ON ITS WAY: Crew members on the International Space Station (ISS) should have another 2.5 tons of supplies to unload this week, following another Russian launch of an unpiloted Progress cargo carrier toward the orbiting facility May 14. Progress M-64/29P was scheduled to dock with the FGB nadir port on the ISS May 16. Its cargo includes oxygen, water and food for the three-man Expedition 17 crew.
BIG DEAL: Eutelsat has concluded a package insurance deal for launch plus one year of operation that it calls one of the biggest ever signed by a fixed satellite service operator. The company said the deal, covering seven spacecraft currently under construction, offers “highly favorable terms” permitting launch using “the full range of available launch vehicles on the market.” The transaction could lessen the threat of a sharp insurance rate hike following a recent spate of launcher and satellite failures.
OSPREY EXPORT: International interest in the Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey has picked up since the U.S. Marine Corps deployed the tiltrotor transport to Iraq, and the Osprey is to be demonstrated to Norway, which has a requirement for 10-12 new search and rescue (SAR) aircraft, according to V-22 program manager Col. Matt Mulhern. Japan and Israel also have expressed interest in the tiltrotor.
ROTOR STUDY: The Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will deliver a study on DOD rotorcraft survivability by August 1, 2009, reporting their findings to congressional defense committees. In an amendment to the fiscal 2009 Defense Authorization Bill, Congressman Joe Sestak (R-Penn.) proposed a closer examination of military rotorcraft accidents and solutions to improve survivability.
AgustaWestland has signed a long-term partnership agreement with Moscow-based Oboronprom that could lead to the European helicopter maker setting up a production line in Russia. Details of the Russian production facility are still under study. The two parties are now working on finding a production site and figuring out how best to implement such a large effort. Helicopters produced off that line would be sold globally, not just in Russia and neighboring countries.
Intelsat has reported a net loss of $412.7 million for the first quarter of 2008, chiefly due to $313.1 million in restructuring and transaction costs associated with the February acquisition of Intelsat by Serafina Holdings, a holding company controlled by BC Partners and other private equity investors. The acquisition caused operating expenses for the quarter to double as compared to the same period last year, reaching $692.4 million.
U.S. Air Force Lockheed Martin F-22 stealth fighters have sent sensor data to ground stations and other aircraft for the first time, both directly and via an airborne network gateway. The datalink demonstrations were conducted during the Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment (JEFX 08) at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., in late April, details of which are now becoming available.
SpaceX says it’s not tracking any major technical issues in the final weeks before the third launch attempt for its Falcon 1 rocket, which is expected in the last week of June from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. The Falcon 1 has had two test flights but has yet to reach orbit. The first flight attempt ended just seconds after liftoff due to a fuel leak, while the second attempt in March 2007 made it to space but didn’t go fast enough to achieve orbit because of fuel sloshing (Aerospace DAILY, March 22, 2007).
GPS III AWARDED: Lockheed Martin has won the U.S. Air Force’s $1.5 billion next-generation Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite contract award over Boeing. The contract includes two development satellites plus options for 10 additional spacecraft. GPS III will incorporate new anti-jam features, including a high-powered spot beam system.
The Royal Norwegian Navy (RNoN) is equipping its six Ula-class diesel-electric submarines with bow-mounted, forward-looking active mine-avoidance sonars and keel-mounted, downward-looking active multibeam echo sounders under a contract awarded to Kongsberg Maritime of Horten, Norway, on May 14. The upgrade is designed to enhance the boats’ capability to safely navigate in very shallow waters, for example during intelligence-gathering and special operations forces support missions close to potentially hostile coasts.
KOREASAT: Thales Alenia Space and Orbital Sciences Corp. will supply a new telecom satellite, Koreasat 6, for Korea Telecom. Thales Alenia will be responsible for integrating, testing and launching the spacecraft and ground segment, and will supply the payload. Orbital will supply a Star 2 satellite bus for the 30-transponder spacecraft. Thales Alenia also supplied Koreasat 5, a dual-use telecom intended for KT and the Korean defense ministry.
The U.S. House is on track to consider – and likely approve – legislation that could double annual production of the Virginia-class attack submarine to two boats starting in fiscal 2010, a year ahead of the U.S. Navy’s latest plans.
China’s January 2007 anti-satellite weapon test is being used as a recruiting message by the U.S. Air Force to lure space-savvy young people to join up. The recruiting campaign, airing on major U.S. television networks, shows a satellite orbiting northward along what looks like the east coast of China. “What if your cell phone calls, your television, your GPS and even your bank transactions could be taken out with a single missile,” the announcer says, just as a rocket fired from the ground ascends rapidly and blows up the satellite.
