FALCON FIRE: SpaceX conducted a full mission-length test firing of its Falcon 9 launch vehicle’s first stage at its McGregor Test Facility in Texas on Nov. 22. The first stage fired for 178 seconds while secured to a vertical test stand, generating 855,000 pounds of sea-level force at full power. All nine Merlin engines fired for 160 seconds, at which point two were shut off, as would happen during a typical ascent to limit acceleration. The first Falcon 9 launch is scheduled for next year from Cape Canaveral, Fla.
SMART FELLOWS: Six university faculty scientists and engineers have been named by DOD as the 2009 class of its National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellowships (NSSEFF) program. Last year was the inaugural for the program, which provides grants for top-tier researchers from U.S. universities to conduct long-term, unclassified, basic research of strategic importance to DOD (Aerospace DAILY, June 9). DOD fielded 659 nomination letters from 156 academic institutions.
NASA managers have agreed to keep the shuttle Endeavour docked to the International Space Station (ISS) for an extra day to give the combined crews more time to troubleshoot a persistent problem with the new urine recycler onboard. Instead of departing on Nov. 27, the crews will spend the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday together onboard and undock Nov. 28. That would set up a landing at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., no earlier than 1:18 p.m. EST Nov. 30.
BREAKING GROUND: WestWind Technologies is expecting to complete its new Huntsville Aircraft Modification & Integration Center by August 2009, at which point the company will have completed a 65,000 square foot hangar that will provide aircraft services and extended runway capacity at Huntsville International Airport, Ala. The company broke ground on the hangar Nov. 21. WestWind designed the hangar to accommodate every type of helicopter in the U.S. Army’s inventory as well as a large number of fixed-wing aircraft with sizes up to the Air Force’s C-130.
NATO LIFT: The NATO Airlift Management Agency (NAMA) general manager, on behalf of the Strategic Airlift Capability (SAC) nations, has signed a Letter of Offer and Acceptance with the U.S. government for the acquisition of two Boeing C-17 Globemaster III long-range cargo aircraft, Boeing announced Nov. 24. The agreement follows NATO’s Oct. 1 announcement that the 12 SAC nations had formally agreed to move forward with the acquisition of the C-17s to address national requirements for strategic lift.
An additional flight-test of the Ares I crew launch vehicle, extra shifts at the new J-2X rocket engine factory and faster work on life-support systems for the Orion capsule are among steps NASA managers say could advance the first flight of the shuttle follow-on vehicle by as much as a year.
Boeing met with the U.S. Defense Contracts Management Agency (DCMA) Nov. 24 to find out what needs to be done before production of CH-47 helicopters and V-22 tiltrotor fuselages can resume at its Philadelphia plant. Both lines were halted Nov. 21 when the local DCMA representative issued a Level 4 corrective action report (CAR) after a Boeing employee found debris in a V-22 fuselage during a quality-assurance inspection.
NASA’s Ares I crew launch vehicle won’t be “significantly different” from today’s Atlas V and Delta IV in the capabilities it will provide for space-science missions, while the planned Ares V heavy-lift follow-on could actually be too capable for NASA to use often for science launches, a National Research Council (NRC) committee has found.
SAY WHAT: Boeing and the Joint Program Executive Office in charge of the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) have demonstrated how software-defined Ground Mobile Radios (GMRs) are able to operate with one another in a tactical environment. The month-long demonstration concluded Oct. 3 and included a 12-node, secure, self-healing, multichannel network operating in the field at the Electronic Proving Grounds at Ft. Huachuca, Ariz. The test verified the evolving maturity of the GMR system in preparing for a government-run system integration test in late 2009.
AIR FORCE Applied Research Associates Inc., Albuquerque, N.M., is being awarded a cost plus fixed fee contract for $10,883,932. This action will develop an advanced system that will give each member of a dispersed unit the actionable combat information needed to increase awareness and enable dismounted units to be more effective in a distributed battlespace. At this point, $8,645,412 has been obligated. AFRL/PKDP, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8650-09-C-7909). ARMY
Critics of a perceived Pentagon maneuver to delay funding of 16 F-22s in defiance of some congressional wishes vow that their debate with the Office of the Secretary of Defense “is not over yet.”
Reps. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) and Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) will retain their committee chairmanships when the 111th Congress convenes in January, but veteran lawmaker John Dingell (D-Mich.) lost his attempt to keep his post. The House Democratic Caucus on Nov. 20 chose Skelton to serve a second term as chair of the Armed Services Committee and Gordon for a second term at the helm of the Science and Technology Committee, which oversees NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Lockheed Martin will apply its P-3 Aircraft Service Life Extension Program (ASLEP) to Canada’s fleet of CP-140 Aurora aircraft under a newly announced $156 million contract. Ten Canadian CP-140 Aurora aircraft will receive Life Extension Kits consisting of all-new outer wings, center wing lower surface assemblies, horizontal stabilizers, wing and horizontal stabilizer leading edges, and various other items to be installed as needed, Lockheed said in its Nov. 19 announcement.
