General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems will build a gapfiller satellite for NASA to maintain as much continuity in the 36-year-old Landsat data set as possible.
The Russian State Commission has found that a rupture in the duct linking the gas generator and the turbomachinery in the Proton rocket main engine caused the Breeze M upper stage to shut down two minutes early, stranding the AMC-14 satellite in a useless orbit following its March 15 launch. A Russian State Commission ordered Khrunichev, manufacturer of both the Proton and the Breeze M upper stage, to make improvements in the stage’s RD-2000 engine before it returns to flight.
NASA cautioned against speculation ahead of the facts after a Russian news agency reported the three crew members aboard Soyuz TMA-11 were in grave danger when it re-entered the atmosphere April 19 following six months docked to the International Space Station (ISS).
The U.S. and South Korean militaries might pursue licenses to use a Eurenco-patented technique for filling artillery, tank and mortar shells with cast PBX (plastic bonded explosives) compositions used for insensitive munitions. The European energetic materials company is using the process in a new, €6.8 million ($10.5 million) workshop started in 2006 in Sorgue, France.
A potential wave of funding for U.S. intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities may already have started, despite an otherwise tightening defense budget environment. Some of the defense programs expected to profit are the newest Global Hawk Block 40 RQ-4 long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), its small version of the MP-RTIP active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radar and upgrades to the venerable E-8 Joint-Stars, including a 20.8-by-2.5 foot version of the new radar.
NASA has awarded launch services startup SpaceX an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract potentially worth as much as $1 billion for launches on its planned Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 vehicles. The contract period runs through June 30, 2010, for launches through December 2012.
GOING GREEN: Northrop Grumman made an Earth Day announcement April 22, trumpeting the fact that its East Coast Manufacturing and Flight Test Center has been accepted into the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) National Environmental Performance Track program. It is one of 16 facilities in the Southeast U.S. to be named to the program.
PORK PRIZE: Washington watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has named powerful appropriators Reps. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) and Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) its “April Porkers of the Month” for threatening to reverse a $35 billion U.S. Air Force refueling tanker contract award to Northrop Grumman and EADS. The losing bidder, Boeing, has large facilities in the two lawmakers’ states, CAGW points out in its April 22 declaration.
MALYSIAN AIR DEFENSE: ThalesRaytheonSystems said April 22 it received a Malaysian Defense Ministry contract to upgrade the Malaysian Air Defense Ground Environment system. Financial details were not disclosed. The deal will create a new air defense sector operations center and includes installation of a new long-range air defense radar, the company said. The center’s command-and-control software will be an adaptation of the California-based Sentry Air Defense Ground Environment System, although a unit in France will deliver the radar.
NO HELOS: French defense officials say there are currently no plans for additional helicopters to support the 700-man force that President Nicolas Sarkozy promised to send to shore up the NATO mission in Eastern Afghanistan. The two rotorcraft in the central Kabul region will be needed to back France’s assumption of the rotating regional command this summer.
Pressure is mounting on Capitol Hill over the fiscal 2008 off-budget supplemental spending measure, with Republicans pressing the Democratic majority to move the bill quickly. Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) have sent House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) a letter, calling on her to work with the House Appropriations Committee to move the ostensibly defense measure to the House floor for a vote “without further delay.”
R.O.K. AIR DEFENSE: Raytheon announced April 21 a $241 million U.S. foreign military sale to provide South Korea with command, control, communications, maintenance support and training equipment for the Patriot air and missile defense system. The production and support award was expected and follows a $28.7 million engineering services contract the company announced several weeks ago (Aerospace DAILY, March 5).
TOKYO – The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) revealed the first actual flight model of the H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) at Tsukuba Space Center April 17.
An Ariane 5 booster launched a pair of telecom satellites, Vinasat-1 and Star One C2, on April 18. The launch was the second of the year for Arianespace, after the Jules Vernes Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) space tug in February, and keeps the launch provider on track to reach its goal of performing seven Ariane 5 missions this year – a new record. Arianespace lofted six missions into space in 2007 and is in the process of boosting its launch rate. Eight missions are planned in 2009.
Human spaceflight will inspire the next generation of scientists for a civilization that is shaped by science, says physicist Stephen Hawking, citing the human-spaceflight strategy NASA is spearheading as the most “obvious” path to follow.
This week will see the last flight clearance review for Pratt & Whitney’s F135 short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing (STOVL) variant engine for the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter. The review is expected to clear the engine for flight-testing in the conventional-takeoff-and-landing (CTOL)-mode only. The first flight of the leading F-35B STOVL aircraft, known as BF-1, is scheduled to take place “as planned” on May 23, despite earlier problems with fracturing turbine blades on the F135 STOVL engine, said Bill Gostic, Pratt’s F135 program vice president.
ORS CHIEF: U.S. Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne has appointed Peter Wegner as director of the Operationally Responsive Space Office at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M. The service said Wegner will continue the group’s charge to develop low-cost, rapid-reaction payloads, buses, spacelift and launch-control capabilities for on-demand space support of joint military operational needs. Wegner succeeds Col. Kevin McLaughlin, the first director, who becomes vice commander of the Air Warfare Center at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. Wegner’s appointment is effective May 1.
The U.S. Coast Guard’s first National Security Cutter has completed acceptance trials in the Gulf of Mexico, another step toward its expected commissioning in August. The 418-foot cutter Bertholf, the first of eight planned National Security Cutters under the Coast Guard’s Deepwater modernization program, was evaluated by more than 80 representatives of the Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey (INSURV) over five days of testing at Pascagoula, Miss.
International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 16 commander Peggy Whitson and flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko are in good condition and readapting to normal gravity after 192 days in space and the second unplanned ballistic re-entry in a row for a Russian Soyuz crew carrier. South Korea’s So-Yeon Yi, the third passenger in the Soyuz that landed in Kazakhstan early on April 19, is also in good condition after becoming her nation’s first space traveler. She occupied the so-called “taxi seat” in the Soyuz that lifted off to the ISS with Expedition 17 on April 8.
ARMY Chugach Government Services Inc., Anchorage, Alaska, was awarded on April 11, 2008, a $14,085,673 firm-fixed price contract for construction of the F-22 jet inspection and maintenance facility. The work will be performed at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, and is expected to be completed on Sept. 28, 2009. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Web bids were solicited on Nov. 17, 2007, and three bids were received. U.S. Army Engineer District, Alaska, is the contracting activity (W911KB-08-C-0009).
