SPACE S&T: Gen. Lester Lyles, commander of Air Force Materiel Command, outlines space science and technology (S&T) areas that are well funded - and those that are not.
The Air Force's Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has returned to the United States after a six week deployment in Australia - breaking an aviation record on the way back, just as it did on the way over. On its return trip, Global Hawk became the first unmanned craft to fly nonstop from Australia to the U.S. It landed at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., last week.
While the Air Force is complying with a Space Commission recommendation to move AF Materiel Command's Space and Missile Systems Center under AF Space Command, the service doesn't agree that space programs of Materiel Command's Research Laboratory should be separated from the lab's other activities. The commission recommended putting all space-related technology directorates under Air Force Research Laboratory, implying that other AFRL functions would be split away.
Edward "Pete" Aldridge, under secretary of defense for acquisition reform, technology and logistics, gave a peek into the types of programs the Pentagon is favoring, now almost five months into its intensive review. "We've got to rationalize the weapons systems and the infrastructure consistent with the strategy that's being developed now by the Department of Defense," Aldridge said at an acquisition reform conference in Washington June 6.
CAE of Toronto has been picked to supply visual systems for the Eurofighter EF2000 Aircrew Synthetic Training Aids program, a contract worth more than $170 million. The company, which provides simulation and control technologies for the aerospace, defense and forestry industries, will design, develop, produce, install and support complete visual systems for 27 simulation devices.
The Bush Administration should pump "a couple billion dollars extra" into missile defense programs, particularly for testing, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R.-Calif.) said June 7. "If we don't get the ... funding that we need, we're going to be in trouble on missile defense," said Hunter, who chairs the Armed Services Committee's military procurement subcommittee.
General Dynamics announced it has completed its acquisition of Fort Worth, Texas-based Galaxy Aerospace Co. LP, for $353 million in cash. The acquisition gives the defense contractor two new product lines: the Astra mid-size turbofan business jet, and the Galaxy, the first aircraft in the super mid-size class. Galaxy was a joint venture of Hyatt Corp. and Israel Aircraft Industries Ltd., and is now a part of General Dynamics' Aerospace group, which includes Gulfstream Aerospace.
American Trans Air will be the first airline in North America to operate Boeing's Next-Generation 737-800 with advanced-technology blended winglets, Boeing announced June 6. The Indianapolis-based American Trans Air has 39 Boeing 737-800s with winglets on order. The airplanes are scheduled to be delivered between now and April 2003. The 737-800 winglets first made their debut in service last May with German carrier Hapag-Lloyd Flug (Daily, May 22).
(Editor's note: The following is excerpted testimony from the responses by Thomas P. Christie, nominated to be the Department of Defense's director of operational test and evaluation, to written questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee. He testified June 7.) Q. In your view, what are the major challenges that will confront the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation?
Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrations (ACTDs) should become the standard method of introducing new technology into defense acquisition, according to Jacques S. Gansler, professor and Roger C. Lipitz Chair at the Center for Public Policy and Private Enterprise at the University of Maryland. "Think about Global Hawk, for example," Gansler said during a defense acquisition reform seminar in Washington, D.C. June 6. He pointed out that in only five years, Global Hawk went from initial concept to conducting operations in Portugal and Australia.
NASA has selected two teams to conduct detailed feasibility studies for sending a mission to explore Pluto and the Kuiper Belt - although the space agency says it won't happen without money from Congress. The selected investigations are:
The U.S. Defense Department does not favor a NATO-only theater missile defense system, the department's chief spokesman said June 7. The comment came in response to a reporter's question in the wake of a NATO award of two contracts to study the feasibility of a layered missile defense system.
The Bush Administration's candidate to be the Pentagon's chief weapons tester has pledged to try to make testing more thorough and better funded if he's confirmed.
The nature of the targets prompted the Israeli Air Force to use F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter-bombers in an attack on Palestinian targets May 18, said David Ivry, Israel's ambassador to the United States. Ivry, speaking to a group of defense journalists June 7 in Washington, D.C., said the raid was aimed primarily at command and control buildings in the West Bank and Gaza Strip used by Palestinian police and Force 17, an elite guard unit of PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat.
