The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has chosen Northrop Grumman to design an experimental supersonic flying wing aircraft capable of varying the sweep of its wing to maximize aerodynamic efficiency in different flight regimes. DARPA awarded the company a $10.3 million contract on March 16 for the 20-month first phase of the Oblique Flying Wing (OFW) program. The second phase of the program is planned to culminate in flight-tests of the first-ever supersonic tailless OFW aircraft in 2010 or 2011.
INDIAN LAUNCH: India will work with Russia to develop a new generation of Glonass navigation satellites and launch them on its Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) under an agreement fleshed out this month after two years of negotiations. The deal between the Indian Space Research Organization and the Russian space agency Roscosmos was signed following the visit of Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov to New Delhi on March 17.
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has rescheduled the first launch of its Falcon 1 rocket for March 24 after scrubbing a planned March 23 liftoff to allow more time to analyze test data. SpaceX didn't try to fly on the first three days of its launch period, which began March 21, as it was analyzing the results of a brief static test firing on March 18 at the tiny Omelek Island launch site in the Kwajalein Atoll.
The Pentagon is looking at providing countries in Africa with an interconnected IT network that will help them with maritime domain awareness, according to a senior Pentagon official. One of the ideas under consideration for funding as a fiscal 2007 Joint Capabilities Technology Demonstration (JCTD) is a proposal from U.S. European Command to help African countries in the Gulf of Guinea with maritime and port security, says Sue Payton, the deputy undersecretary of defense for advanced systems and concepts.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has awarded Raytheon a six-month study contract to develop conceptual designs and total cost estimates for the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS).
The U.S. Army is trying to improve the availability of truck armor for future operations through a long-term armoring plan, congressional investigators said March 22. The Government Accountability Office told the chairmen and the ranking Democrats of the congressional Armed Services committees that truck armor plans through 2018 are outlined in the Army Tactical Wheeled Vehicle Long-Term Armoring Strategy.
The first new-production aircraft under the U.S. Coast Guard's Deepwater recapitalization program, an EADS CASA HC-235A-300M medium-range maritime patrol aircraft (MPA), was formally rolled off its European production line March 23.
NEW BUS: France's space agency CNES will develop the 6-8 metric ton AlphaBus very large satellite platform, providing 12-18 kilowatts of power, for the European Space Agency under a new agreement. CNES will manage overall development of the new bus, which will be built by EADS Astrium and Alcatel Alenia Space. The two manufacturers plan to market the spacecraft bus jointly beginning in 2007. ESA and CNES will share financing of the first flight model, ordered last year for delivery around 2009.
REFURBISHMENT: DRS Technologies Inc. will refurbish M1000 Heavy Equipment Transport (HET) Army trailers returning from Iraqi under a $9 million order, the company said March 23. The order is part of a previously awarded contract to refurbish more than 1,000 of the trailers over a five-year period ending in 2008. The work will be done by the DRS Systems & Electronics unit in West Plains, Mo.
NASA has released a request for information (RFI) asking industry for help in defining the agency's acquisition strategy for the J-2X engine that will propel the upper stage of the Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV).
WASHINGTON - The "parting of the ways" between the U.S. Air Force and Navy over the Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems (J-UCAS) program, as the shift is described by Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne, has triggered a surge in new competition and plans for large, long-endurance aircraft.
Rocketplane Limited Inc. is completing assembly of its XP vehicle's first delta wing, a static test article that will be shipped in May to Wichita, Kan., for structural testing at the National Institute for Aviation Research. The fighter-size, reusable Rocketplane XP is to be a suborbital spaceplane tailored for commercial space tourism and microgravity experiments. Powered by two jet engines and a rocket, the horizontal takeoff and landing XP would fly to about 330,000 feet with as many as four people on board.
NASA is conducting tests to make sure that handrails on the exterior of the U.S. portion of the International Space Station (ISS) are strong enough to support astronaut safety tethers and various payloads that may be attached to them during station assembly. Until the issue is resolved, ISS astronauts are forbidden from conducting spacewalks from the U.S. segment of the station, according to ISS Deputy Program Manager Kirk Shireman.
