The Pentagon's year-to-date spending (budget outlays) is up 17%, with research and development 15% higher, and procurement outlays 18% higher, than last year, according to financial analyses group JSA Research. Outlays are expected to remain strong through this fiscal year and next year as well. Strong outlays are good for defense companies because they boost free cash flow.
Alcatel Space has been awarded a contract to build a 4.1-metric-ton, 48-transponder spacecraft, Galaxy 17, for PanAmSat. The K u-/C-band satellite will be the first European-built unit in the PanAmSat fleet. Alcatel also won an order to build a satellite communications satellite for China (see p. 46).
A rapid update to the National Security Space Policy is underway on orders from the White House. The objective is to bring the framework that guides military and intelligence space ops and planning more in line with advancing technology, the war on terror and future military space challenges such as from China. "This is just getting underway and is very ambitious," said USAF Col. Thomas Shearer of the Air Force/multiagency National Security Space Integration Office.
It has been mentioned numerous times in recent articles about the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers that monitoring of dust accumulation on the solar arrays and the consequent degradation of power production is an ongoing concern. Is it feasible to include a windshield wiper of sorts on the arrays to remove dust? This would seem an easy way to mitigate the problem with minimal complexity, weight or power demands.
China will begin selection of its first women astronauts in 2005, and plans the first launch of a woman on a Shenzhou spacecraft mission by 2010. China's first women in space will be scientists or engineers, as were the first U.S. women mission specialist astronauts selected in 1978. "The job of steering the Shenzhou will still go to a man," declared the Beijing Times. Although the first U.S. women began flying on board NASA's space shuttle two years into shuttle operations, they didn't take the controls as pilot astronauts until nearly 15 years into the program.
France is considering greater reliance on non-budget financing mechanisms such as a public-private financing initiative (PFI) and outsourcing for defense purchases. Under strong pressure to rein in France's ballooning budget deficit, Finance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy recently asked the defense ministry to focus more attention on off-budget financing as a way to help reduce its 2005 spending request, and drive down the cost of future hardware purchases.
France says the first group of 10 Rafale carrier-borne fighters, equip- ped in basic F1 air-air-standard configuration, is now fully operational. The aircraft are based on the Charles de Gaulle. The first Rafale air force squadron, with F2 strike and extended air-air software, is to enter service in 2006 and the initial F3 multirole squadron in 2008.
United Airlines was "perplexed" by the U.S. Air Transportation Stabil- zation Board's (ATSB) decision on June 17 to reject its $1.6-billion federal loan guarantee application. In a statement, the ATSB said United's loan guarantee "is not a necessary part of maintaining a safe, efficient and viable commercial aviation system in the United States." The ATSB also rejected the airline's first bid, for $1.8 billion, in December 2002.
Former Air Force Secretary Pete Aldridge says President Bush could get going on the recommendations of his space exploration commission "today" by setting up a White House "steering council" to oversee implementation of the Moon/Mars plan (see p. 39). But previous executive-branch attempts to coordinate space work among NASA, the Air Force and the National Reconnaissance Office haven't produced much, the commission found.
Lockheed Martin has decided to build the Compact Kinetic Energy Missile at its Horizon City, Tex., facility. Production of the high-velocity line-of-sight weapon is slated to begin in 2008. During the current development phase, the facility will be used for engineering, test and limited missile builds.
Killing the radar-evading RAH-66 Comanche helicopter, in defiance of the judgment of two decades of senior U.S. Army officials, was "one of the easiest decisions I've had to make," says Schoomaker. A major consideration was its vulnerability to shoulder-fired infrared missiles that have ravaged U.S. helicopter forces in the past two years. To make Comanche survivable, the Army would have had to spend billions more and in the process would have lost the design's radar-evading capability.
