BACK IN ACTION: NASA plans to begin preparing the Space Shuttle Columbia for its 27th trip to space. NASA has spent a year and a half revamping its oldest orbiter at the Boeing Shuttle facility in Palmdale, Calif., outfitting it with a new "glass cockpit" that replaced mechanical instruments with 11 full-color flat-panel displays that use less electricity and make the cockpit lighter. NASA also put Columbia through a weight-reduction program and began preliminary preparations that could allow it to dock to the International Space Station Alpha if needed.
The U.S. Air Force is eyeing development of a microsatellite that could rendezvous with other space objects for monitoring and inspection. Seven companies have expressed interest and one will chosen in June to fabricate a demonstrator.
Peregrine Semiconductor, a developer and supplier of integrated circuits, announced the first space-qualified 3 gigahertz Phase Locked Loop integrated circuits (ICs). The products are targeted for space and defense customers, with sampling beginning mid-March, the company announced last week.
COM DEV SPACE, a wholly owned subsidiary of COM DEV International Ltd., has signed contracts valued at about $1.4 million with the Canadian Space Agency to develop a range of space related technologies, including Ka-band dielectric microwave filters, Solid State switch matrices and space-qualified small cell lithium-ion batteries. The company said the technologies have the potential to revolutionize satellite design.
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has appointed Franklin Miller to be the National Security Council staff's senior director for defense policy and arms control, the White House announced yesterday. Miller, a former officer in the U.S. Navy, has held several senior-level positions in the Defense Dept., including acting assistant secretary for strategy and threat reduction, acting assistant secretary for international security policy and deputy assistant secretary for nuclear forces and arms control policy.
INTERNATIONAL AERO ENGINES announced that United Airlines has ordered an additional 44 V2500-powered A320 family aircraft during 2000. The business is valued at more than $550 million to IAE, with the first aircraft from this order to be delivered in 2002. Pratt&Whitney, a major IAE shareholder, realizes about $180 million from the sale.
NASA is requiring future Mars orbiters to have longer lifetimes so they can serve as high-bandwidth relay stations for ground-based rovers and landers even after their main science missions are complete. G. Scott Hubbard, NASA's Mars program director in the Office of Space Science, said the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), slated for launch in 2005, will be the first to have this built-in extended capability.
SOSTAR GmbH is the name of a new European joint venture being formed to develop a radar for the NATO Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) program. AGS will be NATO's own all-weather stand-off reconnaissance system. It will carry the Stand-Off Surveillance and Target Acquisition Radar (SOSTAR). The cost of definition, development and construction of the radar will be about 85 million euros, and an order volume of about 24 million euros is expected between 2001 and 2005, the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS) said yesterday.
UNITED DEFENSE LP'S ARMAMENT SYSTEMS unit is working under a $15.5 million U.S. Navy contract to produce 60 canisters for the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile. The Mk 25 Mod 0 canisters store the missile for transportation and loadout in the Mk 41 Vertical Launching System on U.S. Navy and NATO ships. The contract combines purchases on behalf of the NATO consortium countries of Australia, the Netherlands, the U.S. and Germany, United Defense said. The first canisters will be delivered in August 2002 to Australia and all production will be completed by March 2003.
Vital intelligence on Iraq's new Al Suwayrah air defense complex, attacked by U.S. and RAF aircraft last Friday, was supplied by Serbia's recently elected democratic government, according to senior Ministry of Defense officials. During the Milosevic regime, Serbian air defense specialists and technicians helped Iraq reinforce and install its new radar and Chinese-supplied underground fiber-optic communications system - the main targets of last week's attack, the MoD officials told reporters here Wednesday. New Government
Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) is urging the Bush Administration to immediately begin construction of a National Missile Defense radar at Shemya, Alaska. In a Senate floor speech last week, Cochran, who chairs the Senate Governmental Affairs international security subcommittee, said that construction of the X-band radar is the "long-lead" item in deployment of the ground-based NMD system, meaning it's the step that will take the longest and must start the soonest. No Decision Yet
Lockheed Martin Space Systems yesterday opened an $8 million facility in Sunnyvale, Calif., to integrate and test a key element of the Airborne Laser system. The 16,000 square foot Beam Control/Fire Control Integration and Test Facility, operated by 135 people, will test the beam control/fire control system that will be housed in the nose of the Airborne Laser system, a modified Boeing 747F freighter designed to defeat theater ballistic missiles in the boost phase.
