SPACE STANDARDS: The Space Frontier Foundation, a space advocacy group, is urging NASA to set standards to apply to all potential visitors to the International Space Station Alpha, and has criticized NASA's reluctance to fly millionaire space "tourist" Dennis Tito to the Station. NASA and other Station partners have objected to Russia's plan to fly the California businessman to the Station in April. Foundation President Rick Tumlinson says the issue isn't really about Tito, but about access to space.
EW PUSH: The congressional Electronic Warfare Working Group is asking House Armed Services Committee Chairman Bob Stump (R-Ariz.) to schedule hearings aimed at enlightening lawmakers about the state of the U.S. military's EW capabilities. In a recent letter to Stump, 20 members of the group argue that the 1999 air war in Yugoslavia showed that the military's airborne EW assets are overcommitted and underfunded. "This is unacceptable and we must work to change this alarming trend," the letter says.
VIEQUES VIEWS: Some residents of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques say they're willing to become a separate territory so the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps can continue live-fire training on Vieques. More than 1,700 of the island's 9,000 residents have signed petitions urging the federal government to consider separating Vieques from Puerto Rico, whose government wants to stop the training. Several Vieques residents presented the petitions to the Senate Armed Services Committee last week. Meanwhile, St.
A new analysis of Mars photos by the top-secret U.S. National Imagery and Mapping Agency shows "intriguing" clues - but no definitive answer - to the whereabouts of the Mars Polar Lander, which vanished in 1999, NASA said Wednesday. Despite published reports, neither the U.S. space agency nor the photographic intelligence agency has located the final resting place of the $165 million spacecraft, Aerospace Daily affiliate AviationNow.com reported.
New Zealand expects to announce details of a big defense spending hike in May, just before the end of its 2001 fiscal year in June, but Prime Minister Helen Clark's government is signaling that the increase - previously put at about NZ$12.7 billion (US$5.2 billion) over 10 years - won't be enough to keep the Royal New Zealand Air Force's elderly air combat wing flying.
The chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said yesterday he believes the Bush Administration will fund intelligence programs more generously than the Clinton Administration did. Top Bush Administration officials "understand the value" of intelligence, Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.) told the Defense Writers Group. "They're not going to forget intelligence. I think you are going to see a very new day, and certainly it's going to be measurable."
The military's principles of mass on the battlefield - tolerance for casualties, independent service operations, lack of information flow and unfettered access to training bases - have been replaced with speed, precision, real-time datalinks, joint operations and range restrictions in the 21st century, promoting a whole new set of challenges, according to the Marine Corps' top official.
Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Integrated Systems Sector has been awarded a $45 million cost-plus-award-fee contract from the U.S. Air Force for the engineering and development (EMD) phase of the Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance system program.
The U.S. Army has awarded Rockwell Collins, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a $34.7 million contract for the Single Channel Anti-Jam Manportable (SCAMP) System Enhancement Program, the company has announced. The program covers the design, development, fabrication, integration and test of an Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) enhancement for the Army's SCAMP system.
Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Integrated Systems Sector (ISS) of Dallas has received the Nunn-Perry award from the Dept. of Defense for outstanding achievement in the Mentor-Protege Program.
A House Armed Services Committee panel devoted to military research and development has held the first of what chairman Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) said he hopes will be a series of hearings spotlighting cost-effective new technologies with defense applications. At the hearing - devoted to what Hunter called quality goods at low cost - small businesses got a chance to showcase their new innovations, ask for funding, and air their frustration at being little fish in the big pond of defense acquisitions.
The common booster core (CBC) for the Boeing Delta IV family of rockets passed a critical hot-fire test last weekend, the Boeing Co. announced this week. Company engineers said the results mark a major milestone for the program, which is slated for first launch early next year (DAILY, July 13, 2000). Engineers conducted the first in a planned series of hot-fire CBC tests, igniting the Boeing-built Rocketdyne RS-68 engine for 15 seconds and generating the equivalent of 14 million horsepower.
Senate Armed Services Committee ranking Democrat Carl Levin (Mich.) has asked the Senate Budget Committee to include an $80 billion-$100 billion reserve fund for defense in its fiscal 2002 budget resolution. In a March 19 letter to Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and ranking Democrat Kent Conrad (N.D.), Levin said he believes more money will be needed for defense than President George W. Bush's Feb. 28 budget outline recommended, regardless of the outcome of the Bush Administration's review of defense strategy and programs.
