Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are studying just what it would take to mount a precursor mission to the stars within 50 years that would send a robotic spacecraft 10,000 times as far away from Earth as Earth is from the sun.
Defense Secretary William Cohen has expressed some concern about a wing drop problem on the U.S. Navy's F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, but agrees with Navy officials that the problem can be fixed within the scope of the program, "The secretary knows he's got a problem and he knows the Navy has a problem," Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said yesterday. Bacon said Cohen has spoken with Pentagon acquisition chief Jacques Gansler "several times" over the past couple of weeks about the issue.
The U.S. Army plans to buy a Camcopter unmanned aerial vehicle from Schiebel Technologies of Austria for use in a mine detection demonstration. Army Communications and Electronics Command is planning a 100-hour demonstration of the UAV with an infrared sensor payload, it said in a Dec. 10 Commerce Business Daily notice. The work would follow an Army check-out earlier this year of the UAV's functionality and a more recent test of the Camcopter at Ft. Benning, Ga.
Lockheed Martin Vought Systems is in line for a March contract to conduct the Line-Of-Sight Anti-Tank (LOSAT) advanced concept technology demonstration, according to the U.S. Army's program office. The service wanted to award the contract in January (DAILY, April 10), but won't be able to begin the ACTD until two months later because of a funding cut. LOSAT is being designed to allow light forces, such as the 82nd Airborne Div., to defeat bunkers and other hardened beyond tank-gun range.
The Swedish Air Force is about to begin flight testing a Saab Dynamics infrared search and track system (IRST) on a Viggen fighter. The system, IR-OTIS, uses the seeker on the IRIS-T short-range, air- to-air missile being developed by Saab and Germany's BGT as the replacement for the Sidewinder in Germany and Sweden. Saab said yesterday that IR-OTIS can be used for air-to-air combat, ground attack and reconnaissance.
Orbital Sciences Corp. reversed course yesterday and agreed to meet an FAA requirement that it vent volatile hydrazine fuel from the Pegasus rocket fourth stage on deck to orbit eight of its ORBCOMM subsidiary's alphanumeric messaging satellites. The Dulles, Va.-based company told FAA it would demate the air- launched Pegasus from its L-1011 carrier plane to load and test software that will allow its Hydrazine Auxiliary Propulsion System (HAPS) to vent any hydrazine left over after the satellites are deployed.
The commander of the Russian Air Force yesterday offered to step down, apparently because of criticism in parliament about the Dec. 6 crash of an An-124 cargo plane in Irkutsk which killed dozens. Gen. Pyotr Deinekin asked to be transferred to the reserve, after which his future will be decided by Russian President Boris Yeltsin, the Itar-Tass news agency reported. The move came the day after Deinekin was criticized in the Duma by parliamentary deputy Lev Rokhlin for what Rokhlin said were growing military aviation safety problems.
Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces has orbited a classified Cosmos satellite which is believed to be designed to provide strategic ocean reconnaissance for the Russian Navy. The satellite was sent aloft at 10:17 Moscow Time (9:17 a.m. EST) Tuesday from Site 90 at Baikonur Cosmodrome. The two-stage Tsiklon-2 rocket inserted the payload into initial orbit which the press service of the Strategic Rocket Forces said was "corresponding to the precalculated one."
The Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and the Navy are considering a block upgrade approach to speed initial deployment of the Navy Upper Tier system, according to BMDO Director Lt. Gen. Lester Lyles. Lyles said he and Navy Program Executive Officer for Missile Defense Rear Adm. Rodney Rempt "are working very closely to try to define an evolutionary acquisition approach - literally a sort of block approach" to Navy Upper Tier.
The U.S. Navy yesterday completed the third development test of the Standoff Land-Attack Missile-Expanded Response, using an enhanced version of the aimpoint update system. The test, which involved launch from an F/A-18C aircraft at a target on San Nicolas Island in the Point Mugu Sea Test Range, Calif., featured the most complex maneuvers for the missile so far, according to the Navy. It was the second, end-to-end, man-in-the-loop test for the missile.
Spar Aerospace of Toronto will acquire CAE Inc.'s wholly-owned subsidiary, CAE Aviation of Edmonton for $62 million, the companies announced. The cash transaction, which includes substantially all of CAE Aviation's assets and operations, is expected to close by the end of December.
Following NATO's decision to forego buying the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, 88 members of the U.S. House sent a letter to Defense Secretary William Cohen urging him to restore procurement plans to 19 planes and include long-lead funding for two in the fiscal 1999 budget request.
