The Senate Appropriations Committee has approved legislation that could help steer spacecraft testing work to NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va., but the Florida congressman who represents NASA's Kennedy Space Center is strongly protesting the proposal.
With nearly two months of back-to-flight testing completed, the Marine Corps says the V-22 Osprey is on track and ahead of schedule. "The flight test program has been going on with great satisfaction," Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Jones told reporters last week at the Farnborough International Air Show. The V-22 tiltrotor aircraft has "exceeded expectations," he said, and the test program is slightly ahead of schedule.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumfeld to explain why the Air Force is proposing to lease four Boeing C-40 aircraft without soliciting bids from other companies. "Please explain why the Air Force did not compete this leasing proposal, given the many manufacturers, financing entities, airlines, or any other entities that could have offered competitive proposals," McCain wrote in a July 30 letter to Rumsfeld. McCain requested a response by Aug. 1. McCain also asked for more details on the lease terms.
The lead systems integrator team for the Army's Future Combat Systems program, Boeing Co. and Science Applications International Corp., will issue a second round of broad industry announcements next week, a Boeing program spokesman said. The Aug. 6 announcement will seek industry proposals to refine some system and subsystem concepts, common interfaces and equipment specifications that were submitted in the first phase of broad industry announcements. The terms and conditions for submitting proposals will be issued next week.
Nicholas A. Sabatini, associate administrator for regulation and certification at the FAA, soon will be given a briefing on issues related to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVS), an FAA spokesman told The DAILY.
HURRICANE VIEW: The European Space Agency's Envisat satellite has captured images of Hurricane Elida off the west coast of Mexico, ESA said July 30. The images were captured by Envisat's Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS), the first time the sensor has observed such an event.
Efforts to protect Global Positioning System satellite signals against jamming will suffer if Congress approves proposed funding cuts in the Air Force's fiscal 2003 budget request for GPS, according to the Department of Defense.
As part of its transformation effort, the Army has begun equipping six Interim Brigade Combat Teams (IBCT) with the Stryker mobile gun system, built by General Dynamics Land Systems and General Motors Defense. The GM/GDLS team will build 2,131 Strykers as part of a $4 billion contract awarded by the Army in November 2000. Weighing 19 tons, the interim armored vehicle variant of the Stryker can travel 312 miles at speeds reaching 62 mph, and fire 18 rounds of 105mm ammunition per minute.
This fall, NASA and Clark University will begin training university students in the planning and execution of missions using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to capture and relay high-resolution imagery. Future applications in this vein could include UAV missions to help firefighters, disaster relief workers, or farmers, according to NASA.
GENESIS ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS, along with Boeing and CSA Engineering, will design new Cargo Transportation Containers for the International Space Station under a contract from NASA's External Carrier's Office at the Johnson Space Center, Texas. The next-generation containers will provide heat to protect equipment from the cold of space, and cargo can be removed from them by astronauts or by the space station's robotic arm. Allowing for robotic operation will help NASA save money, the company said, because one astronaut can do the work of three.
If the space shuttle's return to flight is delayed past November, there is a possibility the crew onboard the International Space Station (ISS) will have to come home, according to a source close to the program.
The Senate July 26 approved a bill that would give Intelsat an extension of up to 18 months to conduct a required initial public offering of stock (DAILY, July 26). Current law calls for the satellite communications company to carry out the IPO by Dec. 31. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.), who offered the bill, said Intelsat should be allowed to delay the offering due to the recent steep decline in the stock market.
A State Department official suggested July 29 that Israel will have a hard time winning U.S. approval to export the Arrow missile defense system to India, but a Department of Defense representative sounded more sympathetic to Israel's proposal. The U.S. and Israel jointly developed the Arrow system, and Administration officials have indicated they are reviewing Israel's proposal to sell the system to India (DAILY, July 29).
NEW DELHI - Oman has concluded a deal with Pakistan for the purchase of five MFI-17 Mushshak multirole reconnaissance and ground attack aircraft. The aircraft will be delivered to Oman Aug. 1. With this acquisition, Oman will have a total of eight Mushshak aircraft.
Boeing will develop and integrate new color displays for existing F/A-18A/B aircraft for the Canadian and Australian air forces under a $40 million contract funded by the Canadian government. The work will replace monochrome displays with full-color displays that offer greater capability for situational awareness, according to Boeing. The company said the display swap will solve maintenance and obsolescence problems with the current displays.
Computer Sciences Corp. has been named program manager of the Land Warrior Consortium, a group of companies working to develop the Army's next-generation suite of integrated electronics, battle dress and weaponry. Their goal, CSC said, is to increase the survivability and effectiveness of Army infantry, Ranger and special operations forces.
TRACKING TEST: AeroAstro and Globalstar have demonstrated a new, low-cost simplex modem that can be used for business applications that require remote sensing or tracking data to be sent from remote locations, the companies said July 29. The basic modem unit should be available by the fourth quarter.
MOSCOW - Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) and the Russian arms export company Rosoboronexport signed an agreement July 24 to launch SSTL satellites using Cosmos launchers provided by Rosoboronexport.
Enon Microwave Inc., a subsidiary of Micronetics Wireless Inc., will build high-power microwave switches for the U.S. Navy's F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, the company said July 29. The value of the three-year contract was not disclosed. Enon's role in the F/A-18E/F program was "a major reason we added them to our group," David Robbins, the senior vice president of Micronetics' Defense Electronics Group, said in a statement. The companies merged earlier this year.
Harris Corp. has won a $43 million, one-year contract to provide mission communications, operations and maintenance (MCOM) services to Air Force Space Command's 50th Space Wing. The contract, covering functions for the Air Force Satellite Control Network (AFSCN) at Schriever Air Force Base, Colo., and Onizuka Air Force Station, Calif., has options that could increase the overall value for Harris to $355 million by 2009.
Although the Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. have discussed building a long-range strike version of the F-22 Raptor, the idea still is in a conceptual phase, officials from both companies said July 29. "We have had general discussion with them [Lockheed Martin]," Boeing F-22 program spokesman Chick Ramey said. "But at this point, it's just a concept."
NEW DELHI - Washington has offered to mediate in resolving the Kashmir issue, over which rival neighbors India and Pakistan have fought four wars. The offer of mediation by the United States was made by visiting U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell July 27 during talks with Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minster Lal Kishen Advani.
