JSF WORK: EDO Corp. will design, develop and build a suite of pneumatic weapon delivery systems for the Joint Strike Fighter under a $24.8 million contract from Lockheed Martin Corp., the company announced Jan. 9. EDO will design and develop its Suspension and Release Equipment System at its Marine and Aircraft Systems in Amityville, N.Y.
With top Army officials saying that a Future Transport Rotorcraft (FTR) may no longer be an Army requirement, at least one senior Army official hinted that the Army may be interested in moving back into fixed-wing assets.
Although virtually all of the third-generation reusable launch vehicle (RLV) concepts currently being considered by NASA rely on some form of combined-cycle propulsion to get to orbit, the space agency is still not insisting on single-stage vehicles. NASA's last big push on single-stage-to-orbit space transportation was the X-33 program, which was abandoned last year due to cost overruns and schedule slips (DAILY, Mar. 2, 2001). NASA and partner Lockheed Martin Corp. spent five years and nearly $1 billion on the ill-fated project.
The cost, schedule and performance of the Airborne Laser (ABL) are "undergoing an assessment" following a congressional increase of tens of millions of dollars in the Bush Administration's fiscal 2002 budget for the program, according to a statement issued by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), formerly the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.
NEW DELHI - India's second experimental Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) will take off from Sriharikota, the Indian spaceport, "some time next year," said K. Kasturirangan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). "We are in the process of scheduling the launch. No date has been fixed," Kasturirangan said. "This is a part of [the] development program, so we have to plan and execute it as early as possible."
The Army National Guard has cut its aircraft fleet from 2,000 to 1,800 airframes during 2001 and has plans to cut the remaining fleet another one-third by 2007, according to National Guard Bureau Vice Chief Maj. Gen. Raymond Rees. "That 1,800 is going to go down to around 1,200 airframes, all of which will be modernized - no legacy systems left in the Guard," said Rees, speaking at an Army aviation symposium in Falls Church, Va. Jan. 8.
The Royal Saudi air force, despite being one of the most advanced in the developing world, has lost its effectiveness since the Gulf War and may be incapable of stopping a ground attack from Iraq or a naval assault by Iran, according to a series of reports released Jan. 9 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Capping off two years of planning for aviation modernization, the Army will issue a memo Jan. 17 executing changes to its aviation battalions, according to Col. Stephen D. Mundt, director of aviation in the Army's Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Programs. "On the seventeenth [of January], not later, the execution memorandum will go out, and by detail, it will say which airframe is moving from which organization and when," Mundt said, speaking Jan. 7 at an Army aviation symposium sponsored by the Association of the U.S. Army.
The Defense Department's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is awaiting several important events and decisions in the coming weeks on international participation in the System Design and Development (SDD) phase. So far, the United Kingdom is the only country that has signed an agreement to participate. As a Level 1 partner, it will contribute about 8 percent, or $2 billion, of SDD costs and can place up to 10 people in the JSF program office.
Presi-dent Bush signed the recess appointment of John Magaw to be undersecretary of transportation for security. Magaw is the former director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the U.S. Secret Service.
MOSCOW - Russia's Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center plans to undertake joint aerospace ventures with Venezuela, according to center Director General Alexander Medvedev. Venezuela's minister for science and technology, Carlos Genatios, visited Khrunichev's facilities and Medvedev visited Venezuela and met President Hugo Chavez, he told The DAILY in an interview about Khrunichev's plans for 2002.
A slight boost in funding appears likely for the Defense Department's Joint Robotics Pro-gram, according to report a released Jan. 7 by the research and consulting firm Forecast International Inc. The program, which is currently funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), was created in 1990 to oversee the military's development of robotic surveillance equipment for use in hazardous environments.
L-3 Communications of New York announced Jan. 7 it has acquired SY Technology, Inc. in a $48 million deal the company said would broaden its capabilities in the missile defense market. Headquartered in Sherman Oaks, Calif., SY Technology specializes in building air warfare simulation, C4I architectures and missile defense and space systems technology for government, military and commercial customers.
L-3 Communications of New York announced Jan. 7 it has acquired SY Technology, Inc. in a $48 million deal the company said would broaden its capabilities in the missile defense market. Headquartered in Sherman Oaks, Calif., SY Technology specializes in building air warfare simulation, C4I architectures and missile defense and space systems technology for government, military and commercial customers.
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has uncovered "ghostly" relics of an ancient eruption that tore through a cluster of galaxies millions of years ago, the aerospace agency announced Jan. 8. Chandra's images have revealed vast regions in the cluster Abell 2597 that contain virtually no X-ray or radio emission. Such areas, called "ghost cavities," appear to be the remnants of ancient explosions caused by material falling toward a black hole millions of times more massive than the Sun.
A test explosion of the Defense Department's thermobaric weapon demonstrated that the deep-penetrating fuel air explosive was "extremely successful," according to the Air Force. Undersecretary of Defense E.C. "Pete" Aldridge announced Dec. 22 that the thermobaric weapon, which had been accelerated following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in Washington and New York, was being sent to the theater of operations for possible use against targets in Afghanistan (DAILY, Jan. 2).
Deep views of the cosmos provided by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope may indicate that many stars in the universe formed just a few hundred million years after the big bang, much sooner than some previous theories speculated. Kenneth M. Lanzetta, associate professor of physics and astronomy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, studied deep views of the universe from the Hubble and concluded the stars were born in a "torrential firestorm," according to NASA.
The Department of Defense has created a new office to guide DOD's frequency spectrum policy, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced recently. The new office will be at the deputy assistant secretary level, reporting to John Stenbit, the assistant secretary of defense for command, control and communications. This is the first time spectrum issues have been raised to the deputy assistant secretary level, according to the Pentagon.
To bolster national security, President Bush should declare the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite network a critical national asset worthy of protection by the U.S. military, a conservative think tank report recommended Jan. 8. "GPS is one of the most vital information devices in the history of the country. It is vital to maintaining the protection of the country and should be protected itself," said former Attorney General Edwin Meese, who co-chaired a Heritage Foundation report on homeland security.
The Defense Department's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is awaiting several important events and decisions in the coming weeks on international participation in the System Design and Development (SDD) phase. So far, the United Kingdom is the only country that has signed an agreement to participate. As a Level 1 partner, it will contribute about 8 percent, or $2 billion, of SDD costs and can place up to 10 people in the JSF program office.
Aerospace and defense analysts with Fitch Inc., the international ratings company, raised the senior secured credit rating of United Defense Industries Inc. in a report released Jan. 7. Analysts raised the company's senior unsecured rating from "BB-" to "BB" following UDI's repayment of nearly $163 million of senior unsecured debt. The company repaid the debt after raising more than $400 million through its initial public offering in December. The ratings outlook is positive, according to Fitch.
