HYPERSONIC COMEBACK: Hypersonic flight is garnering more interest again, Boeing Advanced Systems President George Muellner said Sept. 25 at the Air Force Association's conference in Washington. The Navy is interested in dual combustion ramjet hypersonic missile concepts, Muellner said. The Air Force wants an endothermic hydrocarbon-fueled scramjet engine system. It will be part of the first stage of a multistage rocket-to-orbit system as part of the Air Force's reusable launch program, he said.
The Raytheon AIM-120C7 and D programs are delayed by 15 months, although program officials say the new Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles will deliver major improvements over existing models. The C7, costing about $700,000 apiece, will employ a new seeker and modernized electronics that open up free space on the missile.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency-backed Obital Express program to service orbiting satellites is on track to be launched in early December, Boeing Advanced Systems President George Muellner said Sept. 25. "This will have surveillance and service capabilities," Muellner said at the Air Force Association's annual conference in Washington.
LINZHI, Tibet - Flying down a mountain valley in the trans-Himalayas this month on an Air China Southwest Boeing 757 was made possible by the Navstar Global Positioning System satellite constellation delivering 3-4 meter (10-13 feet) accuracy.
The NASA/Lockheed Martin Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is ready to start high-resolution science operations after completing aerobraking to fly into a lower 250 x 316-kilometer orbit around the red planet.
The Department of Homeland Security said Sept. 25 that it is working with the private sector to develop smaller explosives detection systems (EDS) for airport security checkpoints to thwart the threat posed by liquid explosives.
EA-6B SPARES: The first operational deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan of VAQ-139's EA-6Bs, upgraded with the ICAP-III airborne electronic attack system, was successful enough that the U.S. Navy has ordered $22 million in spares from Northrop Grumman. The Electronics systems division in Baltimore, which manufactures the ALQ-218 receiver subsystem, will do much of the production work, which is to be completed by the end of 2009. The ALQ-218 and its package of advanced algorithms allows selective-reactive jamming and geolocation of enemy emitters.
Task-saturated U.S. Air Force pilots forgot to put down the landing gear at a forward operating base and crashed their B-1, causing $7.9 million in damage to the aircraft, $14,000 in damage to the runway and a minor back injury to the co-pilot, an Air Force investigation report says. The B-1s are now in Qatar, but have operated from Oman and Diego Garcia. The aircraft was from the 7th Bomb Wing at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas.
DNEPR FLIGHT: Russia's Dnepr light launcher is expected to return to flight at the end of November carrying Germany's new dual-use high-resolution radar satellite, TerraSAR-X. A preliminary report issued last week by a Russian state committee investigating a July 26 Dnepr failure that grounded the booster said it was caused by defective heat insulation on a heptil line between the motor and the pump hydraulic drive serving a first stage thrust vector combustion chamber.
The Drug Enforcement Administration is bringing its own rotary-wing aircraft into Afghanistan to fight drug lords, a U.S. military commander says. Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, commander, Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan, called the air assets critical in the battle against the Taliban and other enemy forces in Afghanistan at a Sept. 21 Pentagon briefing. Coalition forces there have used the helicopters for troop transportation, intelligence gathering and medevac missions, he said.
NO COMPLACENCY: The national missile defense debate is not over, proclaims Baker Spring of the Heritage Foundation. There is a "misguided perception in Congress, particularly among some supporters of missile defense, that the debate over missile defense is all but over and that the side backing missile defense has won. The facts do not warrant such complacency," he says.
Sept. 26 - 27 -- Managing the Threat of Suicide Bombers and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), NRECA Executive Conference Center, Arlington, Va. For more information go to www.homelanddefensejournal.com/hdl/conf_terrorismsept06.htm. Sept. 26 - 27 -- Global Forces 2006: Second Australian Strategic Policy Institute International Conference, Hyatt Hotel, Canberra. For more information call +61 (26) 270-5100 or go to www.aspi.org.au.
Vladimir Sergeevich Syromyatnikov, a Russian aerospace engineer who developed the docking mechanism that linked the U.S. space shuttle to the Russian Mir orbital facility and later to the International Space Station, died Sept. 19 of leukemia. He was 74.
TOW 2B: The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command has awarded Raytheon Missile Systems an $18.7 million contract for TOW 2B Aero and TOW 2B Aero Gen 2 missiles. The work on the sole-source contract, initiated on Oct. 11, 2005, will be performed in Tucson, Ariz. It is expected to be completed by June 30, 2012, the Defense Department said Sept. 20.
FCC AUCTION: The Federal Communications Commission has concluded a one-month auction of 90 MHz of 2 GHz intended for next generation mobile broadband applications. The auction brought in almost $14 billion, nearly as much as expected. The big winners were mobile phone and cable operators, while the big losers were satellite TV operators EchoStar and DirecTV, which were forced out of the bidding by the high prices.
LUNAR PRIORITIES: A special panel of U.S. scientists convened to set priorities for lunar exploration says NASA's new program can answer some basic questions about the origins of the solar system if it is properly organized. "The moon today presents a record of geologic processes of early planetary evolution in the purest form," says an interim report of the Space Studies Board of the National Research Council.
SPACE VEHICLES: NASA is studying other objectives besides the moon and Mars for its planned new generation of human space exploration vehicles, with near-Earth objects (NEOs) a prime candidate. Jeff Hanley, manager of the Constellation Program overseeing development of the exploration fleet, says a comet or asteroid in Earth's neighborhood could be a worthy objective for the Orion crew exploration vehicle (CEV) and its Ares I launcher, even though the Ares/Orion stack is being developed for a return to the moon.
RISKY IT: The Joint Tactical Radio System's Ground Mobile Radio, the Army's Global Command and Control System, the Customs and Border Protection's SBInet and the Homeland Security Department's entire Science & Technology Directorate are some of several federal information technology efforts that have made it on the latest White House Office of Management and Budget's "High Risk Investment List." Projects on the list are not necessarily "at risk," OMB officials stress, but require "special" attention from the "highest" level of agency management.
