COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Northrop Grumman is ahead of schedule in the Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS) program and expects to integrate components of the first of two flight demonstration satellites by the end of the year, according to Patrick P. Caruana, vice president for missile defense of the company's Space Technology unit.
THE BOEING CO. of Houston will continue payload integration work for the International Space Station under a NASA contract extension worth $70 million. NASA plans to exercise the fiscal year 2005 option, the aerospace agency said, bringing the total value of the International Space Station Payload Integration Contract (IPIC) to $203.7 million. Work covered under the extension will continue through September 2005.
SPACE IMAGING has completed a comprehensive asset management system for the Marion County, Fla., engineering department. The work, valued at $2.8 million, is to help the county manage a rapidly developing infrastructure to support a rising population, the company said. One-meter resolution data from the company's IKONOS satellite allowed Marion County officials to locate, map, inventory and determine the value of the county's road and storm sewer assets, the company said.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) hopes to see action this year on tax legislation to promote commercial investment in space, an aide said April 14. H.R. 914, the Zero Gravity Zero Tax Act bill, has been referred to the House Ways and Means Committee but no date has been set for action on the bill. Richard Dykema, Rohrabacher's chief of staff, said cost estimates on the bill from the Congressional Budget Office, which he described as "huge," have been exaggerated.
Defense and aerospace suppliers need to catch up to prime contractors in the application of lean development and manufacturing processes, according to a recent report from the Government Electronics and Information Technology Association (GEIA). Lean processes create greater production efficiencies by emphasizing value-added activities while minimizing waste. While 50-60 percent of defense and aerospace prime contractors use lean principles and practices, only 10-15 percent of subcontractors do, according to GEIA.
BOEING SPECTROLAB said its multi-junction solar cells have been inducted into the Space Technology Hall of Fame, established by the U.S. Space Foundation in cooperation with NASA. Spectrolab, a subsidiary of Boeing Satellite Systems, said its Ultra Triple Junction solar cells can convert more than 28 percent of the sunlight reaching them into electricity.
BOEING INTEGRATED DEFENSE SYSTEMS, St. Louis Keith Reiley has been selected as the lead systems engineer for Boeing NASA Systems, located in Washington, D.C. NASA, Washington Garry M. Lyles has been named deputy director of Project Constellation, and is responsible for the development of transportation and support systems needed for the agency's moon-Mars exploration mission. Charles J. Precourt has been named program director of the Crew Exploration Vehicle. ORBITAL SCIENCES CORP., Dulles, Va.
BALTIMORE, Md. - The U.S. Army is looking for ways to improve the durability of its missiles to ensure they survive when they are shipped to a theater of operations, according to a service official. Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson, the Army's deputy for acquisitions/systems management, said April 14 that about 10 percent of the missiles the Army sent to the Middle East for the 2003 Iraq war were rendered unusable by harsh environmental conditions or improper handling.
Payload Systems Inc. has launched a new company and terrestrial technology called GreenFuel Technologies Corp., the companies announced April 12. GreenFuel has developed a patented system for removing pollutants from industrial air streams using algae. "The GreenFuel system is designed to efficiently remove nitrogen and carbon compounds, as well as other pollutants, from smokestack flue streams, releasing clean air and producing high quality, commercially valuable algal biomass in the process," the companies said in a statement.
NASA is embracing the recommendations of a report on how the agency can transform its culture and make employees less fearful to speak out on safety issues, according to Administrator Sean O'Keefe.
Within the next few months, the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) plans to follow a number of legislative issues, including those regarding acquisition policy, tax bills and "Buy American" legislation, according to Jonathan Etherton, AIA's vice president of legislative affairs. AIA is concerned with commercial product acquisition policies and contractor ethics as they relate to situations like the Boeing tanker lease-buy deal, Etherton told The DAILY.
The Defense Supply Center in Columbus, Ohio, was able to find newly designed ball joints for the U.S. Army's most-used military vehicle, solving a problem of the parts wearing out too quickly. The two upper ball joints were causing logistical problems and were identified as a high-priority part for service's 78,000 Humvees being used around the world. Design problems, coupled with a limited number of suppliers, made it difficult to meet the requirement of replacing them after 12,000 miles of use.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Industry officials say they expect the U.S. Air Force this week to release the formal RFP for the Battle Management Command and Control (BMC2) system of the E-10A Multi-sensor Command and Control Aircraft (MC2A).
The use of space systems for military operations has grown considerably over the past decade and shows no signs of slowing in the coming decade, according to a new report from a research group. Over the next 10 years, 113 dedicated military satellites with an estimated value of $42 billion will be produced, according to the Forecast International report, "Western Military Satellites: 2004-2013."
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has received more than 20 ideas for involving allied countries in MDA's new Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) program, according to Defense Department officials.
The U.S. Army is nearly finished upgrading its fleet of CH-47 Chinook helicopters to make them more resistant to missile attacks from the ground, according to Lt. Gen. Richard Cody, the Army's deputy chief of staff for operations.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency believes a brief drop in power in part of an interceptor missile caused a recent test failure for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, according to information MDA has submitted to Congress.
BETTER DOCKING: Michigan Aerospace Corp. will refine its docking system for spacecraft under a one-year, $220,000 contract from Microcosm Inc., the company said. The contract is part of a larger grant from the Air Force Research Laboratory and Defense Advanced Research Project Agency. Prototypes of the docking system have been ground-tested at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Ala., and on the Johnson Space Center's KC-135 microgravity-producing aircraft. Refinements to the mechanism will be made as a result of these tests, the company said.
The U.S. Army's Rapid Equipping Force (REF) has been moving some of the military's newest, most advanced technologies into the war theaters in Iraq and Afghanistan, providing U.S. troops with the ability to stay a step ahead of emerging threats, according to an REF official.
NASA's Genesis spacecraft has ended its collection of solar wind particles, the aerospace agency said. The spacecraft has exposed its collector arrays of sapphire, silicon, gold and diamond to the solar wind since October 2001, but ended that collection earlier this month when the Genesis team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., ordered the collectors deactivated and stowed.
