The House Appropriations Committee approved a $15 billion fiscal 2002 budget for NASA late July 17 after rejecting an amendment by Rep. Carrie Meek (D-Fla.) that would have shifted $150 million from human space flight activities to housing programs. The human space flight account pays for the International Space Station and the space shuttle.
The deployment test flight for the Cosmos 1 solar sail project test craft has been bumped a day, from July 18 to July 19, according to the Planetary Society. Pre-launch preparations have uncovered no technical problems, but Viacheslav Danyelkin, the deputy director of Russia's Makeev Rocket Design Bureau, decided on the delay to allow more time to place the Volna booster rocket on the Delta III-class submarine that will launch the test craft.
BAE Systems Aviation Services has signed a base maintenance agreement with TNT airways of Liege, Belgium, and Pan Air, based in Madrid, to handle heavy maintenance checks to support the five BAE Systems Airbus A300B4 passenger-to-freighter conversions currently in service. The three-year contract is worth $18 million, the company, part of BAE System's Aircraft Services Group of Filton, Bristol, United Kingdom, announced July 17.
LANDSEA SYSTEMS of Virginia Beach, Va., has signed an agreement with Thales Airborne Systems for rights to distribute the Thales Inmarsat Aero-I Satellite Communication System. Under this agreement, LandSea will exclusively market and support the JetSat Aero-I to government and military agencies in the United States. "The JetSat allows for voice, fax and data (email) transmissions as well as meeting Global Air Traffic Management under the CNS/ATM communication requirement," said Ken Ravenna, vice president of LandSea's Aeronautical Division.
Space-based assets will eventually provide integral, near real-time information to the individual soldier, according to Col. Glen Collins, director of the Force Development and Integration Center at the Army Space and Missile Defense Command. Speaking at a media briefing here July 17, Collins said that with the help of future space-based systems - such as Space-based Radar and the Space-based Infrared System (SBIRS) - experiences such as those narrated in the book "Black Hawk Down" could become a thing of the past.
NASA plans two more tests of the Electro-Mechanical Actuator (EMA) technology used in the now-defunct X-33 program's Linear Aerospike XRS-2200 engine set, and will then turn the results over to industry so the technology can be integrated into next-generation spacecraft. The goal is to replace complicated rocket engine hydraulic systems with more trouble-free electro-mechanical systems that are cheaper to run.
MACDONALD, DETTWILER AND ASSOCIATES LTD. of Richmond, British Columbia, has been asked by the Canadian Space Agency to evaluate options for a Canadian hyperspectral mission, the company announced. Hyperspectral sensors look at Earth in hundreds of colors that can be used to determine important information about natural resources and the impact of mankind on the planet.
Alliant Techsystems (ATK) has successfully completed final testing of the thrust vector control (TVC) system on its first-stage motor for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization's Ground-based Midcourse Defense Segment. This completes all requirements to qualify the motor for flight, the Minneapolis-based company announced July 18.
Magellan Aerospace Corp. of Toronto has shipped the first flying test bed titanium aft nozzle for the Airbus A318 aircraft, the company announced July 18. The final production configuration acoustic panel will be mated with components produced by Snecma's Hurel-Hispano of LeHavre, France, and the Pratt&Whitney 6000 engine. The complete assembly will be used to verify the engine-to-nacelle combination in the A318 flight test program before certification and full-scale production.
Some members of the House Armed Services Committee said July 18 that the Army's proposed funding for the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile defense program may be taking away much-needed funding for weapons re-capitalization, training and facilities upgrades, while others said the PAC-3 itself is underfunded. Gen. Eric Shinseki, Army Chief of Staff, and Thomas White, Secretary of the Army, testified before the committee that the Army does not have enough funding to meet its current mission requirements.
Showing no signs of slowing, Boeing's net earnings jumped 35 percent in the second quarter and airliner deliveries for 2001 improved slightly even as a severe financial slump ravages airlines worldwide, AviationNow.com reported. Year-to-date, Boeing has more than doubled last year's net earnings through June 30 to $2.07 billion, the company announced July 18, thanks to strong sales of airliners and a rising demand for military aircraft.
