NUCLEAR POWER FOR MARS The U.S. Energy Dept. has picked Boeing Rocketdyne Propulsion and Power and Teledyne Energy Systems to build nonnuclear hardware for a next-generation radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) that can deliver 110 watts of power on the surface of Mars for three years. Rocketdyne will be team lead, integrating a prototype with a nonnuclear heat source for testing and demonstrations. Teledyne Energy will supply the thermoelectric generators, while the Energy Dept. will install the nuclear fuel and test it.
FIGHTING THE LAST WAR Congress, led by the House intelligence committee, is interested in resuscitating the concept of a bomber-sized, ultra-stealthy UAV that can carry many tons of intelligence-gathering and communications payload, according to U.S. aerospace officials. However, critics question the need to spend billions of dollars on stealth aircraft when new generations of standoff sensors and weapons have, they believe, largely canceled the need to overfly heavily defended areas.
Diane Williams Murphy has been appointed vice president-communications and public relations for Washington-based EADS North America. She was president/CEO of Federal City Communications.
The preliminary assessment of NASA investigators is that the AeroVironment Helios solar-powered drone broke up in flight at 3,000 ft. on June 26 because of undamped pitch oscillations caused by the control system interacting with the flexible aircraft's aerodynamic, structural and propulsion characteristics (AW&ST June 30, p. 18). The accident occurred on a checkout flight about 10 mi. west of Kauai, Hawaii, to test a fuel cell system for night flying. The fuel cell had not been turned on.
E.C. (Pete) Aldridge, Jr., who retired late last month as undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, has been named to the board of directors of the Lockheed Martin Corp., Betheseda, Md.
Aer Rianta, which owns Ireland's airports, is to be broken up under a government plan. The move was welcomed by Ryanair, which viewed the former's monopoly as anticompetitive. The Aer Rianta board will meet this week to discuss the government proposals.
HELO/UCAV INTERFACE French defense procurement agency DGA said it is exploring operating scenarios for combining use of the Franco-German Tiger attack helicopter with UCAVs. Options include using the helo as a command center to control a fleet of vehicles, and carrying vehicles on the chopper itself.
Helen M. Rico of the Global Command and Control System of the Air Force Transition Team at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Rome, N.Y., has won a Defense Dept. Value Engineering Achievement Award for work on the Minuteman III Guidance Replacement Program. The award recognizes analysis that leads to reduced cost, increased quality and improved mission capabilities.
LONGER WAIT Congressional NASA-watchers have taken a relaxed view of the latest delay in the Columbia Accident Investigation Board's report, saying they want the CAIB to do as thorough a job as possible. Originally set for release next week, in advance of the August congressional recess, the report won't be ready until the last week in August (see story, p. 31).
TRUST BUT VERIFY The U.S. Air Force will delay launch of its final Defense Satellite Communications Systems spacecraft by about a week--to late July or early August--to double-check manufacturing data on the Boeing Rocketdyne RS-68 engine in the mission's Delta IV first stage. The examination will focus on turbine blade documentation. Liftoff from Cape Canaveral had been planned for July 23. The $200-million Lockheed Martin DSCS III/B6 satellite is the last of 14 DSCS spacecraft developed by the Air Force during the past 25 years. The 2,550-lb.
The British Defense Ministry intends to replenish its depleted submarine-launched cruise missile inventory by purchasing up to 105 of the U.S. Tactical Tomahawk. The Royal Navy fired a substantial number of its remaining Tomahawk Block III missiles during the war with Iraq. The ministry has now begun the process of supplementing its remaining Block IIIC inventory with the Block IV. The Block IV, or Tactical Tomahawk, is anticipated as entering service with the navy in 2006.
European Union member states are expected to ratify the European Parliament's decision to double penalties for overbooking. The EU hopes its pending initiative will force airlines to drop--or significantly reduce--some questioned practices.
The Inspector General last week proposed several ways FAA oversight of domestic and foreign repair stations could be improved--and the agency concurred in principle with the IG's recommendations, including use of metrics to identify airline outsourcing trends and deploy inspectors accordingly.
Charles Bright of U.S. Special Operations Command, MacDill AFB, Fla., has won the Defense Dept.'s Ida Ustad Award for Excellence in Acquisition. He was recognized for developing the contract to equip MH-53M helicopters with a new defensive system.
There are 3,000 dead Americans who would have wished pilots had guns prior to Sept. 11, 2001. There is no hijack scenario that would be worsened by the presence of an armed pilot. Now with the possibility that a pilot will be armed, a potential hijacker will have more to think about. Paul Ellis of London (AW&ST June2, p. 6) may be happy with the gun ban in England, but America still is the country that was attacked. Everyone has the right to self-defense. That right is negated if the means of defense is taken away.
USAF Brig. Gen. Daniel J. Darnell has become commander of the Space Warfare Center, Peterson AFB, Colo. He succeeds Brig. Gen. Douglas Fraser, who is now head of the Directorate of Air and Space Operations for Air Force Space Command. Darnell was commander of the 57th Wing at Nellis AFB, Nev.
Frank Morring, Jr. (Washington), Craig Covault (Kennedy Space Center)
NASA plans several more months of impact tests on reinforced-carbon-carbon space shuttle leading edges, using the same Texas test rig that the Columbia Accident Investigation Board used to blow a 16-in. hole in an RCC leading-edge panel last week.
Regarding Patrick V. Ford's letter that sought to justify an upgraded F-15E over the newer F/A-22, the success of the military--plus leadership, training and motivation--came from constant willingness to field the finest technology that the U.S. could produce (AW&ST June 16, p. 12).
SUIT FILED Japan's Defense Agency is seeking $3.58 million from Kawasaki Heavy Industries for the June 2000 loss of a Bell/Fuji AN-1S antitank helicopter near Mt. Fuji. The two army crewmembers were seriously injured. Investigators determined that part of a Lycoming T53-703 manufactured under license by KHI detached during a hovering movement. KHI has not indicated whether it will dispute the claim.
NASA's second Mars Exploration Rover (MER-B) will be 1.5 million mi. from Earth this week following launch on the inaugural Boeing Delta II Heavy, giving the U.S. its first twin-lander mission to Mars in 28 years and the space program a much-needed boost in the wake of the Columbia accident. But the flight was a cliffhanger as insulation problems and then a failed battery delayed launch to July 7, when the first attempt was aborted by the vehicle's computer only 8 sec. before liftoff in a 1-sec. launch window.
SPACE SWARM The EADS-Khrunichev venture Eurockot is set to launch a Japanese experimental satellite, Servis-1, from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia on Oct. 8. Built by Japan's Unmanned Space Experiment System Research and Development Organization, the spacecraft will carry 11 types of commercially available semiconductors and processors to measure their tolerance for the space environment. It is to remain in a 1,000-km. (620-mi.) orbit for two years, with a second version--Servis-2--scheduled for launch in 2006.
VICRE (VIdeo voice Cockpit REcorder) can record cockpit video images and audio events that are coupled with the position of the aircraft by means of a GPS receiver. VICRE belongs to the category of flight parameter recorders that are usable for both the reconstruction of flight phases before an event and for analysis of aircraft behavior during operative flight steps, as well as its response to pilot commands. This nearly 2.5-lb. "black box" measures 10 X 10 X 8 in.
Kosmotras is marketing an upgraded version of its Dnepr light launch vehicle with an all-new upper stage designed for high-energy orbits. The variant is meant to meet demand for low-cost geostationary Earth-orbit (GEO), interplanetary, highly elliptical-orbit (HEO) and other special orbit missions, said Director General Vladimir Andreev.
