Saab Ericsson Space will develop the command and data handling system for EADS Astrium's Pleiades earth-observing satellites, the company said this week. The contract is worth $16.8 million, the company said. The satellites will be smaller, cheaper and more agile than the proceeding SPOT series, which has been in service since 1986. The Pleiades satellites will deliver images with resolutions of less than one meter, compared with SPOT images of 2.5 meters, the company said.
President Bush has ordered NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe to reprogram $11 billion of the agency's budget over the next five years to meet his new vision of returning human beings to the moon by 2015-2020 and paving the way for human missions to Mars. O'Keefe will be reviewing all of NASA's space flight and exploration activities to refocus the agency on the president's plan. Bush also plans to request that Congress approve an additional $1 billion for the agency over the same five-year period.
Analytical Graphics Inc. (AGI) has opened the Center for Space Standards and Innovation in Colorado Springs, Colo., to provide a "one-stop shop" for industry-wide standards to encourage interoperability, the company said this week.
Cost concerns and questions about the importance of naval surface fire support (NSFS) could affect whether the U.S. Navy will complete the DD(X) procurement program as planned, a naval analyst said Jan. 14. "The Navy has said that the fifth and sixth ship [when the cost in a ship class levels off] of the DD(X) class will cost between $1.2 billion and $1.4 billion apiece in fiscal 2002 dollars," Ronald O'Rourke, an analyst at the Congressional Research Service, said at the Surface Navy Association symposium in Washington.
THERMAL IMAGING: FLIR Systems will provide 27 Star SAFIRE III airborne thermal imaging systems and two Star SAFIRE II units to the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command under a $16.9 million contract, the company said Jan. 14. Deliveries will begin this fiscal quarter, the Portland, Ore.-based company said.
Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Air Force have broken ground on construction modifications to Space Launch Complex 3E at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., that will enable West Coast launch of Lockheed's Atlas V rocket by late 2005. The modifications to existing Atlas launch facilities are scheduled to be complete by the end of the year, according to company officials. After the first Atlas V is brought to the pad early next year, the team will spend five months performing integrated testing with the rocket and the new ground facilities.
NEW DELHI - India's medium-range, surface-to-air Akash missile successfully hit a target drone in a Jan. 13 test. The 25-kilometer (15.5-mile) range missile was launched from the Interim Test Range at Chandipur and hit a six-foot-long target. Akash is one of five missiles being developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). Its testing is going well, DRDO said, but the Indian army has complained that its Rajendra radar is too limited, making it difficult to track aircraft (DAILY, Aug. 19, 2003).
Despite rumors that the Bush Administration will order NASA to stop its reusable launch vehicle (RLV) work in favor of developing new expendable vehicles to visiting the moon and Mars, Northrop Grumman engineers working on RLV-related technologies are confident their work will find its niche.
A small part of Raytheon's Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptor is being redesigned in light of last June's failed intercept test by the Missile Defense Agency's Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (Aegis BMD) system, an industry source said Jan. 13.
Legislation calling for a 375-ship Navy with 15 aircraft carrier battle groups and 15 amphibious ready groups has a "slim to none" chance of passing, the lawmaker who introduced it said Jan. 13. Rep. Jo Ann Davis (R-Va.) said at the Surface Navy Association symposium in Washington that she will be "happy if just a congressional hearing came out of the effort" to pass the Naval Force Structure Policy Act.
Defense contractors' practice of hiring military officials shortly after they leave government service, known as the "revolving door," is not new, but may be in for unprecedented levels of scrutiny, defense analysts said Jan. 13. The Defense Department's inspector general, which already is investigating the Boeing Co. for alleged ethics violations relating to its hiring of a former Air Force official, is taking a wider look at such practices, the Wall Street Journal reported.
A senior Pentagon official has requested a high-level review of a key component of the Air Force's E-10A Multi-sensor Command and Control Aircraft (MC2A) program, saying the service may be doing more work than authorized. In a Dec. 29 memorandum, Steve Cambone, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, asked Pentagon acquisition chief Michael Wynne to finish the review by Jan. 30.
WEDGETAIL PROGRESS: BAE Systems Australia has completed three major design reviews for components of Australia's Project Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning & Control (AEW&C) program, the company said. BAE Systems is a subcontractor to prime contractor the Boeing Co.
The U.S. Air Force is defining the acquisition strategy for one of the subsystems in the second phase of the Large Aircraft Infrared Countermeasures (LAIRCM) program, according to a Jan. 13 FedBizOpps notice. In Phase I, C-17 and C-130 airlifters of Air Mobility Command (AMC) are being equipped with Northrop Grumman's AN/AAQ-24 IR countermeasures set, an upgraded version of the directional IRCM (DIRCM) system used on special operations aircraft. Both systems protect large aircraft from shoulder-fired, heat-seeking missiles.
PRAGUE - The new commander of the Czech Republic air force, Ladislav Minarik, said he has "no doubts" about the NATO interoperability of new JAS-39 Gripen fighters the country plans to lease from Sweden. The United States had raised questions about the Gripen's interoperability during the competition for the aircraft, intended to be a short- to medium-term solution for the Czech Republic's air defense needs. Four unsuccessful bids featured U.S. aircraft.
If the Bush Administration directs NASA to establish a permanent human presence on the moon or send a crew to Mars, Spacehab's module designs could be adapted for such purposes, according to a company spokeswoman. Spacehab develops, owns and operates habitat and laboratory modules and cargo carriers designed to fly aboard NASA's space shuttles and operate on the International Space Station (ISS). The company's Research Double Module (RDM), which housed experiments, was destroyed when the shuttle Columbia disintegrated on Feb. 1, 2003.
