greenhouse gases Observing Satellite, Ibuki is measuring methane and sources of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to support climate change studies (Aerospace DAILY, Jan. 26).
