NEW SLOT: The European Space Agency's second Meteosat Second Generation satellite now will be launched closer to the end of this year, rather than by early fall, ESA says. The weather satellite has been shipped to the launch site in Kourou, French Guiana, and is being stored there until launch. The first of the new satellites, MSG-1, now known as Meteosat 8, was launched in August 2002 and declared operational in January 2004.
Allied Defense Group Inc. subsidiary SeaSpace has been awarded a contract worth up to $1 million from Canada's MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. for a ground station tracking antenna. The antenna, which has a dual-channel Ka-band uplink and K-band downlink, will support a technical demonstration of MDA's commercial space-based digital courier service, Cascade, the company said.
The Government Accountability Office is "unaware of any progress" that the U.S. Department of Defense has made in implementing a 2004 recommendation that it work with the Office of Personnel Management to get rid of security clearance delays and backlogs. In a letter to Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio), chairman of the Homeland Security subcommittee on government management, GAO official Derek B. Stewart said the DOD has given his agency "a few actions."
PRAGUE - The Czech Republic's defense ministry has chosen four finalists for a $1 billion contract to provide the country's army with nearly 200 armored personnel carriers. The companies, named Aug. 17, are General Dynamics-owned Steyr-Daimler-Puch of Austria; BAE Systems' U.S.-based subsidiary BAE Systems Land and Armaments; Patria of Finland; and Rheinmetall of Germany. Bumar of Poland, Italy's Iveco Fiat and the Czech company Globtrade Air were eliminated.
MORE AMMO: Alliant Lake City Small Caliber Ammunition Co. will provide additional small-caliber ammunition to the U.S. Army under a $13.4 million delivery order, the U.S. Department of Defense said Aug. 19. The work is expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2006.
SCRUBBER TROUBLE: Expedition 11 Cmdr. Sergei Krikalev is troubleshooting the Russian Vozdukh carbon dioxide removal system onboard the International Space Station, which has been shut down since Aug. 11 while Russian engineers have worked on recovery plans. The station now is reliant on the Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) in the U.S. portion of the ISS. The CDRA also failed on Aug. 18 because of a stuck check valve, briefly leaving the station without any scrubbing capability at all, but is back up and running now in a limited mode.
SATELLITE TRACKING: The U.S. Army is considering doing new research to improve its ability to track satellites that could be used to spy on American soldiers, says Michael Schexnayder, deputy to the commander for research, development and acquisition at the Army's Space and Missile Defense Command. The Army is concerned that potential enemies increasingly have access to satellite imagery from commercial sources or their own satellites. "If you got a big imaging satellite coming over every couple hours, people probably know pretty well what you're doing," Schexnayder says.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - When the U.S. Defense Department gave the go-ahead earlier this month to develop the JLENS aerostat system (DAILY, Aug. 11, 12), the Army got just about everything it had asked for, with one notable exception.
HUBBLE COSTS: Keeping the option open to perform a Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission will begin costing NASA an estimated $10 million a month if the agency defers the decision on whether to proceed past December 2007. "Obviously we need data from the last shuttle flight and upcoming shuttle flights to be able to make a Hubble decision," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin says.
AEGIS BMD: The next test of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency's ship-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (Aegis BMD) system is scheduled for mid-November and will be the first test in which the target missile's warhead separates from the missile body, says Navy Rear Adm. Kathleen Paige, program director for Aegis BMD. Although the test will use only part of the capability of the interceptor warhead's newly upgraded divert system, that mode meets all the requirements for the current development block, Paige says.
NASA's Mars Scout program is seeking more money in its fiscal 2007 budget request to allow for the per-mission cost cap to be raised from its original level of $325 million to a level above $400 million. "I've recognized that that is an inadequate amount of money to get a reasonable-risk mission to Mars," Mars Exploration Program Director Doug McCuistion told The DAILY. "It's just not as cheap as flying low-Earth orbit stuff. And therefore I intend to increase the cap over what it was."