NASA WILL USE two more Boeing Delta II launch vehicles under the 15-launch Medium Expendable Launch Vehicle Services (MELVS) contract originally signed in November 1989, leaving only three launch options remaining under the contract. In the first quarter of 2000, a Delta II will lift the Gravity Probe-B satellite, while Boeing will use a new dual-payload attachment built by Matra Marconi Space to orbit the JASON and Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Mesosphere-Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) satellites in the second quarter of 2000, Boeing said.
BOEING AWARDED a design contract for its new Delta IV rocket factory in Decatur, Ala., to The Austin Co. of Cleveland and J.S. Alberici Construction Co. Inc. of St. Louis. The plant, which will build Boeing's entry in the Pentagon's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) competition (DAILY, Oct. 1, Nov. 6) will enclose more than 2 million square feet on a site near the Tennessee River.
Malaysia has launched its "Blueprint for the Development of the Aerospace Industry," an effort to make the country "globally-competitive and widely acknowledged."
DENSE-PAC MICROSYSTEMS Inc. has been picked to supply its high-density memory module to Space Electronics Inc. of San Diego for a new solid state memory product developed for commercial satellite applications. Garden Grove, Calif.-based Dense-Pac designs and manufactures high-density three- dimensional memory products that, in the past, have found applications in cellular telephones, laptop and notebook computers, supercomputers and servers and digital cameras.
Lockheed Martin has completed the first separation flight test of its Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile design. A JASSM Jettison Test Vehicle separated cleanly from an F-16 fighter and hit within the predicted target footprint at Edwards AFB, Calif., the company said yesterday. Previous flight tests, which began in October, were all of the captive-carry type.
The U.S. Air Force has dropped plans to build a flying demonstrator to explore technologies for future fighter and attack aircraft, and will now only pursue technology developments that could help achieve performance objectives for such planes. Under the original Future Aircraft Technology Enhancement (FATE) program, a team of contractors would have built an unmanned, subscale, single-engine demonstrator that would have flown in about 2003 (DAILY, July 23).
NASA'S JOHNSON SPACE CENTER has picked six firms to supply tools, equipment and other support for extravehicular activity on the U.S. Space Shuttle and International Space Station. Picked for the indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contracts were Campbell Engineering and AZ Technology, Inc., both of Huntsville, Ala., and Hamilton Standard Management Services Inc., Lockheed Martin Space Mission Systems and Services, Oceaneering Space Systems and Spar Operations&Engineering Corp., all of Houston.
ODETICS' COMMUNICATIONS DIV. will supply the solid-state recorder for Boeing North American's Space-Based Infrared System/Low-Altitude Demonstration System. The Anaheim, Calif.-based company will provide a heritage solid-stage recorder for the prototype missile detection system, which will feature a small amount of non-volatile EEPROM memory in addition to the normal DRAM memory.
Mercury Computer Systems Inc., Chelmsford, Mass., established subsidiaries in France and the U.K. to provide applications, customer service and sales support to European defense customers. In France, Mercury Computer Systems S.A.R.L. will be located in Les Ulis and headed by Didier Thibaud, the company said yesterday. The office will serve the French defense industry. In the U.K., Mercury Computer Systems Ltd. will be headquartered in Bramley and be led by Andy Pine. The office will oversee Mercury's operations in the U.K., Scandinavia and Italy.
Aero International (Regional) has given up its project to launch a 70- seat jet, the European consortium announced yesterday in Toulouse, France. The decision was made "unanimously" by consortium members Aerospatiale, Alenia and British Aerospace, whose representatives met in Toulouse on Dec. 5. AI(R)'s chairman, Patrick Gavin, had already indicated that members of the consortium were not convinced the $1.2 billion program could be profitable.
Two senators with NASA oversight responsibility have blasted the U.S. space agency for failing to halt cost growth on the International Space Station, warning that if costs aren't contained the Station project could be in trouble, and setting a hearing early next year to learn how NASA plans to control Station costs.
The U.S. Army's Space and Strategic Defense Command plans to award a contract early next year for development of an airborne sensor platform to detect and track over-the-horizon cruise missile targets. The program was called Aerostat, but a few months ago the name was changed to JLENS - Joint Land attack cruise missile defense Elevated Netted Sensor system - an SMDC program official told The DAILY at a symposium here.
