The STS-121 Discovery crew will demonstrate how the new Orbiter Boom Sensor System could be used as a work platform for repair of previously inaccessible areas of the space shuttle's wings and belly. Astronauts Piers Sellers and Mike Fossum will be extended far above and to the side of Discovery on the 100-ft. robotic system so sensors can measure how the structure will flex with potentially large motions affecting its positioning and stability.
Bombardier is planning how to continue interior fitting for its Challenger 850 executive jets. The company inked an agreement last year with Lufthansa Technik to do the work exclusively on the first 17 aircraft through 2008. But further orders and capacity limits at Lufthansa Technik's Hamburg facility have pushed additional work to U.S. completion center Midcoast. Meanwhile, Lufthansa Technik is adding a sixth line to its Challenger 850 completion facility, and officials expect that as the program expands they will continue to be the primary outfitting facility.
The article on VLJs (AW&ST Apr. 24, p. 77) and air taxis on demand sends a chill through my spine. The problems facing the global aviation community regarding airport capacity and the air traffic control system's ability to handle traffic is not going to be resolved by spacing aircraft closer together or shifting traffic around to smaller airports.
The concept of active defense systems (ADS) is gaining steam as a way to defeat rocket-propelled grenades, shoulder-launched missiles and other projectiles, but finding something that works remains a challenge. ADS involves sensing incoming fire and intercepting the target with munitions. Officials with the U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program recently selected Raytheon to develop an ADS system for manned ground vehicles. The contract is worth up to $70 million, but officials expect to spend more.
Airbus carried out landing and takeoff trials this month of its Airbus A318 narrowbody from London City Airport, well-known for its steep-approach requirements. In March, airworthiness authorities granted the A318 steep-approach certification, which enabled the start of airport compatibility tests. In turn, those tests will lead to A318 operations from the central London airport.
The Government Accountability Office is studying whether NASA's reorientation of its aeronautics program toward fundamental research will leave a gap between the agency's work on key technologies for NGATS, the next-generation air transportation system, and the level of development industry will need to finish the job. The FAA's Research, Engineering and Development Advisory Committee estimates that gearing up for the FAA to fill the gap would add five years to the NGATS program.
IN A HISTORICAL FLOURISH, Felder notes that during the U.S. Civil War several different generals commanding the Army of the Potomac failed to take Richmond as they opposed Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. That was until Ulysses S. Grant came along. Grant took heavy casualties in his first battle with Lee in 1864; when asked what he would do next, he said he would order the Army to continue advancing "by the left flank" on Richmond. In the past, generals who lost to Lee retreated back toward Washington.
The U.S. Air Force is expecting to announce new cost overruns in a $4-billion Boeing program to modernize the avionics on 434 C-130s, prompting talk of scrapping or downsizing the effort, possibly to buy new Lockheed Martin C-130Js instead.
ExpressJet aircraft line up on the ramp at busy Newark Liberty International Airport. ExpressJet, operating as Continental Express, provides regional service with Embraer 145s and 135s for Continental Airlines from the major's hubs at Houston, Cleveland and Newark Liberty. When Continental cut 69 aircraft from its capacity agreement with ExpressJet following a disagreement over rates, ExpressJet elected to turn the challenge into "a real opportunity." It kept the aircraft and spread them across several business platforms.
Three former space shuttle comman- ders with a total of 10 flights among them have been added to the Astronaut Hall of Fame at the Kennedy Space Center: Henry Hartsfield, Jr., USAF Col. (ret.) Brewster Shaw, Jr., and USMC Maj. Gen. (ret.) Charles Bolden, Jr.
India did not test fire its longest-range surface-to-surface Agni-III missile, citing "self-imposed restraint," as opposed to political pressure, according to Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee. "As responsible members of the international community, we want to keep our international commitments on non-proliferation," Mukherjee said. In February, during India's Defexpo, senior Defense Scientist and Defense Research Development Organization Chief M. Natarajan had told Aviation Week & Space Technology that India was "ready" to test fire and was awaiting official orders.
James Dailly has been named senior vice president-sales and Rod Williams vice president-commercial operations for Toronto-based Bombardier Regional Aircraft.
