NASA, DOD and the White House defended their plans for a ballistic-missile takedown of a falling National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) satellite Feb. 14, speaking to reporters in the afternoon and planning to address international organizations in a “diplomatic global rollout” later in the day.
NEW DELHI – Boeing is teaming with Tata Industries in India to build aerospace components, creating a joint venture that should launch in June. “The joint venture is an important part of our strategy to build capabilities in defense and aerospace,” said Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata in a statement.
USMC RADAR: Northrop Grumman delivered the first three production units of a new generation multi-radar tracker (MRT) system to the U.S. Marine Corps that the company says will enable the fusing of multiple sensor inputs into a single radar picture for enhanced mobile command-and-control operations. The self-contained MRT features an integrated, open-architecture system suitable for fixed-site or mobile use.
THE HAGUE – A newly created Integrated Testbed (ITB) for NATO’s Active Layered Theater Ballistic Missile Defense (ALTBMD) program conducted “milestone tests” with Dutch and U.S. facilities last month, in which real-life European and U.S. systems successfully countered a simulated ballistic missile attack against NATO forces, NATO revealed Feb. 13. The tests took place nine months ahead of schedule. The ITB facility will be inaugurated Feb. 14 by NATO’s assistant secretary general for defense investment, Peter Flory.
Some Pentagon officials appear to be withholding from lawmakers studies or parts of studies that analyze demands for cargo aircraft and their rescue and special operations derivatives, apparently because platform recommendations do not meet certain desires.
Gen. Bruce Carlson, chief of the U.S. Air Force Materiel Command, told a group of reporters Feb. 13 that the Air Force will figure out a way to buy 380 F-22s, despite the fact that the Pentagon has capped the number of aircraft to be procured at 183.
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER – Controllers added a day to the STS-122/1E International Space Station assembly mission Feb. 13, after astronauts Rex Walheim and Hans Schlegel replaced a spent nitrogen tank on the station, with Walheim riding the station robotic arm to pull the old tank off the station truss and connect a new one hauled to orbit by space shuttle Atlantis.
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin gave House lawmakers a “heads up” Feb. 13 that time is running out for the government to approve NASA to purchase more Soyuz and Progress flights from Russia after 2011, which will be essential for the support of the International Space Station (ISS) following the space shuttle’s 2010 retirement.
NEW DELHI – Senior Indian defense officials here are expressing an urgent need to acquire and upgrade technology for defense equipment. “A major challenge is for us to access necessary technology, as hardware is the core of the air force,” Air Chief Marshal Fali Homi Major, chief of the Indian air force, told Aersospace Daily at the Air Power summit. Indian officials say the new offset policy will leverage India’s buying power to upgrade technology, improve infrastructure and make it part of the global defense supply chain.
NLOS-C: The first Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon (NLOS-C) prototype – the first prototype fielded in the U.S. Army’s Future Combat Systems’ Manned Ground Vehicle family – is on schedule for delivery to the Army early this summer, according to manufacturer BAE Systems. Meanwhile, BAE will continue NLOS-C firing platform testing with a goal of firing 4,400 rounds through it by spring in pursuit of a safety certification for the planned fully automated howitzer.
JAPAN’S TANKER: Boeing has received an FAA supplemental type certificate for Japan’s first KC-767 Tanker, which means Japan should receive its first two of four tankers with a convertible freighter configuration this quarter. Japan’s tankers include passenger and main deck cargo accommodations, which previously were not certified on the military aircraft. Boeing used KC-767 Tankers from Japan and Italy to test the convertible configuration.
The chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee that oversees mine resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles doesn’t think it’s time to cut back production on the massive ground vehicles.
The U.S. military is losing its leverage, if not its edge, when it comes to electronic warfare (EW), and the Pentagon may be better served by reshuffling EW responsibilities, the Lexington Institute’s Loren Thompson says.
FRIENDS AND ENEMIES: Two ostensible competitors for the U.S. military’s planned Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV), Austal and General Dynamics, have announced a teaming arrangement for the same program. Austal USA has selected General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems as the ship mission system integrator for its JHSV proposal.
NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover mission has run into problems with the development of its thermal protection system (TPS), along with other issues that could jeopardize its targeted September 2009 launch date. NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told House lawmakers in Washington Feb. 13 that while he still hopes the team can launch in 2009, the agency also is looking at options in 2010 or 2011.
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has promised lawmakers more releases of data this year from the National Aviation Operations Monitoring Service (NAOMS) pilot survey, although the agency has no plans to resume it. “We think that all of the goals of NAOMS with regard to aviation safety are being accomplished in coordination with the FAA in ongoing programs,” Griffin told the House Science & Technology Committee Feb. 13.
THOR LAUNCHED: Norway’s Thor 5 telecommunications satellite is embarking on several weeks of in-orbit checkout following its launch aboard a Proton M/Breeze M rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Feb. 11. The satellite will spend several days executing a planned drift to its operational orbital location at operator Telenor’s 1 degree West Longitude orbital slot. It will provide Ku-band fixed telecommunications and direct-to-home television broadcasting services with its 24 transponders, improving Telenor’s service coverage in the Nordic countries and Europe.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER - The space shuttle Endeavour will be rolled out to Launch Complex 39A here on Feb. 18 in preparation for its mission to carry major new Canadian and Japanese hardware to the International Space Station (ISS). The rollout is three to four days earlier than previously envisioned, now that minor technical issues have been cleared. The early rollout will enable the expected month of pad processing to keep pace with plans to launch Endeavour on the STS-123 mission as early as March 11. Moved to VAB
U.S. officials are studying the possibility of shooting down the errant Lockheed Martin intelligence satellite that was launched into space for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). The concern is that the spacecraft carries a full tank of hydrazine – a toxic propellant – that would have been used to reposition the satellite in orbit. Government analysts say the odds are that the tank will crack open during re-entry or than it will land in the ocean, which makes up 70 percent of the area where the breaking up satellite might land (DAILY, Jan. 30).
The U.S. Army needs to accept some short-term risk to achieve long-term goals, Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) says, and that includes cutting certain programs. Murtha, who was scheduled to meet with U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey later on Feb. 12, said, “I’m going to ask him if we can take any short-term chances... This is a short-term war and we have to have a long-term outlook.” Murtha would not specify which programs he would eliminate, and said he would ask Gen. Casey for his ideas.
NEW DELHI – India and the U.S signed a government-to-government deal here under the U.S. Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program on Jan. 28 for six Hercules C-130J military transport aircraft with multimission capability from Lockheed Martin, with options for six more.
Exploring common hull forms and maintaining strict discipline over requirements will be key if the U.S. Navy is to achieve its goal of a 313-ship fleet, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead said at the Pentagon Feb. 12. Since he took over as chief last year, Roughead has visited all the major U.S. shipyards to get a sense of their capabilities and the challenges they face, he said.
SINCERE DISAPPOINTMENT: House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) has written U.S. Army Secretary Pete Geren to express his “sincere disappointment” at the service’s refusal to release a Rand Corp. study that reportedly faults the U.S. government’s planning for post-war Iraq. The study purportedly cites a variety of planning failures, some by military personnel, some by civilians, and some systemic, such as a lack of coordination between agencies.
