MIR DELAY: Russian ground controllers have decided to delay the (hopefully) controlled reentry of the Mir orbital station by a week or so as it gains a better fix on the station's rate of orbital decay. Once set for March 6, the reentry East of New Zealand has now been targeted for March 13-18, with a more precise date to be established after the station drops another 10 miles or so from its present altitude of about 170 miles.
NASA'S JET PROPULSION LABORATORY has supplied a tiny mass spectrometer to International Space Station Alpha so spacewalking crew members can check for leaks when they are outside the orbiting facility. The device is only about five centimeters (about two inches) long, but it can detect ammonia, propellant, oxygen, nitrogen and water leaks. Delivered by the crew of the STS-98 Shuttle mission last week, the spectrometer is part of a trace gas analyzer developed in collaboration with Johnson Space Center and Oceaneering Space Systems.
The first heavy-lift Ariane 5 of the year is a step closer to launch after Arianespace officials in Kourou, French Guiana, moved the rocket this week from the company's integration building to the final assembly site near the jungle launch pad. The Ariane 5 - set to be launched in early March - is essentially complete after several weeks in the integration building where the rocket's core stage, two solid-fuel boosters, equipment bay and upper stage were brought together.
STRANGE LAND: Aerospace engineering students at the U.S. Naval Academy soon will have a new professor specializing in spacecraft design and operations. The academy is looking for a professor to hold the Heinlein Chair in Aerospace Engineering, named for science fiction novelist Robert A. Heinlein. Heinlein, a 1929 Annapolis graduate, is best known as the author of "Stranger In A Strange Land," a cult classic among college students in the 1960s.
BAE Systems won more than $33 million worth of contracts from Lockheed Martin for continued production of its Advanced Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) avionics systems for the F-16 Fighting Falcon, the company announced last week. The contracts were issued to the company's Advanced Systems unit in Greenlawn, N.Y., and will support avionics requirements for the upgraded F-16 block 50/52 aircraft, Greece's Peace Xenia program and other F-16 aircraft.
LITTON INDUSTRIES' Guidance&Control Systems Division will supply an inertial measurement unit for NASA's planned Europa Orbiter under a $13.7 million contract from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The Litton unit will base the hardware destined for Jupiter's frozen moon on its new "Scalable SIRU" line of gyroscope products, which already has 27 different systems in space. JPL wants an IMU that can withstand the harsh radiation environment at Europa, since it will be the sole sensor for spacecraft attitude during the critical orbit insertion maneuver.
F-22/JSF MIX PROMOTION:The U.S. Air Force, criticized for seemingly quieting its support on the Joint Strike Fighter, is once again vocalizing its promotion of the high/low mix of F-22/JSF the service planned all along. "The capability of [the JSF] is just a perfect fit for that high/low mix and we truly expect that it will not only be a most significant platform for the U.S. Navy, Air Force and Marines, but also for our allies," says Acting AF Secretary Lawrence Delaney. He tells The DAILY, "That's always been our position.
DEFENSE EXPORTS: The U.S. plans to restore Canada's exemption under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations to allow license-free transfers of many unclassified defense goods and technology to Canada. The U.S. suspended the exemption in April 1999, saying Canada lacked adequate safeguards to prevent transfers to third countries. Canada is making several changes to address U.S. concerns, including harmonizing its export control list with the U.S. munitions list
MESSAGE SENT: Despite Pentagon and White House statements that the Feb. 16 air strikes against Iraqi command and control radars were routine actions to defend allied pilots, in fact the strikes were of greater significance, for two reasons, Kenneth Allard of the Center for Strategic&International Studies told The DAILY. First, the action marked "the first time this new national security team put American forces in harm's way," he said. Second, the action sent "a very clear signal that there is a new gang in town and the adults are back in charge."
WELDON IN RUSSIA: Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee is leading a congressional delegation to Russia this week to meet with President Vladimir Putin. Missile defense and other security issues will likely be discussed.
WORKER PLAN: NASA needs to develop a long-term plan to retain, recruit, train, and help develop the careers of its workers, the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel says in its most recent report. The panel says NASA's recent downsizing has left a workforce with a potential future shortage of experienced leadership.
U.S. defense exporters complete about $3 billion a year in defense offset transactions with other nations, according to a new report by the Presidential Commission on Offsets in International Trade.
