Launch of the comet rendezvous spacecraft Rosetta will be delayed by several days as an inquiry board continues to investigate the failure of Arianespace's heavier-lift Ariane 5, the company said Dec. 30. A board, named by Arianespace, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the French space agency CNES, is to submit its report to Arianespace on Jan. 6.
Formed as a pioneering transatlantic partnership two years ago, ThalesRaytheonSystems (TRS) enters 2003 more than one year behind schedule and with at least one corporate parent dissatisfied. "Are we as pleased with where we are today versus what our plan said?"Raytheon International CEO Thomas Culligan said in an interview. "The answer is no."
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) plans to appeal a federal court's recent decision to dismiss his lawsuit challenging the Bush Administration's withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, according to a spokesman for the congressman. Kucinich, who filed the suit with 31 other House members, intends to begin forming his appeal strategy when the new congressional session begins the week of Jan. 6-10, his spokesman said Jan. 2. Kucinich could file an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court or the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
A Russian failure investigation board is citing excess fuel in the upper stage as the culprit behind a recent Proton rocket failure, according to International Launch Services (ILS). The Nov. 26, 2002 failure of the Proton's Block DM upper stage left the Astra 1K satellite stranded in the wrong orbit. The largest commercial satellite ever built in Europe, Astra 1K subsequently was de-orbited (DAILY, Dec. 11, 2002).
Israeli government officials have been talking to officials of the U.S. government about using an Israeli system on U.S. airlines to deflect heat-seeking missiles, sources said. The discussions, spurred by a failed attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner with such missiles as it departed Mombasa, Kenya, on Nov. 28, are said to have centered on the Flight Guard system, which already is installed on 150 airplanes, some of them commercial aircraft.
Cubic Defense Applications, owned by Cubic Corp. of San Diego, will provide an electronic warfare (EW) simulator to the Danish air force, the company said Jan. 2. The simulator, the High Density Signal Simulator (HIDESS), will allow the Danish air force to test advanced radar warning receivers and other EW equipment, the company said. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. HIDESS, which can emulate standard radar, pulse Doppler or continuous waveform signals, is part of a line of new EW products the company is introducing.
The General Accounting Office has endorsed NASA's decision to move space shuttle orbiter major modification (OMM) work from California to Florida, saying NASA's expectations of cost savings were based on "sound" reasoning.
Monday, December 16, 2002 NAVY Raytheon Electronic Systems, El Segundo, Calif., is receiving an $18,350,000 firm-fixed-price order under previously awarded contract (N00383-01-G-100A) for purchase of AN/APG-73 radar receivers used on the F/A-18 aircraft. Work will be performed at El Segundo, Calif., and is to be completed by December 2004. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Inventory Control Point, Philadelphia is the contracting activity. ARMY
FIRST FLIGHT: The first C-5 Galaxy modified under the C-5 Avionics Modernization Program made its first flight Dec. 21, ahead of its planned February first-flight date, Lockheed Martin said Dec. 23.
MOSCOW - Workers are finishing repairs to Building 112 at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, which was heavily damaged when its roof collapsed in May, killing eight (DAILY, May 14, 2002). Clean rooms used by contractor Starsem should be ready for use by mid-February, when the European Space Agency's Mars Express is slated to arrive for preparation for its May or June launch. A government commission said overloading the roof with more than 10 tons of new roofing material played a large role in the collapse. Launches
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - A study of a follow-on ICBM will begin in 2003 or 2004 and all basing modes will be considered, according to Brig. Gen. William L. Shelton, director of plans and programs for Air Force Space Command headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base here. "We will begin an analysis of alternatives within the next year or two to determine what the follow-on ICBM should look like," Shelton told The DAILY.
Congress faces no dearth of defense and NASA issues in 2003. When lawmakers reconvene in early January, they will have to make several key personnel decisions affecting aerospace programs. The chairmanships of the Senate Armed Services airland and seapower subcommittees and the House Science space subcommittee are up for grabs, and the House Armed Services Committee may revamp its subcommittee structure to make it more like that of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Analysts and NASA officials agree that 2003 will be a crucial year for the agency as it enters the most difficult period of space station construction and continues its push to re-establish financial credibility in the eyes of Congress. "The year ahead will be the most complex so far in the history of the International Space Station [ISS] and its construction in orbit," NASA Station Program Manager Bill Gerstenmaier said in a statement. "The station literally becomes a new spacecraft with each assembly mission."
As the Department of Defense (DOD) prepares to double spending on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) next year, officials warn that UAVs could become the victims of their own popularity if new capabilities are piled on without regard to affordability. "There's lots of stuff that UAVs can do, but that doesn't necessarily mean that all of those things are cost effective," said Diane Wright, deputy director for air warfare at the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). "We need to figure out how to balance that out."
Army and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) officials are to decide in mid-May whether the Future Combat Systems (FCS) program will move forward into the system development and demonstration phase. The LSI team hopes to begin awarding development contracts soon after the Army and DARPA give the approval to move forward, said Jerry McElwee, Boeing's program manager for the FCS program.
The process for reviewing export licenses to sell dual-use and munitions items overseas, especially to European allies, likely will come under closer scrutiny next year, according to Joel Johnson, vice president of International Affairs for the Aerospace Industries Association. Johnson said the commerce, state and defense departments have made great progress over the past 18 months in clarifying which items should be on the State Department's Munitions List and which should be included on the Commerce Department's Control List.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's transformation agenda enters its third year poised for a new focus on implementing the broad budgetary and strategic reforms imposed since 2001, according to defense officials and analysts. By the end of 2002, the goals of the Army, Navy and Air Force seemed to draw closer to the transformation vision pushed by Rumsfeld's civilian leadership team. The latest round of budget negotiations indicates a clear shift in thinking, said Loren Thompson, executive director of the Lexington Institute.
The year ahead promises fewer moments of the high suspense that dominated 2002 for several of the Pentagon's highest-profile aerospace programs, but a handful of critical events are in store over the next 12 months. It was only a year ago that three blockbuster aerospace programs appeared to have an uncertain future. Make-or-break events were on the calendar for the RAH-66 Comanche, V-22 Osprey what was then called the F-22 Raptor.
BIT OF RESERVE: U.S. special operations troops soon may own a surplus of AC-130 gunships and MH-47 helicopters, a senior defense official says. The fiscal 2004 budget request proposes continuing the replacement of special operations aircraft lost, damaged or aged by Operation Enduring Freedom, and adds some, the official says. "There'll be an effort to get them a bit of a reserve in terms both of helicopters and fixed-wing assets," he says. Overall, special operations accounts also will gain funds to boost manpower, especially at the headquarters level.
NOT TOTALLY DEPENDENT: The United States' failure to reform its export control regulations has helped European defense and space companies, according to an official with the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. (EADS). European companies have come to depend on the U.S. market to sell their products, the official says, but when U.S. export regulations prevented the export of key technologies, European firms were able to design and develop their own systems. Companies that have successfully done this include Airbus, Eurocopter and Arianespace.
SHARPER FOCUS: The creation of the Department of Homeland Security will affect the making of future U.S. export control regulations, according to a State Department export controls and nonproliferation official. "We're obviously going to be working very closely with Homeland Security. We're going to be looking at the same questions from slightly different perspectives, but with the same objectives," he says. The area most affected by the department's creation will be technology transfer, according to the official.
