The Army's howitzer-launched QuickLook unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is on schedule for its first full-system demonstration in September. QuickLook is an expendable, GPS-guided loitering UAV capable of transmitting imagery, providing target coordinates, and performing battle damage assessment for up to 45 minutes.
Hoping to boost the Mid-Atlantic region's role in aerospace-related technology development, Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) said April 3 that he is pushing to create a cutting-edge rotorcraft research center near the Boeing Co.'s rotorcraft plant in suburban Philadelphia.
COUNTDOWN: Space Shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to launch between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. EST on April 4 on the 13th mission to the International Space Station. According to NASA, the forecast calls for a 70-percent chance of favorable weather at launch time.
China could display its J-10 fighter aircraft for the first time at the Zhuhai airshow in November, according to Chinese officials who attended Singapore's Asian Aerospace exhibition in March.
Boeing delivered two new AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopters to the U.S. Army at a ceremony in Mesa, Ariz., on April 3, the company announced. The helicopters delivered were the last Apache Longbow helicopter built under the first five-year production effort, called multiyear I, and the first built under a new five-year program, multiyear II. Multiyear I provided 232 Army Apache Longbows, including the one delivered April 3. Multiyear II is slated to provide 269 Apache Longbows through 2006.
Seeking proof of an asteroid belt first hypothesized nearly a century ago, two Colorado astronomers this week took a series of observations at 49,000 feet - flying from the back seat of a NASA F/A-18 jet. Dan Durda and Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., will spend the next two weeks crunching data that may, or may not, confirm the existence of Vulcanoids, a string of orbiting rocks possibly lying between Mercury and the Sun.
Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond (R-Mo.), a member of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee whose state includes the Boeing Co.'s St. Louis-based Military Aircraft and Missile Systems unit, has asked the Navy to brief him on a proposal to cut procurement of the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, according to an aide to the senator.
Compatibility problems between the hardware and software systems used by prime contractors and suppliers will have to be resolved for the aerospace and defense community to take full advantage of the Internet, according to industry experts. "The issue of compatibility - the ability of companies to do design and collaborative work - is a tremendous problem," according to Bill Lewandowski, vice president of supplier management for the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA). "We have to go and solve that problem to be profitable."
Despite a 1994 congressional ban on developing new nuclear payloads, engineers in the Department of Energy are working on conceptual studies to develop low-yield nuclear weapons, according to Gen. John A. Gordon, the head the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and undersecretary of energy for nuclear security.
AGREEMENT: GE Aircraft Engines and Woodward Governor Co.'s Aircraft Engine Systems business have signed a long-term delivery and pricing agreement for production engine fuel delivery system components through 2008, Woodward announced. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Norway is interested in joining the development phase of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, according to Norway's minister of defense, even as the United States considers reducing its buy of the aircraft. Appearing with U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon April 2, Norwegian Minister of Defense Kristin Krohn Devold said although no final decision has been made, Norway "wants to take part" in the JSF's system development and demonstration (SDD) phase.
Russia's Space Troops launched an Oko ("Eye") early warning satellite on April 2. The 6,000-pound spacecraft, designated Kosmos-2388, was delivered to a high elliptical orbit by a Molniya-M launcher from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. The launch had been planned for March 26, but was delayed. Oko satellites make up the first level of the national early warning system, with the second level based on geostationary Prognoz satellites.
Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Integrated Systems Sector has completed installation of the wing center section for the second EA-6B Prowler Increased Capability III (ICAP III) system development aircraft. The work was performed at Northrop Grumman's Airborne Early Warning and Electronic Warfare Systems facility in St. Augustine, Fla., the company said April 1.
SPIRENT SALE: Spirent of London has completed the sale of its aerospace component businesses to Curtiss-Wright Corp. of the U.S. for $60 million, the company announced.
The airborne infrared countermeasures market will nearly triple in size over the next 10 years as military forces seek ways to counter the threat from shoulder-fired guided missiles, according to a forecast report from the Teal Group. "The infrared countermeasures (IRCM) market will almost triple over the next decade to $700 million annually by 2008, for a total value of $5 billion this decade," said David Rockwell, senior electronics analyst and author of the Teal Group's Military Electronics Briefing.
Discarded satellites in Russia's Glonass navigation constellation could eventually pose a threat to their operational brethren and to Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites, according to studies by the Aerospace Corporation. When disposed of, satellites in medium Earth orbit (MEO) are typically moved into different orbits or left where they are, rather than de-orbited. However, gravitational perturbations in MEO tend to cause orbits to become more eccentric, or oval-shaped, over time.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center has begun testing a new reaction control engine (RCE) developed in support of the agency's Space Launch Initiative (SLI). The RCE, developed by TRW Space and Electronics of Redondo Beach, Calif., is designed to accomplish on-orbit maneuvers such as docking, re-entry, and attitude control.
HAWKEYE ARRIVES: Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Integrated Systems sector has delivered a third E-2C Hawkeye 2000 to the U.S. Navy, a month ahead of schedule, the company announced. The company said it is using lean production techniques to cut Hawkeye construction time from 42 to 24 months.
BAE Systems' win of a $12.7 million U.S. Army contract for the Common Missile Warning System (CMWS) is a milestone that may convince overseas customers to buy the device, a company executive said. "This is a big milestone for us, the first U.S. production [contract]," said Christopher Ager, business development manager for BAE Systems' Information and Electronic Warfare Systems unit in Nashua, N.H.
The Rand Corp. has been hired by the Defense Department to conduct an aircraft industrial base study that could give ammunition to those who argue Lockheed Martin Corp. should be forced to split production of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter with the Boeing Co. An aide to Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond (R-Mo.), who pushed for the study, said April 2 that DOD and Rand, the Santa Monica, Calif.-based think tank, recently reached agreement on how the study would be conducted. The results of the Rand review could be available by September.