COLLISION COURSE: Both the House and Senate defied a Bush administration veto threat May 15, setting up a battle over the supplemental war funding legislation. The House rejected one of three amendments that would have approved $163 billion to fund U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through the summer of 2009. Most Republicans voted “present,” to show their opposition without voting on record against a war funding bill. That left war funding up to the Senate, where a $169 billion supplemental war spending bill was being marked up by the Appropriations Committee.
Federal prosecutors are saying the damage done to two Boeing Chinook helicopters appears to be “deliberate” and U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan has launched a criminal investigation into what exactly happened at the company assembly plant in Ridley Township, Pa., just outside Philadelphia. Flanked by Kenneth Maupin, the lead investigative agent for the Defense Criminal Investigative Service of the Department of Defense, Meehan announced the criminal probe at a press conference in front of the plant May 15.
The Constellation Program can stay on schedule even if its spending is held to fiscal 2006 levels for another six months, according to the NASA manager in charge of the program. Jeff Hanley told reporters May 15 that his accountants have evaluated the program’s ability to handle a six-month continuing resolution into fiscal 2009 that would keep NASA spending at fiscal 2008 levels. In effect that would mean spending at fiscal 2006 levels, since the agency has been under a continuing resolution for two fiscal years.
Careful analysis of surface imagery collected at Jupiter’s moon Europa by the Voyager, Galileo and New Horizons probes suggest that its rotational axis has wandered by as much as 80 degrees, offering researchers new evidence that a liquid-water ocean lies beneath the frozen surface.
A broad study of more than 29,000 data series from about 80 long-term climate change studies has found direct links between a wide range of changes in Earth’s natural environment and rising temperatures caused by human activity. Led by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Science, the study linked human-caused warming to changes in glaciers, permafrost, vegetation cycles and wildlife migration patterns.
JOINT STARS: The U.S. Air Force awarded Northrop Grumman Corp. two undefinitized contracts, worth $300 million collectively, to complete nonrecurring engineering and flight-test/certification and begin production of new engines for the service’s E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) fleet. Work will begin immediately with the test bed aircraft, based in Melbourne, Fla., the first E-8 to convert to the Pratt & Whitney JT8D engine.
NO FRANCOPHILES: Two British conservative members of the European Parliament on May 13 railed against alleged French motivations in offering to rejoin NATO’s integrated military command. In a Heritage Foundation panel in Washington, the members also criticized expected French efforts later this year to underpin the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) in the European Union.
If NASA decides by this summer to proceed with the development of crew transfer capability under the agency’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, SpaceX founder Elon Musk says his company could be ready to conduct crew flights to the space station by early 2011.
FLORIDA OPS: Boeing on May 14 named Kevin Hoshstrasser site director for the company’s Florida operations at Kennedy Space Center. Hoshstrasser will manage the site, which comprises the Checkout, Assembly and Payload Processing Services and Space Shuttle Operations programs, supported by about 953 Boeing personnel. He also will continue his role as site director of Florida Space Shuttle Operations.
Democrats controlling the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) rebuffed Republican efforts May 14 to restore major cuts to the fiscal 2009 White House budget requests for European-based missile defense, the Multiple Kill Vehicle and a study for the controversial Space-based Testbed. Voting broke down largely by political party affiliation, but the three Republican amendment proposals to the committee’s fiscal 2009 defense authorization bill each fell about 10 votes short of opponents, led by strategic forces subcommittee Chair Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.).
PROFITABLE PROTESTING: Protesting their way onto large multi-award contracts seems to be working for federal information technology businesses, consultancy Input says. In early May, the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) announced that it had made 14 awards for their ENCORE II Information Technology Solutions deal for large businesses. “Four of the awardees were companies that protested the original awards back in 2007, continuing the trend we have observed lately of companies that protest subsequently receiving awards on those contracts,” says Input’s John Slye.
Improper obligations of funds shortchanged Navy maintenance and repair needs, a recent Pentagon Inspector General (IG) report has found. “The Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, and South Central Regional Maintenance Centers inappropriately obligated funds for contingent liabilities on ship maintenance and repair contracts. As a result of the inappropriate obligations, at least $103 million of U.S. Fleet Forces Command Operation and Maintenance funds were not available for other ships,” said the IG report, released late last month.
