LEAN TIMES: The Army on March 6 ordered the Lean Six Sigma business principles to be applied service-wide to try to free up money for the operational Army. It wants to fund the Future Combat Systems while fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and trying to recapitalize, as well as speed up equipment delivery to soldiers. During fiscal 2005, the Army Materiel Command salvaged $110 million through new business practices. The Letterkenny Army Depot, Pa., has been the frontrunner by reducing costs $11.9 million in Patriot air defense missile system recapitalization.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. - The modified external tank for the next shuttle mission is starting a "zero margin" processing flow here while engineers assess issues, such as those with engine cutoff (ECO) sensors, that could affect NASA's May launch target for Discovery. The external tank (ET) arrived at Kennedy March 1, a week earlier than envisioned. This followed a Herculean effort to complete the tank by the Michoud, La., Lockheed Martin/NASA work force, most of whom continue to suffer personal hardship from Hurricane Katrina.
The MQ-5B Hunter unmanned aerial vehicle will be able to carry heavier payloads thanks to a study by the University of California, San Diego and Northrop Grumman Corp., the company said. Conducted by the university's Structural Engineering department and Northrop Grumman's Integrated Systems sector, the three-month study showed that the Hunter's wing structure can withstand a higher amount of stress. This will allow the UAV to take off with additional payloads.
During a hearing on Capitol Hill March 8, Rep. Jim Saxton (R-N.J.) said he "cannot think of a higher priority for funding anywhere in the federal government" than the budget for U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM). "SOCOM has concentrated and performed magnificently in Iraq and Afghanistan, but has had to neglect to some degree other critical areas of the world to execute its urgent combat missions," Saxton said during a hearing of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities, which he chairs.
Rep. Martin Olav Sabo (Minn.), the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations homeland security subcommittee, said March 8 that he will try to add $200 million for Customs and Border Protection air assets and $100 million for Coast Guard operations to the Bush administration's fiscal 2007 budget request. Meanwhile, the Coast Guard has a $70 million energy shortage, and the additional funds are needed so maintenance of ships, airplanes and helicopters is not sacrificed.
Construction of the lead ship CVN-21 aircraft carrier, the CVN 78, now is expected to cost $10.5 billion, of which $2.4 billion is nonrecurring, Navy Secretary Donald Winter is telling lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The figure is $4 billion below previous estimates for the first in the newest class of flattop (DAILY, Nov. 3, 2005). Advanced procurement funding of $784 million is requested in fiscal 2007 for CVN 78 and CVN 79, Winter said in prepared testimony for the House Armed Services Committee.
BALL CORP., Broomfield, Colo. Michael W. Feldser has been appointed president for aerosol and specialty containers. BATTELLE, Columbus, Ohio Gen. Lester Lyles (USAF Ret.) has been elected to the board of directors. The four-star general most recently led the Air Force Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio. EARTHDATA, Frederick, Md. Maxime Elbaz has been appointed chief operating officer of EarthData International. GOODRICH CORP., Charlotte, N.C.
Mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena say they're both anxious and confident as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) nears the most dangerous part of its mission on March 10 - successfully entering orbit around the red planet.
Senators maintained their skepticism March 8 that the Defense Department's budgeting is realistic or supportable, and DOD officials acknowledged that tougher decisions face Washington leaders as soon as this year.
China will delay the launch of its third manned spaceflight by about six months into early 2008 to complete testing of a spacesuit to be worn by a Chinese astronaut during the Shenzhou program's first extravehicular activity (EVA). The third Shenzhou mission had been planned for late 2007 and will carry three astronauts, one of whom is to do an EVA. Two Chinese astronauts flew during the second Shenzhou manned mission in 2005 and one was onboard the first manned flight in 2003.
The House Science Committee is "disappointed" with FAA's fiscal 2007 research and development (R&D) budget request, and believes the agency's Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) should be better supported.
An ESA science team has validated a new evolution model of Titan, based on data supplied by the Cassini/Huygens joint mission with NASA. Finding that liquid methane is not as abundant on the surface of Saturn's moon as expected, researchers now believe that most of Titan's methane supply might be frozen in methane-rich ice and periodically released by cryovolcanism. The ice is thought to form a crust over an ocean of liquid water mixed with ammonia a few tens of kilometers below the moon's surface.
VETO THREAT: House Republicans leaders have signaled they would attach legislation canceling a controversial U.S. seaport takeover deal by a Dubai company to the pending $72 billion fiscal 2006 supplemental request for military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. President Bush has threatened to veto such port legislation, although the supplemental provides $65 billion in additional funds to the Defense Department and is considered must-pass due to recapitalization needs and procurement.
NATO has room and the need for both the Boeing Co.'s C-17 and Airbus' A-400M aircraft as its strategic airlift requirements grow with expanding missions in Afghanistan and Sub-Saharan Africa, according to Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, head of U.S. European Command and the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe. Jones also told Pentagon reporters March 6 that "there are things in the alliance to look at acquiring, perhaps some strategic airlift to bring into the alliance, perhaps buying, perhaps leasing, working out the arrangement through common funding."
Data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the Calar Alto Observatory in Spain's Sierra de Los Filabres were combined to produce a false-color image of one galaxy crashing into another at more than 1 million miles per hour. The green shock wave, which is larger than our Milky Way galaxy, represents atoms of hydrogen gas heated as the galaxy, designated NGC7318b (the pink dot on the left at the center of the image), careens into its neighbor.
ASTRONOMY MISSION: European scientists are preparing to take an active part in the support and analysis of data from Japan's Astro-F/Akari infrared astronomy mission, launched from Uchinoura Space Center on Feb. 18 (Aviation Week & Space Technology, Feb. 27).
Four-star commanders of U.S. forces in South Korea and the Pacific told senators March 7 that expeditious fielding of the Air Force's C-17 fleet and the Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV) to the Pacific Command remains a high priority to support forces based in Korea.
CONFERENCE CENTER: Northrop Grumman Corp. said March 7 that it has opened the Heritage Conference Center, a secure training and meeting facility, in Chantilly, Va. The 25,000-square-foot facility will host meetings, special events, training classes, and secure conferences. The center has a training room, five conference rooms, two executive discussion rooms, and a 320-seat auditorium.
