AGREEMENT: NASA and FAA will work together to encourage students to develop skills in science, technology, engineering and math under a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the agencies May 9. The partnership includes a broad range of cooperative outreach activities and will initially focus on NASA's "Smart Skies" - an online air traffic control simulator for students in fifth through ninth grades. NASA developed Smart Skies in conjunction with air traffic controllers at FAA's facility in Oakland, Calif.
A federal government clampdown on flying unmanned aerial vehicles in the national airspace has clipped the wings of UAV system developers. Last year, FAA made it more difficult to fly UAVs in U.S. skies and according to Kevin Blenkhorn, director of unmanned systems for 21st Century Systems of Arlington, Va., even defense contractors are finding it difficult to develop the kind of unmanned systems the Pentagon wants.
SES Americom will buy at least two and as many as five new Star-2 hybrid communications satellites from Orbital Sciences Corp. under a contact announced May 8. The new satellites - initially a replacement bird designated AMC-5R and a ground spare - will include cross-strapping capabilities between some of their C- and Ku-band transponders for increased flexibility. Customers will be able to transmit signal to the satellite and receive in another, according to Princeton, N.J.-based SES Americom.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and the industry team behind the Airborne Laser (ABL) program are mobilizing to try to persuade Capitol Hill to reverse the $400 million cut to ABL's $549 million fiscal 2008 budget levied by House defense authorizers. "We're working with the Hill to mitigate their concerns," MDA spokesman Chris Taylor told The DAILY.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) dual-spacecraft Orbital Express mission had its first free-flying undocking and re-docking demonstration May 5. The two satellites - Boeing's Autonomous Space Transport Robotic Operations (ASTRO) servicing spacecraft and Ball Aerospace's NextSat - undocked, separated to a distance of roughly 10 meters and flew separately for a full orbit around the Earth before re-docking, according to Robert Villanueva, spokesman for mission prime Boeing.
TSAT PRESENTATIONS: Both major industry teams jockeying for the high-profile Transformational Satellite (TSAT) military communications system have wrapped up multi-day risk-cutting presentations to U.S. Air Force officials. Teammates Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman said May 7 that they recently completed a three-day key design review of the space segment of their TSAT proposal. Executives said they were "extremely pleased" with the outcome.
NASA plans to build a new 300-foot tall rocket engine test stand at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi that should be ready in time to begin testing the Ares I's J-2X engine in late 2010. The new structure will be the first large test stand built at Stennis since the 1960s, according to NASA. It will feature an open-frame design allowing engineers to simulate conditions at different altitudes. The J-2X upper-stage engine for the Ares I also will serve as the primary engine for the Earth Departure Stage on the larger Ares V rocket.
The U.S. Navy is testing an IP-based radio communications sensor network for the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) the service is planning to fly from its Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), according to officials from Atlantic Coast Technologies, the company developing the network. The program is entering Phase II of the Navy's Small Business Innovation Research program (SBIR), company president Ray Kolar said May 7 during a briefing at the 2007 Navy Opportunity Forum.
BYE BYE BIRDIE: U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command is planning to retire the last of its MH-53 helicopters by October 2008. Officials at command headquarters at Hurlburt Field, Fla., say they've already begun the drawdown, and crew training already has ceased at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M. The vertical-lift support mission for special operators now will fall solely on the Army's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, which operates MH-47s.
The U.S. Air Force has contracted with General Atomics for $69 million worth of unmanned aircraft work, including four Predator B Reaper MQ-9s and a Predator MQ-1B Block X prototype that would use a Heavy Fuel Engine (HFE). The awards, announced May 7 by the Defense Department, were from the Headquarters Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. Air Force solicitations began in January and June 2006 for the MQ-9s and MQ-1B, respectively, and wrapped up last month.
Signal Systems hopes to begin sea tests in 2008 for a proposed new continuous active sonar (CAS) system capable of detecting stealthy diesel submarines, according to company Business Development Manager Jim Meacham. The new system could help alleviate one of the U.S. Navy's worst nightmare scenarios: a diesel submarine hunting down a carrier in the straits of Taiwan and getting off a shot before being detected.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is in the final stages of defining a standard for unmanned aerial systems (UAS) air worthiness requirements. After several months of work, the so-called Stanag 4671 is now in the last period for comment. Although several NATO members have expressed concerns, so far no showstoppers have emerged, according to Dave Seagle, the U.S. delegate on the NATO group.
The U.S. Navy in March took delivery of the sixth and final Twin-line 29A Array (TL-29A) - a passive, low-frequency sensor system towed by a T-AGOS surveillance ship - and the whole T-AGOS fleet should be outfitted by September 2008, service officials said May 3.
Despite being cut from the U.S. Missile Defense Agency's fiscal 2008 budget request, the High Altitude Airship (HAA) still could have a role to play in border security, coastal surveillance and cruise missile defense, thinks prime contractor Lockheed Martin. "We're being optimistic because it's such a good idea," said Ron Browning, business development director for Lockheed Martin's airship operations, during a briefing with reporters May 7.
The U.S. Air Force source selection evaluation team for the KC-X tanker replacement program is taking lessons from the combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) helicopter program acquisition in looking over industry proposals. CSAR-X losing bidders Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky launched a protest - sustained by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) - against the Air Force award of the contract to Boeing for more than 140 helicopters at a program cost between $10 billion and $15 billion.
HURLBURT FIELD, Fla. - U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command's (AFSOC) top planner says he hopes for a quick resolution to an unmanned aerial system (UAS) dispute that he refers to as a "potential friction point" in a very close relationship between his command and the Army's special operations command.
Lockheed Martin has delivered the Phoenix Mars Lander to Kennedy Space Center (KSC) to begin a three-month test and integration effort in preparation for a planned liftoff on a Delta II in early August.
RESIGNATION: Now that Israel's top uniform military position has reverted to the Israeli army following the recent resignation of Israeli Air Force (IAF) Lt. Gen. Dani Halutz as the Israel Defense Force's chief of the general staff, expectations among senior IAF officials are that the ground forces' acquisition priorities will be elevated. Whether that will be to the detriment of aviation modernization is not yet known, but IAF officials believe some priorities won't change.
Germany's Rheinmetall says it has set a first-quarter revenue record and also achieved strong bookings driven largely by sales in the air defense equipment market. Although this is typically a weak performance period for defense contractors, Rheinmetall notes it has logged 328 million euros (US$445 million) in revenue since the start of the year. Order intake for the period came in at 550 million euros, compared to last year's 282 million euros for the same period. Of the bookings, air defense equipment represented 300 million euros
ROME - Despite delays to the final go-ahead for the Saudi acquisition of the Eurofighter, European industry is funding long-lead items in an effort to hold to the initial delivery schedule. Agreement between the U.K. and Saudi governments on the purchase of 72 Typhoon aircraft was expected to be sealed by mid-year. This, however, is slipping toward the late third quarter or beginning of the fourth.
