NASA will accelerate missions featuring space nuclear power, marking a major milestone for robotic exploration but a controversial move among groups that oppose the technology because of launch safety concerns.
THINK SMALLER: A new study sponsored by the respected International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) is proposing a new emphasis on space missions to explore small bodies and asteroids as even a potential alternative to a return to expensive manned lunar operations. The IAA sees this as a way to develop technologies for future manned Mars exploration without development of a lunar base, while also doing something exciting and truly new.
PROMPT STUDY: The U.S. Air Force-led Prompt Global Strike Analysis of Alternatives will be complete next spring, according to Gen. Kevin Chilton, the next likely head of U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM). The analysis is exploring military concepts proposed by the armed services and industry to identify the concepts best suited to close what STRATCOM has deemed a prompt global strike capability gap.
Northrop Grumman says its directed infrared technology counter measures (DIRCM) technology is ready for testing if the Defense Department begins studying missile defense systems for the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF).
Lockheed Martin has successfully completed the Paveway II Dual Mode Laser Guided Bomb (DMLGB) first article test program for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, the company announced Sept. 27. The test program wrapped up in March 2007 at the China Lake Test Range in California. Twenty-five DMLGBs were released from AV-8B and F/A-18 aircraft under various release conditions, successfully demonstrating terminal impact control against horizontal and vertical targets, the company said.
SUCCESSFUL DESTRUCTION: A ground-based midcourse ballistic intercept missile launched from Vandenberg Air Force base, Calif., successfully hit a target missile launched from Kodiak Island, Alaska, missile proponents declared Sept. 28. "The remarkable technical feat demonstrated today for the seventh time clearly gives our country security and reassurance that the current 23 ground-based interceptors deployed in California and Alaska can and will protect our public from long-range ballistic missiles," the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance said.
The U.S. Army is going to need an extra $13 billion or so a year to replace war-related equipment losses until about three years after the Iraq war winds down, and thereafter will require a bigger piece of the defense budget, according to Army Secretary and former Texas politician Pete Geren.
A new front in Washington's airlifter war opened up Sept. 27 with the Air Force declaring Lockheed Martin's C-5 Reliability Enhancement and Re-engining (RERP) program in violation of Nunn-McCurdy cost triggers, but Lockheed and its supporters on Capitol Hill challenging the Air Force's cost estimates for the program. Lockheed Martin argues that the RERP program's cost will grow at rates below the Nunn-McCurdy threshold notification requirement and that the RERP program will fit within current long-term budgets, but the Air Force disagrees on both points.
AFRICAN MICROSATS: Four African nations plan to set up a micro-satellite-based earth observation system to monitor land/water use, agriculture, forestry and other environmental parameters. The African Resource Management system, sponsored by the African Union, will include space and ground assets from Nigeria, Algeria, South Africa and Kenya. Nigerian and Algerian systems are already in place.
WARMING UP: Prospective international partners are warming up to the idea of cooperating with NASA on lunar exploration given the agency's demonstrated commitment to the International Space Station (ISS), says Deputy NASA Administrator Shana Dale.
DOD LAUNCH SITES: U.S. Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, the next likely head of U.S. Strategic Command, is calling for more spending to upgrade the military's two key launch sites at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., and Cape Canaveral, Fla. "And I would support efforts to explore how we might better leverage other launch ranges such as Wallops, Kwajalein, White Sands and Kodiak," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee at his nomination hearing Sept. 27. The panel endorsed his nomination.
LOGISTICS AWARDS: Boeing, GE Aviation, Raytheon, and their respective military customers have won this year's Performance Based Logistics (PBL) Awards sponsored by DOD and the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA). Boeing and the Navy won the System Level Award for the F/A-18 Integrated Readiness Supply Teaming program that saw mission capable rates increase to 73 percent in May 2007 from 57 percent in May 2000.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has denied Raytheon's protest of the U.S. Army and Air Force's decision to award the Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA) program to the C-27J team of L-3 Communications, Alenia North America and Boeing. "We did not find any basis to sustain the protest," GAO Managing Associate General Counsel Michael Golden told Aerospace Daily & Defense Report on Sept. 27. GAO hopes to release a public version of the decision by the end of next week.
Having secured two elements of its maritime surveillance program with development of the P-8A patrol aircraft and the review of proposals for an unmanned maritime surveillance aircraft, the U.S. Navy is turning its attention to replacing the P-3 Orion fleet as the remaining pillar of the service's recapitalization.
LONG-RANGE IR: Massachusetts-based FLIR Systems received a $47.6 million contract from U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) for Hand-Held Imagers-Long Range (HHI-LR) and associated items. The contract covers five to 705 HHI-LR, a thermal/infrared imager system for long-range target detection and viewing. Work is expected to be finished in September 2012.
HYDERABAD, India - European industry and government officials are scrambling to head off a clash over procurement and other issues that could torpedo a European Commission (EC) plan to reorganize and refinance the troubled Galileo satellite navigation system. Leaders from the European Space Agency (ESA), leading national space agencies and the industry prime contractor team were to meet in Paris to iron out a procurement policy proposal acceptable to the 25 European Union nations before the EC transport ministers meet on Oct. 2 to discuss the EC plan.
HYDERABAD, India - Early settlers on the moon could use their relative isolation to try new forms of governing themselves, much as European colonists in 17th century North America sought religious freedom, according to a young researcher who works on small lunar missions at NASA's Ames Research Center.
If NASA is funded under a continuing budget resolution by Congress for the second fiscal year in a row, the effect on the agency would be "devastating," according to Deputy Administrator Shana Dale. NASA was funded under a continuing resolution (CR) for fiscal 2007 that essentially froze spending at FY '06 levels, giving the agency a topline budget of $16.3 billion and amounting to a $500 million cut from the agency's overall request. Another CR for FY '08 would amount to a $1 billion cut from NASA's $17.3 billion request.
Bell Helicopter has been given one final opportunity to right its troubled Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) program, a course of action U.S. Army Secretary Pete Geren calls "the best of the difficult choices we had."
NPOESS CHIEF: Dan Stockton has been named the new program executive officer for the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). Stockton, who replaces Brig. Gen. Susan Mashiko, will be responsible for overseeing NPOESS and the NPOESS System Program Director and serve as the Fee Determining Official for the next-generation civil/military weather satellite program. Before being named PEO, Stockton served for two years as the system program director (SPD) for NPOESS, as a colonel in the U.S. Air Force.
