NASA is continuing its review of the future of the X-37 space flight demonstrator, an agency official told House Science space subcommittee Chairman Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) in a Nov. 27 letter. Samuel Venneri, NASA's associate administrator for aerospace technology, wrote that the agency is talking with the Boeing Co., the program's primary corporate participant, about how to proceed with the X-37, including whether to pursue a flight test of the reusable launch vehicle.
Most of the big programs run by the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center are over cost and behind schedule, according to the center's commander, Lt. Gen. Brian A. Arnold. "As I look across the whole portfolio that I manage today," Arnold said at a conference here, "I will tell you that in virtually every one of our major programs we are out of control on cost and schedule." He said government and industry both share the blame.
As he works to develop a national strategy for protecting U.S. soil, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge is putting more money for first responders high on his priority list. "We need to give our nation's first responders - the firefighters, police, medical professionals, and other emergency officials - the tools to do their job even better," Ridge said, speaking at Aviation Week's Homeland Security and Defense conference in Washington Nov. 27.
Senate Armed Services Committee ranking Republican John Warner (Va.) issued a statement late Nov. 26 saying he did not mean to suggest at a press conference earlier in the day that he believes the U.S. military should use its intelligence-gathering technology for homeland defense.
AMGEN of Thousand Oaks, Calif., a biotechnology company, and NASA are teaming up to study bone loss in space and whether the protein osteoprotegerin (OPG) can help prevent such loss caused by a lack of weightbearing, a common problem for bedridden seniors. An Amgen experiment will be conducted on the shuttle Endeavour, scheduled to launch Nov. 30. The experiment will be conducted with the assistance of BioServe Space Technologies, a non-profit, NASA-sponsored Commercial Space Center located at the University of Colorado and Kansas State University.
Aerospace and defense analysts with Standard&Poor's downgraded the credit ratings for Hexcel Corp. Nov. 28 due to concerns about the company's weak operating performance and reduced liquidity. Hexcel's corporate credit rating was downgraded from "BB-" to "B." Analysts also downgraded the company's senior secured debt from "BB-" to "B" and its subordinated debt from "B" to "CCC+." The company remains on CreditWatch with negative implications, where it was placed Sept. 21.
LORAL SKYNET, a subsidiary of Loral Space&Communications, has signed a long-term agreement with Pittsburgh International Telecommunications to expand its direct-to-home and business platforms on Skynet's Telstar 5 satellite, which entered service in 1999. The company provides ethnic and business programming. "Loral Skynet is a leader in the satellite industry and offers PIT the ability to reach our customers throughout North America," said PIT CEO Robert Caruso. The Telstar 5, built by Space Systems/Loral, carries 24 C-band and 28 Ku-band transponders.
With its Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology (DART) program, Orbital Sciences Corp. hopes to accomplish a first in space flight - a purely autonomous on-orbit rendezvous between two spacecraft.
BTG BOUGHT: Titan Corp. said Nov. 28 it has closed its acquisition of information services company BTG Inc., which Titan said will extend its reach into the military and intelligence operations market (DAILY, Sept. 24). BTG employees will become part of Titan Systems, the company's government information technology subsidiary.
Following last year's contract to supply four air traffic control (ATC) monopulse secondary surveillance radar (MSSR) units to China, United Kingdom Raytheon Systems Ltd. (RSL) announced the award Nov. 28 of a similar order to help modernize China's ATC systems. The four MSSR units in the initial contract, signed in early 2000, for the Beijing to Guangzhou airway system, are now fully operational at Wuhan, Shaoguan, Shi Jia Zhuang and Zhoukou.
Loronix Information Systems Inc., a digital video management company based in Durango, Colo., is riding a wave of interest in security systems for homeland defense sparked by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The company, which supplies a range of products including software for surveillance cameras, has had a "significant uptick" in inquiries from the federal government and airports, according to Larry J. Bowe Jr., Loronix's director of alliance development and product management.
Officials with Exostar, an e-business marketplace serving the global aerospace and defense industry, announced the introduction of a new version of the company's e-business products. Release 4.0, as the new version is called, offers a comprehensive range of e-business products for procurement, collaboration and sourcing, Exostar officials said Nov. 28.
