The first two of the new fleet of VH-71 helicopters built for the U.S. president have entered flight-testing with the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., the Navy announced Jan. 10. The Navy-owned test vehicles, TV-2 and TV-5, arrived at Patuxent River in November and December, respectively, aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 cargo plane from AgustaWestland's facility in Yeovil, England. The government and industry integrated test team will use the aircraft primarily for structural and propulsion testing, and pilot training.
A leading agitator on Capitol Hill for long-term energy thinking and the implications on U.S. warfighting said Jan. 9 that future presidential administrations may have to seriously reconsider how the U.S. military is used to meet policy and military requirements.
SHUTTLE SCHEDULE: Shuttle managers have outlined a tentative return to flight schedule for the fleet, pending verification that the Atlantis STS-122 external tank on Launch Complex 39A is indeed ready for launch on a mission to carry the European Columbus laboratory to the International Space Station. But engine cutoff (ECO) sensor system testing continues. If test data are favorable, the Atlantis launch will be officially scheduled for as early as Feb. 7, to avoid conflicts with a Russian Progress tanker also set for launch to the ISS in early February.
Scientists will get their first close look at the planet Mercury in 33 years on Jan. 14 as NASA's Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging (Messenger) probe flies within 124 miles of previously uncharted terrain. Launched Aug. 3, 2004, Messenger will be making the first of three planned Mercury flybys designed to use the planet's gravity to slow it enough to go into orbit. Because of the difficulty of reaching the innermost planet, that won't happen until March 2011.
PARIS - Eurocopter sold more than 800 helicopters in 2007 and saw deliveries jump 30 percent over the 2006 level, EADS CEO Louis Gallois said. But the strong order book, which Eurocopter CEO Lutz Bertling said will allow the rotorcraft maker to retain its market-leading position, doesn't mean there are not challenges, particularly on government business.
FUEL CHARGES: The U.S. Justice Department announced Jan. 7 that two Defense Department contractors were arrested in New York City on Jan. 6 and charged with conspiring to steal information relating to DOD contracts to supply fuel to defense aircraft worldwide. Two contractor firms and a third individual also are charged with participating in the conspiracies. Along with Christopher Cartwright and Paul Wilkinson, two affiliated companies - Prague, Czech Republic-based Far East Russia Aircraft Services Inc.
A manufacturing defect is the root cause for the failure of a primary structure that contributed to the crash of a Missouri Air National Guard F-15C last November, the U.S. Air Force says. The upper right side longeron was poorly manufactured by F-15 producer McDonnell Douglas in the 1970s, said Air Force Col. William Wignall, accident investigation board president. McDonnell Douglas was later acquired by Boeing, which continues to sell F-15s and support them. Wignall spoke at a Jan. 10 Pentagon press conference.
ALL HAIL: The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has turned back ImlCorp's and Wattre Corp.'s protests against a U.S. Navy contract awarded to American Technology Corp. (ATC) for acoustic hailing devices. The award was made based on ATC's higher technical rating and lowest evaluated price. ATC's higher overall technical rating primarily reflected the firm's highly satisfactory ratings under the two most important subfactors - product sample and specification compliance - under the most important evaluation factor - capability, GAO said Jan. 9.
NOAA #2: President Bush will nominate William J. Brennan as assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere, the vacant No. 2 position at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). He is currently deputy assistant commerce secretary for international affairs and acting director of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.
JSC SUPPORT: Lockheed Martin announced Jan. 8 that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with United Space Alliance to support Lockheed Martin's pursuit of the Facilities Development and Operations Contract (FDOC) at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC). Lockheed Martin is the current contractor for the Mission Support Operations Contract and United Space Alliance is the contractor for the Space Program Operations Contract at JSC, both of which will become part of the FDOC contract.
PREDATOR TEAMING: General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. and Sener Ingeniería y Sistemas S.A. of Spain announced Jan. 9 that they have signed a teaming agreement to promote General Atomics' Predator unmanned aerial vehicle to support Spain's airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) requirements. Sener is an engineering, consultancy and systems integration company with branches in Spain, Buenos Aires, Lisbon, Mexico, Warsaw and Japan.
Third and fourth-generation cellular telephone technologies, with their wider channel width (3G) and faster data rates (4G), are being adapted and reshaped to fill the needs of military cyber-warriors, according to top electronic warfare researchers. Military organizations around the globe, including those in the U.S., are using commercially developed attack and network exploitation technologies to build an arsenal of rapidly upgraded, flexible and hard-to-avoid cyber weapons. Organized crime
Lisa Porter, NASA associate administrator for aeronautics research, will leave the agency on or around Feb. 1 to become the first director of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA). In a Jan. 9 notice to colleagues at the civil space and aeronautics agency, Porter said the new organization will sponsor innovative research that will yield revolutionary game-changing capabilities for the intelligence community.
The U.S. Coast Guard's maritime security workload, already stretched since the 9/11 attacks, is likely to increase in the future as more liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities are added, requiring more escorts of LNG tankers, a new congressional report concludes.
KILLER BEES: Northrop Grumman successfully demonstrated its beyond line-of-sight tactical communications relay (BTCR) using two 4th-generation Killer Bee (KB4) tactical unmanned aerial vehicles (TUAVs) built by California-based Swift Engineering. The KB4s were launched sequentially and deployed to link remote ground squads in a Dec. 13 test at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, Calif. A Swift Engineering ground station established a ground-to-air, air-to-ground network that extended the over-the-horizon communications ranges.
MKV DEVELOPMENT: Lockheed Martin's Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV) is on track for flight-testing in the 2012-2014 timeframe, officials said in a Jan. 8 teleconference. The program is in the development phase with a focus on component testing. Lockheed officials noted several successes in testing of the Advanced Divert and Attitude Control (DACS) systems and said the company will continue work on testing the additional subsystems required to make the flight-test a reality.
NEW HQ: MBDA has opened a new research, development and headquarters facility in Plessis-Robinson, near Paris, that will replace three former Paris-area plants. Construction of the 70,000 square meter, five-building complex, which will house 3,000 employees, is part of an ongoing consolidation plan involving facilities in France, Italy and the U.K.
Lawmakers on Jan. 9, especially Democrats, chided President Bush's "surge" of U.S. land forces to Iraq last year for not achieving policy benchmarks and called for a quick resolution over a confused debate about the status of the fiscal 2008 defense authorization measure.
Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) has won a contract to provide facility support services at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston. The company estimates the value of the contract - which has a two-year base period, two one-year options and six one-year performance-based award terms - to be $544 million if all options are exercised. The award follows a contract signed with NASA in January 2002. CSC will operate the mission control power plant and provide operations and maintenance support services for facilities at JSC.
Boeing will deliver the last of 61 MH-47Gs to the U.S. Army's Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) by 2010, enabling the service to double the size of its force structure, said Col. Newman Shufflebarger, cargo helicopter project manager. The MH-47G is the seventh iteration of Boeing's heavy-lift helicopter. SOAR currently operates 23 E-models and 11 D-models. "With 61 G's, [SOAR can] establish another battalion," Shufflebarger said. The D-models will eventually be phased out.
The Air Force has cleared about 60 percent of its F-15A-D fleet to a limited flight status after having grounded them following a catastrophic Nov. 2, 2007, F-15C crash.
