In his first address to NASA employees, Mike Griffin said that he would try to strike a balance between directed work and competition at NASA's field centers during his tenure as the agency's 11th administrator. "A certain amount of competition is healthy for the federal centers to engage in," Griffin said April 14. "I will be striving for an appropriate balance between a certain amount of directed work and a certain amount of competition at the margins."
NEW DELHI - Arlington, Va.-based Space Adventures plans to start suborbital spaceflights in 2008, company President and CEO Eric Anderson said at the World Travel and Tourism Council summit here. Space Adventures already has accepted more than 100 reservations for suborbital space flight, which is to take passengers to the boundary between the atmosphere and space, where they can experience up to five minutes of weightlessness. Each flight will be directed by both a skilled pilot and a computer-controlled system.
The space shuttle program is studying two areas of possible ice formation on the external tank that still could pose a debris threat to the orbiter during launch.
X PRIZE CUP: On April 13, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson announced a series of events to be held in October that will preview some of the technologies that will fly in next year's X Prize Cup. Called "Countdown to the X Prize Cup," the event will include demonstration flights of reusable spacecraft by future X Prize Cup contenders at the Las Cruces International Airport, static hardware displays, educational events and simulated weightless flights aboard Zero Gravity Corp.'s G-Force One aircraft.
The $1.8 billion the House Appropriations Committee added to the Army's portion of the fiscal 2005 warfighting supplemental bill probably will "not stick" in the final bill, said Lt. Gen. Jerry Sinn, Army military deputy for budget. Sinn spoke April 13 at an Association of the U.S. Army Institute of Land Warfare Forum in Arlington, Va.
The top lawmakers on a panel that helps write NASA's budget, backed by a group of Virginia representatives, said April 14 that they do not support President Bush's proposed $54 million cut in NASA's aeronautics research and intend to fund the program at the current $906 million level.
The U.S. Army has yet to decide on which type of engine system it will use for its Future Combat Systems (FCS) manned ground vehicles, a Honeywell official told The DAILY. The Army's decision on the Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon (NLOS-C) and Non-Line-of-Sight Mortar (NLOS-M) vehicles will drive the engine decision for all eight manned vehicles, said Rich Douglas, director of military propulsion sales and marketing for Honeywell Engine Systems and Services.
The U.S. Army is defining the role that foreign countries will play in its Future Combat Systems (FCS) program, a Defense Department official said April 14. Pentagon acquisition chief Michael Wynne said the Army is consulting with U.S. allies to determine what equipment FCS will need to have to be interoperable with foreign systems. For instance, the Army wants to ensure that devices used to track friendly forces are compatible with those of Australia, the United Kingdom and other countries.
National security products provider Titan Corp. of San Diego has agreed to buy Intelligence Data Systems Inc., a high-tech and professional services firm that supports the U.S. intelligence community, for $42.5 million in cash, Titan Corp. said April 14. Reston, Va.-based IDS will be integrated into one of Titan's existing operating units that primarily serves the intelligence community. The purchase is expected to close in the second quarter of 2005.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is looking to shed about 300 more pounds from the short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing (STOVL) variant, the most technologically challenging of the three JSF versions, a key official said April 14. Since the F-35's design has already been heavily refined, Navy Rear Adm. Steven Enewold, head of the JSF program, said he does not expect to find any large individual areas where weight can be reduced. Instead, the program is counting on finding many small ones.
The Justice Department has asked BAE Systems North America Inc. and United Defense Industries Inc. for more information in its antitrust review of BAE Systems' proposed $4.1 billion purchase of UDI, UDI said April 14. Both companies said they would respond quickly and expect the deal to be completed by midyear.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - An aggressive response to reports critical of space acquisition programs has reaped success, although some programs still have "congenital" problems, according to Lt. Gen. Brian A. Arnold, commander of the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center.
DART: The long-awaited launch of NASA's Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology (DART) spacecraft is set to take place aboard a Pegasus rocket between 1:21-1:28 p.m. Eastern time April 15. The Orbital Sciences-built Pegasus will be air-launched from its L-1011 carrier aircraft, which will take off out of Vandenberg Air Force Base. Several previous launch attempts last fall were scrubbed due to weather, range availability, vehicle contamination and concerns over launch loads (DAILY, Nov. 17, 2004).
Directed energy (DE) weapons have proven more difficult to develop than expected due to unforeseen engineering challenges, a general said April 13. "I don't think there's any question about the fact that the total package is taking longer than we had hoped five years ago," said Gen. Gregory Martin, commander of Air Force Materiel Command.
SEA-BASED UAV: Geneva Aerospace Inc. and Vought Aircraft Industries Inc. are pursuing a sea-based unmanned aerial vehicle under a $497,000 contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The DARPA award will investigate the feasibility of a UAV designed to take off and land on water. Vought will modify Geneva's Dakota UAV for water operations, removing landing gear and adding floats, according to an April 13 statement by Dave Duggan, Geneva vice president of business development. Vought expects testing to be completed by the end of the year.
The Senate Commerce Committee will vote on the nomination of Johns Hopkins University physicist Mike Griffin to be the next administrator of NASA during a markup hearing on Capitol Hill April 14. If the committee approves Griffin, his nomination will go to the floor of the Senate for a vote. During Griffin's confirmation hearing April 12, Commerce Committee Chairman Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and other lawmakers said they hoped that Griffin might be able to take the reins at NASA as early as next week.
With Virginia-class nuclear submarine design work winding down and no other major submarine-design project under way, the submarine design and engineering base is facing the prospect - for the first time in about 50 years - of having no major submarine design project, a congressional researcher told senators April 12.
