The C-17 Globemaster III Sustainment Partnership program between Boeing and the Defense Department reached a fleet-wide mission capable rate of 85.4 percent in 2006. This covered 150 aircraft at the beginning of 2006 and grew to include 165 C-17s by the end of the year. The 2006 rate is a 2.2 percent increase over the 83.2 percent mission capable rate in FY 2005. The C-17 program's goal for 2007 is 87.5 percent.
HELO DEAL: Industry sources say EADS is attempting to convince France and Saudi Arabia to fold a range of pending helicopter buys into a single framework deal so that economies of scale could permit Saudi industry to have a major role in assembly, parts production and product support and allow EADS' Eurocopter affiliate to acquire a local industrial beachhead. The purchases are thought to total 150 units, including 10 NH90 frigate helicopters and 35 EC130s for training applications, expected to be concluded this year.
HOT TOPIC: Investigators working for NASA's inspector general have confiscated computers and interviewed political appointees in the agency's public affairs shop as a congressionally requested probe into political spinning of government-funded climate-change research results comes to a head. Among those who have had to turn over their laptops to the IG's gumshoes is Dean Acosta, Administrator Michael Griffin's former press secretary, who has since left the agency.
U.S. Army Gen. George Casey said Feb. 1 that if confirmed to be the next Army chief of staff (CSA), his top priority will be equipping and training soldiers for combat, followed by resetting the embattled force and then trying to underpin future investments such as Future Combat Systems.
Already years behind in an effort to develop an air traffic program to provide better national security situational awareness, the Air Force now is pushing ahead with the next phase of the network for tactical mobile versions of the system. In doing so, the service could be discounting existing systems that have already proven themselves capable of protecting the president, guarding the nation's capital and providing the technological backbone for NORAD tactical missile defense systems, according to sources familiar with these types of systems.
U.S. Air Force officials argue that one reason for apparent delays and cost growth in its Battle Control System (BCS) program, meant to help prevent future aerial terrorist attacks, is because of spiral development.
A near-Earth asteroid or comet could be an early target for human explorers under some blue-sky thinking under way at NASA's exploration shops on using a hybrid of planned U.S. launch vehicles for the mission.
SPACE PACT: France and the U.S. have inked a space cooperation agreement to facilitate joint work in civil space endeavors. The two nations already cooperate on a wide range of missions, including the Topex-Poseidon oceanography and A-Train climate research programs, and are planning to work together in moon and Mars exploration as well.
DEFENSE DEAL: Esterline Technologies Corp. has agreed to pay $335 million for CMC Inc., a privately-owned Canadian defense avionics supplier. CMC has annual sales of 205 million Canadian dollars ($174 million) and employs 1,100 in Montreal, Ottawa and Chicago. Its top three customers are the U.S. and Canadian governments and Sikorsky Aircraft.
Sea Launch reports "limited damage" to the Odyssey Launch Platform following the Jan. 30 explosion at liftoff of a Zenit-3SC rocket carrying the SES New Skies NSS-8 communications satellite, causing an estimated $300 million loss counting the booster and payload. "While it has sustained limited damage, the integrity and functionality of essential marine, communications and crew support systems remains intact," the company said in a statement.
CHANGING SUBJECT: A new take on old Chinese proverbs may well be: "When the winds of global public opinion are blowing against you, change the subject." This is what the official Chinese government newspaper "The China People's Daily" has done. It totally ignored the destruction of the FY-1C polar orbit weather satellite by a Chinese anti-Satellite Weapon on Jan. 11, but instead reports how China is about to launch a brand new polar orbit weather satellite to replace older versions.
A pair of spacewalking NASA astronauts spent more than six hours outside the International Space Station on Jan. 31 in the first of a series of three extravehicular activities (EVAs) aimed at replumbing the station's cooling system for long-term operations. Michael Lopez-Alegria, the Expedition 14 commander, and Flight Engineer Sunita Williams reconfigured one of two ammonia cooling loops to the U.S. Destiny laboratory module from its temporary setup using radiators on the P6 truss to the permanent system delivered with the P4/5 Truss element last year.
'TOTAL LOSS': The National Reconnaissance Office now considers a "total loss" the mission of a small experimental satellite - L-21- that is likely part of the Future Imagery Architecture (FIA), according to sources familiar with the program. The NRO lost contact immediately after the satellite was launched, the sources said. Rep. Terry Everett (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the HASC strategic forces subcommittee, declined to discuss the mission Jan. 31 with reporters, but said it shouldn't be linked to other FIA problems..
Although the offer is still open, space entrepreneur Robert T. Bigelow doubts that any company will enter his $50 million America's Space Prize contest now that NASA has made manned orbital transportation a downstream part of its COTS commercial orbital space transportation program.
MERGER APPROVED: The French government, Thales and shipyard DCN have agreed on a plan to merge Thales' naval systems business into DCN. Under the plan, Thales will transfer all of its French naval activities except equipment manufacture to DCN, along with 100 million euros ($129 million) in cash, in return for a 25 percent share in the naval systems contractor, and reserves the right to increase its stake to 35 percent for two years.
The U.S. Army only this fiscal year began truly tracking whether more than $38.6 billion appropriated since 2002 for equipment reset has actually gone to that purpose, and the service cannot be assured that its reset programs will provide enough equipment to train and outfit personnel for current or future foreign deployments, a leading congressional auditor said Jan. 31.