L.S. (Skip) Fletcher of Texas A&M University is among the recipients of 2006 Aerospace Spotlight Awards from the Reston, Va.-based American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Germany's domestic space effort is expanding with yet another radar-imaging satellite, and a superspectral optical imaging mission is just around the corner.
Breakthrough propulsion systems offer the possibility of designing missiles, rockets and jet engines that are more powerful and efficient, and have greater range than those currently in use. Scientists see nanotechnology as a route to a new class of energetic materials that will pave the way for advances in fuel performance that make these breakthroughs possible.
After 10 years of development, a production decision is near for the U.S. Marine Corps' next-generation amphibious assault vehicle. Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) prototypes are undergoing an independent operational assessment that should lead to low-rate initial production approval by the Pentagon's Defense Acquisition Board in December. The 78,000-lb. armored vehicle has overcome design challenges, including the ability to achieve high water speed and reconfigure itself in less than 2 min. into a tracked infantry fighting vehicle for land operations.
The first C-5 to be modified into a C-5M rolled out of a Lockheed Martin hangar at Marietta, Ga., on May 16. The aircraft was outfitted with modernized avionics and new General Electric CF6-80C2 engines, each providing 41,000 lb. thrust. Gen. Norton Schwartz, commander of the U.S. Transportation Command, says the Air Force needs the fleet reengineered and out of maintenance "as fast as possible." In all, 111 aircraft will be modified.
Eumetsat officials say they have been assured that a problem affecting an advanced microwave sounding unit (AMSU) intended for the organization's first polar orbiting satellite, Metop-1, has been resolved, and should not prevent a scheduled launch atop a Starsem Soyuz Fregat booster on July 17. The problem, related to lubrication in the ball bearings, caused the hardware to be removed from the spacecraft, currently awaiting launch in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, and sent back to supplier Northrop Grumman for modification.
The U.S. Air Force has awarded two contracts worth $15 million to Northrop Grumman to support its "Integrated Sensor Is Structure" program that is investigating the possibility of a surveillance airship operating in the stratosphere 43 mi. above Earth. The goal is to develop an autonomous unmanned sensor that can spot cruise missiles 370 mi. a way and dismounted infantry at a distance of 200 mi. This would require large, lightweight phased-array radar antennas to be integrated in the airship.
Israel's Plasan Sasa is building a technology demonstrator for a six-passenger, wheeled armored vehicle it plans to unveil at a closed U.S. Army event in September. Designed for low-intensity conflicts and urban warfare, it will be a larger version of a prototype vehicle Plasan Sasa built as a potential replacement for the Israel Defense Force's (IDF) Storm jeeps. Earlier models were four- and five-passenger multimission vehicles based on the Ford F350 truck chassis (November/December DTI, p. 40).
Pure hydrogen in its various forms may be the answer to the military's growing power needs in a range of applications large and small. In the future, tactical trucks, utility vehicles and aircraft could be powered by hydrogen fuel cells, if they can be engineered to provide safe, reliable performance under harsh conditions. A great deal of research is also underway to develop small fuel cells that supplement or replace mil-spec batteries in the growing number of hand-held electronic devices on the battlefield.
I find the Air Force's study of a partially-reusable launch system (AW&ST Apr. 24, p. 35) (see photo) personally gratifying as the concept echoes the semi-expendable architecture I advocated in 1994 (AW&ST Feb. 14 ,1994, p. 6). The study, however, carries an embedded assumption that should be revisited.
sharon weinberger is editor-in-chief of Defense Technology International and author of the book Imaginary Weapons: A Journey Through the Pentagon's Scientific Underworld (Nation Books, June 2006). She writes in this issue about the future of electric lasers, based on interviews conducted in Washington, Los Angeles, Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif. michael dumiak reports on efforts in Europe, Scandinavia and the U.S. to convert armored vehicles to hybrid power. He covers a range of science and technology issues from Berlin.
A South Korean company has developed and ground-tested a regeneratively-cooled, liquid oxygen/methane rocket engine that produces 20,000-30,000 lb. of thrust, bringing quick-response space-launch vehicles closer to reality.
A quiet revolution is underway at BAE Systems: An adversarial relationship with the customer is not--after all--inevitable. Top-level relations between the company and the British Defense Ministry in recent years have more often resembled a bout of full-contact sparring. But the ministry's Defense Logistics Organization (DLO) is a key customer for BAE Systems in the U.K.
