How does a squadron charged with testing navigation and guidance systems in extreme jamming know where its aircraft and weapons are and how they are performing when GPS is jammed? The answer from next year on will be by using a local positioning system that has the potential to back up GPS wherever jamming or spoofing could have disastrous results, such as critical infrastructure, airports or guiding unmanned aircraft in civil airspace.
Business was booming for Raytheon at the recent Paris air show. The defense electronics giant's “hospitality chalet”—a two-story structure set up for VIP meetings—was packed with prospective buyers from places such as Oman, Qatar and Japan. “This is the busiest I have ever been at an air show,” proclaimed CEO Bill Swanson, who is aiming to raise exports to 30% of Raytheon's sales, up from an impressive 26%.
After two decades rising through the executive ranks at communications services provider Amdocs Management, Dov Baharav had no defense experience when he was tapped in 2011 to serve as chairman of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). During his tenure at Amdocs, Baharav oversaw complex financial systems and high-tech development projects in the lead-up to the dot-com bust, when he was appointed CEO.
Michael Mecham (San Francisco), Frank Morring, Jr. (Washington)
Spaceborne study of the Sun has produced spectacular images like these over the years, but still leaves much about our nearest star cloaked in mystery. Now an ultraviolet (UV) telescope with unusually high spectral bandwidth will try to solve one of the most puzzling—why temperatures vary so dramatically between the Sun's surface and the upper limits of its turbulent atmosphere.
GeoMetWatch, a startup that is building on its engineers’ experience developing an unflown government hyperspectral weather sounder to produce commercial weather hosted payloads, has entered a Space Act Agreement (SAA) with NASA to exchange data from orbit for surplus hardware and calibration services.
HOUSTON — International Space Station astronauts Chris Cassidy of NASA and Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency plan to further prepare the six-person orbiting laboratory for the arrival of Russia’s Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module (MLM) during a pair of July spacewalks that will include external alterations to ready the outpost for possible power and cooling system failures.
STANDING DOWN: Jason-1, a Franco-U.S. ocean-topography spacecraft in operation since Dec. 7, 2001, has gone offline after its sole remaining transmitter failed on June 21. NASA and the French space agency CNES decommissioned the Earth-science bird after 11.5 years of service continuing the data set started in 1992 by Topex/Poseidon and continuing today with the Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2. Built by Thales Alenia Space, the 500-kg.
Virgin Galactic could be transporting fee-paying astronaut tourists into near space from its Abu Dhabi spaceport in around two-three years time. That was the message from Steve Landeene, Virgin Galactic's Chief Advisor, Abu Dhabi Spaceport, when talking to Arabian Aerospace at this year's Global Space and Satellite Forum.
The 2013 Global Space and Satellite Forum got under way today at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Abu Dhabi. Attracting global experts from across 30 countries, the event looked at the blossoming space industry in the Middle East and how satellites have an important role to play in terms of earth observation and communication.
OHB System AG of Germany has signed an €816 million ($1.06 billion) contract with Germany’s defense procurement agency to develop the SARah satellite-based radar reconnaissance system. SARah aims to provide an enhanced follow-on to Germany’s five-satellite SAR-Lupe constellation, which became fully operational in 2008. Built by OHB System AG, SAR-Lupe, which utilizes one ground station, is slated to retire after November 2017.
PARIS — A Proton M/Block DM-03 rocket carrying three Russian Glonass navigation satellites veered wildly off course shortly after liftoff July 2, exploding into a fiery ball before crashing 2.5 km from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
NASA has cleared Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) through two more of its Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) milestones, paving the way for the company’s modified Dragon cargo carrier to begin pad-abort testing as early as this year. The U.S. space agency accepted the SpaceX human certification plan, which outlines everything the company plans to do to get ready for human spaceflight. That includes tests, demonstration, analyses, inspections, verifications and training events, NASA said.
NEW DELHI — India on July 1 lofted its first navigation and timing satellite meant to provide accurate position information services to both civilians and the military. IRNSS-1A, the first satellite of the seven-spacecraft Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), was launched on a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C22) from the spaceport at Sriharikota off the coast of the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, says an official at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
Successful tests of an all-composite cryogenic fuel tank for space launch vehicles hold promise for lower-cost access to space, perhaps before the decade is out. A small composite fuel tank fabricated by Boeing with funding from the “game-changing” program of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate contained 2,091 gal. of liquid hydrogen through a series of shifts in its internal pressure and three temperature cycles ranging from ambient down to minus 423F.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is seeking industry and public comment as it proposes new rules it says “would advance the commercial space industry and the important role it will play in our nation’s economy and technological innovation now and in the future.”
Space Florida, the aerospace development arm of Florida’s state government, has been named to negotiate a partnership with NASA to operate the 15,000-ft. Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at Kennedy Space Center as a public spaceport. The U.S. space agency picked Space Florida after publishing a request for information last year seeking proposals for using the unique facility.
HOUSTON — NASA’s Johnson Space Center and Deloitte LLP will pursue a long-running collaboration to advance safety and risk management practices for the oil and gas industry under a June 27 strategic agreement. The effort, in part, will focus on low-probability, high-consequence events that can occur in remote and harsh environments, like those faced by U.S. astronauts currently on the International Space Station and prospective missions of deep-space exploration.
NEW DELHI — India has plans to loft two new satellites over the next two years to boost its communications capability and augment current services. A proposal for the development and launch of GSAT-15 and-16 was approved at a June 28 meeting of the federal cabinet, says India’s finance minister, P. Chidambaram. GSAT-15 is expected to be built within the next 18 months, and GSAT-16 in the next 24 months.
SAN FRANCISCO — NASA reports “a great insertion orbit” for its newest orbiting telescope for studying the Sun’s dynamic temperature bands, which was drop-launched from a former airliner off the central California coast at 7:28 p.m. PDT June 27.
It is a golden instrument, in more ways than one. NIRcam, the Near-Infrared Camera for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), is wrapped in a gold insulating foil, the better to maintain its operating temperature of 35K (-397F). But it also will play a golden role for the three other instruments on the $8 billion mission, which is to put astronomy's largest orbiting observatory into service in 2018.