British security will be guaranteed "for the foreseeable future" by the UK nuclear deterrent, according to policy papers published last week by the Ministry of Defense that summarize government thinking on key military factors in the run-up to national elections expected in May.
COMMITTEE SHUFFLING: Rep. Charles Bass (R-N.H.) is leaving the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to join the House Energy and Commerce Committee, a spokeswoman says. The Intelligence panel will suffer no net loss of members, though, because Rep. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) is gaining a seat on the committee (DAILY, Feb. 15).
DREAMTIME HOLDINGS has picked Panasonic high-definition television gear to use in fulfilling its contract with NASA to provide HDTV production services on International Space Station Alpha and the space agency's field centers. Selection of Panasonic's AJ-HDC27A camcorder and AJ-HD150 DVCPRO HD studio video tape recorder follows NASA's selection of the 720p HD format for its broadcast and archiving activities, Dreamtime said last week.
EXPERIMENTAL SHIP: Lockheed Martin is marketing an experimental ship called the Slice, a four-legged boat that's small but has the speed of long vessels, says Mike Cassidy, the company's vice president of naval electronics and surveillance systems. The Slice was originally devised to provide high-speed ferry service in the Hawaiian islands, but it also has the potential to be a small combat ship, among other uses, Cassidy says. The Pentagon has not yet established a requirement for the ship.
RAPT ATTENTION: Senate Armed Services Committee member Max Cleland (D-Ga.), whose state is home to the F-22's final assembly site, is keeping a close eye on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's review of the program, a spokeswoman says. The Pentagon says it won't reconsider whether to move the Raptor into low-rate initial production until Rumsfeld reviews the program (DAILY, Feb. 7). But F-22 supporters want that review done before March 31, when funding intended to keep the program on track runs out.
SPACE PUSH: ProSpace, a non-profit organization dedicated to opening the space frontier, is planning its latest "March Storm" trip to Capitol Hill to talk to lawmakers about its agenda for commercial space. This year's storm is slated for March 10-15, and the group's number one agenda item is to convince Congress to steer NASA's Space Launch Initiative program more toward the private sector.
The military has a "heavy burden" to show that the troubled V-22 aircraft is safe and affordable, Senate Armed Services Committee ranking Democrat Carl Levin (Mich.) told a group of defense writers yesterday. Levin said he is withholding judgment about the tiltrotor aircraft until investigators report on the December fatal crash of a Marines MV-22 and on allegations of maintenance record falsification. He also wants to hear from a Defense Dept.-created panel that's reviewing the entire MV-22 program.
NASA plans to undock the Space Station Atlantis from the International Space Station Alpha today, leaving the Station outfitted with the new U.S.-built Destiny laboratory and preparing the Shuttle to land Sunday, ending the STS-98 mission. Atlantis is slated to undock at 9 a.m. EST. Pilot Mark Polansky will perform a half-lap fly-around of Alpha so the astronauts can take detailed photographs of the new, larger Station.
Advocates of a missile defense system gained strong support yesterday from former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a British parliamentarian, and other defense and foreign affairs specialists. Netanyahu and other panelists at a Washington roundtable said "active defense" against missiles is essential to counter the increasingly likely threat of rogue nations armed with weapons of mass destruction.
Lockheed Martin is focusing on innovation with its Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM), both with the missile's autonomous guidance to its target and its manufacturing method. JASSM's initial developmental test shot (DT-1) on Jan. 19 marked the first time a weapon using an imaging infrared seeker autonomously guided itself to and took out its target, according to Larry Lawson, vice president of strike weapons at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control headquarters here.
Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) will continue as ranking Democrat on the House Science Committee's space panel, a position he held last year, the full committee said Wednesday in announcing leadership posts for the new 107th Congress. The committee announced earlier that Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) will remain chairman of the space subcommittee (DAILY, Feb. 9).
Aerospace industry employment began to rebound last fall after beginning a decline in the spring of 1998, the Aerospace Industries Association said Wednesday. In the fourth quarter of 2000, industry employment increased by 7,000 to end the year at 791,000, according to the AIA. The group said further gains are expected in 2001, given the record new orders placed in 2000 and the high number of hours worked, plus overtime.
A senior member of the House International Relations Committee said yesterday he's drafting legislation to return licensing jurisdiction for commercial satellite exports back to the Commerce Dept.
