U.S. Air Force officials argue that one reason for apparent delays and cost growth in its Battle Control System (BCS) program, meant to help prevent future aerial terrorist attacks, is because of spiral development.
A near-Earth asteroid or comet could be an early target for human explorers under some blue-sky thinking under way at NASA's exploration shops on using a hybrid of planned U.S. launch vehicles for the mission.
SPACE PACT: France and the U.S. have inked a space cooperation agreement to facilitate joint work in civil space endeavors. The two nations already cooperate on a wide range of missions, including the Topex-Poseidon oceanography and A-Train climate research programs, and are planning to work together in moon and Mars exploration as well.
DEFENSE DEAL: Esterline Technologies Corp. has agreed to pay $335 million for CMC Inc., a privately-owned Canadian defense avionics supplier. CMC has annual sales of 205 million Canadian dollars ($174 million) and employs 1,100 in Montreal, Ottawa and Chicago. Its top three customers are the U.S. and Canadian governments and Sikorsky Aircraft.
Sea Launch reports "limited damage" to the Odyssey Launch Platform following the Jan. 30 explosion at liftoff of a Zenit-3SC rocket carrying the SES New Skies NSS-8 communications satellite, causing an estimated $300 million loss counting the booster and payload. "While it has sustained limited damage, the integrity and functionality of essential marine, communications and crew support systems remains intact," the company said in a statement.
CHANGING SUBJECT: A new take on old Chinese proverbs may well be: "When the winds of global public opinion are blowing against you, change the subject." This is what the official Chinese government newspaper "The China People's Daily" has done. It totally ignored the destruction of the FY-1C polar orbit weather satellite by a Chinese anti-Satellite Weapon on Jan. 11, but instead reports how China is about to launch a brand new polar orbit weather satellite to replace older versions.
A pair of spacewalking NASA astronauts spent more than six hours outside the International Space Station on Jan. 31 in the first of a series of three extravehicular activities (EVAs) aimed at replumbing the station's cooling system for long-term operations. Michael Lopez-Alegria, the Expedition 14 commander, and Flight Engineer Sunita Williams reconfigured one of two ammonia cooling loops to the U.S. Destiny laboratory module from its temporary setup using radiators on the P6 truss to the permanent system delivered with the P4/5 Truss element last year.
'TOTAL LOSS': The National Reconnaissance Office now considers a "total loss" the mission of a small experimental satellite - L-21- that is likely part of the Future Imagery Architecture (FIA), according to sources familiar with the program. The NRO lost contact immediately after the satellite was launched, the sources said. Rep. Terry Everett (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the HASC strategic forces subcommittee, declined to discuss the mission Jan. 31 with reporters, but said it shouldn't be linked to other FIA problems..
Although the offer is still open, space entrepreneur Robert T. Bigelow doubts that any company will enter his $50 million America's Space Prize contest now that NASA has made manned orbital transportation a downstream part of its COTS commercial orbital space transportation program.
MERGER APPROVED: The French government, Thales and shipyard DCN have agreed on a plan to merge Thales' naval systems business into DCN. Under the plan, Thales will transfer all of its French naval activities except equipment manufacture to DCN, along with 100 million euros ($129 million) in cash, in return for a 25 percent share in the naval systems contractor, and reserves the right to increase its stake to 35 percent for two years.
The U.S. Army only this fiscal year began truly tracking whether more than $38.6 billion appropriated since 2002 for equipment reset has actually gone to that purpose, and the service cannot be assured that its reset programs will provide enough equipment to train and outfit personnel for current or future foreign deployments, a leading congressional auditor said Jan. 31.
The U.S. Army National Guard and Air National Guard need a total of $40 billion to get their equipment up to "an acceptable level of readiness," according to National Guard Bureau Chief Lt. Gen. Steven Blum. An acceptable level would be if the Guard had 80 percent of its equipment on hand and ready for operations at any given time, Blum testified during the final hearing of the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves on Capitol Hill Jan. 31. Critical issue
The extent of damage to Sea Launch's Odyssey floating launch platform are unknown following the destruction at liftoff of the SES New Skies NSS-8, a Boeing 702 spacecraft, Jan. 31 from the company's Pacific Ocean launch site. The Russian Zenit 3SL inexplicably toppled as it was clearing the pad and creating a massive explosion. Sea Launch has established a failure review oversight board.
Analysts on Jan. 31 predicted even more partisan bickering in Congress and a return to interservice rivalries over the fiscal 2008 defense budget. While professing no inside knowledge of the Pentagon's budget request, scheduled for release Feb. 5 along with the rest of the Bush administration's fiscal 2008 budget, experts from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) said plans to increase the end strength of the Army and Marine Corps has the other services worried about where the money is going to come from.
SOYUZ DELAYED: Plans to begin flying Soyuz rockets from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, may slip a bit because of problems encountered in building a giant deflector under the new launch pad. According to Yannick d'Escatha, director general of French space agency CNES, which is supervising construction of the launch site for the European Space Agency, construction of the deflector has been delayed by the need to remove large granite blocks and consolidate loose soil that had not been detected during site exploration.
