ORBIMAGE INC. will provide high-resolution satellite imagery to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) under a 22-month, $27.6 million ClearView contract. Two additional years could be added in future budgets, with a ceiling of $500 million, the NGA said. Last year, NGA awarded similar contracts under the ClearView program to Space Imaging, which got a three-year, $120 million contract, and DigitalGlobe, which got a three-year, $72 million contract (DAILY, Jan. 22, 2003).
MICHIGAN AEROSPACE CORP. of Ann Arbor, an opto-mechanical engineering company, will demonstrate the use of its GroundWinds ground-based light detection and ranging (LIDAR) system to measure high-altitude winds by operating it from a balloon platform, BalloonWinds. GroundWinds instruments are operating in New Hampshire and Hawaii, the company said. The demonstration would adapt the system for use on a high-altitude balloon.
The U.S. Coast Guard's Deepwater recapitalization program should demonstrate greater clarity and stability through some equipment changes, Adm. Thomas Collins, the commandant, told House members March 31.
U.S. Air Force officials hope to receive approval to begin working on the Miniature Air-Launched Decoy program's jammer version (MALD-J) in fiscal year 2006, according to Program Manager Ann Harbaugh.
At least three companies are seen as potential competitors for the U.S. Navy's Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) unmanned aerial vehicle program, industry representatives said March 31.
The U.S. Air Force's Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Battlelab (UAVB) soon will begin test-dropping the BLU-108 anti-armor submunition from a Sentry HP unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), according to Lt. Col. Timothy Cook, chief of the UAVB's Combat Applica-tions Division. "We are going to take a 12-and-a-half foot wingspan, 185-pound empty weight UAV, put a wide-area anti-armor munition on it, and we're going to kill tanks," Cook said March 31 at the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement's (IDGA) Combat UAV conference in Arlington, Va.
AIRLIANCE MATERIALS, Chicago Roscoe Musselwhite, executive vice president, has had his role expanded to include all business operations, including sales, products and technical services, human resources, operations and information systems. ATA ENGINEERING, San Diego Havard Vold has been appointed vice president and senior technical fellow, based in northern Virginia. AVIATION WEEK GROUP, New York Mark Flinn has been appointed vice president, sales. BALL AEROSPACE, Boulder, Colo.
AVIONICS: Rockwell Collins will provide the avionics for 25 new Airbus A319 and A320 aircraft for Independence Air, the company said March 31. Delivery is scheduled to begin this year. The contract includes options for an additional 50 aircraft, Rockwell Collins said.
ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Md. - The U.S. Air Force likely will be forced to retire two of its already scarce EC-130H Compass Call aircraft if it does not receive more money for a key upgrade, a program official said March 31.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - A Pentagon review of the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) program set for April 20 will focus on geosynchronous satellites three, four and five, according to Lt. Gen. Brian A. Arnold, commander of Air Force Space Command.
The U.S. Department of Defense should create a chief management official for business operations, the General Accounting Office said in a report released March 31. DOD also should centralize responsibility and authority for business system investment decisions with the leaders responsible for DOD's business areas, such as logistics and human resource management, the report says.
ANSYS INC. of Southpointe, Pa., is providing simulation software to the da Vinci Project, a Canadian team competing for the X Prize commercial space competition (DAILY, Feb. 11). The team is using ANSYS' CFX computational fluid dynamics software to help develop processes involving fluid flow, heat transfer and chemical reaction, and ANSYS ICEM CFD, which helps streamline product development. The da Vinci Project has conducted two unmanned flight tests of its rocket propulsion system and has flight qualified its guidance system.
HONEYWELL will build control moment gyroscopes for DigitalGlobe's WorldView commercial imagery satellite under a contract from Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. WorldView will be the first control moment gyroscope to be sold commercially, the company said. The satellite will provide images for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and other customers around the world.
SPACE IMAGING and ANCHOR POINT have partnered to offer fire hazard and risk assessment for community planning, using imagery from IKONOS and Landsat satellites and geographic information systems (GIS) mapping. "With the increase of devastating fires during the past three seasons, there's been an increasing emphasis on conducting hazard assessments and developing fire mitigation plans at the community level," Chris White, CEO of Anchor Point, a wildfire management consulting firm, said in a statement.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN dedicated its space gyroscope manufacturing facility to David G. Lynch, the "father of the hemispherical resonator gyro," or HRG, the company said. The HRG uses changes in vibration patterns on a thin-walled glass shell to detect when it is moved, and has been used on communications, earth sciences and deep-space exploration spacecraft, according to Northrop Grumman. Lynch developed the basic theoretical model of the HRG and led a team that completed its initial development. The David D.
