Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

With the Elektron oxygen generation system back online, the Expedition 9 astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) are not concerned about running out of consumables, according to NASA ISS Science Officer Mike Fincke. "We've been well supplied with the Russian Progress cargo ships, and the Russian partners have done a great job at getting up the necessary food and water and air that we need onboard," Fincke said during a teleconference Oct. 4.

NASA has decided to delay the space shuttle's return to flight to no earlier than May 2005, citing the effects of four hurricanes that created damage and delays at various agency facilities over a six-week period.

The Department of Defense's Global Information Grid Bandwidth Expansion (GIG-BE) program reached initial operational capability (IOC) Sept. 30 at the first six joint staff-approved locations, the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) said. The GIG-BE is scheduled to be fully operational by September 2005, with all 100 worldwide locations activated, DISA said.

Export licensing reform will be a top aerospace legislative priority for the next session of Congress, said John W. Douglass, president and CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA). Douglass told an Oct. 4 press briefing at AIA's headquarters that the association was "disappointed" in the Bush Administration's lack of action on export licensing reform despite "promises" during the 2000 campaign to take action. He said he doesn't expect any action on reform until after the election and the new Congress is in session.

Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne clinched the Ansari X Prize Oct. 4, completing its second qualification flight for the $10 million prize while reaching a record altitude above 360,000 feet. After takeoff from the Civilian Aerospace Test Center at Mojave Airport in California, SpaceShipOne was released by the White Knight carrier aircraft at 7:49 a.m. Pacific time. Pilot Brian Binnie then ignited the vehicle's hybrid rocket engine and soared into suborbital space, beating X-15 pilot Joseph Walker's 1963 aircraft altitude record of 354,200 feet.

RUAG Aerospace of Bern, Switzerland, is upgrading F/A-18 combat aircraft and the Cougar TH-98 transport helicopter fleet for the Swiss air force, the company said Sept. 30. An active combat identification system is being installed on F/A-18s along with other upgrades. The air force has received the first series aircraft fitted with the new equipment, the company said. ISSYS integrated self-protection systems are being installed in the helicopters.

DHS EC120s: American Eurocopter will provide more than 55 EC120 single-engined light helicopters to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency under a five-year contract that could be worth up to $75 million, the company said Oct. 4. The contract was awarded by the Department of Homeland Security.

The prime contractor for the U.S. Air Force's C-5 Galaxy re-engining effort has taken delivery of the first aircraft that will go through the program, an Air Force official said Oct. 4. Lockheed Martin's Marietta, Ga., plant received the C-5B transport on Oct. 3, according to Col. Kevin Keck, who oversees C-5 acquisition programs at the Air Force Aeronautical Systems Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

September 27, 2004 NAVY

The U.S. Coast Guard is expected to get its first re-engined HH-65 Dolphin helicopter later this month, according to government and industry sources. A Coast Guard spokeswoman told The DAILY Oct. 4 that the Coast Guard's aviation training center in Mobile, Ala., will receive the upgraded short-range recovery helicopter by the end of the week of Oct. 3-9. An industry source said Oct. 1 that the delivery would take place in the next two weeks or so.

Lockheed Martin said Oct. 4 that it is awaiting a "clearer understanding of the facts" before commenting on news that Boeing may have received preferential treatment in a competition to modernize the avionics on U.S. Air Force C-130s.

The U.S. Army is working on two initiatives it hopes to deploy to soldiers in Iraq in the near future - the RAM counterstrike capability, to protect troops against rockets, artillery and mortars, and a soldier squad radio that would transmit through dense urban buildings, according to the Army News Service. The new technologies are being developed by the Army's Futures Center at the Training and Doctrine Command in Fort Monroe, Va.

American Pacific Corp. (AMPAC) has completed the acquisition of the former Atlantic Research Corp.'s in-space propulsion business (ISP) from Aerojet-General Corp., American Pacific said Oct. 1. The Delaware-based company announced April 26 it would acquire the ISP business for about $3.5 million in cash and the assumption of some liabilities (DAILY, April 29).

Lockheed Martin's Maritime Systems & Sensors unit has received contracts worth $625 million as part of the work on the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) program's design and development phase, the company said Oct. 4.

PROVING THEMSELVES: Each of the four teams developing the Small Launch Vehicle (SLV) in Phase IIA of the Force Application and Launch from the Continental U.S.

LOOPHOLES: Regulations requiring that defense companies' small business status be reviewed more often are due to take effect later this year, says a new report by the watchdog group Center for Public Integrity. Defense contractors are taking advantage of a lucrative loophole in the small business rules to retain their small business status through the life of each contract, says the report, released Sept. 29.

NIXING NUKES: The Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) might not be very robust if Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) is elected president. The Bush Administration has been studying the potential for new nuclear bunker-buster weapons, including RNEP, which would be created by modifying an existing nuclear warhead. But Kerry says he would kill such programs because they undermine U.S. attempts to discourage nuclear proliferation.

The U.S. Navy has begun fielding the first Aegis destroyer equipped to support the upcoming deployment of a land-based national missile shield, Defense Department and industry officials said Oct. 1. The USS Curtis Wilbur recently started patrolling the Sea of Japan, which borders potential adversary North Korea, and will act as a forward-based sensor for the Army-operated Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system. The ship "is equipped" and "is ready," a DOD official told The DAILY.

NEXTVIEW: Orbimage Inc. of Dulles, Va., is joining DigitalGlobe of Longmont, Colo., as the second provider in the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's (NGIA) NextView program. Orbimage signed a four-year agreement with NGIA on Sept. 30 that will give the government priority access to its imagery and help fund the development of the company's next-generation OrbView-5 satellite. The potential value of the contract through 2008 is $500 million.

VENUS READY: Alenia Spazio of Italy has completed assembly of the Venus Express spacecraft and is planning a "Venus Express Day" in Turin on Oct. 4 before shipping the spacecraft to prime contractor Astrium in Toulouse, France, in mid-October for readiness testing. Venus Express is the first European mission to Venus, and is to conduct a multispectral examination of the planet to try to understand why it evolved so differently from Earth.

United Defense Industries Inc. won a contract modification from Anniston Army Depot, Ala. worth up to $47.4 million for the overhaul of M113 armored personnel carriers, the company said Oct. 1. Under the indefinite quantity and delivery contract for M113 work, United Defense will perform various services for up to 325 vehicles in 2005 and 2006. The modification to the original contract, awarded in July, brings the total potential value up to $48.8 million, the company said.

The Navy will field a new system for identifying potentially hostile targets on its EP-3E aircraft in 2006, according to Naval Air Systems Command. The system, built by General Dynamics and called "Story Maker," fuses information from a variety of sources to more quickly and accurately identify targets, said Cdr. James Baratta, head of the Special Missions Aircraft Department of NAVAIR's Maritime Surveillance Aircraft office, or PMA-290, at Patuxent River, Md.

JTAMDO CONTRACT: The Joint Theater Air and Missile Defense Organization (JTAMDO) has awarded Computer Sciences Corp. of El Segundo, Calif. a contract worth up to $122 million to continue providing technical advisory, engineering and scientific services, the company said Sept. 30. CSC will provide senior liaison support, integrated homeland air security support, engineering, force protection, interoperability, analysis, architecture, and concepts to combatant commands for the JTAMDO worldwide.