KOUROU, FRENCH GUIANA -- European and Russian officials this week finalized a data exchange agreement related to moving the Soyuz launch vehicle to the European space port at Kourou, French Guiana. Work on the launch site has been going on for several years, but engineers have had to use workarounds in some technical areas in the absence of the data exchange protocol. Negotiating the details were often tricky due to Russian concerns about loss of technical know-how, according to program officials.
DANISH JSF: Denmark has signed on to the next phase of the Joint Strike Fighter, Pentagon officials announced Feb. 28. The signing ceremony took place in Copenhagen on Feb 27. Danish Defense Minister Soren Gade added his signature to the production, sustainment, and follow-on development agreement already signed by the United States, The Netherlands, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Norway and Italy.
Japan plans to start replacing its optical-reconnaissance satellites in 2009 after launching the second of its two radar-reconnaissance satellites into a 400-600 kilometer polar orbit on Feb. 24. The Tanegashima Island launch on an H-IIA rocket completes a four-spacecraft reconnaissance system planned eight years ago.
Pentagon planners will re-examine whether the Defense Department needs more C-17 cargo aircraft, rather than shutting down the production line, due to President Bush's call to grow the Army and Marine Corps by 92,000 troops, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England told leading Senate defense appropriators Feb. 28. "We will take a look at it based on the increased size of the force," England said.
BRITISH SNIPERS: Lockheed Martin Corp. said Feb. 26 that it won the first "head-to-head" competition in the United Kingdom for an advanced targeting pod for fighter jets, citing a Defense Ministry contract for Sniper pods for Harrier GR9 aircraft. "The U.K. MOD selected Sniper ATP for its proven combat capabilities and low-risk integration benefits," declared Hugh Woods, program manager of Sniper ATP UK at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. Sniper deliveries will begin in March, with a full capability deployment in June.
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told Senate lawmakers Feb. 28 that the first launch of the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) with astronauts aboard is likely to slip to early 2015 as a result of the budget cut contained in the recently passed fiscal 2007 continuing resolution.
JUST PASSING THROUGH: Skimming toward its closest approach on Feb. 25, The Philae lander on ESA's Rosetta probe imaged Mars's Syrtis region and took a self-portrait at the same time. Four minutes later, the spacecraft passed within 1,000 kilometers of the surface in a gravity-boost swing-by that will bring it back for another Earth flyby in November. The winding route is designed to take Rosetta and its lander to the comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014.
The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has awarded Lockheed Martin a $979 million contract to further develop the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Weapon System. The contract will cover the next phase of Aegis BMD development, which includes equipment and computer program development and incorporation of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense Signal Processor (Aegis BSP) into the AN/SPY-1 radar. The Aegis BSP is scheduled for installment on all Aegis BMD ships beginning in 2010.
LONDON - Britain will send 1,400 more troops to southern Afghanistan, as well as additional transport helicopters and strike and transport aircraft, British Defense Secretary Des Browne said Feb. 26. The additional deployment was at NATO's request, Browne said. It will bring the number of British personnel deployed in the country to 7,700. London has been pushing other NATO partners to contribute more to Afghanistan, but has been mainly unsuccessful.
Lawmakers looking to pay for multiplying spending demands could cancel the U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems, cutting $23 billion over the next five years from the Army's projected budget authority needs, according to several options listed in a new report from the Congressional Budget Office.
Congress must fund the Defense Department's second fiscal 2007 supplemental request for $93.4 billion before May or the Pentagon will start taking significant appropriations from other defense spending with the Army as the prime loser, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Senate appropriators Feb. 27. "If these additional funds are delayed, the military will be forced to engage in costly and counterproductive reprogramming actions starting this spring to make up the shortfall," Gates said.
NO ENGINE FAILURE: As FAA and National Transportation Safety Board representatives prepare to begin an investigation into the crash of the prototype Bell ARH-70A helicopter on Feb. 21, a Honeywell official says "at this point there is no indication whatsoever that the Honeywell turboshaft engine failed in flight, or that there was a loss of power due to any failure of the engine." The helicopter made a forced landing on a golf course in Mansfield, Texas, on its first flight. (DAILY, Feb. 23). There were no injuries to the two pilots or people on the ground.
Breaking its silence, the Air Force said Feb. 27 it believes it can "comply with the intent of the recommendations more narrowly" made by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) in the agency's decision to uphold the protest of the service's contract for more than 140 combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) aircraft worth between $10 billion and $15 billion.
A sudden hailstorm at Kennedy Space Center Feb. 26 damaged the big external tank on the space shuttle Atlantis as it waited on the pad for a planned March 15 launch to the International Space Station, forcing managers to delay the STS-117 mission at least a month for inspection and repair.
The U.S. Air Force says that its F-22 fighter's debut in a Red Flag aerial combat training exercise with coalition forces underscored the known attributes of the stealthy jet, though the demonstration did not include trials of its most exotic electronic attack capabilities. Employment of electronic attack tactics, which are inherently offered by the F-22's Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar, was not included in the exercise that took place this month at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev.
The Army wants to accelerate the technology and capabilities being planned for the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV), and it's looking for 18,000 better armored vehicles that would be a JLTV, a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle or some combination of the two, said service Brig. Gen. Charles Anderson, director of force modernization. The vehicles provide better protection against improvised explosive devices, currently the most lethal enemy weapon in Iraq.
NASA has added an unmanned orbital flight of the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) in March 2013 to gather additional data prior to the first manned Orion flight scheduled for that October. "We wanted to insert an unmanned orbital flight before we put humans onboard," Exploration Launch Manager Steve Cook told The DAILY, Feb. 27. The Orion will be boosted to orbit by the Ares I - a modified five-segment space shuttle solid rocket booster.
Iran is expected to develop an operative nuclear weapon by 2015, top U.S. officials told Congress Feb. 27. While al Qaeda poses "the greatest [terrorist] threat to U.S. interests," the directors of National Intelligence and the Defense Intelligence Agency told the Senate Armed Services Committee that because of their nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, Iran and North Korea "are the states of most concern to us."
WORKING EFFICIENTLY: Science Applications International Corp. identified itself Feb. 26 as one of four contractors chosen to bid for work under a $930 million, 10-year contract to help develop tactics, techniques and procedures for how the services can work more efficiently together. Other providers include Bevilacqua Research Corp., L-3 Communications' Titan Group and Wyle Laboratories Inc. (DAILY, Jan. 12). The multiple-award contract has a five-year base period of performance with five one-year options.
Bell Helicopter Textron is in the final stages of completing a nine-year, 7,000-hour fatigue test program for the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft. The tests, which began in April 1998, ensure that the Osprey's structural integrity meets a fatigue-life spectrum equal to 20,000 flight hours, or two service lifetimes.
The Australian defense department has finalized the in-service support contract for its yet-to-be delivered Airbus A330-200-derived refueling aircraft. Australian airline Qantas, which operates a fleet of A330, will provide the 20-year engineering, maintenance, supply and training support. The contract involves establishing small organizations at two sites - Royal Australian Air Force Base Amberley and Brisbane Airport.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) plans to expand a pilot program testing X-ray technology, which can detect weapons and explosives beneath a person's clothes, to airports in New York and Los Angeles. The TSA began its long-awaited test of the controversial backscatter X-ray passenger screening technology last week at Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX) with a closet-sized SmartCheck screening system manufactured by American Science and Engineering (AS&E).
