The United States and French governments have agreed to establish a Transoceanic Abort Landing site for the space shuttle at Istres Air Base 125 in southern France. The agreement provides for landing at the French air force base for a shuttle that has an emergency and is unable to reach orbit or a landing site within the U.S. NASA Administrator Michael Griffin and French ambassador Jean-David Levitte signed the agreement in Washington June 7.
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has chosen to replace Associate Administrator for Exploration Craig Steidle, who will be leaving the agency by the end of June.
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, on June 8 stood by demands made a day earlier for a full, unredacted report by the Defense Department's Inspector General on the Boeing tanker lease imbroglio. "There's going to have to be some progress or else all hell is going to break loose around here on documents," Levin said. "It's inexcusable that an IG uses redacted documents that leaves out names of people who made decisions."
Arianespace has postponed the dual-launch of Spaceway 2 and Telkom-2 due to an electrical problem discovered on Telkom-2 during prelaunch testing in Kourou, French Guiana, which will require the spacecraft to be shipped back to manufacturer Orbital Sciences in the United States for diagnosis.
The Stafford-Covey Return to Flight Task Group closed out four more shuttle safety recommendations during a meeting June 8, and anticipates closing out the remaining three recommendations and delivering a preliminary report to NASA Administrator Michael Griffin before the end of this month.
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said June 8 that Gordon England's nomination for deputy secretary of defense is being held up on an ethics concern but that the problem will be fixed, possibly as soon as this week. Levin stressed to reporters that England is a strong candidate for the No. 2 Pentagon job and he enjoys ardent bipartisan SASC support, but the committee has a longtime anti-conflict requirement that has temporarily stifled moving England's nomination to the full Senate for confirmation.
The ARTEMIS satellite payload being developed by Raytheon Co. (DAILY, June 1) is intended to help demonstrate the feasibility of the "responsive space" idea, according to a company official. ARTEMIS - Advanced Responsive Tactically Effective Military Imaging Spectrometer - would fly on satellites that "would be launched on demand when needed, versus the current practice of maintaining an expensive fleet of long-life satellites in orbit," Dave Shingledecker, vice president for Raytheon Strategic Systems, said in a company announcement.
A June 7 DAILY story headlined "Raytheon team's TMOS proposal will stress flexibility, official says," should have said that the Raytheon team competing for the TMOS program includes AT&T in addition to Boeing and General Dynamics.
NEW DELHI - India has budgeted $117 million for research and development of unmanned aerial vehicles for surveillance and other purposes. The country's military services have bought UAVs at a cost of $465 million, and are expected to invest millions more in the next three to five years, M. Natarajan, the scientific adviser to the defense minister, said recently at a workshop in Hyderabad on UAVs and emerging technologies sponsored by the Defence Research Development Organisation.
The House Appropriations Committee has funded NASA at $16.5 billion in fiscal 2006, or $14.7 million more than President Bush's request and $274.7 million above the enacted FY '05 level, including supplemental funding. The committee supported a push by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), chairman of the panel's science subcommittee, to restore the agency's aeronautics research efforts at the FY '05 level of $906 million.
The House Appropriations Committee on June 7 voted to add one DDG-51 destroyer, two Littoral Combat Ships and one T-AKE amphibious cargo ship above President Bush's fiscal 2006 request, which already included four new U.S. Navy ships.
THERMAL WEAPON SIGHTS: DRS Technologies Inc. of Parsippany, N.J., has received $43 million in new orders to produce more than 4,000 Thermal Weapon Sights for the U.S. Army, the company said June 7. DRS will produce light, medium and heavy sights using uncooled infrared technology. Deliveries will begin in October 2005 and continue through October 2006.
SHIP WORK: The U.S. Navy announced late June 6 that Cascade General of Portland, Ore., was awarded a maximum $5.7 million contract for the "midterm availability" of USNS Rainier (T-AOE 7), or repair work without a full dry-docking. Rainier is a Naval Fleet Auxiliary Force ship owned and operated by Military Sealift Command. The work will be done in Portland and is expected to be finished by October.
Following a series of on-site visits with 118 hopefuls in May, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has narrowed the field for its next Grand Challenge robotic ground vehicle race to 40 teams.
The International Space Station's Elektron oxygen generation system and Control Moment Gyros remain the most pressing repair needs onboard the outpost, according to Expedition 10 Commander Leroy Chiao, who returned from his six-month stay in April. The Russian Elektron unit has "been balky for several missions now," Chiao said during an exclusive interview with The DAILY and affiliate Aviation Week & Space Technology. "Our flight was no exception."
SEARCHLIGHTS: Xenonics Holdings Inc. said June 7 that the U.S. Marine Corps has bought roughly $3 million worth of its NightHunter illumination systems. The Carlsbad, Calif., company expects to ship the entire order immediately. Xenonics chief executive Dick Naughton said the company would continue lobbying lawmakers and defense officials and expects the effort to lead to more orders. The product, a compact searchlight, can illuminate objects more than a mile away with no "black hole" to obstruct the field of view, according to a company statement.
NEW DELHI - India has successfully test fired Pinaka, an indigenously developed multibarrel rocket system, from the Defence Research and Development Organisation's demonstration facility in Chandipur. Developed by the Armament Research and Development Establishment, Pinaka is an area weapon system aimed at supplementing the existing artillery guns at a range beyond 30 kilometers (18.7 miles). According to Indian army sources, the first phase of user trials has been successfully completed, and DRDO is working on suggested improvements.
Lockheed Martin has been awarded two contracts worth $22.8 million to provide field support and upgrades for tactical missile defense radar systems used by U.S. Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan, the company said June 7.
