EMS SATCOM of Ottowa, Canada, has received Inmarsat type approval for its new Fleet 55 maritime satellite terminal, the company said. The terminal provides global voice and data services and is the flagship product for the company's new Maritime Group. EMS Satcom is a division of EMS Technologies, of Atlanta, Ga.
The chairman of the House Science Committee said June 3 that he expects the space shuttle will return to flight but doubts the aging spacecraft will remain in service for 20 more years as some NASA "optimists" have suggested.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is urging the Pentagon to help shore up the U.S. semiconductor industry, saying the sector's decline threatens the development of new military systems, including missile defenses, unmanned aerial vehicles and space-based communications.
Prototypes designed by Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics will compete to win a contract for the U.S. Marine Corps' next-generation Shoulder-launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon (SMAW), industry and government officials said June 3. The downselect by the Marine Corps Systems Development Command launches a 15-month, $6.8 million system integration phase to design the Follow-On to the SMAW (FOTS).
Northrop Grumman Chairman and CEO Ronald Sugar said June 3 that terrorist attacks against "soft targets" and missile attacks remain the greatest threats to U.S. national security. Three things must be done before the problem of terrorist attacks can be fully addressed, he said at the National Press Club in Washington.
A handful of systemic failures plague the U.S. Defense Department's $18 billion yearly budget for military space programs, the General Accounting Office says in a new report. "The majority of satellite programs cost more than expected and took longer to develop and launch than planned," according to the report, entitled "Military Space Operations: Common Problems and Their Effects on Satellite and Related Acquisitions," dated June 2.
L-3 Communications' KDI Precision Products will supply FMU-139B/B electronic bomb fuzes under a $37.7 million Naval Air Systems Command contract, the company said June 2. The fuzes will be used by the U.S. Navy and Air Force and the governments of Egypt, the Netherlands and Belgium, L-3 said. The fuzes are used to detonate general-purpose, air-delivered bombs and guided systems such as the Joint Direct Attack Munitions. They are updated versions of the FMU-139A/B fuzes developed by Motorola and the U.S. Navy in the 1980s, the company said.
NEW DELHI - India is nearing military user trials of its new surface-to-air, medium-range Akash ("Sky") missile after a successful May 29 test launch from the Integrated Test Range in Chandipur. A senior defense ministry official said user trials of the missile should begin this year, and 95 percent of the missile's parameters have been tested. The Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) is developing the missile, which includes a second-stage ramjet motor and is guided from a ground-based radar and onboard homing system.
CORRECTION: An article in May 30 issue of The DAILY should have said that the U.S. Air Force plans to retire 14 C-5 Galaxy aircraft. For the C-5 Avionics Modernization Program, the first lot of eight aircraft is under contract, which includes an option for 18 more in the second lot. The final three lots, if approved, could total 84 aircraft.
U.S. Joint Forces Command plans to look for ways the military services can increase cooperation when they acquire equipment for close air support, according to documents released June 2 by the General Accounting Office. Responding to a GAO study on close air support, Paul Mayberry, deputy undersecretary of defense for readiness, wrote that Joint Forces Command will analyze "equipment capability and interoperability issues along with an investment strategy to ensure service [close air support] equipment is interoperable and meets valid joint requirements."
AEHF PDRs: The Lockheed Martin-Northrop Grumman Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) team has successfully completed all 49 preliminary design reviews of the satellite communications system, Lockheed Martin said June 2. The team is "on track to complete all engineering model hardware by the end of this year," said Clayton Kau, Northrop Grumman's program manager for the AEHF payload.
NEW DELHI - India has proposed making advance payments to Russia for a theater anti-missile system with a range of 200-300 kilometers (124-186 miles). Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee discussed the offer in a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg last week, a senior defense ministry official said. If Russia accepts the offer, it would supply four to six S 300 V anti-missile systems until a new system can be developed, the official said.
RIDLEY PARK, Pa. - Two weeks after U.S. Defense Department officials validated the V-22 Osprey's yearlong push to disprove doubts about tiltrotor technology, Boeing officially opened a modern assembly plant here that highlights the program's next key challenge - slashing production costs.
iRobot Corp., a robotics technology manufacturer that has been awarded two study contracts for the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program, May 30 it will expand its production capacity for military robots. iRobot, based in Burlington, Mass., received nearly $13 million in venture capital funding from five institutional investors, including Trident Capital, which invests in information services and software companies.
The National Reconnaissance Office is asking industry for innovative ways to substantially enhance the capabilities of its satellites in four areas. The Director's Innovation Initiative, or DII, issued annually by the NRO, this year asks for ideas that will increase spectral diversity, eliminate communications as a constraint to operations, provide agile response to changing target sets and transform reconnaissance to surveillance.
Europe's first Mars mission, the Mars Express, successfully lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on June 2 to begin its voyage to Mars, where it is scheduled to arrive in December. The Mars Express vehicle, which consists of an orbiter and a lander dubbed the Beagle 2, was placed in interplanetary orbit an hour and a half after launch. The European Space Agency's satellite control center in Darmstadt, Germany, has established contact with the spacecraft, which will place itself in a Mars-bound trajectory in two days.
Although final preparations have taken slightly longer than expected, the GoldenEye unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is expected to have its first flight within the next two weeks, according to manufacturer Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation. First flight at company facilities in Manassas, Va., will be a low-altitude hover lasting three to five minutes, most likely followed by some slow-speed sideward and rearward flight, according to Carl Schaefer, Jr., Aurora's program manager for vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) UAVs.
The U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) has awarded a $6.75 million contract to Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems-Undersea Systems to design and test a Mission Re-configurable Unmanned Undersea Vehicle, or MRUUV. The Navy plans to use the MRUUV for clandestine intelligence, surveillance, limited ocean survey and anti-submarine warfare. The vehicle, which will be 21 inches in diameter, is to be launched from the torpedo tubes of Los Angeles-class (SSN-688) and Virginia-class (SSN-774) attack submarines.
STATION HELP: Russia could help China if it builds a space station, Alexander Medvedev, head of Khrunichev Space Center, told visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao during his tour of the center last week. Among other equipment at the center, Hu was shown a backup module to the International Space Station's Zarya control module. China has said it could launch a manned space mission as early as this year, and its plans include building a space station (DAILY, Jan. 21).
RESHAPING DECISION: A proposed reshaping of NATO's military structure should be decided during ministerial meetings in Madrid on June 3 and 4. NATO defense ministers are slated to implement a plan dividing the military force into operational and transformational commands. The renamed Allied Command Operations, formerly Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, largely will continue as before. Last week, NATO's Defense Planning Committee agreed to appoint U.S. Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani as the new supreme allied commander, transformation.
Arianespace is trying to sign a customer for the March 2004 requalification flight of its Ariane 5-ECA vehicle, according to a spokeswoman for the company. The Ariane 5-ECA is an enhanced version of the company's basic Ariane 5 heavy-lift launcher, featuring a new cryogenic upper stage and Vulcain 2 main engine that give it the ability to launch 10 tons of payload. The first flight of the ECA failed last December, destroying Eutelsat's $250 million Hot Bird 7 satellite and prompting a redesign of the engine (DAILY, Dec. 13, 2002).
Plans are on track to begin converting the USS Florida from a ballistic missile submarine to a cruise missile submarine, according to a senior U.S. Navy program official. The USS Florida, the second of four ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) to be converted to cruise missile submarines (SSGNs), will enter Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Va. on August 1 to begin refueling and preparations for conversion work, Capt. Brian Wegner told The DAILY May 30.
