Data on the sun's magnetic fields and plasma structures collected by a planned NASA probe will be posted on the Internet as soon as it is received, potentially bringing anyone with a modem into the research team analyzing the data. The Transition Regional and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) spacecraft, planned for launch in the fall of 1997, will study the interface between the sun's photosphere and corona.
House National Security Committee says it recognizes the technical success achieved by the Advanced Research Project Agency's Airborne Infrared Measurement System (AIRMS) in investigating the capabilities of infrared sensors for long range surveillance, detection, targeting and pointing. The committee adds in its draft report on the FY '96 defense bill that it will encourage a request for reprogramming to continue support for the effort in '96.
Rep. Ike Skelton (Mo.), ranking Democrat on the House National Security procurement subcommittee, is asking the General Accounting Office to take a look at recent U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft accidents. Skelton, in a May 26 letter to Comptroller General Charles A. Bowsher, notes that "over the past few weeks there has been a spate of military aircraft accidents," including an F-117A stealth fighter, a C- 130E, an Air Force executive jet, an F-16B, an F/A-18D and a National Guard A-10. Last week, a T-38 crashed in Wichita Falls, Tex.
The Tier II Predator unmanned aerial vehicle is ready for deployment, but no overseas mission has yet been specified, the program manager said Friday. Reports that the General Atomics-built UAV is headed for Bosnia at the request of U.S. European Command are premature, Capt. Allen Rutherford told The DAILY Friday.
The TRW/IAI Hunter team is focusing on satisfying its U.S. customer first before it looks to the international market, an IAI spokesman says. That isn't to say that other countries won't be able to buy Hunter in the meantime. TRW and IAI are responding to inquiries from several countries, the spokesman points out. Hunter will get some additional international exposure this month at the Paris air show.
Among Druyun's first actions will be the naming this week of the leader of a centralized support team charged with streamlining all RFPs, contract options and contract modifications over $10 million. This action will affect about 120 USAF actions from the first six months of this fiscal year.
TRW will provide communications payloads and payload subsystems for two Milstar satellites under a $411 million contract with Lockheed Martin and Hughes. Under a separate $149 million contract, TRW will also provide antenna and processing subsystems for the Hughes-built medium data rate (MDR) communications payloads on the Milstar 5 and 6 platforms, the Redondo Beach, Calif., company reported.
Flight tests of the new Tier III Minus unmanned aerial vehicle will begin this fall, but it will likely be a few years before the Defense Dept. determines how many of the stealthy "DarkStar" vehicles will be bought, according to officials involved in the effort.
Japanese officials last week said China tested a new, mobile intercontinental ballistic missile that could be deployed on submarines, according to wire-service reports from Tokyo. Japan's cabinet secretary, Kozo Igarshi, made the claim during a press conference Wednesday. The new ICBM is said to be solid fuel type with a range of 5,000 miles which could be extended to 6,200 miles. The missile could be launched from mobile platforms, such as land vehicles and submarines, the reports said.
NASA'S LEWIS RESEARCH CENTER has finished modifying a DC-9 jetliner to serve as a microgravity laboratory for scientists and engineers who need brief periods of near weightlessness for research in biotechnology, combustion science, fluid physics and materials science. The aircraft will be able to provide microgravity for between 18 and 22 seconds by flying parabolic maneuvers. It is equipped with new power and research data distribution systems and a low-gravity guidance system to help pilots fly accurate parabolic trajectories.
The request for proposal for the Maneuver UAV-one of the variants of the Hunter Joint Tactical UAV-probably won't be released before the fall, says a spokesman for the UAV Joint Program Office. But if Hunter is canceled, the Maneuver variant is likely to be dropped as well, the spokesman acknowledges.
Sikorsky is expected to reveal at the Paris Air Show the details of how it will develop its proposed S-92 Helibus medium-lift helicopter. At last year's Singapore Air Show, Sikorsky president Eugene Buckley said the company would proceed with the Helibus with international partners in development, financing and production (DAILY, Feb. 24, 1994). However, corporate approval has yet to be given. Sikorsky has been doing S- 92 simulation work for some time at its Stratford, Conn., facility.
NASA managers will set a date next week to launch the Space Shuttle Atlantis to Russia's Mir space station, after deciding Friday to skip a launch attempt this week and roll the Shuttle Discovery back to the Vehicle Assembly Building to repair more than 100 holes drilled in its external tank insulation by a pair of woodpeckers.
