For nearly 10 years, the United States has watched the military strategy, forces and budget mismatch grow and grow, to the point where the services are now short of resources, said Chief of Naval Operations ADM Vern Clark. Meanwhile, the Navy must recruit, retain, train, maintain and be ready to handle future commitments, Clark said yesterday at an address to the Navy League in Washington.
The 24 crew members of the U.S. EP-3E Aries II surveillance plane stranded in China touched down at Hickam AFB, Hawaii, April 12 just before 6:30 a.m. Hawaii time, or 12:30 p.m. Eastern, where they'll spend a couple of days being debriefed before returning home to Whidbey Island, Wash.
Twenty years from now, both manned spacecraft and commercial rockets probably will look and feel much as they do today but their capabilities and performance should far surpass what's currently available, say government and industry experts. In a far-reaching talk Wednesday at the 17th National Space Symposium, representatives of government, the military and the commercial space industry put forth their predictions for the future of space transportation, Aerospace Daily affiliate AviationNow.com reported.
L-3 COMMUNICATIONS announced its EMP Systems division has received an award to supply an X-band satellite tracking antenna system to the Australian Surveying and Land Information Group (AUSLIG) for its Australian Centre for Remote Sensing (ACRES) ground station. EMP Systems will deliver this new antenna for installation at the ACRES Data Acquisition Facility located in the Australian Outback, near Alice Springs. Delivery is slated for December 2001.
SIRIUS SATELLITE RADIO annnounced that Agere Systems, formerly the Microelectronics Group of Lucent Technologies, has begun shipping to radio manufacturers samples of the eight chips developed for Sirius. The chipsets enable AM/FM/SAT radios to receive Sirius broadcasts. Commercial quantities of the qualified chipsets are expected to ship in the third quarter. Sirius plans to broadcast 100 channels of digital-quality radio from three satellites.
NASA has selected 27 research proposals for negotiation of Phase 2 contract awards for its Small Business Innovative Research program. The selected projects, which have a total value of about $16 million, will be conducted by 25 small, high-technology firms in 13 states. A total of 267 proposals were submitted by SBIR contractors completing Phase 1 projects. Phase 2 continues development of the most promising Phase 1 projects. Funding for Phase 2 contracts could be up to $600,000 for a two-year performance period.
A trend toward parity in spending on defense and non-defense research and development would be reversed in the Bush Administration's fiscal year 2002 budget, according to an analysis of R&D spending compiled by the Democratic staff of the House Science Committee. Research and development outlays as a percentage of discretionary spending in the Bush Administration's fiscal year 2002 budget will be 12.6%, a figure that has been relatively constant since the 1970s, according to the analysis.
NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, has opened a new Reconfigurable Advanced Visualization Environment (RAVE) powered by a Silicon Graphics Onyx2 visualization system with an InfiniteReality3 graphics subsystem. The RAVE from Fakespace Systems, Inc., located in the Glenn Reconfigurable User Interface and Virtual Reality Exploration (GRUVE) laboratory, will allow NASA to explore computational fluid dynamics and structural analysis simulations in an immersive, collaborative environment.
Within the next few days the U.S. Navy will be deploying ships to begin the final evaluations of Raytheon's Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) system - the last tests before it can be certified for wartime use. The CEC program office and the Navy test team are currently meeting at Mayport Naval Station in Jacksonville, Fla. to go over final plans for the Operational Evaluation (OPEVAL), which will be fully underway by late this month and will run through the first week of May.
The Navy is pushing commercial competitors to create a new targeting system that will eliminate the Achilles' Heel of precision munitions - bad weather. The push has sprung from recent experiences such as Desert Storm, during which one third of air sorties were turned back because of weather over the target site. In Kosovo the figure was two thirds.
Israel Aircraft Industries signed new contracts in 2000 worth $2.6 billion, the company has announced, up 11% from the $2.4 billion contracts it signed in 1999. The company said the signings set a new company record: 1,600 in 2000 as compared to 1,450 in 1999. The company's globalization brought about $900 million contract completions in North America, $800 million in Asia, $480 million in Israel and $300 million in European and CIS countries in 2000, according to IAI.
Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee's science, technology and space subcommittee, tentatively plans to schedule a hearing in the coming months on NASA's aeronautics programs, a spokesman told The DAILY April 10. Aeronautics is a subject of keen interest to Allen, whose state is home to NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton. According to NASA Langley's website, the center devotes 70 percent of its research effort to aeronautics, working to improve today's aircraft and develop concepts for future aircraft.
