COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The U.S. Air Force is studying several space technologies that could help ground forces in combat, according to Brig. Gen. Daniel J. Darnell, commander of the Space Warfare Center at Schriever Air Force Base here. One is a "near-space maneuvering vehicle" that could help in several arenas, including communications, and another is a short-pulse laser for combat identification.
A plan to collaboratively upgrade C-130Js of the U.S., Britain, Italy and Australia is the first of its kind, a Lockheed Martin spokesman said. Avionics and hardware of the military airlifters would be jointly upgraded as required by the users under a $20 million, three-year contract received by Lockheed Martin in recent weeks from Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF), which is representing the operators.
The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. (EADS) reported losses in revenue and net profit for the first nine months of 2003 due to decreased deliveries of its Airbus passenger jets. Revenue fell from nearly $20 billion euros ($22.8 billion) last year to about $18.5 billion euros ($21.1 billion). Net income for the nine months fell from about $23 million euros ($26.2 million) last year to a loss of $124 million euros ($141.4 million).
The Pentagon and key lawmakers announced Nov. 6 that they have negotiated a deal that will allow the Air Force to lease 20 Boeing KC-767A tankers and buy 80 more.
Spacehab officials said Nov. 6 the loss of two NASA contracts related to the International Space Station (ISS) probably would not hurt the company's bottom line in the short term. NASA informed Spacehab on Nov. 5 it had not been awarded the ISS Mission Integration contract, worth about $100 million over five years.
The State Department is almost done updating the list of exports that are considered munitions and subjected to the department's regulation, a State official said Nov. 6. After about three years of work, the State Department has completed, nearly finished or held discussions on 18 of the 21 categories on its munitions list. Changes to the list have been "very minimal" so far, although directed energy weapons have been moved into their own category to reflect growing international interest in such systems, the official told The DAILY.
HIGH FLIER: South Korea has developed a high-flying unmanned aerial vehicle, the Korea Information Service said Nov. 6. The UAV is a balloon that is 164 feet tall and is powered by an electric motor. It can fly to an altitude of 3.1 miles, the government said, and is a testbed for a UAV that could travel in the stratosphere.
Anteon International Corp. will provide engineering and technical support services to the U.S. Navy Fleet Technical Support Center Atlantic, Norfolk, Va., the company said Nov. 6. The contract could be worth up to $107 million if all options are exercised and will support anti-submarine warfare and mine warfare systems, according to Anteon. The work includes the modernization and modification of current systems and the development and support of new systems for Atlantic and Pacific fleet ships, foreign military sales and shore facilities.
MOSCOW - Russia's prime minister, Mikhail Kasianov, has signed a decree firing the head of aircraft maker MiG because of the company's poor performance on the Tupolev Tu-334 mid-range civilian jet project. The Nov. 5 decree removes Nikolai Nikitin, who has been the company's general director and general designer since 1999.
NASA will complete a review of the condition of the International Space Station's exterior as part of its response to the loss of the shuttle Columbia, the aerospace agency said. NASA has used external cameras to examine the outside of the station and found that "exterior hardware is generally performing as expected and no significant anomalies have yet been revealed," it said in a new report released Nov. 6.
Lockheed Martin and perhaps other aerospace and defense companies continue to hold underused facilities because the costs of closing them can't be recouped on existing government contracts, a company official said. "Industry today cannot recover the cash costs of closing down facilities in our government contracts," Robert Stevens, Lockheed Martin's chief operating officer, said this week. "There is not only no incentive to reduce the carrying costs of facilities, there is a disincentive from doing so from a shareholder's perspective."
House and Senate appropriators agreed Nov. 5 to partially fund the Bush Administration's fiscal 2004 budget request for new nuclear weapons initiatives, while another group of congressional negotiators was nearing a compromise on the fiscal 2004 defense authorization conference report. The conference committee for the FY '04 energy and water appropriations bill approved $7.5 million for research on the high-yield Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), a $7.5 million cut from the Administration's request.
NEW DELHI - The Indian government has authorized the country's only missile manufacturing agency, Bharat Dynamics Ltd. (BDL), to refurbish tactical missiles and other missiles owned by the armed forces. The upgrade order is both a cost-cutting exercise, to eliminate the need for buying replacements, and a modernization drive. The refurbishment will be done over several months for an undisclosed amount.
Congress should consider setting up an independent body to regulate the emerging commercial human space flight industry, one space observer told lawmakers Nov. 5.
A malfunctioning instrument on NASA's venerable Voyager 1 has led to a debate about whether the spacecraft has reached a place near the edge of the solar system where interstellar space slows the solar wind. Two research papers published in the journal Nature Nov. 5 disagree about whether Voyager has reached the "termination shock," where the thin gas between the stars slows down the solar wind, the stream of electrically charged gas blown from the sun.
Two senators are urging the Pentagon to examine whether all National Guard and Reserve helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft being used in Iraq are adequately equipped with anti-missile defenses.
The European Union on Nov. 5 approved a preliminary plan for implementing sanctions totaling $4 billion against some U.S. exports. Under the proposed plan, countermeasures would be imposed on U.S. goods beginning on March 1, 2004, and continuing throughout the year. Although no U.S. aerospace products and services have been targeted, U.S. aerospace industry executives and trade officials have expressed concern about the effects the sanctions might have on future export contracts with European companies (DAILY, Oct. 1).