Kimberly Johnson, Airports editor for our sister publication Aviation Daily, has embedded in Iraq with the 2nd Marine Division for three months. She is reporting for The DAILY from there, covering the performance of specific weapon systems, the realities of warfare in Iraq and other topics important to our readers. She also writes and takes photographs for "Mother of All Blogs," a Web journal about her experiences. It is located at http://www.moab-iraq.blogspot.com.
Sikorsky Aircraft celebrated the delivery of its first new production MH-60R helicopter to the U.S. Navy on Aug. 19 in a ceremony at the company's Stratford, Conn., facility.
DESTROYERS ON THE WAY: Taiwan's navy expects to receive two of four Kidd-class destroyers bought from the United States by the end of 2005, a navy official says. Taiwan bought all four destroyers in 2003 for TWD $24 billion (USD $745.5 million). Military officers and repair and maintenance technicians are being trained in the U.S. to serve on the ships, which are undergoing sea trials and weapon system tests, says Rear Adm. Lee Hao, Taiwan's deputy chief of staff for combat readiness and training.
Britain's Office of Fair Trading has been asked to investigate Lockheed Martin U.K. Holdings' purchase of United Kingdom-based Insys Group Ltd. on national security grounds, the U.K. Department of Trade and Industry said Aug. 18. Lockheed Martin said Aug. 16 that it agreed to buy Insys, which supplies military communications systems, weapon systems and advanced analysis services. Financial terms were not disclosed. The purchase is expected to close later this year (DAILY, Aug. 17).
APPROVED: Intelsat said it has completed laboratory analysis and testing of Hughes Network Systems' DW7000 satellite broadband router and will add it to the portfolio of broadband technologies it offers its customers. The router has a "balance of high performance and favorable economics," Intelsat Chief Operating Officer Ramu Potarazu said in a statement.
Information technology and networking company CACI International Inc. of Arlington, Va., said Aug. 18 that it registered record revenue and income for both its fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2005, which ended June 30. The company reported fourth quarter revenue jumped 20%, from $358.3 million a year ago to $429.8 million. Operating income climbed 13%, to $40.3 million, from $35.8 million in the same period a year ago. Fourth quarter net income was $23.4 million, up 13% from net income of $20.7 million in the fourth quarter of FY '04.
POWER SUPPLIES: Behlman Electronics Inc., an Orbit International Corp. subsidiary, said Aug. 18 that it has received an order worth $365,000 for power supplies used on the Air Force's RC-135 Rivet Joint surveillance aircraft. This follow-on order brings the company's total Rivet Joint power supply order total to $700,000 since 2003, the company said.
A new high-fidelity night vision goggle simulation system has been incorporated into F-16 fighter training at Luke Air force Base in Glendale, Ariz., system co-developer Silicon Graphics announced Aug. 16. Silicon Graphics teamed with Lockheed Martin Services Inc. and MultiGen-Paradigm to provide simulators that precisely depict what F-16 pilots see through night vision goggles when they fly night-time missions. NVGs limit pilots' fields of view, forcing them to scan constantly.
Given the need to further modify the space shuttle's external tank to eliminate sources of foam debris, NASA announced it will not be able to launch STS-121 until next March at the earliest. NASA is skipping launch opportunities in September, November and January to provide the necessary time for tank repairs. The new planning date for the flight is March 4, 2006, according to Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's newly appointed associate administrator for Space Operations.
Swiss company Leica Geosystems said Aug. 18 that it has delivered seven LTD800 laser trackers, used for industrial measurement and inspection, to Northrop Grumman for use on the tools which will build the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The trackers also will be used to measure and monitor the structure of the aircraft's center fuselage in the production phase and to map critical joints, the company said.
General Dynamics Land Systems has been awarded the $15.6 million final increment of a $62.5 million contract for materials used in production of 92 Abrams Integrated Management tanks, the company said. The final increment marks an increase in the Army's buy to 92, up from the original estimate of 75. AIM is a joint effort to refurbish M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks. General Dynamics is working with the U.S. Army Project Manager for Combat Systems, TACOM Life Cycle Management Command and the Anniston Army Depot on the project.