The Pentagon's new Office of Force Transformation will focus much of its energy on trying to link the new strategy defined by the Quadrennial Defense Review with ongoing efforts at transformation, according to the new director. "We will have a strategic focus and included in that will be the exploration of the future of war and alternative underlying rule sets which govern the processes of war," said ret. Navy Vice Admiral Arthur K. Cebrowski, who heads the new office.
Rep. David Weldon (R-Fla.) has urged the U.S. aerospace commission to consider whether national policy should be changed to allow NASA's space shuttles to be used for non-NASA missions. At the commission's first formal meeting Nov. 27, Weldon testified that the shuttles provide a unique capability with manned space flight. He also said they could serve as a backup for the Air Force's new Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELVs), "which will clearly suffer some growing pains."
CAE of Toronto has signed a contract with Eurofighter Simulation Systems (ESS) GmbH to supply visual systems for the Eurofighter EF2000 Typhoon combat aircraft Aircrew Synthetic Training Aids (ASTA) program, according to the company. CAE will provide more than $107 million in visual simulation equipment and services to ESS over the next seven years. "Today's signing marks the successful conclusion of negotiations for the largest visual system contract ever awarded to CAE," Martin Gagne, CAE's vice president of visual systems, said in a statement.
The Bush Administration criticized the House Nov. 28 for loading up the fiscal 2002 defense appropriations bill with hundreds of millions of dollars for aircraft, ships and other weapons that it did not request. While expressing support for the overall bill, the Administration said in a statement that the unrequested funding for procurement and research and development programs "comes at the expense of more urgent needs."
The U.S. Army may accelerate production of the AN/ALQ-212 Advanced Threat Infrared Countermeasures (ATIRCM) system, according to officials from BAE Systems, the company that produces the system. ATIRCM may receive a plus-up from the post-Sept. 11 supplemental funds, according to Christopher Ager, who handles business development for BAE Systems' ATIRCM system. "Special Operations aircraft would be the initial beneficiaries," he told The DAILY.
The new war on terrorism has prompted Air Force technology managers to stress "effects-based" solutions to challenges faced by warfighters, and combinations of air and space assets developed by this approach are turning out to be powerful tools in the fight against the Taliban, the commander of the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center said Nov. 28.
Randy Larsen, director of the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security, thinks the biggest threat facing U.S. security post-Sept. 11 is uncontrolled spending in the absence of a national strategy. "The threat I'm most worried about today is uncontrolled spending," said Larsen, speaking at Aviation Week's Homeland Security and Defense conference in Washington Nov. 27.
Arguing that the Air Force needs to work towards "closing the seam in the targeting process," Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper said that post-Sept. 11 supplemental funding is being directed at programs that will enhance time-critical targeting. Programs such as Link 16 - the advanced digital data communication system for command, control, and communications capability - have received significant increases through supplemental funding, Jumper said.
The White House announced late Nov. 26 that President Bush has signed the fiscal 2002 VA-HUD-NASA bill, which gives NASA $14.8 billion, an increase of about $500 million or 3.5 percent over FY '01 (DAILY, Nov. 7). The new law, passed by the House and Senate Nov. 8 (DAILY, Nov. 9), provides about $2 billion for the International Space Station, $95 million less than the Bush Administration's request.
Astronomers have made the first direct detection and chemical analysis of the atmosphere of a planet outside the solar system using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, scientists announced Nov. 27.
Russia is planning three launches carrying a total of five satellites in December, according to the Russian Space Troops press center. On Dec. 1, a Proton rocket carrying three Glonass navigation system satellites is scheduled for launch. On Dec. 10, a Zenit rocket is scheduled to carry a Meteor 3M satellite to space. Both launches are scheduled to take off from the Baikonur site in Kazakhstan. In late December, a Tsiklon-3 rocket carrying a Kosmos satellite is scheduled to launch from Plesetsk.
The Defense Department plans to ask Congress to approve the use of a "multi-year-like" development contract for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to reduce costs and free up money to "buy more stuff," according to Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Edward "Pete" Aldridge.
