Israel bombed Syria by using a chain of new technologies stretching from satellite observations to precision bombing of the target, which was suspected of being a nuclear facility.
James Acton, analyst and lecturer with the U.K.-based Centre for Science and Security Studies, thinks it's unlikely that Iran has finalized any designs for a nuclear weapon, although there is no question that Tehran has begun early weaponization work.
HOUSTON - Astronaut Scott Parazynski is preparing for his fourth extravehicular activity (EVA) of the STS-120/10A International Space Station assembly mission, an "extremely challenging and complex" attempt to repair the solar array torn right after his last spacewalk. Derek Hassmann, lead ISS flight director for the mission, said Nov. 1 the repair required another day of preparations in space and on the ground, pushing it back from Nov. 2 to Nov. 3.
The Lockheed Martin Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) conducted a successful live-fire test Oct. 31 after a series of mishaps earlier this year brought flights to a halt. The missile's reliability dipped to 58 percent after four tests revealed a Global Positioning System dropout problem, sending missiles more than 100 feet from their targets (DAILY, July 31). The test last week at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., was successful, according to Lockheed Martin officials, with JASSM striking and destroying its target.
The Eurofighter Typhoon consortium has begun flight trials with a new set of avionics. The equipment is part of the Tranche 2 build of the multirole fighter, which flew Oct. 31 for the first time at BAE System's Warton, England, facility. Eurofighter test pilot Mark Bowman was at the controls of IPA6 (an Instrumented Production Aircraft). The next milestone for Tranche 2 aircraft comes in April, when the so-called Block 8 aircraft are to complete type acceptance.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has transmitted its first-ever commands to a Chinese satellite, sending signals to China's Chang'e-1 moon mission through the agency's Maspalomas 15-meter ground station in Spain. The first receipt of telemetry from the mission occurred at ESA's 35-meter deep space antenna in New Norcia, Australia at 4:35 central European time Nov. 1, two hours and 39 minutes prior to signal transmission. An hour later, signals were picked up and transmitted by the ESA station in Kourou, French Guiana.
FISCAL IT: The majority of the large federal information technology (IT) procurements slated for fiscal 2008 will be recompeted programs, according to a Washington-area consultancy. "Coupled with an increasingly strong-willed Congress, continued war spending and the Bush administration entering into its lame duck phase, FY 2008 is shaping up to be a year of the status quo," said Arash Ardalan, senior federal analyst for Input.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) believes there is $25 billion-$50 billion in waste, fraud and abuse in Defense Department spending and says that a related inspector general report is due out next year. The conservative earmark and spending critic told Washington reporters at a National Press Club meeting Nov. 1 that there is as much as $200 billion in similar misspending across the federal discretionary budget - enough to pay off President Bush's off-budget fiscal 2008 supplemental request without borrowing the funds against future generations.
The White House and Congress should simplify and reduce requirements and restrictions that make it hard for the Pentagon to recruit, vet and secure Senate confirmation for top political appointees, the legal committee of the Aerospace Industries Association said Oct. 31. In an attempt to pluck what chairman Paul "Whit" Cobb, Jr. called the low-hanging fruit of a cumbersome process, the panel called for changes in nomination and confirmation procedures, executive compensation, financial disclosure requirements and restrictions on post-government employment.
The Air Force is scheduled to meet Nov. 5-6 with companies competing for the service's combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) helicopter replacement fleet to discuss the revised draft request for proposals (RFPs), sources say. The service and companies were initially scheduled to meet in October, but the discussions were postponed. What remains unclear is whether those discussions also will include the so-called "equal information disclosure" briefings, meant to level the competitive playing field.
NEW ORLEANS - Ninety days after assuming command of the newly established Deployable Operations Group (DOG), U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thomas Atkin is struggling to effect culture change and establish a new training and operations regime. "We have two sets of requirements: operational and training. How do I balance those to make sure the force we're providing to the commander is trained to its advertised capability?" Atkin told Aerospace Daily.
NASA will release aviation incident data gleaned from a controversial pilot survey that the agency originally decided not to provide, NASA's top official told Congress Oct. 31, but the scrubbing process required by law could take up to two months. "The survey results that we can legally release will be released. Period," NASA Administrator Mike Griffin told the House Science and Technology Committee during a hearing into the two-year delay in making the $11 million survey's results public. 2005 survey
BEIJING - China's long-planned Long March 5 heavy rocket, comparable to the U.S. Delta IV, will be a family of launchers to be built at a plant at Tianjin, where construction began this week. The rockets will go into service in 2013 at the new Wenchang launch base on the island of Hainan, which has also been long proposed. Wenchang itself is to be ready by 2012. The diameter of Long March 5 will be 5 meters (16 feet, 5 inches), up from the 3.35 meters (11 feet) of the current Long March 3.
NEW ORLEANS - Adm. Gary Blore, U.S. Coast Guard acquisition chief, says he believes "there have never been workmanship issues" with the National Security Cutter (NSC). Blore, speaking at the Coast Guard Innovation Expo here Oct. 31, dismissed accusations to the contrary, saying design and workmanship issues are "entirely different things," and that people can become "confused" between the two. He added that design issues on the ship have been settled, and any remaining controversy surrounding the NSC "will be resolved with the first rescue."
The latest potential $1 billion overrun and delivery delay for Lockheed Martin's Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) could be less than anticipated, a Pentagon analysis says, but it still could hold up the program enough to possibly cause a gap in the nation's missile defense system. Air Force estimates had put the overrun as high as $1 billion and the delay as long as a year to fix a software and processor bug, which could essentially shut down the satellite's operations (DAILY, Oct. 15).
HOUSTON - International Space Station (ISS) engineers are refining a hurry-up repair technique to fix the torn solar blanket on the outermost set of ISS arrays, but they may need to add yet another day to the STS-120/10A mission to pull it off. If the array can't be fixed, structural limitations from its partially deployed state make it questionable whether the station can produce the power and handle the dockings and undockings needed to continue assembly.
BOOSTER TEST: NASA and manufacturer ATK will test fire a space shuttle Reusable Solid Rocket Motor (RSRM) Nov. 1 at 1 p.m. Mountain time at ATK's launch facility in Promontory, Utah. The primary objective of the test is to validate that the RSRM's thrust vector control system, which directs the nozzle, can still perform if one of the rocket's two auxiliary power units fails (DAILY, Oct. 22).
French defense minister Herve Morin says a new system to streamline defense exports and avoid snafus like the recent failed bid to sell Rafale fighters to Morocco will be in place by early next year. Morin told Parisian daily Les Echos that the system will include a special "war room" designed to deal rapidly with major deals like the Rafale sale, which went to the U.S. F-16 after the French could not agree on a financing package (DAILY, Oct. 24).
Thanks to the addition of a Rockwell Collins heads-up display (HUD), Boeing is proceeding with its C-130 Avionics Modernization Program (AMP) aircraft despite a recent Nunn-McCurdy review and a scaled-back program.
