CAE of Toronto has added two full flight simulators, a Fairchild Dornier 328Jet and a Boeing 737NG, to its Dallas aviation training center, the company announced Nov. 1. The center, located near the Dallas /Fort Worth airport, already operates two full flight simulators, a Dornier 328Jet and a Dornier 328 Turboprop.
CARRIER HOME: The Navy has decided to homeport the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) at North Island Naval Air Station in San Diego, rejecting attempts to steer the new aircraft carrier to Naval Station Bremerton in Washington state, U.S. Reps. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) and Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) announced Oct. 31. The USS Reagan, now under construction at Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport News, Va., is scheduled for commissioning in 2003 and will replace the USS Constellation.
The Defense Department says it may not be able to start any new Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrations (ACTDs) if a House-passed cut in the program's funding makes it into the final version of the fiscal 2002 defense authorization bill. The House bill reduces the Bush Administration's $148.9 million request for the program by $20 million, to $128.9 million. The Senate bill leaves the request intact. A House-Senate conference committee is ironing out differences between the two bills.
REALITY CAPTURE TECHNOLOGIES INC. (RCT) of San Jose, Calif., has received a license from NASA for further development of a software platform that could allow contractors on Earth to construct "virtual" complex industrial facilities before actually breaking ground. The software was developed by NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., to help explore Mars. The Mars Map 3-D imaging software creates a photographic-quality rendering system, allowing researchers to better understand the surface of Mars.
The National Science Foundation has provided a five-year, $10 million grant to help set up the National Virtual Observatory (NVO), which is intended to unite the databases of earthbound and orbital observatories. The goal of the NVO is to increase the potential for new scientific discovery by making the data available in a unified form to researchers, amateur astronomers and students, according to the Space Telescope Science Institute.
House Republican leaders have endorsed a proposal that would give The Boeing Co. the same kind of lawsuit protection that U.S. airlines received for the Sept. 11 terrorist hijackings of four Boeing passenger airplanes that ended up crashing in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington. The provision has been included in a package of amendments that the full House was debating late Nov. 1 during consideration of an aviation security bill.
JMAR/SAL NanoLithography Inc. (JSAL) has been awarded a patent for a process to create high-performance semiconductors that are smaller than 100 nanometers, or about one one-thousandth the width of a human hair. The technology could provide the company's customers with the ability to manufacture semiconductors for use in anti-terrorism surveillance systems, phased array radars, missile seeker devices and other technologies, according to the company.
The Defense Department announced Nov. 1 that it is restructuring the acquisition plan for the Navy's DD-21 next generation destroyer, and no longer intends to procure a single ship class. While similar to the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers it would have replaced, the DD-21 was intended to provide land attacks support for ground forces. The new program will "produce a family of advanced technology surface combatants," according to the Pentagon.
Can a satellite be de-orbited using nothing more than a long metallic wire roughly the thickness of a piece of dental floss? After over a year of schedule slips, NASA hopes to finally answer this question when it launches the Propulsive Small Expendable Deployer System (ProSEDS) experiment as a secondary payload on a Delta II rocket in June 2002.
LOGICA of London will provide a European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System (EGNOS) to improve the accuracy of the Global Positioning System under a $9 million contract with Alcatel Space. "When you get a GPS navigation signal, how can you be confident you can trust it?" said Laurent Gauthier, the EGNOS project manager at the European Space Agency. "EGNOS will tell you whether you can trust the signal. It will tell you that you are at a particular spot with a high degree of certainty.
Lockheed Martin and Boeing have begun high-level discussions on whether Boeing might play a role in the next phase of the huge Joint Strike Fighter program, the head of Lockheed Martin's winning team said in an interview Nov. 1.
EUROCKOT LAUNCH SERVICES GMBH of Bremen, Germany, will launch two Iridium communications satellites in June 2002 from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia. A Rockot launch vehicle will place the satellites in low-earth orbits. In September, the company carried out a month-long exercise to simulate the entire Iridium mission cycle. The exercise was carried out by a joint team that included Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center and Russia's Space Forces.