Atlantis Systems International of Brampton, Ontario, will provide a Cockpit Procedures Trainer (CPT) for the new CH-149 Cormorant search and rescue helicopters being supplied by AgustaWestland to the Canadian Forces, the company announced July 17. The contract is with Westland Helicopters Limited and is subject to ratification buy the Canadian Department of National Defence. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The U.S. Air Force is surveying industry for companies qualified to replace the aging Electronic Flight Instruments (EFI) cockpit display used on some C-130 aircraft, an effort that would take about a year once a contract is awarded. A total of 116 C-130s have the EFI, made by L-3 Communications, and a subset of these will possibly be replaced, according to George Spencer, deputy director of the C-130 System Program Office at Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, Robins Air Force Base, Ga. Unrelated to AMP
AgustaWestland EH101 Merlin HC.3 transport helicopters formally entered Royal Air Force squadron service on July 17. Defense procurement minister Lord Bach and Air Chief Marshal Sir Peter Squire, chief of the air staff, were on hand for the event at the RAF's Benson base in Oxfordshire. The 22 Merlin HC.3s that the RAF has ordered are being delivered to the reformed No. 28 Army Cooperation Squadron at Benson, where they are supplementing the now-aging Westland/Aerospatiale SA 330 Pumas, of the No. 33 Squadron.
New spaceborne instruments are letting scientists peer deep into Earth's volcanoes and learn more about their behavior, NASA announced July 16. "We now have a view toward the center of Earth," volcanologist Michael Abrams of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, Calif., said in a NASA statement.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will have to present a more compelling case to the American public if his program for military transformation is to succeed, Andrew Krepinevich, executive director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said July 17. Krepinevich, a former member of the Department of Defense committee examining the strategic role played by conventional weaponry, said neither the military nor Congress has thus far bought into Rumsfeld's vision for military transformation.
Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Electronic Sensors and Systems Sector (ES3) has delivered two Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Radars (TUAVR) and spares to the U.S. Army's Communications and Electronics Command's Intelligence and Information Warfare Directorate. The TUAVRs have completed formal government acceptance testing, the company announced July 17. The lightweight, low-cost TUAVR is being developed for the Army as part of an Advanced Technology Demonstration Program sponsored by the Communications and Electronics Command.
The Defense Department has identified three planned missile defense activities that could conflict with the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in the upcoming fiscal year, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said July 17. A compliance review group at DOD is examining whether those activities would indeed violate the treaty in fiscal 2002. "They are in the gray zone on the boundaries of the treaty," Wolfowitz testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The European Space Agency's Cluster mission, which is studying the interaction between the sun and the Earth, has marked its first year in space, ESA announced July 17. Two of the four Cluster satellites were launched July 16, 2000 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Within a month, a second pair of identical satellites joined them in similar orbits, which pass over the Earth's poles.
The Boeing Co. will jointly headquarter its new Missile Defense Systems organization in Washington, D.C. and Huntsville, Ala., the company announced July 17. The organization is a major business enterprise within the Space and Communications operating unit, according to Boeing.
Volvo Aero Services has signed a memorandum of agreement with aviation aftermarket specialist Tracer Corp. and Internet parts market TradeAir.com, the company announced July 17. The multi-million dollar deal, which was announced at the Paris Air Show, calls for Tracer and TradeAir to partner with Volvo Aero Services to handle the sale of its inventory of commercial aviation expendable parts. "The aviation industry is going to be impressed with this combination of bricks and clicks," said Tracer CFO Tracy Madsen.
The american institute of aeronautics and astronautics will rededicate a monument to rocket pioneer Robert Goddard on July 21 at Auburn, Mass. Goddard made the first successful launch of a liquid-fueled rocket on the site in 1926. The monument was placed in 1960.
A rapidly deployed missile defense system could use ground-based interceptors in Ft. Greely, Alaska, along with other developing systems, to provide multi-layered missile defense by 2004-05, according to Rob Snyder, executive director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO). "It's possible that there would be five interceptors in silos at Greely, with all of the operational communications in place," said Snyder at a missile defense conference here July 17.
Congressional supporters of missile defense said they were pleased with the success of the July 14 missile defense system test, but said they would not have been discouraged even if the test had failed, since even earlier tests that have failed have been informative.
U.S. Army Gen. William Kernan, commander in chief of Joint Forces Command, said July 17 that he is trying to set up a special fund to pay for the development of breakthrough technology.
