MOVING PROENZA: House Science subcommittee chairmen Brad Miller (D-N.C.) and Nick Lampson (D-Texas) have written National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrator (NOAA) Conrad Lautenbacher requesting that if controversial National Hurricane Center Director William Proenza is removed from his position, he be returned to his previous job as Southern Region chief of the National Weather Service rather than made training chief of the "little-noticed" Office of Climate, Water and Weather services.
SECOND SARLUPE: Germany's second SARLupe radar recon satellite has entered service, a month after it was launched atop a Cosmos 3M rocket from Plesetsk, Russia. Together with the first spacecraft, orbited in December 2006, the new sub-meter resolution unit will permit the German forces to begin using SARLupe for routine operations, notably in Afghanistan. A third satellite is to be launched on Nov. 1 and the remaining two next year.
TANKER HOLDUP: The U.S. Air Force has delayed a decision to select a contractor for its future refueling tanker to as late as December. Earlier plans called for selecting a design in October. It is unclear how much the delay will affect the service's plans to outfit its first squadron as soon as 2013. The Air Force is choosing between a Boeing KC-767 and a Northrop Grumman/EADS North America KC-30.
Delta One, the first E-2D Advanced Hawkeye development aircraft, completed its first flight at St. Augustine, Fla., on Aug. 3. Built for the U.S. Navy by Northrop Grumman, the E-2D will provide joint U.S. forces and coalition partners' airborne battle management command and control from the sea, in both over-land and over-water environments. The $408 million pilot production contract for three aircraft was awarded on July 9 and follows the $2 billion System Development and Demonstration (SD&D) contract awarded August 4, 2003.
NASA's Phoenix Mars lander is undergoing initial checkout following its predawn launch from Cape Canaveral Aug. 4 on a United Launch Alliance Boeing Delta II that fired the spacecraft toward Mars at nearly 7 miles per second. The telemetry for all the spacecraft's systems show excellent performance, right in the middle of what the engineers would call the "sweet spots," says Ed Sedivy, Lockheed Martin's program manager for the flight.
COLLISION AVOIDANCE: The U.S. Air Force will integrate its new auto-ground collision avoidance system (Auto-GCAS) on the F-16 Fighting Falcon, F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II. In testing, the software-based program has proven 98 percent effective at avoiding controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) accidents, according to the Air Force. Unlike other systems, Auto-GCAS will take control of and recover the aircraft when it determines the aircraft is within 1.5 seconds of a "point of no return."
Administrator Michael Griffin says NASA is taking allegations of preflight alcohol abuse by astronauts seriously, but three weeks after an outside medical panel briefed him on the charges he says he's getting exactly the opposite picture from the astronaut corps.
AIR FORCE Hawker Beechcraft Corp., Wichita, Kan., is being awarded a firm-fixed-price contract for $9,586,312. The action provides for the Engine Life management Plan (ELMP) Data Acquisition Program. The ELMP will forecast engine overhauls in a timely manner and recommend how to manage fleet assets. At this time, $4,793,156 has been obligated. The work will be complete by July 2009. Air Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8617-07-D-6151-0004).
Although the U.S. Navy picked Northrop Grumman's entry in the unmanned combat air systems demonstration (UCAS-D) competition over Boeing's X-45, Pentagon officials say they could still use the Boeing technology. "The Boeing activity and general body of work in unmanned combat aircraft is not going to go to waste. It's being applied in a number of different areas," said Dyke Weatherington, acting director of air warfare in the Under Secretary of Defense's office, in Washington Aug. 2.
NASA OPPORTUNITIES: NASA science managers are pondering yearly calls for proposed "missions of opportunity" that would piggyback U.S. instruments on other spacecraft or otherwise take advantage of space hardware that the U.S. agency doesn't have to launch itself. The move comes as part of a larger effort to stretch the money NASA spends on space science to the max. The annual calls would highlight "opportunities to collaborate with international partners when there's a ride, or even with another U.S. partner, whether it's a commercial bird or another U.S.
GLOBAL COLLABORATION: Lockheed Martin will open its third Center for Innovation in Gurgaon, just outside Delhi, in a joint-venture with Bangalore-based software company Wipro. The facility, called the Network Centric Operation Center (NCOC) will offer "core competence in testing and analyzing war-fighting concepts and other command and control operations," says Richard Kirkland, Lockheed Martin's president for South Asia. The first two facilities are located in Suffolk, Va., and Farnborough Aerospace Center in Britain.
INVESTIGATION: Scaled Composites, a traditionally-secretive company at the best of times, is referring all inquiries about the July 26 test explosion that killed three employees to its website while the investigation, involving the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OHSA), gathers pace.
Pentagon officials are worried the $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter effort could fall short in its management reserve account, prompting the program's overseers to explore ways to replenish it, according to program and government officials.
Safran's Snecma unit has carried out the first re-ignition of its new Vinci upper stage cryogenic demonstrator. The firing, carried out at the Lampoldshausen, Germany test center operated by German aerospace center DLR, was the first re-ignition to be performed in Europe on a liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen engine.
The U.S. Navy's Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System Low Frequency Active sonar has been approved for use in Valiant Shield 2007, a major U.S. naval training exercise this month, according to an Aug. 3 notice in the Federal Register. Under a consultation required by the Endangered Species Act, the National Marine Fisheries Service concluded that the proposed exercise is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any threatened or endangered species, nor to adversely modify or destroy any designated critical habitat.
C-130J ORDERED: The U.S. Air Force is awarding Lockheed Martin an undefinitized $322 million contract modification for an additional five C-130J aircraft provided for in 2007 war-fighting supplemental appropriations. Already $161 million has been obligated for the work, which runs through December 2010. During the second FY '07 supplemental process last spring, the Bush administration tried to rescind an initial request for $388 million for five C-130Js, but Congress funded them anyway, citing readiness strains and operations tempo (DAILY, April 27).
UAV DEMO: U.S. Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) will hold its fourth biennal Unmanned Systems Demonstration Aug. 6 at the Webster Field Annex of Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md. Approximately 30 unmanned air and ground systems will participate in what NAVAIR is touting as the largest unmanned systems demonstration in history, including AAI Corp.'s Shadow, AeroVironment's Raven, Northrop Grumman's Fire Scout and Boeing/Insitu's ScanEagle.
Boeing officials say the 1974 helicopter downwash study that calls into question whether an H-47 Chinook variant could meet Air Force combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) requirements includes wash speeds immaterial to the CSAR-X competition.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected] Aug. 6 - 9 -- AUVSI's Unmmaned Systems North America 2007, Washington Convention Center, Washington, D.C. For more information go to www.auvsi.org. Aug. 20 - 23 -- National defense Dept. Procurement Conference. Adelaide (Australia) Convention Center, North Terrace. Call: +61(26)266-7049 or see www.defenceandindustry.gov.au
MARTIAN LIFE: While NASA's Phoenix lander is not designed to detect living organisms, its sensors are powerful enough to resolve objects the size of living or preserved bacteria - and more than powerful enough to spark intense scientific debate on Earth. If extremely lucky, the lander's organic chemistry laboratory might detect biological processes that occurred in the past. Any data that hints at such findings will start huge arguments about whether Phoenix has actually found life on Mars.