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed vast Martian glaciers of water ice under protective blankets of rocky debris at much lower latitudes than any ice previously identified on the red planet. Scientists analyzed data from the spacecraft’s ground-penetrating radar and report in the Nov. 21 issue of the journal Science that buried glaciers extend for dozens of miles from edges of mountains or cliffs.
RESCUE ME: The U.S. Air Force may not need its own set of assets to perform “single digit” personnel rescues, which would obviate the need for a Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR-X) aircraft replacement, Pentagon acquisition chief John Young says. “We have to question the requirement from the beginning,” Young said of CSAR-X and other programs, including a Navy request for two new command ships. “I’m not sure buying [the ships] because we had them in the past is the right thing to do.”
PROWLER REPAIR: The U.S. Navy’s new EA-6B Prowler Improved Capabilities Systems III (ICAP-III) aircraft’s Weapons Replaceable Assemblies (WRAs) will benefit from a new repair capability available at Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Crane, Ind. Engineers unveiled the new capability for the aircraft’s ALQ-218 (V) 1 Electronic Warfare (EW) suite, on which ten unique WRAs and several unique antenna arrays are installed. NSWC Crane engineers are now capable of repairing five unique WRAs and four unique antenna arrays of the system for the fleet.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicated new calendar listing.) Dec. 2 — Information Sharing Federations, “Trusted Domains, Partnerships and Relationships,” The Ronald Reagan Building, Washington, D.C. For more information go to www.afei.org Dec. 2 - 3 — Microelectronics Reliability and Qualification Workshop, Manhattan Beach Marriott, Manhattan Beach, Calif. For more information go to http://www.aero.org/conferences/
Pentagon acquisition czar John Young would like the U.S. Navy and Army to reconsider collaborating on what has so far failed to succeed as a joint program — the Navy’s EP-3 replacement, called EP-X, and the Army’s Aerial Common Sensor (ACS).
Boeing has warned its employees to expect job cuts beginning early in 2009, citing challenges across its commercial and defense businesses including delayed programs and contract awards, expected slower military spending and the impact of a global recession on airlines.
WIDE OPEN: In the high tech arena, the ability for someone to attack the U.S. information technology infrastructure is greater that the ability to defend it, says Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence. In fact, the U.S. is the most vulnerable nation on Earth to cyber attack, he says. And the greatest threat from cyber attack is data destruction that can destroy, for instance, the banking industry. “So, the things we have left yet to do include causing the nation to be prepared for a cyber attack,” McConnell says.
LUNAR DUST-UP: The Planetary Society’s call for manned asteroid missions to replace a return to the moon as the prelude to manned exploration of Mars (Aerospace DAILY, Nov. 14). is drawing criticism in some quarters. Apollo 17 geologist and former Sen. Harrison Schmitt (R-N.M.) is so angry at the alternative vision that he resigned from the society. “Having led several objective studies related [to the topic], it is clear … that returning to the moon is the fastest and most cost effective path to Mars,” says Schmitt, who recently headed the NASA Advisory Council.
LONDON — The British Defense Ministry is studying the implications of a further life-extension of its ballistic missile submarine fleet, as it attempts to manage an already demanding schedule for a Vanguard-class successor. The Royal Navy’s Trident D5-equipped Vanguard boats were introduced into service beginning in 1994. The original 25-year life has been pushed to 30 years, with a projected out-of-service date of 2023. The follow-on class of submarine would need to enter service in 2024.
TAKE TWO: Without any new snags, the U.S. Air Force hopes to issue a request for proposals for a new KC-135 replacement competition by next summer. This is likely if the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama supports the push for up to 179 new refueling tankers, according to Lt. Gen. Mark Shackelford, the military deputy to the Air Force acquisition chief. A new program to develop a Core Component Jammer (CCJ), a standoff electronic jamming system likely for the B-52 bomber, could get a new breath of life in the fiscal 2012 budget, Shackelford says.
NASHUA, N.H. – U.S. Navy ships suffer constant probing by and exposure to sophisticated signals and, in some cases, electronic attack (EA) that have progressed from just electronic jamming into the esoteric world of cyber attack. That means they are also vulnerable to fast, stealthy new families of cruise missiles. The sea service wants to protect itself by equipping warships with a combination of electronic surveillance, attack and protection capabilities, and industry researchers here are eagerly pursuing the business opportunities.
