A new Air Force office is developing programs to equip U.S. forces with systems to leverage American military superiority in space, according to the office's chief. Col. Edward T. Alexander, director of the Space Superiority Systems Program Office at the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif., said the unit is charged with developing "offensive and defensive counterspace systems, space situational awareness systems, and other selected, advanced capabilities that further exploit the advantages of space superiority."
OPEN FOR BUSINESS: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., is opening its Commercialization Center on Oct. 4. The center will serve as a one-stop shop for U.S. companies that want to work with JPL's Commercial Technology Program to develop and transfer technologies for public use, according to NASA. "It will literally be the front door to companies who wish to work with us but who don't know quite where to go," Merle McKenzie, manager of the Commercial Technology Program, said in a statement.
LOS ANGELES - The U.S. government's export control regulations are hampering efforts to outsource products and services for the worldwide aerospace market, representatives of two major aerospace companies said Oct. 2. "The system is absolutely broke," Robert Rearden, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin's F/A-22 program, said during a presentation at Aviation Week's Aerospace Expo conference here.
PRAGUE - The U.S. government will provide air cover with F-16s during the November NATO summit in Prague, U.S. officials here confirmed this week. Czech defense minister Jaroslav Tvrdik and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld reached an agreement on the deployment during a meeting last month in Washington. However, negotiations are continuing on several issues, including the number of aircraft to be deployed and how the cost of the operation will be met.
PANAMA CITY, Fla. - The Department of Defense has launched a "hurry up" effort to put in place a training transformation to bring all the military services together in exercises where they will "train as they fight," according to John Walsh, the assistant director for collective training in the Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Readiness).
CONFIRMED: The Senate Oct. 1 approved the appointment of Navy Adm. James O. Ellis Jr. to remain head of U.S. Strategic Command following its recent merger with U.S. Space Command. The Senate also approved the appointment of Lt. Gen. Michael Hagee as Marine Corps commandant and general, and Marine Corps Gen. James Jones as commander of U.S. European Command. On Oct. 2, the Senate confirmed retired Navy Rear Adm. Thomas Hall as assistant secretary of defense for reserve affairs.
PANAMA CITY, Fla. - The Army will achieve better performance and get multi-million dollar savings through the introduction of a new common avionics package (CAP) and redesigned forward and aft nodes for its MQM-107 aerial target vehicle, according to a service official. The CAP reduces the cost, size and complexity of the vehicles' control system.
LOS ANGELES - Competing in today's marketplace requires aerospace companies to re-examine the speed with which they move programs from concept to launch, and how quickly they can deliver orders, according to James Womack, president and CEO of the Lean Enterprise Institute. Companies that focus more on trying to manage their supplier relationships instead of working with suppliers to improve their concept-to-launch and order-to-delivery processes are more likely to fail due to inefficiencies, he said.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Communication difficulties experienced by President Bush when he was aboard Air Force One on Sept. 11 are being addressed by a series of modifications, according to Adm. James O. Ellis Jr., commander of the new Strategic Command.
NASA's Office of Space Science has assigned a group of scientists to determine what technology is needed to expand the search for asteroids and other objects that could collide with Earth. Edward Weiler, associate administrator for space science at NASA, testified before the House Science space subcommittee Oct. 3 that he expects to receive a report from the group, or Science Definition Team (SDT), in June 2003.
Boeing's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite-I (TDRS-I), which had its orbit raising prolonged by several months due to a problem with a propellant tank, finally reached geosynchronous orbit Sept. 30, Boeing and NASA announced. NASA's TDRS satellite constellation provides continuous, high-data-rate communications for a variety of spacecraft in low-Earth orbit, including the space shuttle, the International Space Station, the Hubble Space Telescope, and scientific satellites. The constellation is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
The space shuttle orbiter Discovery will receive a new glass cockpit during an 11-month maintenance period that began in August, according to officials at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. Discovery is undergoing routine major maintenance work at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., mainly for a thorough structural inspection. But the sidelining of Discovery will give NASA the opportunity to install a new Honeywell cockpit, which will replace mechanical instruments with full-color, flat-panel display screens.
The Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missile defense program is set to go before the Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) late this month, where the Army and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) will seek approval for the next two-year block of production on the system.
As part of its Nuclear Systems Initiative (NSI), NASA has awarded a contract to a Boeing-led team to develop nuclear electric power systems for deep space exploration, Boeing announced Oct. 3. The team - consisting of Boeing's Rocketdyne Propulsion and Power Unit, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Glenn Research Center, Honeywell, Swales Aerospace, Auburn University, and Texas A&M - will work on power conversion technologies that will enable nuclear reactors to power highly efficient electric thrusters.
The commercial space industry deserves to rank among the nation's critical infrastructures needing increased protection, according to a General Accounting Office report released Oct. 3. Commercial satellites provide communications and imagery to military and civilian agencies, but do not receive the in-orbit and ground-station security afforded to strictly military spacecraft, concluded the GAO report, "Commercial Satellite Security Should Be More Fully Addressed."
The House of Representatives passed a bill Oct. 1 that would establish awards to encourage amateur astronomers to discover and track potentially dangerous asteroids in near-Earth orbits. The Charles "Pete" Conrad Astronomy Awards Act (H.R. 5303) authorizes NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe to establish the awards program through a contract with the Minor Planet Center of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark unveiled the broad outlines of Sea Power 21, the Navy's new operational blueprint, on Oct. 2, saying the plan will drive the Navy's investment strategy and could lead to program changes in fiscal 2004. Sea Power 21 is led by three new operational concepts - "Sea Strike" for projecting power, "Sea Shield" for homeland and missile defense and "Sea Basing" for minimizing shore support - all tied together by a "ForceNet" of networks, sensors and communications.
LOS ANGELES - Lockheed Martin Corp. would have developed the F/A-22 Raptor differently had it known in previous years what it knows now about supplier management, a senior Lockheed program official said Oct. 2. Many of the lessons about supplier management the company learned over the past 11 years had to be learned the hard way, Bob Rearden, vice president and general manager of the F/A-22 program, told an audience at Aviation Week's Aerospace Expo conference here.
ARINC INC., Annapolis, Md. Randolph F. Pizzi has been appointed to the new position of managing director, Asian operations. THE BOEING CO., Washington, D.C. Ronald E. "Mutz" Mutzelburg has been named director of Phantom Works for Boeing's Washington, D.C. operations. Ian Thomas has been appointed acting country executive for the company's new Integrated Defense Systems business in the United Kingdom. COMPASS AEROSPACE, Santa Ana, Calif.
DELAY: Fearful of a potential Hurricane Lili threat to the Mission Control Center at Johnson Space Center in Houston, NASA has bumped the launch of shuttle Atlantis to Monday, Oct. 7.
The House late Oct. 1 approved a bill aimed at giving local and state governments greater access to satellite imagery to help them deal with urban growth, homeland security and forest fires. The bill would authorize NASA to award $15 million in grants a year for several years for pilot projects integrating federal and commercial satellite data for use by state, regional, local and tribal agencies.
WINGS: Alliant Techsystems (ATK) will supply composite parts to Vought Aircraft Industries for enhanced wings for the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle. The work will be done under a $13 million contract, the company said Oct. 2. ATK will provide upper and lower wing skins, spars, ribs and leading-edge, control-surface and trailing-edge components. Northrop Grumman announced earlier this month it is building a larger, multi-mission Global Hawk, and as part of that effort awarded Vought and ATK a contract to design and develop the enhanced wings (DAILY, Sept. 18).
