The Bush administration appears to be acquiescing to congressional opposition to a new nuclear bunker-buster bomb, known as the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP). For FY '07, no RNEP funds were explicitly requested for either the Energy or Defense departments. But the Navy has asked for $77 million for the Hard and Deeply Buried Target Defeat System (HDBTDS) after it received $7.2 million for FY '06 and $9.6 million in FY '05.
The timeliness of commercial imagery data is becoming the next issue over which the U.S. government may want to exercise "shutter control," according to Air Force Col. Anthony Russo, chief of the space division at U.S. Strategic Command. "The argument has shifted," Russo said during a Feb. 8 lunch in Washington sponsored by the Center for Media and Security. "It used to be the argument over whether we could release less-than-one-meter resolution imagery, which was military quality at the time. The issue now is about real time."
Technicians at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., plan to enshroud a trio of hatbox-sized satellites on the front end of an Orbital Sciences Corp. Pegasus launch vehicle next week, as they move a step closer to the day when scientists will use dozens of satellites working together to measure complex phenomena in space.
With congressional Democrats already critical of the Bush administration's proposed one-third boost to national missile defense spending for FY '07, to $10.4 billion from $7.8 billion this year, missile supporters will be charging up Capitol Hill. The Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance said it "endorses and will aggressively support this new budget amount." Still, despite the requested funding boost, President Bush was silent on the issue in his State of the Union address this month.
The U.S. Navy is developing a master plan for unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) that should be complete in June, according to Jim Thomsen, program executive officer for littoral and mine warfare. The master plan follows a similar plan for unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) released last year, which specified four classes of UUV that the service plans to acquire. The Navy wants to move toward standardized families of unmanned vehicles so as not to overtax support infrastructure, Thomsen said.
Pilot Steve Fossett's chances of setting a new unrefueled aircraft flight distance record in the Scaled Composites/Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer remain in doubt because of uncooperative winds and a repeat of fuel venting problems experienced on the aircraft's first around-the-word flight. GlobalFlyer was to reach the halfway portion of the trip while flying over Japan about 8 p.m. Eastern time Feb. 9. Finding good tailwinds over Africa, the Middle East and Asia has been difficult.
NASA's Centennial Challenges technology-prize program is gaining steam with a new series of purses as high as $5 million. Draft rules for the six new prizes cover competitions for a high-efficiency cryogenic fuel storage depot; a lunar "all terrain vehicle" (ATV); a low-cost spacesuit; a rechargeable power source that works over a 14-day lunar night; a "micro" re-entry vehicle to return samples from orbit, and a solar sail.
Autonomous pedestrian and traffic avoidance as well as better communications for tele-operation top the list of technologies needed for the unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) in the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program, according to Scott Fish, chief UGV engineer for FCS co-lead SAIC.
Arianespace is talking to the Russian Satellite Communications Company (RSCC) about launching its Express domestic communications satellites on the Soyuz rocket from Kourou, once launch facilities for the venerable Russian rocket are completed there in 2008.
The commercial realm likely can carry out civilian space programs cheaper than the government alone, but the credibility of industry's cost estimates remains a question, according to Scott Pace, NASA's associate administrator for program analysis and evaluation. Historically, "large, large gaps" exist between government's projections and industry's claims, Pace said.
After peaking with a fleet size of 330 ships around 2018, the U.S. Navy would drop to as low as 292 in 2031 and end up with 296 in 2036, according to the new long-range shipbuilding plan provided to Congress (DAILY, Feb. 8).
