Boeing envisions a mix of two medium Earth orbit (MEO) and two geostationary (GEO) spacecraft for the U.S. Air Force's Space Based Surveillance System (SBSS), which the service is developing to keep watch over events in orbit. Boeing and Ball Aerospace are leading the team developing the SBSS Block 10 satellite, which will be a GEO spacecraft. The follow-on Block 20 system originally was envisioned as four LEO satellites that would be developed and procured separately.
Alion Science and Technology said Feb. 20 that it was awarded a $1.7 million Phase 1 award to develop a prototype demonstrator for the U.S. Navy's proposed Seabase Connector Transformable-Craft (T-Craft), which would transport wheeled and tracked vehicles through the surf zone and onto a beach under the service's seabasing concept of operations.
FREER HAND: The management of Hong Kong satellite operator AsiaSat would have a freer hand in coping with excess Asian transponder capacity if the company's majority owners, General Electric Capital and Chinese state investor Citic, buy out public shareholders. The takeover offer follows persistent oversupply of transponder capacity and the slow introduction of new applications in the Asia-Pacific region, the companies say. As a result, the satellite market in the region remains very competitive, and AsiaSat's share price has not performed satisfactorily.
Investigators probing the Jan. 30 explosion of a Sea Launch Zenit-3SL booster are focusing on a possible malfunction in the engine's liquid oxygen (LOX) system. The vehicle's LOX/kerosene RD-170 engine, built by Russia's Energomash, burns oxygen rich, and the blockage of an oxygen line or pressurization failure in the oxygen system is being evaluated as a potential cause of the accident. Also being studied is the timing of the malfunction in relation to the capabilities of the Zenit's fault protection software.
ARMY AAI Corp., Hunt Valley, Md., was awarded on Feb. 9, 2007, a $61,262,609 modification to a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for Performance Based Logistics for the SHADOW Unmanned Aerial Vehicle System. The work will be performed in Hunt Valley, Md., and is expected to be completed by Oct. 31, 2007. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This was a sole source contract initiated on Sept. 26, 2006. The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (W31P4Q-06-C-0256). NAVY
BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION: Thomas Modly, deputy undersecretary of defense for financial management, stresses that a primary challenge for the defense acquisition community is cutting development cycle time - pointing to Iraqi insurgents' capability to adapt to new improvised explosive device defenses in less than two weeks; defenses that took 12 months to develop and roll out across U.S. forces. "Dealing with change is 'the' work," he told an AVIATION WEEK conference event Feb. 13.
The five NASA/University of California Themis auroral research spacecraft are being maneuvered into alignment within orbits extending 1,250-117,000 miles following launch from Cape Canaveral Feb. 17 onboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II booster. The $180 million mission is an international project conducted with Germany, France, Austria and Canada. It is also NASA's first five-satellite mission and the first to investigate how Earth's auroras are triggered by the storage and release of energy in Earth's magnetosphere.
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates - As the U.S. military's requirement for a new fleet of mine-resistant vehicles skyrockets, officials involved in the fast-tracked purchase are considering plans for a formal acquisition program, a senior Army official said here at the IDEX 2007 defense exhibition.
SIKORSKY CENTER: Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. and Gulf Helicopters of Doha, Qatar, are looking into establishing an "Aviation Center of Excellence" in the Middle East. The proposed center would provide maintenance support, spares, training and design and development services to Sikorsky, Gulf and other commercial and governmental aircraft owners and operators in the tumultuous region. In addition, the center would perform various levels of depot level maintenance on rotary and fixed wing aircraft.
BEARING ARMS: The Arms Control Association advocacy group is urging Russian and U.S. leaders to stick with a 1987 nuclear arms and missile accord, which they credit with easing Cold War tensions and slowing the superpower arms race last century. Russian Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, chief of general staff, hinted recently that Russia could withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which prohibits U.S. and Russian possession of nuclear and conventional ground-launched missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers. Russian officials have criticized U.S.
Feb. 20 -- The Royal Aeronautical Society Capital Branch Winter Lecture and Annual General Meeting featuring FAA Administrator Marion C. Blakey, The Boeing Company auditorium, Arlington, Va. For more information call Stuart Matthews at (703) 739-6700 ext 108 or Alan Hickling at (703) 693-1678. Feb. 26 - 27 -- 15th Annual International Conference on ISO 9000, Disney's Coronado Springs Resort, Orlando, Fla. For more information call (412) 782-3383 or go to www.iso9000conference.com.
The F-22 Raptor will use Tactical Targeting Network Technology (TTNT) to transmit data and other information that can be used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), said Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Peterson, service chief of warfighting integration and chief information officer. Speaking about the Raptor on Feb. 16 at an Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association luncheon, Peterson said, "You cannot imagine the exquisite ISR platform it is."
'BREAKING GROUND:' Lt. Gen. Gary North, chief of U.S. Central Command's air forces, says that he's trying not to have to increase the number of sorties for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft needed to support the new security strategy on the ground in Iraq. Instead, he says, officials are "breaking ground" in coordinating tips from various ISR aircraft already executing missions there. Furthermore, communications via secret Internet chat rooms are allowing ground soldiers to use information from the ISR aircraft more quickly.
Astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria and cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin are scheduled for a six-hour spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Feb. 22 to swing a stuck Progress-vehicle docking antenna out of the way. The antenna failed to retract as designed when the unpiloted supply vehicle docked to the aft end of the Zvezda service module last October. Controllers in Moscow and Houston worry that in its current configuration the antenna will snag handrails on Zvezda's hull and go out of control during its planned undocking in April.
GOOD ENOUGH: Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley rebuts reports that he was unhappy with his service's choice last year of a Boeing Chinook-based design for the future Combat Search and Rescue Helicopter (CSAR-X). At the end of a press conference at the annual Air Force Association meeting in Orlando, Fla., this month, he tried to set the record straight. "That's a big helicopter," he remarked about Boeing's design. The winner wasn't his top choice, but "we'll make this work."
FLYING AGAIN: The U.S. Air Force resumed Global Hawk flights from Beale Air Force Base on Feb. 15, nearly three months after a communications loss incident in November that prompted the suspension of Global Hawk flights from the base and a long series of negotiations with FAA over the development of new lost-link procedures for the aircraft.
The Defense Appropriations Subcommittee in the House of Representatives is putting the aerospace/defense industry on notice: it doesn't have a high regard for the job it has been doing, and it intends to "reduce cost overruns and poor performance" in military procurement programs. That's the message subcommittee member Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.) had for industry and other government officials attending Aviation Week's Defense Technology and Requirements conference in Washington last week.
NASA should more consistently follow its own guidance on the payment of award fees to contractors to ensure that such fees are better tied to program outcomes, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). At the request of the House Science & Technology Committee, GAO reviewed $31 billion in cost-plus-award-fee (CPAF) contracts at NASA during fiscal years 2002-2004. CPAF contracts accounted for almost half of NASA's contracting dollars over that time, GAO said in a report released Feb. 16.
ATTACK UNLIKELY: In recent public comments, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the United States won't attack Iran. That should not surprise those who have read his book, "From the Shadows, The Ultimate Insider's View of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War," published in 1996 and released in paperback in 2006.
