Astronauts Mike Fossum and Piers Sellers bounced, swayed and pushed at the end of a 100-foot robotic-arm extender boom during the first spacewalk of the STS-121 space shuttle mission on July 8, flight-testing the boom as a potential work platform for repairs to a damaged orbiter heat shield.
TURNING POINT: The start of European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter's tenure on the International Space Station marks a turning point in the operation of the facility. The first non-U.S., non-Russian permanent crew member to serve on the ISS, Reiter will pave the way for a string of other astronauts from ESA, Canada and Japan who are ultimately expected to man the orbital facility. Reiter, a veteran of two spacewalks on the Russian Mir space station, will also be the first ESA crew member to perform extravehicular activity from the ISS.
India's space program suffered a setback on July 10 when a launch vehicle carrying an INSAT-4C communication satellite plunged into the Bay of Bengal seconds after a perfect takeoff. "Things have gone wrong in the stage of separation (of the booster from the launch vehicle). We have to analyze the data why it went wrong," Indian Space Research Organization Chairman Madhavan Nair said.
ATFLIR SPARES: Raytheon Space & Airborne Systems of El Segundo, Calif., has been awarded a $9.9 million order to provide the U.S. Navy with spares for the Advanced Targeting Forward Looking Infrared Radar system used on F/A-18 aircraft, the Defense Department said July 10. The work will be done in El Segundo and is expected to be finished by December 2007. The contract was awarded by the Naval Inventory Control Point.
General Dynamics' strategy of selling off nearly half its businesses and replacing them with more dynamic properties is continuing to yield a big payoff. The defense giant ranked first among large aerospace companies in Aviation Week & Space Technology's 10th annual Top-Performing Companies study, continuing more than a half-decade of industry-leading operational performance. Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, ITT Industries and United Technologies Corp. rounded out the top five.
NAVY Lockheed Martin Systems, Owego, N.Y., is being awarded a not to exceed $41,940,995 ceiling priced order against a basic ordering agreement for procurement of 12 weapons replaceable assemblies for the MH-60R helicopter. The work will be performed in Owego, N.Y., and is expected to be completed by January 2008. Contract funds will not expire by the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Inventory Control Point is the contracting activity. AIR FORCE
A top Chinese space official has reaffirmed China's plan to launch a 20-ton space station following additional Shenzhou Soyuz-type manned test flights. The deputy designer of the Long March 2F booster program, Song Zhengyu, told the People's Daily newspaper, the Chinese government's official mouthpiece, that the station is China's next major manned space development. A space station has led Chinese space planning for several years.
A nationwide NASA/contractor imagery and thermal analysis team has cleared the space shuttle Discovery for re-entry July 17 without any intervention to remove a slightly extended tile gap-filler on the orbiter's aft belly. The decision means the flight's third extravehicular activity (EVA) will go forward as planned July 12 and be fully devoted to important bench testing of a potential repair material for reinforced carbon-carbon (RCC) panels like the one that breached and caused the Columbia accident.
ARMY SGS L.L.C., Oklahoma City, was awarded on June 29, 2006, a $25,144,683 firm-fixed-price contract for construction of a standard combined arms collective training facility. The work will be performed at Fort Polk, La., and is expected to be completed by Dec. 21, 2007. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There were 310 bids solicited on April 20, 2006, and five bids were received. The U.S. Army Engineer District, Fort Worth, Texas, is the contracting activity (W9126G-06-C-0023).
In an incident sure to complicate the Osprey team's new international sales push, one of the two MV-22B Ospreys flying to Farnborough to show off the tiltrotor's self-deployment capability had to land unexpectedly in Keflavik, Iceland, on July 10 after the right engine suffered compressor stalls.
On July 11 Boeing will begin training industry and military personnel on the ScanEagle unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in Clovis, N.M., using Clovis Community College for classroom training and nearby Melrose Range for flight operations, the company announced July 10. Boeing instructors will teach the two-month course to 12 students at a time, with new classes beginning every 30 days.
Major players in the U.S. information technology (IT) industry are warning that they will not be able to sell their commercial products to the Department of Defense if House defense authorization language for fiscal 2007 becomes law.
Arianespace is well on its way to surpassing its launch order goal for 2006 and also meeting its mission objectives. Early this month, the European launch firm signed up Badr-6 (Nilesat 4AR) for launch in the first half of 2008 and, according to industrial sources, two Satcom BW2 military communications spacecraft ordered on July 4. The sales brought the number of 2006 orders to eight - the goal set earlier this year by CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall.
AIR FORCE Lockheed Martin Corp., Fort Worth, Texas, is being awarded a $552,691,000 firm-fixed-price contract modification. This undefinitized contract action extension period of performance is through Sept. 30, 2006, for F-22A lot 6, long-lead. At this time, $319,520,249 has been obligated. Negotiations were complete in June 2006. The work is set to be complete by February 2010. Headquarters Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8611-05-C-2850). NAVY
Mission Specialists Piers Sellers and Mike Fossum completed the second spacewalk of space shuttle mission STS-121 on July 10, successfully restoring re-dundant command capability to the Inter-national Space Station's mobile transporter system. The astronauts replaced a reel assembly for a cable that provides power and data to the mobile transporter, a rail-mounted system that carries the station's 60-foot manipulator arm. The previous cable was inadvertently cut by a safing system in December 2005.
SAT LAUNCH SET: The military communications satellite Syracuse 3B, built for French Defense procurement agency (DGA) by Alcatel Alenia Space, is set for an Aug. 11 launch after arriving in Kourou, French Guiana, Alcatel says. Syracuse 3B will complete the Syracuse III system by joining the Syracuse 3A satellite, which was launched on Oct. 13. The Syracuse III system will provide voice communications, secure data transmission, access to military intranets, videoconferencing, and network interconnections.
F-16 ENGINE VANES: Chromalloy Gas Turbine Corp., of Chromalloy, Okla., has been awarded an $8.3 million contract to repair and overhaul the third and fourth stage vanes used on F100 engines of F-16 aircraft, the Defense Department said July 7. The work is set to be complete by January 2009. The contract was awarded by Headquarters Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center, Tinker Air Force Base, Okla.
NASA has officially chosen to proceed with the troubled SOFIA airborne astronomy mission, which had its $57.1 million fiscal 2007 budget request cut to zero following a two-year schedule slip and cost growth due to technical problems. Administrator Michael Griffin finally confirmed that NASA will proceed with SOFIA during a July 6 speech to the NASA Advisory Council's science subcommittee in Washington. The details of when and how money might be reprogrammed to sustain the effort aren't yet known, according to a NASA spokesman.
