Once again, a problem discovered on the launch pad has caused International Launch Services (ILS) to postpone the launch of SES Americom's AMC-9 satellite on a Proton K rocket. During routine prelaunch verification at Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan May 17, technicians discovered a problem with one of the rocket's gyro units. Replacing the gyro will require the rocket to be de-stacked, according to ILS spokeswoman Fran Slimmer. The company hopes to reschedule the launch for early June, she said.
Legislation intended to improve the safety of helicopter operations in the Gulf of Mexico has cleared the House Transportation Committee's aviation subcommittee and is scheduled to be marked up by the full committee on May 21.
The first issue of what became Aerospace Daily was published 40 years ago, on May 20, 1963. There have been many changes in defense and aerospace along the way, and we've covered them, big and small. I started working for The Daily in 1967 and I'm still at it, so I've seen these changes up close. I was editor from 1995 to 2001, and now live in Colorado Springs. I file several stories a week on defense and space for our Washington, D.C.-based publication.
SHIPPED: Orbital Sciences Corp. has shipped the BSAT-2c communications satellite to the European space launch complex in Kourou, French Guiana, for a planned June launch, the company said. The satellite is the third the company has built for Japan's Broadcasting Satellite Systems Corp.
SATELLITE OFFICE: DigitalGlobe, the Longmont, Colo.-based provider of satellite imagery, is setting up an office in Washington, D.C., to handle legislative and executive branch matters. The office will be run by Dawn Sienicki, who has been executive director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Space Enterprise Council. Sienicki's replacement at the council has not been named.
The House Armed Services Committee has slashed the Pentagon's $126 million fiscal 2004 budget request for the Deployable Joint Command and Control System (DJC2) by almost three-quarters, saying it supports the program but believes it needs to slow down.
The U.S. Army and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) plan to award 23 contracts by winter for the building and testing of Future Combat Systems (FCS) prototypes. The awarding of the contracts, which are valued at $14.9 billion, is part of the systems development and demonstration (SDD) phase of the FCS program.
The U.S. Defense Department's top acquisition official will lead a 10-member expert panel focused on reorganizing the way the Pentagon buys weapons after he retires later this week.
A $92 million effort to produce a long-awaited smart fuze for the U.S. Air Force's penetrator weapons faces another delay after design and production problems foiled a recent series of qualification tests, The DAILY has learned. The FMU-159A/B Hard Target Smart Fuze (HTSF), designed by Alliant Techsystems, would be used to sense voids and layers of hardened and deeply buried targets, allowing a penetrator warhead to detonate at a programmed point, such as a specific floor in an underground bunker.
WILLIAM D. HALL, former editor of Aerospace Daily, died April 14 at his home in Alexandria, Va. He was 77. The cause of death was lung cancer. Hall was The Daily's first editor, launching the publication on May 20, 1963. He retired in the mid-1990s. Hall left his native Tennessee to join the Navy during World War II and worked at United Press International at several locations before moving to Washington to work for American Aviation Publications, publisher of Aerospace Daily, then called Missile/Space Daily. The name was changed in 1968.
NEW DELHI - Leading engine manufacturers, including General Electric Aircraft Engines of the U.S., Turbomeca of France and Rolls-Royce of the United Kingdom, are competing to supply engines for India's intermediate jet trainer, HJT-36. An HJT-36 prototpye tested by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) last month was equipped with Turbomeca's Larzac 04H20 engine.
Pratt & Whitney will produce 240 F117-PW-100 engines for Boeing C-17 Globemaster III aircraft under a $1.4 billion U.S. Air Force contract, the company said May 19. The contract covers engines, spares and support services to be delivered in 2004-2007. Each C-17 is powered by four F117-PW-100 engines, which are military variants of the company's PW2000 engine that powers the Boeing 757.
The U.S. Army was able to supply all fighting units during the Iraq war, although not before some units had reached the last of their food and ammunition supplies, senior Army officials said May 19. To avoid resupply problems in the future, the Army plans to speed the deployment of the Blue Force Tracking System, although the timelines still have to be determined, said Brig. Gen Jerome Johnson, director of plans, operations and readiness for the Army's Office of Logistics.
AEGIS BMD: When the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (Aegis BMD) system has its next test in June, two ships will be used for the first time to test the system's interoperability. One ship will track a target missile and cue that information to the other ship, which will fire an interceptor. In previous tests, one ship performed both the tracking and firing functions. The Defense Department plans to deploy Aegis BMD by 2005 to intercept short and medium-range ballistic missiles in their midcourse phase.
In its latest Broad Area Announcement (BAA) calling for technologies to combat terrorism, the Technical Support Working Group (TSWG) spells out its requirements for systems to protect commercial airliners from shoulder-fired missiles. In the May 14 BAA, TSWG asks for "technologies that will support the defeat of Man Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) targeted against commercial and private aircraft during take-off and landing operations."
The Missile Defense Agency is considering conducting another nighttime intercept test of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system before the anti-missile system is fielded, according to an agency spokesman. MDA spokesman Rick Lehner said May 15 that the agency plans to test GMD at night in the future. With two intercept tests slated to occur before GMD's initial deployment in September 2004, one possibility under consideration is to conduct one of them at night, he said.
F/A-22 FUNDS: When the full House takes up the fiscal 2004 defense authorization bill as early as the week of May 19, Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), whose congressional district includes the F/A-22 Raptor assembly plant, says he probably will not offer an amendment to restore $161 million that the House Armed Services Committee cut from the Air Force's F/A-22 budget request.
MOSCOW - A failure in a descent control system instrument is the most likely reason for the off-target landing of a Soyuz capsule returning from the International Space Station May 3, according to an official of Soyuz-builder RSC Energia. Nikolai Zelenschikov, the first deputy general designer for the company, said RSC Energia has been studying the capsule since May 7 to understand what happened and try to keep it from happening on the next Soyuz return from the station.
JOINT DECLARATION: After an interruption caused by the U.S.-led war against Iraq, governments on both sides of the Atlantic should return to defining roles for crisis management and defense structures, says a joint declaration signed last week by 18 former U.S. cabinet officials and lawmakers, including four former defense secretaries. The governments also should continue reforming the export control process on arms shipments, the declaration says. It proposes creating a set of allied policies that divide responsibilities between the European Union (EU) and the U.S.
PRAGUE - India should be not put off from buying the Aero Vodochody-built L-159, despite a high number of breakdowns in the aircraft being introduced into the Czech air force, the Czech army's chief of staff told The DAILY. As of last week, only 17 of the 60 L-159s delivered to the Czech air force were capable of flying (DAILY, May 14). The aircraft are experiencing a defect every 3.68 flying hours, well below the contract agreement of one defect per 10 flying hours.
EXPOSURE: Exposure during the war in Iraq has had a huge positive impact on high-resolution commercial satellite imagery providers Digital Globe and Space Imaging, according Digital Globe President and CEO Herb Satterlee. Both companies regularly provided imagery to major television news outlets during Operation Iraqi Freedom. "I think Space Imaging and Digital Globe, for the first time, became widely recognized by the average American and probably the average news watcher around the planet," Satterlee says.
May 19 - 22 -- 2003 Global Demilitarization Symposium & Exhibition, John Ascuaga's Nugget, Sparks, Nev. Contact Tim Becker at (703) 247-2573, fax (703) 522-1885, email [email protected] or go to www.ndia.org. June 2 - 4 -- 3rd Annual National Symposium and Exhibition on Terrorism Preparedness & Response, "Enhancing the Capabilities of First Responders." Contact Simone L. Baldwin at (703) 247-2596, email [email protected] or go to www.ndia.org.