Boeing's X-32B Joint Strike Fighter concept demonstrator will begin high-speed taxi tests later this month, with first flight to come shortly thereafter, the company said yesterday. "We're still on track for first flight by the end of the month," a spokesman said. The aircraft this week completed final engine runs in the short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) mode at Palmdale, Calif., using Pratt&Whitney and Rolls-Royce flight-certified propulsion system hardware and the final version of software for flight and propulsion control.
European Aeronautic Defence&Space Co. NV said it would churn out a net profit in 2001, thanks to the strong performance of Airbus, its civilian aircraft division. EADS earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) rose 11% in 2000 to EUR 1.4 billion in 2000, the European manufacturer announced March 19 in Amsterdam.
House Armed Services Committee member Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) introduced a bill Wednesday to create a new agency for coordinating homeland security. The bill would turn the Federal Emergency Management Agency into the National Homeland Security Agency, which would continue to respond to natural disasters but would also be the federal government's lead agency for responding to and preventing terrorist attacks. The Coast Guard, Customs Service and Border Patrol would become independent entities within the new agency.
LOCKHEED MARTIN CORP. and the Boeing Co. have joined Spectrum Astro and Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS)-low team, Northrop Grumman announced. SBIRS-low is planned as a constellation of satellites for use with missile defense systems. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, of Denver, will develop algorithms and key aspects of the ground segment. Boeing's Missile Defense and Space Control Division, based in Anaheim, Calif., will develop sensors and associated algorithms.
Boeing Co. Chairman and CEO Phil Condit said Boeing is considering a replacement aircraft for its 757/767, one that could achieve Mach 0.95, faster than its current fleet. Condit said the technology for such an airplane has come from work Boeing has done to build airplanes more efficiently and increase their performance, technology honed on programs like the 777 and the Joint Strike Fighter. "When we put all of that together we have the potential of a pretty exciting product," he said at a news conference on Wednesday.
A bill updating dual-use export controls received lopsided approval yesterday from the Senate Banking Committee. The committee okayed the proposed Export Administration Act of 2001 by a 19-1 vote after adopting a package of amendments designed to satisfy the Bush Administration's concerns.
L-3 COMMUNICATIONS announced it has formed Satellite Networks, a new division resulting from the combination of L-3's LNR and Satellite Transmission Systems divisions. Based in Hauppauge, N.Y., Satellite Networks combines the satellite communications products and resources of LNR with the systems integration work of STS to offer a wide range of satellite solutions, from satellite products such as frequency converters and Fly Away Satellite Terminals to complex satellite gateways, systems and networks.
Standard&Poor's assigned its double B minus ratings to Alliant Techsystems Inc.'s new bank facilities. The facilities will help the company finance its $685 million acquisition of the Thiokol Propulsion business of Alcoa Inc., which is expected to close in the second quarter of 2001.
INTERNATIONAL LAUNCH SERVICES will launch an ICO satellite, built by Boeing Satellite Systems Inc., in June on an Atlas IIAS vehicle from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. The satellite is one of 14 being built by Boeing Satellite Systems for New ICO, and the first of eight ICO satellites scheduled to launch with ILS on its Lockheed Martin-built Atlas and Russian-built Proton rockets. The ICO satellite is a Boeing 601 model, designed for medium-Earth orbit at an altitude of 10,390 kilometers (6,456 statute miles).
One Mir's loss is another man's gain. The planned re-entry of the 16-year-old Russian space station on Friday has spawned a closet industry of souvenir peddlers, bold tourists and even a fast-food marketing tie-in. Who's cashing in on Mir's demise? Here's a sampling:
LOCKHEED MARTIN Space Systems Co. of Denver has been contracted by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., to conduct a study on a low-mass membrane telescope for NASA's New Millennium Program. The telescope concept is called DART, for Dual Anamorphic Reflector Telescope. The study will be conducted at LM's Missiles and Space Operations in Sunnyvale, Calif., the company's Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto, Calif., and JPL.
Engineers at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Wallops Flight Facility are developing a "flight modem" package that could allow suborbital vehicles to transmit information to the ground via satellite systems such as Globalstar. The three-pound package would eliminate the need for much of the expensive ground tracking equipment currently in use, resulting in "a magnitude of difference in costs," according to Dwayne Morgan, project manager at Wallops.
