DEAL INKED: Russian defense export firm Rosoboronexport has inked a deal to cooperate with French naval contractor DCN. Initially limited to research and development and ship engineering, the deal could later be extended to naval systems.
The U.S. Army is finalizing its program objective memorandum (POM) budget estimate for fiscal years 2008 through 2013, which by Thanksgiving should begin its final round of Pentagon vetting before the Defense Department budget submission goes to the White House next month.
Arianespace continues to rein in new launch business, benefiting from what has become a sellers' market. CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall recently revealed the company had signed up its 11th payload of the year, for an unannounced customer, just a week after landing an award for the TerreStar-1 mobile communications spacecraft. Le Gall said the new orders - three more than the company had originally targeted for 2006 - reflect the company's dependable launch record over the past three years and a scarcity of available capacity elsewhere.
NORTHROP ADVOCATE: Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott will be Senate Republicans' No. 2 leader when they enter the minority next January for the 110th Congress. Lott, once Senate majority leader when Republicans controlled the chamber at the start of the decade, beat Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander (R) after a close, eleventh-hour push that was decided Nov. 15. Lott has been an advocate for Northrop Grumman Corp. programs such as U.S. Navy and Coast Guard shipbuilding and the Global Hawk unmanned aircraft.
Blue Origin, the startup personal spaceflight concern backed by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, gave its New Shepherd reusable launch vehicle its first flight-test on Nov. 13, opening a test series that is planned to continue into 2009.
PARACHUTE CONTRACT: Irvin Aerospace will design the parachutes that ease NASA's planned Orion crew vehicle back into the atmosphere after trips to the International Space Station and eventually the moon. The Santa Ana, Calif.-based company, which also designed the chutes that took Europe's Huygens probe to the surface of Saturn's moon Titan, will work with Jacobs Sverdrup and engineers from NASA's Johnson Space Center as an integrated product team for the government-furnished parachute system. Testing is expected to begin next spring.
Congress - still finishing its 109th session - should make increasing funding for "vital" aeronautics research, extending the charter for the Export-Import Bank and reapproving the research and development (R&D) tax credit its priorities for the post-election "lame-duck" session, Aerospace Industries Association chief John Douglass said Nov. 13. "The aerospace industry counts on these measures to play our critical role in keeping the country safe and enhancing the nation's high-technology economy," he said.
With the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) flight-test scheduled for next month - and questions swirling around the Pentagon about the aircraft's ability to survive after the departure of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - the Marine Corps is beefing up the battle to secure the jet's future. The service sees the JSF as its aviation anchor in the coming decades. The F-35 is more than a replacement for the current fleet, Marine aviation officers say. The JSF, or Lightening II, is changing the way the service is looking at close-air support (CAS).
ROUGH WATERS: Naval analyst Robert Work of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment suggests the U.S. Navy invest its planned roughly $16 billion for the Maritime Prepositioning Force (Future) (MPF(F)) program into 16 additional LPD-17-class amphibious transport dock ships instead. Moreover, Work, in a public briefing on Capitol Hill, advocated for a "joint, zero-baseline review" of the seabasing concept, which he said is a millennia-old strategy that still means something different to the Navy, Marine Corps and Army.
Intelsat posted a net loss of $172.5 million for the third quarter of calendar year 2006, which reflects both the charges related to a satellite failure and the ongoing integration of the former PanAmSat into its operations. Intelsat reported revenue of $528.5 million for the quarter. The net loss includes $49 million in charges related to a Sept. 21 power anomaly with the IS-802 satellite that cut off two-thirds of its usable capacity. The satellite's affected customers in Africa and the Indian Ocean region were shifted to other satellites.
CHINESE SATELLITES: China in 2007 will launch two more Beidou "Compass" navigation spacecraft, increasing to five the number of satellites in the Chinese navigation satellite constellation. Even in its rudimentary form, the Beidou navigation satellite system can help new Chinese Type 094 ballistic missile submarines better target their missiles. China plans the Beidou system to eventually involve 35 satellites, five of them in geosynchronous orbit and the rest in medium altitude orbits.
ITALIAN RADAR: Italy has received written assurances from Russian space agency Roskosmos that it can launch its CosmoSkyMed radar constellation from the Baikonur, Kazakstan cosmodrome on the Starsem Soyuz, according to industry sources. An Italian decision to classify the dual-use system as a military payload, combined with arms export agency Rosobronexport's role as an intermediary in the sale, had jeopardized the launch because of rules in the Starsem statutes barring defense payloads.
TARGETING PODS: Lockheed Martin said Nov. 14 that it has been awarded a $20 million contract to provide Denmark's air force with LANTIRN Extended Range targeting pods. The contract calls for three new pods and upgrades to 13 existing pods. Spares, maintenance training and pilot familiarization training will also be included.
A new report from the Space Foundation pegs the global space industry at $180 billion for 2005, including $110 billion in commercial activity and $70 billion in civil government and military space. "This industry is much, much larger than most people think it is," Space Foundation President and CEO Elliot Pulham said during a conference call Nov. 14. "Space is not a little, interesting niche market... It's actually a very large and important industry."
SENATE PANELS: Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid (Nev.) on Nov. 14 announced committee assignments for the 110th Congress, which convenes in January when Democrats take over Capitol Hill. Appropriators will be chaired by longtime Sen. Robert Byrd (W.Va.) and include: Sens.
The micrometeoroid/orbiting debris strike on the orbiter Atlantis during STS-115 in September was likely caused by a tiny piece of circuit board from a previously launched space vehicle, according to the Web site NASA spaceflight.com.
NASA may be in a better position to gain a $1 billion windfall in the upcoming lame duck congressional session with the Democrats in line to gain control, but there shouldn't be major changes in overall support for space agency programs in the wake of the election.
NASA's Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV) is meeting its performance targets, contrary to rumors that its current design is overweight, according to Exploration Launch Manager Steve Cook. Last week at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, NASA kicked off the integrated system requirements review (SRR) for the Ares I, the shuttle-derived rocket that will boost the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) to orbit.
Congress should consider requiring the Department of Defense (DOD) to report how much procurement funding remains unobligated at the end of each fiscal year and how it plans to spend that money, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Given its rate of spending as of June 2006, which was nine months into fiscal 2006, "significant" multiyear procurement funding will likely remain available for use in fiscal 2007, according to GAO.
