The General Accounting Office has recommended the State Department change its procedures for reviewing export license applications for defense-related items and services after finding it has "no guidelines on the length of time a review should take, no requirements to justify a lengthy review and no systematic checks on the progress of applications." Although the State Department has hired additional officers to review the applications, it still "lacks procedures to control the flow of license applications through the review process," the report says.
UAV USE: The joint operational test bed system (JOTBS) for unmanned aerial vehicles, which the U.S. Joint Forces Command is developing and Congress endorsed last month in the fiscal 2002 defense authorization act (DAILY, Jan. 9), will involve more than how to improve communication among different types of UAV systems. It will also address how several ground control systems in different locations could all receive data from a single UAV and even send instructions to the aircraft, says Navy Lt. Cmdr.
The U.S. Air Force is getting $3.4 million to explore the possibility of creating an additional site in Hawaii for conducting space surveillance activities. The site would give the Air Force an alternate viewing point when clouds, wind or other weather conditions impede the work of the Maui Space Surveillance Site, a telescope complex on Haleakala mountain on Maui island, according to a spokesman for the Air Force Research Laboratory's Directed Energy Directorate. The complex produces images of orbiting space objects.
SPECTRUM ASTRO has validated the flight structure of its developmental test vehicle (DTV) for the Swift Gamma Ray Burst Explorer and is ready to build the Swift's flight structure at its Integration and Test facility in Gilbert, Ariz., the company announced Jan. 9. The DTV went through flight testing from Oct. 15 to Nov. 15 2001. The DTV consisted of a flight structure and mass models that simulated the Swift spacecraft and its payload components.
Officials with Denver-based Lockheed Martin Astronautics, a division of Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Space Systems, announced Jan. 10 the division will lay off about 700 employees by the end of 2002. The layoffs are occurring because work on three programs is coming to an end, Lockheed Martin spokeswoman Joan Underwood told The DAILY Jan. 11.
Industry criticism that NASA's support for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has been "inconsistent" (DAILY, Jan. 7) may be attributable to the modest number of personnel involved, according to John Del Frate, project manager for the Helios solar-powered UAV at Dryden Flight Research Center. Helios is part of NASA's Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology (ERAST) program, which is aimed at nurturing cutting-edge UAV concepts from industry. "Maybe we've been quiet," he says.
GASL, an engineering services organization that is a division of Allied Aerospace Industries, has signed an agreement with the Space Alliance Outreach Program (SATOP) to provide small business owners with free technical engineering assistance for problems they face in the workplace. "Joining SATOP gives GASL the chance to help small businesses as well as assist with the spread of NASA technology," said Bob Bakos, the vice president for engineering at Allied Aerospace.
The MV-22 Osprey program is the subject of a new probe by the U.S. Defense Department's Inspector General after the U.S. Marine Corps Commandant last month received a letter alleging "irregularities" by two previous crash investigations. Pentagon auditors earlier this month opened the second department-level investigation of the Osprey program this year, DOD spokeswoman Susan Hansen told Aerospace Daily affiliate AviationNow.com.
In the coming years, "I think you're going to see more [use of unmanned aerial vehicles] in law enforcement," says Daryl Davidson, executive director of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI). "We've typically seen that the most natural migration beyond the military goes into law enforcement, or the paramilitary side.
SPECTRUM ASTRO said construction has begun on its new satellite manufacturing facility, which it calls the "factory of the future." Completion of the new factory in Gilbert is slated for December 2002. The initial construction is of the company's phase one plan, which will provide the manufacturing and test capacity for the company's product base. It includes three buildings with a combined square footage of 270,000 square feet of engineering, manufacturing, test, office and support space.
UNDERFUNDED DEFENSE: Although President Bush signed the fiscal 2002 defense appropriations bill into law on Jan. 10 (DAILY, Jan. 11), he predicts it will not meet all of the military's budget needs. Since the measure provides about $2 billion less than his $319.4 billion request, it "does not adequately fund all my critical priorities, specifically the readiness of our forces," Bush says in a statement.
NASA Dryden Flight Research Center will be proposing a follow-on program to the Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology (ERAST) program, the unmanned aerial vehicle development work that has resulted in the Helios and Pathfinder UAVs, among others. Currently, ERAST is "pretty much scheduled to end at the end of fiscal year 2003," John Del Frate, Helios project manager at Dryden, told The DAILY. "We're right now trying to see if it makes sense to do a follow-on program, but of course we'll propose it, and then the powers that be will decide."
After supplying hundreds of shoulder-mounted Stinger surface-to-air missiles in the 1980s to Afghans fighting the Soviets, the U.S. is now involved in a "buy-back" scheme to reacquire the missiles. "With respect to Afghanistan, there have been two pieces to the arms buyback," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says.
