Instead of trying to ban anti-satellite (ASAT) weaponry, the U.S. government should push an international “rules of the road” that outlines unacceptable actions, according to a group of scholars, including a former two-star U.S. Air Force general, testifying before the House Armed Services strategic forces panel. Meanwhile, U.S. deterrence against foreign harm to its space assets is possible, they said, although such planning is scant and current responsibility too diverse.
LOADS CALIBRATION: Boeing completed loads calibration testing of the first P-8A Poseidon test aircraft the week of March 9, which the company says was two weeks ahead of schedule. Loads calibration is one of the prerequisites for the U.S. Navy flight clearance process. During the tests, up to 80 percent of the highest expected flight loads were applied to the aircraft’s fuselage, horizontal stabilizers, vertical fin and wing structures. Completion of loads calibration ensures that test aircraft T-1 is ready for airworthiness testing, which will being later in 2009.
Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) is warning the Pentagon that a shortfall in U.S. Navy funding is the strongest argument yet for reversing the service’s recent decision to relocate the homeport of its newest carrier from Norfolk, Va., to Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, Fla. A former Navy secretary, Webb wrote DOD March 17 that the Navy’s $417 million shortfall in fiscal 2009 funding for ship maintenance and $4.6 billion unfunded budget requirements are justification for disapproving any funding request for the homeporting decision.
FACE-OFF: On the heels of the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) scathing report that called for the Army to restructure its controversial $160 billion Future Combat Systems modernization program, the House Armed Services Air and Land Subcommittee is holding a hearing to bring the report’s author face to face with the Army brass heading up the program.
AeroVironment will fit a fuel-cell power system into its “all-environment” Puma AE small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), giving the hand-launched, special-operations UAV a long-duration capability. Protonex Technology has been awarded a $3.3 million Defense Department contract to develop “a robust, deployable preproduction fuel cell power system” as a drop-in replacement for the rechargeable batteries used in the Puma AE.
HAND-HELD: Rockwell Collins has received a $450 million follow-on contract to provide Defense Advanced Global Positioning System Receivers (DAGRs) to the U.S. Air Force GPS Wing. The contract calls for Rockwell Collins to provide the hand-held GPS position and navigation receivers through 2016. The company has delivered more than 290,000 DAGR units and more than 1.5 million accessories since it was selected by the Air Force for full-rate production in 2003. This latest award brings the total value of the DAGR contracts to $1.15 billion.
PARIS France may be forced to cut A400M numbers and is already exploring the option of leasing Boeing C-17s as it tries to craft a rescue package for the struggling Airbus Military program and to sustain its airlift capacity. A revised A400M contract is unlikely before the end of 2009. “We have to take an in-depth look at how the present contract might be modified under acceptable conditions,” Laurent Collet-Billon, director general of French armaments agency DGA, told reporters March 18.
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, Houston Veteran Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata’s long-duration stay on the International Space Station (ISS), which began March 17 when he transferred his Soyuz seat liner to the station’s Russian lifeboat, kicks off an ambitious human spaceflight effort for Japan that could eventually see Japanese landers on the moon. The key to Japan’s plans for the human portion of its space program centers on the H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV), an autonomous cargo carrier scheduled to make its first flight to the ISS in September on an H-IIB rocket.
Northrop Grumman has exceeded 100kW in laboratory tests of an electric laser, completing the final milestone in the U.S. Army-led Joint High Power Solid State Laser (JHPSSL) technology demonstration program.
PICKING WRECKAGE: The U.S. military is picking over wreckage of the Iranian unmanned aircraft it shot down in Iraq in February. “We’re in the process of exploiting the debris that we’ve recovered,” a Pentagon spokesman said. “I don’t know if it was a drone that was capable of sending signals back or whether it was merely recording and then was going to return and its video or data then exploited by the Iranians.” Coalition aircraft over Iraq shot down an Iranian-made Ababil 3 model unmanned aerial vehicle about 60 miles northeast of Baghdad (Aerospace DAILY, March 18).
Analysis conducted by the U.S. Air Force shows there is an ideal fleet mix, but that framework depends on the operational scheme laid out by the joint force commander, according to retired Gen. Gregory Martin.
United Launch Alliance has rolled the Atlas V rocket carrying the U.S. Air Force’s second Wideband Global Satcom (WGS-2) spacecraft back from Launch Complex 41 to its integration building at Cape Canaveral, where technicians are attempting to determine the cause of the upper-stage liquid oxygen leak that resulted in the scrubbing of the previous day’s launch attempt.
WALKING PAPERS: Three senators have sent a letter to President Obama asking for the removal of NASA Inspector General (IG) Robert Cobb, “following years of complaints and investigations into Cobb’s work as the government’s watchdog at NASA,” according to a statement from the lawmakers’ offices. “We respectfully ask that you take immediate action to put an end to conflict of interest and cronyism in the IG process by replacing Mr. Cobb and nominating a qualified candidate,” wrote Sens.
The combatant commander in charge of U.S. Strategic Command told House defense authorizers March 17 that the United States remains vulnerable across a swath of cyber threats, but he asserts that the military is indeed making progress on the issue.
The American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is making its annual trek to Capitol Hill, armed with two new issues touching on energy independence and efficiency in aerospace. “These are things that, if we [don’t] figure out how to mitigate the underlying problems, could have a significant impact on aerospace in the long term,” AIAA President George Muellner told reporters March 17. “We decided it was time to focus the technical expertise of this institute to deal with these problems.”
Despite news accounts that numerous big ticket Pentagon programs may be coming under the budget knife, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made no decisions yet, the Department’s comptroller said March 18. Anxious members of the House Budget Committee peppered Comptroller Robert Hale with questions about the continued funding viability of the F-22 Raptor, the Air Force replacement refueling tanker, the proposed long-range strike bomber and missile defense projects.
LONDON British officials March 18 signed a deal to purchase three Lockheed Martin F-35Bs that will allow the United Kingdom to participate fully in the operational test and evaluation phase of the program. British Defense Secretary John Hutton announced the decision during a visit to Washington. “By purchasing three aircraft for testing, we will secure access to the development of the program. Working alongside their U.S. colleagues, our pilots will gain an unrivaled understanding of this awesome aircraft and its capabilities.”
As Pentagon programs continue to run over budget and behind schedule, a number of watchdog groups are leaning hard on the Defense Department to clean up its act and increase its focus on managing those programs better from cradle to grave. The DOD, the watchdog groups say, must regain expertise in the lost art of program management. And the Pentagon is taking heed. Program management expenses have increased by about threefold over the course of this decade, according to a recent analysis of contracting data by Aerospace DAILY.
Alliant Techsystems has completed long-duration ground runs of a new ramjet engine and is preparing to combine the combustor with the inlet and nozzle for the proposed X-51B hypersonic demonstrator and conduct integrated engine testing later this year. The ALRJ-51-4 Thermally Throated Ramjet (TTRJ) is a dual-mode subsonic/supersonic-combustion ramjet that burns readily available JP-10 jet fuel, used in missiles such as Tomahawk and Harpoon. Long-duration testing at ATK’s Ronkonkoma, N.Y., facility was funded by the U.S. Air Force.
Northrop Grumman said March 17 it received a contract to developmentally and operationally test the Multi-Role Tactical Common Data Link (MR-TCDL) for the U.S. Army’s Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC).
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has signed a science and technology research agreement with the German Ministry of Education and Research. The pact, signed March 16 in Berlin, is similar to collaboration arrangements the U.S. already has with the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Sweden, Mexico, Israel and France.
