Europe's Galileo satellite navigation program is on schedule, the European Commission announced Feb. 20 in a program update. In an official communication to the European Parliament and Europe's Council of Ministers, the commission said the development phase, which extends to 2005, is progressing as planned. "Everything is now in place to be able to move on to the deployment and operation phases in accordance with the planned deadlines ... before the end of the decade" Commission Vice President Loyola de Palacio said in a statement.
The space around the moon has a strategic value that should bolster the case for pursuing President Bush's space exploration vision, according to a U.S. Department of Defense scientist. Bush's new space policy "basically puts NASA in the lead in cislunar [near-lunar] missions," according to Stuart Nozette, manager of advanced microsatellite technology programs for DARPA's Tactical Technology Office and former deputy project manager for DOD's Clementine lunar spacecraft.
Feb. 23 - 25 -- DOD Architectures Conference, Doubletree Hotel, Crystal City, Va. For more information call (800) 882-8684 or go to www.idga.org. Feb. 25 -- 1st National Homeland Security Conference & Expo, Hilton Hotel at Walt Disney World Resort, Orlando, Fla. For more information email [email protected]. March 8 - 9 -- Aviation Week presents European Transport Leaders Conference. Merrill Lynch Headquarters, London. To register go to http://www.aviationweek.com/conferences.
LEGACY FIGHTERS: Despite renewed uncertainty about the future of the next-generation F/A-22 Raptor and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the U.S. Air Force has no plans to buy more legacy fighters such as the F-15 and F-16, a service spokesman says. The Lockheed Martin F/A-22, which is to succeed the Boeing F-15, faces speculation that it may be cut in the fiscal 2006 budget to save money. Procurement of the Lockheed Martin F-35, which would replace the Air Force's Lockheed Martin F-16s, is being delayed a year due to weight problems with the aircraft.
DISCOVERY A GO: The space shuttle Discovery will fly mission STS-114 no earlier than March 2005, NASA has decided. NASA's Space Flight Leadership Council pushed back the launch from a previous mid-September 2004 target to allow more time to analyze the shuttle's redesigned external tank for potential foam debris loss, develop the boom camera that will inspect the shuttle for damage in orbit, and assess the condition of the shuttle's Rudder Speed Brake Actuators. The new launch window runs from March 6 to April 18.
Boeing is slowing work on the U.S. Air Force 767 tanker program to accommodate reviews of the controversial lease-buy agreement, and warned that it may cut jobs due to the delay. Beginning Feb. 23, Boeing will slow down the work, President and CEO Harry Stonecipher said in a statement released Feb. 20. Defense Department officials said recently that negotiations between Boeing and the Air Force are suspended until at least May, when the results of four DOD reviews of the deal are due (DAILY, Feb. 6).
The Missile Defense Agency plans to revive efforts to pursue a space-based interceptor missile, according to Defense Department sources. MDA's fiscal 2005 budget request, now before Congress, includes about $10 million for a space-based Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) test bed, the DOD sources told The DAILY late Feb. 19. The money would be used for risk reduction efforts, including concept analysis, war-gaming and initial development and testing of lightweight interceptor components.
BETTER LUCK: Russia's ground-based missile and space forces had better luck last week, with an RS-18 Stiletto missile successfully launched from Baikonur Cosomodrome in Kazakhstan and a Topol-M successfully launched from Russia's Plesetsk Cosmodrome. A Soyuz launcher also delivered the Molniya-class military satellite to orbit.
SPACESHIPONE: DARPA hopes to fly experiments onboard Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne spacecraft, according to an agency official. "We're working with Burt Rutan and SpaceShipOne to demonstrate that we can use it as an experiment platform," the official said. "It goes to the edge of space ... and hopefully when he flies the X Prize missions, he's going to have some telemetry experiments that we've put on there."
The U.S. Defense Department is eyeing more schedule changes for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to address the aircraft's weight problems, program officials said Feb. 20. The first flight of the Lockheed Martin JSF will be delayed from October 2005 to the spring of 2006, said Air Force Maj. Gen. Jack Hudson, director of the program.
LUNAR PAYLOAD: This November, NASA plans to select the scientific payload for the 2008 lunar reconnaissance orbiter, which will be the first in a series of robotic "precursor" missions designed to pave the way for a human return to the moon by 2020. The orbiter will map the lunar surface in unprecedented detail and gather information about natural resources such as possible ice deposits (DAILY, Feb. 5).
MORTAR WAR: The U.S. Army has begun reviewing Lockheed Martin's protest over the competition for the Precision Guided Mortar Munition (PGMM), service spokesman Peter Rowland says. At least for now, the Army has no plans to comment publicly on the contents of Lockheed Martin's complaint, Rowland adds. The protest, filed with the General Accounting Office Feb. 17 (DAILY, Feb. 19, Feb. 20), contends the Army misled Lockheed Martin about the requirements for the laser-guided PGMM. The Army tapped Alliant Techsystems (ATK) over Lockheed Martin to develop the munition.
The U.S. Department of Defense's future Global Information Grid-Bandwidth Expansion (GIG-BE) program is on track to achieve Initial Operating Capability (IOC) in September, according to Air Force Lt. Gen. Harry Raduege, director of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). 100 locations In September, 10 locations will be up and running. By September 2005, all 100 worldwide locations will be activated, Raduege said Feb. 19 at a National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) luncheon in Falls Church, Va.
TEST MILESTONE: The F/A-22 Raptor program has reached its 5,000th flight test hour, the U.S. Air Force said Feb. 19. Raptor 4003 reached the milestone Feb. 9 during a developmental test mission over Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.
The liftoff of the U.S. Defense Department's experimental TacSat-1 micro-satellite was delayed by about two months mainly because of welding problems with the launch vehicle, according to an industry representative.
NASA will begin launching a series of "Mars testbed" missions in 2011 to pave the way for the eventual human exploration of the planet, according to Orlando Figueroa, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program Office. NASA's new Office of Exploration Systems will drive the requirements for the missions, Figueroa said. The missions are planned to head for Mars during every launch opportunity, which occurs roughly every two years.
Lockheed Martin is accusing the U.S. Army of providing misleading information about the requirements for its M395 Precision Guided Mortar Munition (PGMM).
SAN DIEGO - The war in Iraq and its aftermath are a preview of how the United States will fight future wars, according to retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert Scales. The 23-day campaign demonstrated that the U.S. military knows "how to do joint warfare right," said Scales, the former commandant of the Army War College and author of five books on warfare. However, Scales said he believes that additional capabilities are needed for future success.