The joint operational test bed system (JOTBS) for unmanned aerial vehicles, which the U.S. Joint Forces Command is developing and Congress endorsed last month in the fiscal 2002 defense authorization act (DAILY, Jan. 9), will involve more than how to improve communication among different types of UAV systems. It will also address how several ground control systems in different locations could all receive data from a single UAV and even send instructions to the aircraft, says Navy Lt. Cmdr.
COMSAT MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS, a business unit of Lockheed Martin Corp., has launched its Mobile Packet Data Service (MPDS), which provides remote users with access to Internet applications such as web access, file transfer and electronic mail. MPDS is the most recent offering via Inmarsat's Global Area Network. It uses laptop-sized Inmarsat M4 terminals. "GAN technology provides industry and professional leaders with the global communications bandwidth and speed they require to extend their enterprise networks into their field operations," said Kathryn Y.
Start-up satellite ventures like Astrolink International may have suffered from the fallout of dotcom and telecommunications companies in the late 1990s, but Astrolink's fate is not sealed, say some satellite industry observers. Astrolink was created in 1999 by Lockheed Martin Corp., TRW Inc., Telespazio SPA, and Liberty Media Group to provide global broadband satellite service, but has suffered a number of recent setbacks. Lockheed Martin announced in late October it would no longer fund Astrolink and was leaving the commercial satellite business altogether.
NASA Dryden Flight Research Center will be proposing a follow-on program to the Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology (ERAST) program, the unmanned aerial vehicle development work that has resulted in the Helios and Pathfinder UAVs, among others.
The U.S. Air Force is getting $3.4 million to explore the possibility of creating an additional site in Hawaii for conducting space surveillance activities. The site would give the Air Force an alternate viewing point when clouds, wind or other weather conditions impede the work of the Maui Space Surveillance Site, a telescope complex on Haleakala mountain on Maui island, according to a spokesman for the Air Force Research Laboratory's Directed Energy Directorate. The complex produces images of orbiting space objects.
Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), a member of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, is urging President Bush to increase procurement spending in the fiscal 2003 defense budget by at least $30 billion to overcome "serious" modernization shortfalls.
GASL, an engineering services organization that is a division of Allied Aerospace Industries, has signed an agreement with the Space Alliance Outreach Program (SATOP) to provide small business owners with free technical engineering assistance for problems they face in the workplace. "Joining SATOP gives GASL the chance to help small businesses as well as assist with the spread of NASA technology," said Bob Bakos, the vice president for engineering at Allied Aerospace.
STINGER BUY-BACK: After supplying hundreds of shoulder-mounted Stinger surface-to-air missiles in the 1980s to Afghans fighting the Soviets, the U.S. is now involved in a "buy-back" scheme to reacquire the missiles. "With respect to Afghanistan, there have been two pieces to the arms buyback," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says.
TRW Inc. is continuing with the design and development of an AstroMesh reflector for Mobile Broadcasting Corp. of Japan's MBSAT geostationary satellite. The work is being done under a contract from Space Systems/Loral. Reflectors, a key antenna component, reflect radio frequency energy and focus it into a pattern on the ground. MBSAT is intended to provide digital multimedia services, including audio, video and data to mobile users throughout Japan and Korea.
An Air National Guard pilot says the most daunting part about flying over Afghanistan is the possibility of a mid-air collision with other U.S. aircraft operating in the area. "The possibility of mid-air collision is seen as greater [in Afghanistan] than in previous wars," says Lt. Col. Gerald Otterbein, an EC-130 pilot. "There's more of a concentration of aircraft in certain places, and you have to be more aware of what's going on," says Otterbein, a member of the 193d Special Operations Wing that operates the Commando Solo broadcasting mission.
The cancellation of the Defense Department's Joint Signals Avionics Family (JSAF) program has left TRW holding half of a signals intelligence (SIGINT) package, which was intended to provide advanced electronic intelligence capable of picking up some of the most advanced surface-to-air-missile threats. Designed to provide a single SIGINT payload to multiple aircraft, JSAF was cancelled Dec. 20 when Congress eliminated funding for the program, citing concerns about the Pentagon's approach to common sensors (DAILY, Jan. 8).
The Department of Defense will maintain its "nuclear triad" even as it reduces its strategic arsenal, a Pentagon official said Jan. 9. The United States will reduce its strategic arsenal from the current level of about 6,000 warheads to between 1,700 and 2,000 weapons by 2012, said J. D. Crouch, the assistant secretary of defense for international security policy.