MOTOROLA, which manufactures equipment for the Iridium satellite network, said the National Security Agency has certified its Type 1 Iridium Security Module for the new Motorola Satellite Series 9505 portable telephone. The ISM is intended to protect voice communications at security level up to, and including Top Secret.
Russia and India have pledged to cooperate on development and production of new weapon systems, including a fifth-generation fighter, a multi-role transport aircraft and air defense systems. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov said the agreement, signed on June 6 in Moscow, was truly "ground breaking," according to Aviation Week&Space Technology, an Aerospace Daily affiliate.
This could be the make or break year for remote sensing satellites companies in the United States said John Baker, a technology policy analyst for the Rand Corp. in Arlington, Va. Either they expand their marketing base from being mere data providers to value-added information providers or relinquish the imagery market to international competitors and providers of aerial imagery, Baker said. Speaking at the Fourth National Space Symposium in Washington, D.C.,
Raytheon Co. of Bedford, Mass., has been awarded a $53 million U.S. Army contract to enhance the capability of the Patriot Air Defense System's radar, the company announced June 6. Raytheon will provide four Radar Enhancement Phase III (REP III) kits and four Classification, Discrimination and Identification Phase 3 (CDI-3) kits. It will also produce spare kits and provide kit integration. The REP III improvement kits will double the power of the Patriot
SWALES AEROSPACE of Beltsville, Md., has been selected as a qualified spacecraft vendor under NASA's Rapid Spacecraft Acquisition Contract. Swales' Earth Observing Spacecraft Bus (EO-SB) has been added to Goddard Spaceflight Center's Rapid Spacecraft catalogue, part of a program aimed at shortening the spacecraft procurement process by compiling a catalogue of pre-qualified spacecraft built by approved suppliers. Swales said its EO-SB can be used in various types of Earth-observing missions,
CRAY INC. of Seattle announced it has received a $3.3 million order for a Cray SV1ex supercomputer system and related services from Government Micro Resources of Manassas, Va. The contract with GMR calls for a 32-processor supercomputer to be installed in the second quarter of 2001 at the NASA Ames Research Center facility at Moffett Field, Calif. The system will support research aimed at improving the safety and durability of aircraft and aerospace vehicles. Ames officials will run computational
XM SATELLITE RADIO'S second satellite, "Roll," which was launched May 8 by Sea Launch, has completed a sequence of liquid apogee engine firings and has entered geosynchronous orbit, the Washington, D.C.-based company announced. Roll is maneuvering toward its final geostationary orbit position at 85 degrees west longitude. It has successfully deployed its solar arrays and communication antennas, keeping it on schedule to begin transmission tests later this month and is expected to begin
Aerojet has been awarded an $11 million low-rate initial production contract from Raytheon Missile Systems to build 51 Dome Cooling Systems (DCS), which protect the infrared sensors on Navy Standard Missile 2 Block IVs. Work on the contract begins immediately, the Sacramento, Calif.-based company announced June 6. Once the LRIP phase is finished in about three years, the company expects a full-rate production contract to be awarded. Aerojet projects it
The U.S. government must adopt a "new way of thinking" about its allies if it wants to ensure efficient joint coalition operations, said Jacques S. Gansler, professor and Roger C. Lipitz Chair at the Center for Public Policy and Private Enterprise at the University of Maryland. Gansler, who served as under secretary of defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics from 1997 until January of this year, made his remarks at a defense acquisition reform seminar in Washington, D.C. June
UNIVERSAL SPACE NETWORK, INC. (USN) of Newport Beach, Calif., and its partner, Frontier Technology, Inc., (FTI) of Goleta, Calif., have been awarded a $100,000 grant by the California Technology, Trade and Commerce Agency. USN and FTI will match the grant and use the money to integrate FTI's scheduling optimization system into USN's satellite operational control network. The resulting prototype system could provide a way to schedule thousands of satellite communications contacts each day from
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has found new populations of suspected black holes in several starburst galaxies, where stars form and explode at an unusually high rate, the space agency announced June 5. Although a few suspected mid-mass black holes have been found before, this is the first time they have been detected in such large numbers, according to NASA. The discovery could help explain the relationship of black holes to star formation and the production of even more massive
