CHRISTMAS LANDING: Following a "flawless" release from the Mars Express vehicle on Dec. 19, the Beagle 2 rover is on schedule to land on Mars Dec. 25, according to the European Space Agency (ESA). The release had to be extremely precise, ESA says, because the lander has no propulsion or steering system of its own. The Mars Express orbiter will spend two years circling the planet, and the lander will spend six months studying an area known as Idisis Planitia, near the equator.
NASA has renamed the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) the Spitzer Space Telescope, and released the first images from the spacecraft on Dec. 18. The telescope was named after Lyman Spitzer Jr. (1914-1997), who in 1946 became the first to propose placing a large telescope in space to avoid the obscuring effects of Earth's atmosphere.
NEW DELHI - Pakistan has integrated its indigenously produced H-4 hard-target bomb into its air force, a diplomat at the Pakistan Embassy here said recently. The integration of the H-4 is in preparation for obtaining Beyond Visual Range (BVR) missile capability for the Pakistan defense forces.
Two organizations commissioned by Boeing to investigate its ethics programs found that the company's scandals are not due to fundamental and systemic flaws in its programs, but that Boeing's ethics programs could stand some improvements.
A new 10-year forecast by Futron Corp. predicts that current small markets for satellite services, such as in-flight Internet, connectivity, will grow considerably over the next five years, while larger markets experience moderate growth.
GPS LAUNCH: A Boeing Delta II rocket is scheduled to launch a U.S. Air Force Global Positioning System satellite on Dec. 21 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., Boeing said Dec. 18. The launch of GPS IIR-10 is scheduled to occur during a 15-minute launch window that opens at 2:54 a.m. EST, the company said. The spacecraft is to be deployed 68 minutes after launch.
The Missile Defense Agency's Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system has successfully completed a key design review, clearing the way for the program to resume flight-testing in late 2004, according to a source at prime contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. THAAD, which was restructured after a series of failed flight tests a few years ago, received high marks from MDA during the system's Dec. 16-17 critical design review, which took place in Huntsville, Ala., the Lockheed Martin source told The DAILY Dec. 18.
COBRA JUDY CONTRACT: Raytheon Co. has been awarded a contract worth up to $1.045 billion to replace the Navy's aging ship-based Cobra Judy radar system, the Defense Department announced late Dec. 18. The contract, which was not competitively procured, calls for Raytheon's Integrated Defense Systems unit to design, develop and produce the new system (DAILY, Dec. 18). Cobra Judy is used to track foreign ballistic missile launches.
UFO LAUNCH: An International Launch Services Lockheed Martin Atlas III carried a U.S. Navy UHF Follow-On (UFO) satellite to orbit late on Dec. 17 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. The Boeing-built satellite is UFO F11, the last in the UFO series. It had been scheduled for launch earlier this week, but a problem with a mechanism attaching the rocket to the pad prompted a delay.
The Department of Defense (DOD) has given the U.S. Army the go-ahead to acquire and field Stryker Brigade Combat Teams (SBCT) 5 and 6, and approved its plans to make improvements to these brigades and retrofit brigades 1 through 4 with newer technology as it becomes available. An Army plan "reviewed basing options for the brigades and the desirability of associating Stryker brigades with Air Force aerial expeditionary forces to facilitate development of joint doctrine, training, and deployment," the DOD said Dec. 17.
PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Czech officials will open negotiations with the Swedish government over a leasing contract for 14 new JAS-39 fighters at the beginning of 2004, according to the Czech ministry of defense.
Industry officials expect the Department of Homeland Security on Dec. 19 to award contracts for the first phase of a program to develop anti-missile devices for airliners. They say the contest for the two-phase, $100 million system development and demonstration (SDD) program has been narrowed from an initial field of about 90 to just five competitors - AVISYS, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon.
CHAIRMAN: Thomas M. Culligan, the executive vice president of business development for Raytheon, and CEO of Raytheon International, has been named to a two-year term as chairman of the board of the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA). The NDIA provides a forum for exchanging ideas between industry and government on defense issues.
Space experts disagreed on the value of the moon and Mars as destinations for astronauts during a panel in Washington Dec. 18, though all agreed that NASA needs a new destination to galvanize the country's human space flight program.
BATTELLE, Columbus, Ohio Maj. Gen. James T. Jackson (U.S. Army, ret.) has been named marketing manager for the Battelle Office of Homeland Security. DRS TECHNOLOGIES, Parsippany, N.J. Ervin T. Kiriu has joined the company as vice president, programs for the Electronic Systems Group, based in Gaithersburg, Md. KEYSTONE HELICOPTER, West Chester, Pa. Peter Wright Jr., president of the company, has been named vice chairman. NORTHROP GRUMMAN, Los Angeles
The Indian government balked at signing a contract for the purchase of the Barak anti-missile system for the Indian navy after the system malfunctioned during tests. A senior Indian defense ministry official told The DAILY that technical problems turned up in the Barak system during trials in the second week of November. More tests have been ordered in the near future.
Boeing executives were upbeat and optimistic Dec. 16 as they announced their board's approval to offer the 7E7 Dreamliner to airlines and build it in Everett, Wash. (DAILY, Dec. 17), but analysts said the way ahead for Boeing in the commercial sector is far from clear. There are good reasons to be optimistic, said Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va. For one thing, he said, time is on the side of the 7E7, which would formally launch in mid-2004 and enter service in 2008.
SOUND BARRIER: Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne broke the sound barrier Dec. 17, the company said. The flight showed that "supersonic flight is now the domain of a small company doing privately funded research, without government help," the company said. The company's White Knight turbojet launch aircraft carried the rocket-powered SpaceShipOne to 48,000 feet over California, and then its engine carried it to 68,000 feet, where it achieved near weightlessness. One of the aircraft's wings was damaged during the landing but the damage was minor, according to the company.
