Rep. Todd Akin is in negotiations with NASA about keeping the X-43 hypersonics team intact, according to a spokesman for the Missouri Republican. The team, which includes Boeing Phantom Works of St. Louis, set airbreathing speed records with their two successful scramjet demonstrations in 2004. Akin, a member of the House Science Committee, met with NASA Associate Administrator for Aeronautics Lisa Porter late last month to discuss the group's future.
Lockheed Martin satellite trackers in Australia confirmed the successful launch of the JCSAT-9 telecommunications satellite late on April 12 following its equatorial launch on a Sea Launch Zenit vehicle. Liftoff from the Sea Launch Odyssey floating launch pad came at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time from a position at 154 degrees west longitude. First acquisition of signal at Lockheed Martin's tracking facility in Uralla, Australia, came at 9:16 p.m. Eastern time.
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has settled down in a safe spot to ride out the martian winter while its twin, Opportunity, continues its long journey to a large crater dubbed "Victoria." Spirit spent February and March at a plateau called "Home Plate." After one of its six wheels quit on March 13, the rover struggled to travel the short distance to a nearby north-facing slope where its solar arrays will be at a favorable angle to receive the maximum sunlight through the eight-month martian winter.
Yehoshua Eldar has been named corporate vice president for business development and subsidiaries. Danny Kleiman has been appointed IAI's corporate vice president for operations. Yair Ramati has been named IAI's corporate vice president for marketing. Joseph Weiss has been appointed corporate vice president and general manager of IAI's systems, missiles and space group.
Earl Sheck has been appointed vice president of military intelligence programs. George M. Simmerman, Jr. has been named vice president, assistant general counsel and sector counsel.
The U.S. Air Force is eyeing more of a service-wide information technology acquisition strategy to bridge East and West Coast industries, as well as push for greater cost savings, Ronald A. Poussard, Air Force Program Executive Officer for Combat and Mission Support Services, said April 13.
Frank Hepburn has been appointed senior director of sales and business development for 3D visualization. Tom Olechnowicz has been named senior director for simulation sales and business development.
The French space agency CNES says France has 5.5 million extra euros to spend on space missions, and they're already lining up for the funds. The extra money is coming from savings in overhead and administrative costs, cost reductions at the European space launch center in Kourou, French Guiana, and payment of the final installment on past debts.
Aero Gear Inc. of Winsdor, Conn., will announce April 13 that it has won an $11.1 million, three-year contract from the U.S. Army to re-engineer and manufacture replacement parts for legacy Army and other aging defense aircraft. The contract, awarded by the U.S. Army's Benet Laboratories, Watervliet Arsenal, N.Y, is a direct result of efforts by Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), according to Aero Gear President Douglas Rose. Dodd will be at an AeroGear ceremony to announce the contract.
BOEING CHANGES: Boeing has tapped Tod Hullin as senior vice president for public policy and communications at the company's Washington, D.C. office. He replaces Rudy deLeon, who is retiring June 30. Thomas Downey was named vice president of corporate communications and will relocate from Seattle to the company's corporate headquarters in Chicago. DeLeon said he's taking time to look at his opportunities before deciding what to do next.
SPACE-TEST GEAR: Belgium-based Advanced Mechanical and Optical Systems (AMOS) has signed a contract with Indian Space Research Organization's (ISRO's) Space Application Center in Ahmedabad for production of a one-meter diameter collimator to test cameras flown in Indian remote-sensing satellites. AMOS will design, manufacture, test and supply the collimator according to ISRO specifications. AMOS, which has already supplied two collimators to the Indian center, is also involved in the design, manufacturing and installation of a space simulator for ISRO in Bangalore.
Pierre Sprey, a former Pentagon analyst and member of the so-called "fighter mafia," and James Stevenson, a former editor of the Navy Fighter Weapons School's Top Gun Journal, have criticized the F-22 Raptor as an inferior fighter not worth its rising programmatic costs.
DARMSTADT, GERMANY - Scientists are preparing to receive the first data from Venus in more than a decade following the successful injection of a European probe into orbit around Earth's nearest planetary neighbor.
Two California companies that supplied important hardware for NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers have joined forces to go after new Mars and other NASA, commercial, and defense space mission business. Alliance Spacesystems Inc. (ASI) of Pasadena and Vision Composites of Signal Hill plan a merger by July designed to strengthen ASI's ability to provide integrated robotic and composite structural systems to aerospace programs. Just what the two companies will call themselves after the merger is still being determined.
After demonstrating level-4 control of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and its weapons from the cockpit of an AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopter earlier this year, Boeing hopes to conduct cooperative flights with the Longbow and multiple UAVs this summer at Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz. Boeing hopes to use its Unmanned Little Bird and ScanEagle UAVs in the demonstration, which would be sponsored by the U.S. Army's Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (AATD).
The U.S. military needs more airlift capability and "lots of it," according to Lexington Institute Chief Operating Officer Loren Thompson, who has criticized the Bush administration's fiscal 2007 defense spending request for pointing to the end of domestic airlift production lines. In an April 13 issue brief, the think tank analyst said global tensions have shifted from places like Europe, where the U.S. military had large combat units permanently stationed, to places where its presence is smaller and less welcome.
NASA Expedition 12 commander Bill McArthur and flight engineer Valery Tokarev landed safely in Kazakahstan April 8 after 190 days on the International Space Station. Brazil's Marcos Pontes was with the NASA astronauts. Pontes rode in the Soyuz "taxi seat" with Expedition 13, becoming the first Brazilian in space. All three men were healthy after traveling from the station to the surface, a three-hour, 20-minute journey.
