Canada's Geoelectrodynamics and Electro-Optical Detection of Electron and Suprathermal Ion Currents (GEODESIC) experiment studied the Northern Lights during a 17-minute suborbital flight Saturday from Alaska's Poker Flat launch facility to the Beaufort Sea.
U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael E. Ryan said the Airborne Laser is still a high priority for the Air Force, despite a dramatic decrease in the fiscal year 2001 budget request for the program. "It shows some promise -- some great promise -- for directed energy capability," Ryan told reporters in Orlando, Fla. "We think we've solved the scientific part of it. It's the engineering part now that we must go to. That is, put this thing on an airplane, go out, point and shoot it to validate what we know."
Lockheed Martin Mission Systems, Santa Clara, Calif., is being awarded a $8,343,011 modification to a cost-plus-award-fee contract to provide for the Quick Reaction Demonstrator in support of the Air Force Satellite Control Network. This equipment will be utilized to demonstrate and evaluate control and status/telemetry, tracking, and command functionality. The work is expected to be completed May 2002. Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles AFB, Calif., is the contracting activity (F04701-96/C-0018, P00071).
First flight of the short takeoff and landing (STOVL) variant of Boeing's X-32 Joint Strike Fighter will be slightly delayed by technical challenges, a senior Boeing JSF program official said. Michael J. Heinz, Boeing vice president and deputy program manager for JSF, said the company is closely watching "the complex integration of STOVL propulsion with flight controls."
Engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center are developing a kit for crew members aboard the International Space Station to use if one of the orbiting laboratory's pressurized modules is penetrated by space debris or a micrometeorite, drawing on lessons learned when one module of Russia's Mir orbital station started leaking after colliding with a runaway supply capsule.
France's Hurel-Dubois has signed on as a risk-sharing partner in the A3XX superjumbo jetliner, being marketed now for service in about 2005. "The participation of up to 2% in Airbus Industrie's approximately $12 billion A3XX program position's Hurel-Dubois for aerostructure/engine nacelle systems development and production," the company said at the Asian Aerospace 2000 show. "This agreement is part of our long-term strategy to place Hurel-Dubois on the key aircraft programs of the 21st century," said chairman and CEO Francis Avanzi.
SPACE AGGRESSORS: Abilities of U.S. Air Force satellite operators to deflect enemy action will be honed by the first Space Aggressor Squadron, set to be activated in July. Like airborne aggressor squadrons, its primary objective will be to identify vulnerabilities. Although most of the unit's activities will be classified, officials of the Space Warfare Center at Schriever AFB, Colo., say one approach will be to peruse open-source imagery and Internet sites for information that a potential enemy could easily obtain and use to advantage.
Bombardier Aerospace said it took the lead in regional jet and turboprop orders from Asia-Pacific last year. "As the world's leading manufacturer of regional and business aircraft, Bombardier views Asia-Pacific as an important regional for business partnerships and commercial sales," said Michael Graff, Bombardier's president and CEO.
BUY AMERICAN? If the European Union moves to upgrade command, control, intelligence and logistics infrastructure to support a planned rapid reaction force of 60,000 troops to handle crises for up to a year at a time, industry would benefit -- but would the money go to European or American companies? The promise of significant contracts seems to be there. French Defense Minister Alain Richard, for instance, talks about mobilizing surveillance and early warning assets, including satellites and aircraft, both manned and unmanned. But American companies may come up short.
Boeing and Aviation Partners Inc. of Seattle next month will begin flying a 747-200 freighter with 14 1/2-foot tall winglets. The 747-400 already has winglets.
Japan Airlines has established a new venture company -- Japan Turbine Technologies -- with Pratt&Whitney to provide aircraft operators in the Asia-Pacific with jet engine turbine maintenance services. JAL and Nippon Steel originally established JTT in April 1988. They reached an agreement in principle with Pratt in August 1999, and have been studying the formation of the new company. Pratt will take up part of JAL's 51% shareholding and acquire all of the shares held by Nippon Steel.
The U.S. Air Force's top funding priorities in the space category are satellite-borne warning for missile defense, anti-jam capability for the Global Positioning System and the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program, according to USAF Chief of Staff Gen. Michael E. Ryan.