The Inmarsat-P mobile satellite venture has a lot on its plate this year. Besides working to fight off TRW's patent claim on the use of medium-Earth orbit, the Inmarsat spinoff wants to select a contractor to build its 12 satellites by the end of the year. Inmarsat-P isn't saying who it's negotiating with for the job, but it's a pretty safe bet that it's not TRW.
The U.S. Air Force plans to base three reactivated SR- 71 Blackbirds-two one-seat A models and one two-seat B model-at Edwards AFB, Calif., to allow the service and NASA to share facilities and equipment. The AF has decided against deploying the reconnaissance aircraft to any overseas location except to support contingency operations, and is looking at several candidate overseas sites where fuel could be prepositioned.
Software for the Boeing-Sikorsky Comanche helicopter will be ready for first flight, even though a few issues remain to be resolved, a Boeing spokesman said. "The core flight control system will be in place in this aircraft to meet the November flight schedule," he said. "That's not to say it's going to be an easy load. I think a lot of people will have to work very hard, but it's going to be done."
NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin is all for international cooperation-witness his role in bringing Russia aboard the International Space Station-but he doesn't want foreign companies involved in the U.S. effort to develop a reusable launch vehicle. "Hell no," Goldin replied as a "gut reaction" when asked last week whether France's Aerospatiale should be involved in the X-33 and X-34 programs. "Let's face it," he said. "This isn't nice. Aerospatiale and Ariane want to wipe out the U.S. launch market, and that's not bad. Let's call it for what it is.
The Pentagon should retain control of the Global Positioning System for national security reasons but should drop the Selective Availability (SA) feature that allows it to degrade the accuracy of signals to civil users, a new report says. It also says the U.S. should offer basic GPS free to all users to forestall international competition in a marketplace that is "exploding" with GPS products, and says the Dept. of Transportation should become more expert on GPS issues to allow it to negotiate more skillfully with the Defense Dept.
British Aerospace-built Eurofighter prototype DA.2 has only made a handful of test flights since returning to the air May 17, and the two other complete aircraft-DA.1 and DA.3-have not yet rejoined the test program as planned. As of Thursday, two weeks into an ambitious test schedule ostensibly accelerated to make up for time lost during a nearly year-long grounding due to flight control system software troubles (DAILY, May 19, page 275), DA.2 had made only five flights.
Russia's Spektr scientific module docked with a slightly leaky Mir space station on the first try Wednesday night, but back on Earth a tiny woodpecker threatened to delay the upcoming launch of one of NASA's Space Shuttles. Spektr docked at 8:56 p.m. EDT Wednesday, carrying more than 1,700 pounds of scientific equipment, two pairs of solar arrays to boost power to the aging Russian station and a new robotic arm to shuffle the massive Mir modules around in preparation for seven dockings with the Shuttle Atlantis.
A modified antenna is being used to test the F-22 fighter's radome and will help determine how to mitigate any impact of the radome on radar performance. Since the end of last year, an antenna built by the Westinghouse/Texas Instruments team developing the F-22's electronically scanned, active aperture radar has been involved in radome testing at Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, Palmdale, Calif., a Boeing spokesman said.
It was probably one of the most apologetic rating actions issued in recent memory. When asked to pass judgment on some $150 million worth of notes Alliant Techsystems used to buy Hercules Aerospace, debt-watcher Moody's Investor's Service earlier this year gave the paper a junk-bond grade-B2. The rating action was festooned with the now-familiar warnings about "risks surrounding the gradual decline of the military market," and seemed to paint a grim picture of investors' chances. A winning hand?
Hypersonics, information dominance, space technologies and aging engines are among the nine primary research areas that the U.S. Air Force should focus on between fiscal years 1997-2002, according to James Mattice, the Air Force's deputy assistant secretary for research and engineering.
The House and Senate Armed Services Committees will hold hearings on U.S. policy in Bosnia, the chairmen of the committees said yesterday. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) said the hearings, to begin next week, may cause the panel to put aside plans to mark up the fiscal 1996 defense authorization in the next few weeks.
Lockheed Martin and Boeing yesterday rolled out the stealthy, single-engine Tier III Minus "DarkStar" unmanned aerial vehicle at Lockheed Advanced Development Co. here, revealing for the first time the thin, stingray-like flying wing design that was classified until yesterday afternoon.