Boeing didn't lose the Joint Strike Fighter competition, Lockheed Martin won it, the president of Boeing's military aircraft unit said in a news conference Oct. 30. At a Washington, D.C., meeting Oct. 29, Defense Department and service officials briefed Boeing executives on how their JSF team scored in the intense competition for the System Development and Demonstration (SDD) phase contract, for which Lockheed Martin was picked as the prime contractor.
NASA has retired the Interplanetary Monitoring Platform (IMP 8) spacecraft after 28 years of rough duty. IMP 8 was built and operated by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., which launched it in 1973. The spacecraft is the last of a series of IMP spacecraft that provided space physics data as part of the Sun-Earth Connection research program. NASA sent the last commands to the spacecraft Oct. 28.
The Defense Department needs to have a single office at the Pentagon that deals exclusively with Electronic Warfare (EW) issues, two House staffers said at the annual Association of Old Crows symposium in Washington. "We need to consider establishing a joint EW office in DOD," Ken Miller, a senior legislative assistant to Rep. Joseph R. Pitts (R-Pa.), said Oct. 29. "Congress needs a single point of contact to address EW shortfalls."
AIRCRAFT-SAFE BULLET: American Ammunition Inc. has received a patent for a bullet that will penetrate human soft tissue but won't pierce an aircraft fuselage. The bullet was designed for use inside the cabins of commercial aircraft, according to the company.
While the Bush Administration prepares for this month's summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin to work out the details of a new strategic framework between the U.S. and Russia, questions remain as to what form future arms agreements will take. When the two presidents begin their summit Nov. 13, the five elements of the new strategic framework under discussion will be offensive strategic weapons, missile defense, non-proliferation, counter-proliferation, and counter-terrorism.
Taiwan is seeking to set up a supply chain agreement for military aircraft it bought from the United States, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency reported to Congress. The Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the U.S. has requested the establishment of a Cooperative Supply Support Arrangement (CLSSA) to supply spare parts for F-5E/F, C-130H and F-16A/B aircraft, according to DSCA. The request also calls for supply support for U.S. systems and subsystems used in Taiwan's Indigenous Defense Fighter (IDF).
The crew of a Soyuz "taxi flight" mission to the International Space Station have returned to Earth, ending a 10-day Russian-French mission. Cosmonauts Victor Afanasyev and Konstantin Kozeev and European Space Agency astronaut Claudie Haignere, the first European woman to visit the station, touched down in their Soyuz capsule Oct. 31 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
President Bush intends to nominate R.L. Brownlee to be undersecretary of the Army, the White House announced Oct. 31. Brownlee has served as a member of the Republican staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee since 1987. He was the principal professional staff member for Army and Marine Corps programs, Special Operations forces and drug interdiction policy and support. In 1996, he was designated staff director for the committee.
GE Aircraft Engines will supply up to 400 CT7-8L engines and spares to power a fleet of airships being developed in Germany. The contract, with CargoLifter GmbH of Brand, Germany, includes maintenance services for 10 years and could be worth up to $500 million, according to GE. The company was co-developed by GE Aircraft Engines and Fiat Avio of Italy, and the companies will also co-produce them. First deliveries of the CT7-8 engines are expected to begin in 2003. The first flight of a CL160 Airship prototype is scheduled for 2004.
A House-approved cut in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's budget request for advanced aerospace systems would hinder efforts to make unmanned combat air vehicles a major part of the Defense Department's fleet, according to DOD.
Credit ratings on Newport News Shipbuilding could be raised if Northrop Grumman Corp.'s acquisition of the company takes place as expected, Standard&Poor's said Oct. 31. Until that is done, ratings for Newport News Shipbuilding remain on CreditWatch with positive implications, where they have been listed since April, according to the ratings service.
AgustaWestland and Lockheed Martin have joined in a near-term effort to market the three-engine EH101 helicopter to the U.S. Air Force for the combat search and rescue mission. The longer-term goal is to seek out medium-lift helicopter opportunities in the U.S. The EH101 has already been ordered by the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, Denmark and Japan. A win in the U.S. would open new doors for AgustaWestland, based in Italy and the U.K.