TAIWAN-BASED Far Eastern Air Transport picked Pratt&Whitney to oversee a complete fleet management program on its Boeing 757 aircraft, including engine overhaul and component repair.
BALANCED PROGRAM: U.S. Air Force Secretary borrows a phrase from the Fed's Alan Greenspan when he says the service must eschew "irrational exuberance" for any particular platform. "To be successful in the future," he says, the AF "needs a program balanced across several dimensions." He says debate about funding one aircraft versus another, or one contractor versus another, "misses the key point." No platform should be "a Swiss Army knife" that brings all things to the battlefield.
FLYING HIGH: Scientists are planning to use a two-seat version of the U-2 to see if vulcanoids -- hypothetical small asteroids inside the orbit of Mercury -- actually exist, using an instrument developed by the Southwest Research Institute that has already detected the occultation of a star by a deep-space asteroid. A NASA F/A-18B aircraft carrying the Southwest Ultraviolet Imaging System-Airborne (SWUIS-A) on its rear instrument panel captured an image of the asteroid 308 Polyxo as it passed in front of a star.
Lockheed Martin's F-16 is the most numerous fighter aircraft in Asia, with more than 500 in service throughout the region, a level of market penetration that underscores the company's leading position in the Asia-Pacific area.
The U.S. Army directed maintenance personnel to perform a "one-time inspection" of rotor blades of the service's fleet of AH-64 Apache attack helicopters. Flights are not permitted until the inspections are made.
The U.S. Air Force is looking at the idea of adding a signals intelligence (SIGINT) capability to the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle and integrating it with U-2 reconnaissance aircraft to help handle future requirements for communication interception. "I think we are rapidly coming to the point where we really have got to figure out how we are going to do the mission the U-2 does today," Peters told reporters at the Air Force Association's annual Air Warfare symposium here.
HEART PUMP: Supercomputer modeling developed at NASA to predict the behavior of fuel in rocket engines has been applied to the design of tiny high-tech "heart assist pumps," which keep patients with damaged hearts alive until a transplant is available. Manufactured by MicroMed Technology Inc., of Houston, under license to Johnson Space Center, the "DeBakey VAD" pump was developed with the help of NASA's Ames Research Center in California.
General Dynamics Armament Systems, Burlington, Vt., received a $126.4 million contract for Hydra-70 combat and training rockets for the U.S. Army and training warheads for the U.S. Air Force. The company said the order is part of a five-year contract, now totaling $193.7 million, with the Army's Industrial Operations Command (IOC), initially awarded in June of last year.
TELEPHONICS CORP., Farmingdale, N.Y., a subsidiary of Griffon Corp., has acquired former AlliedSignal/Bendix search and weather radar products from Honeywell. The radars, RDR 1400 and RDR 1500, are used on numerous commercial and military airplanes and helicopters. The company plans to integrate the two radars with their APS-143 OceanEye imaging radar and APS-147 multi-mode radar product lines.
Lockheed Martin is joining forces with the Rafale industry team -- Dassault, Snecma and Thomson-CSF -- in its bid to acquire a share of the newly formed Korean Aerospace Industries group. The U.S. company, the Rafale team and Aerospatiale Matra - which holds a 46% stake in Dassault -- will submit a binding offer to KAI at the end of the month.
TRW, S-TEC Unmanned Technologies and Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) are going after the international unmanned aerial vehicle market with their Sentry High-Performance (HP) UAV. Although it and other teams lost to AAI Corp. in the U.S. Army Tactical UAV competition (DAILY, Jan. 4), the Sentry team believes it can "capture a significant part of the TUAV business" in international markets, a spokesman for IAI said.
Dragonair of Hong Kong said it plans to add 10 aircraft to its fleet over the next six years which, together with a previously announced order, will mean the number of Airbus aircraft in its fleet will nearly double from the current 13 to 24 by 2205. The airline ordered five A320s and one A330. It also signed to lease an A321 and an A330 from International Lease Finance Corp., and placed options with Airbus on two A330s.
The Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization has sent Congress a $1 billion wish list that adds $300 million to the national missile defense (NMD) program and accelerates a host of other efforts. House Armed Services Committee members at a hearing this month on the fiscal year 2001 missile defense budget request asked BMDO Director Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish to provide the list of unfunded priorities (DAILY, Feb. 17).