A mission by the Space Shuttle Atlantis slated for next year will install a second station truss that will enable future expansion of the orbiting laboratory, NASA announced April 11 when it named the crew for the mission. The 10-day STS-110 mission will install the SO truss, the center segment of a 300-foot-long station support structure connected to the Destiny laboratory module.
BAE Systems, teamed with Auspace and Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM), has bid for the Australian Defence Force's Advanced Satellite and Terrestrial Infrastructure System (ASTIS). BAE Systems currently supplies the ADF with more than 90% of its tactical and trunk communications equipment, according to the company. It is seeking to provide a seamless connectivity in ASTIS between the fixed and mobile elements of the Defence Information Environment.
Several aerospace executives have signed a letter to President George W. Bush urging him to reconsider his proposed 25 percent cut in funding for the U.S. Export-Import Bank.
SCRIPPS INSTITUTION OF OCEANOGRAPHY scientists and leaders are working with NASA officials to find opportunities to launch the Earth-observing Triana spacecraft. NASA had planned to launch it on STS-107 next year, but now has decided that won't work. Scripps officials said Triana will be vital if the four-year-old ACE research satellite is lost once its five-year mission ends.
The troubled Wide Area Augmentation System will be safety-certified by September 2003 for precision navigation and landing, but a date for Category One operations is still unknown, Steve Zaidman, FAA associate administrator for research and acquisitions, said yesterday in Washington. Zaidman based his remarks on the work of the Institute for Defense Analyses Independent Review Board (IRB), Aerospace Daily affiliate Aviation Daily reported.
China's 10-day detention of a U.S. Navy EP-3E crew will likely stimulate debate in Congress over the future of manned and unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, according to a congressional aerospace expert.
United Industrial Corp. said its AAI Corp. subsidiary has received an additional $19.4 million contract award on its ongoing program to field the Army's next-generation Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (TUAV) system. This most recent award brings the current contract value to $83.6 million, UIC announced April 11.
The X-31 demonstrator flew on April 6, using its vectored thrust capabilities for the first time since the 1995 Paris Air Show, the Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Md., announced April 11. First flown in the early 1990s for the Enhanced Fighter Maneuverability (EFM) program, the X-31 is now being used to explore applications of thrust vectoring for extremely short takeoff and landing (ESTOL), particularly aimed at use in carrier landing environments (DAILY, April 2).
The Deepwater Project, the U.S. Coast Guard's bold plan to restock and upgrade its complete inventory of technologies, ships and aircraft got its first major budget endorsement this week by the Bush Administration. The fiscal 2002 budget proposal issued by the White House on April 9 would award the Coast Guard $338 million in seed money to jumpstart the development phase of Deepwater, which some analysts estimate will cost $15 billion over 20 years.
CAE announced it has won a contract with Lockheed Martin ASIC to upgrade the Merlin helicopter simulator system that will be used by the United Kingdom Navy. The contract covers changes to the Cockpit Dynamics Simulator (CDS), a high-end military version of a full flight simulator, including full motion, a visual system and training tactical scenarios, CAE announced April 11.
ORINCON CORP. a defense contractor, announced April 11 it is opening an office in Manchester, England, to enable it to seek new business opportunities in the United Kingdom for defense and related markets and to be closer to NATO allies. It has hired Paul Wilmott, a former executive with Thompson Marconi Sonar Ltd., to run its European operations, called Orincon (UK) Ltd. The company, founded in 1973 and headquartered in San Diego, also has satellite offices in Hawaii and Virginia. Manchester is the company's first international office.
The Federal Aviation Administration issued an emergency airworthiness directive on CFM International CFM56-5C engines concerning a report of a "significant engine fuel leak" under the thrust reverser cowls at the fuel manifold level, Aerospace Daily affiliate Aviation Daily reported. FAA said the leak was confirmed to be coming from a hole in the fuel manifold pigtail. The hole was a result of interference and chafing and is the second such fuel leak event, FAA said. The engines are installed primarily on Airbus A340 aircraft.
The Pentagon needs to change its acquisition process to avoid problems with fielding single-service systems with outdated technology, Admiral Dennis C. Blair, commander in chief U.S. Pacific Command, urged yesterday. It is the military's responsibility to "think through better ways of doing business at whatever level of resources are decided," Blair said during his address at the U.S. Navy League's annual exposition in Washington yesterday.