Sebastian Caire (see photos) has been named general manager and Juan Fernandez-Trapa head of training for Montreal-based CAE's joint venture with Iberia Airlines. Caire succeeds Hugues Zucconi, who was general manager of CAE's Alcala training center. Fernandez-Trapa was an Iberia captain and teacher in the Airport Systems Master Program at Madrid's Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Aeronáuticos.
Regarding your article "Space Nuclear Power" (AW&ST May 31, p. 66), doesn't the design you described waste a lot of energy? Michael Lembeck states: "There's a lot of radiator mass; you have to dissipate a lot of heat from the reactors. . . ."
The Airborne Laser (ABL) program is fascinating not only because of its technical objectives, but because it provides a rare opportunity to evaluate program planning and scheduling capabilities for far-out technology. Because an ABL has never been built before, the third corollary of the Rule of Pi in Estimating comes into play--if no one has done this kind of project before, multiply the initial estimate by 2 pi (the Rule of Pi is deceptively simple and surprisingly accurate).
Interest in using a new type of bulletproof material in military and commercial aircraft is growing as Honeywell scrambles to meet the demand for body armor to protect U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. The company is investing $20 million to expand Spectra fiber production at its Richmond, Va., plant. The fiber is used in Honeywell's Spectra Shield material, which DHB Industries' Armor Group uses in armored vests and related insert plates.
The most lucrative investments since Jan. 1 have not been oil, pharmaceuticals or banking. They have been aerospace and defense stocks, which have grown in values that are second only to those in the burgeoning communications technology sector.
The U.S. Transportation Security Administration named five airports, four airlines and two systems integration contractors for its Registered Traveler pilot program, which is aimed at reducing to nearly zero secondary screening of people who fly often. Passengers willing to provide personal information for TSA background checks, plus a fingerprint and iris scan, are eligible to participate, starting late this month with Northwest Airlines at its Minneapolis-St. Paul hub.
Douglas Barrie (London), Michael A. Taverna (Paris)
The British aerospace and defense sector is at a crossroads. The eventual path taken will have far-reaching implications, not only nationally, but also for relationships with its U.S. and European counterparts. Farnborough International 2004, to be held July 19-25, will reflect a national industry in a state of change, striving to realign itself. It will also see industry officials testing political rhetoric against fiscal reality as to whether the British government's avowed support for the sector is more than lip service.
Finmeccanica and Alcatel have reached accord on a space alliance. An agreement outlining the scope of the alliance and authorizing the start of due diligence was set to be signed late last week, following a long negotiation period (AW&ST Dec. 8, 2003, p. 35). Assuming the deal passes antitrust scrutiny, the merger could be completed by early 2005, Italian sources said.
With its U.S. operation ramping up fast, Sirius Radio is looking to take its digital audio radio know-how abroad. The second operator to establish digital audio radio service (DARS) in the U.S., after XM Radio, Sirius is approaching 500,000 subscribers, and expects to have 1 million by year-end, according to Technical Executive Robert Briskman.
Mike Dumais (see photo) has become vice president/general manager of Windsor Locks, Conn.-based Hamilton Sundstrand's Aerospace Customer Service organization. He succeeds Jim Peterson, who is retiring. Dumais was vice president/general manager of worldwide repair operations.
U.S. Navy officials are examining several weapons issues, including whether they have allowed the Harpoon anti-ship missile inventory to decline too much. Additionally, the service is reexamining whether it should buy the USAF-led Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile. A service official noted that with tight budgets and an ongoing commitment to Standoff Land-Attack Missile-Expended Response and Tomahawk cruise missiles, the Jassm expenditure might not fly.
It was operating personnel at the FAA and Norad, not the leadership, that improvised responses, however ineffective, to the 2001 terrorist hijackings, according to a Sept. 11 Commission staff report on what the agencies did that morning. At the FAA, individual controllers, facility managers and managers at the ATC Command Center in Herndon, Va., "thought 'outside the box'" in taking alerts nationwide, ground-stopping local traffic and deciding to land all aircraft.
