ATV TRAVELS: EADS Astrium says the protoflight model of Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) has left Rotterdam, Netherlands, aboard the Toucan, the vessel used to transport Ariane rockets and large payloads to the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The 400-metric ton shipment, which includes test equipment and rigs as well as the 20-ton ATV, comprises 49 20-foot containers, four 40-foot containers and 16 outsize units. It is due to arrive in Kourou on July 29 in anticipation of a scheduled liftoff in late January.
The Boeing team and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency successfully completed a key Airborne Laser (ABL) flight-test July 13, demonstrating the weapon system's ability to actively track an airborne target, compensate for atmospheric turbulence and fire a surrogate for its missile-killing high energy laser.
CHIEF ENGINEER: NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has named Michael Ryschkewitsch the agency's chief engineer. He succeeds Christopher Scolese, who was selected as NASA's associate administrator on July 11 to replace Rex Geve-den. Ryschkewitsch is responsible for the overall review and technical readiness of all NASA programs. He served as the deputy center director for Goddard Space Flight Center since October 2005.
Boeing Integrated Defense Systems is counting on its deep heritage as an avionics integrator in civil and military aircraft, space launch vehicles and spacecraft to bring it a win in the bidding for the Instrument Unit Avionics (IUA) on NASA's Ares I crew launch vehicle. The company plans to have its final bid documents covering cost in to IUA project managers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center by July 30. The agency is expected to award a contract for the 5.5-meter-diameter instrument ring in November.
NEW FPGAs: BAE Systems will restart production of radiation-hardened field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) for use in space after a manufacturing hiatus that has lasted since 2006. The semiconductors will be used on a host of military satellite systems as well as some commercial systems, and they are hardened against a dose of 300K rads (Si). The FPGAs will be produced under a licensing agreement with Actel Corp., a legacy producer of the semiconductors. The new RH1280B will be suitable for systems designed for the earlier RH1280 semiconductor.
Crew protection kits for soldiers in Iraq arrived late, incomplete or broken, putting warfighters at risk, according to a recent DOD Inspector General (IG) report. Military buyers at U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) Life Cycle Management Command (LCMC) failed to make sure the contractor could do the work, said the June 27 report, "Procurement Policy for Armored Vehicles."
U.S. and U.K. officials expect to identify contractors and projects by the end of the year that will be preordained to benefit under a pending U.S.-U.K. treaty that would obviate some export licenses between the two countries over most defense and counterterrorism trade.
ARMY The Wexford Group International Inc., Vienna, Va., was awarded a delivery order amount of $63,059,962 as part of a $63,059,962 firm-fixed-price contract for operations support for the Asymmetric Warfare Group. Work will be performed in Vienna, Va., and is expected to be completed by July 2, 2011. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There were two bids solicited on March 6, 2006, and two bids were received. The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, Huntsville, Ala., is the contracting activity (W9113M-06-D-0005).
ARMY SECRETARY: U.S. Army boosters say Senate confirmation of Pete Geren as the service's 20th secretary July 13 was an important step toward providing continuity of senior leadership.
NONKINETIC EFFECTS: U.S. Navy Capt. Scott Stearney, commander of Carrier Air Group Seven, which just returned from duty in the Middle East, says that his recent deployment was the first in which nonkinetic effects were emphasized during operations. Kinetic and nonkinetic effects such as electronic warfare were "equally important" during recent ops, he said during the Precision Strike Association's recent symposium.
BRAZILIAN BLACK HAWKS: The U.S. Army is moving to sell six UH-60L Black Hawk helicopters, 12 T-700-GE-701C engines and two spares, as well as related services, logistics support and equipment. The potential $300 million deal would serve U.S. interests by boosting a South American ally that has played an "important" role in providing political stability and economic progress there, according to a DOD notice to Congress published in the Federal Register. The deal, for Sikorsky Aircraft helos and GE engines, does not involve offsets.
HORNET PODS: The U.S. Navy awarded Raytheon an $18.5 million contract modification to provide an infrared marker upgrade on Hornet and Super Hornet targeting pods to add to F/A-18 ground operations capabilities. The upgrade will affect Lots 4 and 5 of the Advanced Targeting Forward- Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) program, the company said July 12. Raytheon has delivered more than 190 pods to the Navy, and the program is currently in Lot 3 full-rate production. The company expects to begin building Lot 4 pods in December.
ISR FUNDING: While huge amounts of money are going to the U.S. Air Force's strike systems, including the F-22 and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, not enough attention is being placed on developing appropriate intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities to support them, says Air Force Maj. Gen. (ret.) Tim Peppe, a top business development official at Northrop Grumman. "There is not a whole hell of a lot of money realistically" going into ISR, he told an audience at the Precision Strike Association's annual summer symposium in Virginia Beach. Va.
Military buyers caused unnecessary delays in the deliveries of initial mine-resistant, ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicles and similar equipment because they failed to properly follow Pentagon acquisition guidelines, a recently released DOD Inspector General (IG) report says.
NASA will pay Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR) a total of $1.2 billion through the end of 2012 to develop and deliver eight J2-X rocket engines for the U.S. aerospace agency's planned Ares family of launch vehicles. Jeff Hanley, who heads NASA's Constellation Program that is building the vehicles necessary for a human return to the moon, said the schedule covered by the contract signed July 16 will support the current program target that sees the engine flying its first humans to space in September 2013.
In a reversal of fortune for Alcoa, the dominant aluminum supplier to the aerospace industry withdrew its $29 billion offer to buy Alcan after the Canadian company struck a more lucrative $38 billion deal to sell itself to a different suitor. Alcan agreed on July 12 to be acquired instead by Rio Tinto, a major mining company based in the United Kingdom and Australia. If the deal goes through, the new Rio Tinto subsidiary called Rio Tinto Alcan would then aim to be a major player in the global aluminum industry.
The U.S. has formally approached the Indian government to re-examine its choice of Eurocopter's AS 550 C3 Fennec over Bell's 407 in a recent competition to provide helicopters to the Indian army on the grounds that Bell wasn't given a "fair opportunity" to bid for the deal. The 197 medium-lift helicopters are to replace the army's 1970s Chetak and Cheetah helicopters. The initial five contenders in the fray were Eurocopter, Bell, Agusta, Kamov and Kazan. Extensive trials
WEBB PARTNERS: NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) President and Chief Executive Officer Laurier J. Boisvert signed an official agreement July 16 at NASA headquarters in Washington that defines the terms of the agencies' cooperation on the James Webb Space Telescope. NASA will build and operate the spacecraft and telescope, while CSA plans to provide the fine guidance sensor instrument used for locating and maintaining a fixed pointing on a guide star and ensuring the observatory's stability.