Raytheon Systems Limited (RSL) announced yesterday it signed a contract with the United Arab Emirates General Civil Aviation Authority for an off-mounted Monopulse Secondary Surveillance Radar (MSSR). The system will be installed at Tarif in Abu Dhabi and will be used for upper airspace control, according to the company. The Abu Dhabi MSSR is scheduled to be installed and operational within 12 months. This is the fourth MSSR that RSL has sold into Abu Dhabi, according to Mick Reeve, RSL's ATC business executive. Raytheon is based in Lexington, Mass.
Last Friday's U.S. and British attacks on Iraqi air defenses achieved their mission of degrading Iraq's ability to "harm our pilots" enforcing the Southern No-Fly Zone, President George W. Bush said yesterday. The air strikes also achieved their other goal of showing Saddam Hussein that the U.S. plans to remain engaged in the region, Bush said during a wide-ranging press conference at the White House. "We got his attention," Bush said.
Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force has suspended all night flight training for its helicopter crews following a mid-air collision of an MD/Kawasaki OH-6D light helicopter and a Bell/Fuji AH-1S anti-tank helicopter last week. The two helicopters belonged to the 4th anti-tank helicopter squadron of the army's Eastern Air Command, stationed at Kisarazu Air Base, about 40 kilometers southeast of Tokyo. The night flight ban will continue until the accident investigation is complete, according to the Defense Agency.
A new device aboard the International Space Station Alpha could save the lives of Station crews by allowing astronauts on space walks to detect leaks from outside the orbiting complex. The device, called a quadrupole mass spectrometer array, can detect leaks of oxygen, nitrogen, water, ammonia or hydrazine rocket fuel. Designed to be worn on a space walker's chest pack, the entire instrument - with software and visual readout - is about the size of a small shoebox and weighs just five pounds.
HI-SHEAR TECHNOLOGY CORP. announced it has entered into a multi-million dollar ordering agreement to supply Hi-Shear's electronic firing system for use on the U.S. Army's Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) missile. The amount of the order was not disclose
A commission composed of business executives and former defense and military leaders unveiled a roadmap of 11 specific initiatives culled from studies over the past 15 years they believe would save the Pentagon up to $30 billion - giving the military needed modernization dollars.
The weaponization of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles may officially be underway with a Predator launching a live Hellfire missile in a test on Wednesday at Nellis Air Force Base Range, Nev. The test was conducted jointly by the Air Force's Air Combat Command (ACC) and Aeronautical Systems Center.
NATO TALKS: Rep. Doug Bereuter (R-Neb.) led a congressional delegation to Brussels for this week's meeting of NATO's Parliamentary Assembly. Missile defense and the European Union's proposed Rapid Reaction Force were expected to be among the topics.
MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd., now readying the Radarsat-2 Earth observation satellite for launch in 2003, said it will study the feasibility of a Radarsat-3 satellite for the Canadian Space Agency. Radarsat-3 would fly for seven years, collecting detailed digital information on Earth's landmasses, particularly the Polar Regions, according to the Richmond, B.C., company.
An article in The DAILY of Feb. 20 about A-10 aircraft modification misstated the location of Lockheed Martin Systems Integration due to an editing error. It is located in Owego, N.Y., not Oswego, N.Y.
A German appeals court yesterday ruled in favor of the expansion of the Airbus Hamburg assembly site. The ruling was essential for final assembly and interior outfitting work of the Airbus A380 to be allocated to Hamburg.
Gen. John P. Jumper revealed his Air Combat Command's newest concept of operations here, called Global Strike Task Force (GSTF), calling for an F-22/B-2 initial strike package designed in part to address anti-access problems seen during the 1990s. GSTF, the Air Force's contribution to the joint Global Reconnaissance Strike plan for warfighting, has been presented here as the service's second phase of transformation, following its Expeditionary Air Force (EAF) concept.
Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. announced its Sikorsky Support Services Inc. (SSSI) subsidiary has been awarded a contract to service aircraft for the Navy's Tactical Air Warfare Program. The one-year contract, with six one-year options, is worth more than $100 million over seven years. SSSI will provide support for F-5E/F Tiger II aircraft located at Naval Air Station Fallon, Nev., and Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Ariz. The fighter jets are used as adversary aircraft and fly against "Strike U" aircraft during combat training exercises.
