USA CONTRACT: The United Space Alliance (USA) will refurbish hydraulic actuators on the space shuttle under a $62 million contract modification announced Sept. 20. The actuators move a shuttle's rudder, speed brake, elevons and main engines during flight. Endeavour will be the first shuttle to have the work done.
The Defense Department is the only agency that has the resources and ability to serve as the lead for homeland defense, according to William Schneider, chairman of DOD's Defense Science Board. The Defense Science Board - DOD's standing task force on research and development - recently completed a multi-volume study on homeland defense. While the study did not specify the role of DOD in an overall homeland security strategy, it did recommend a fundamental reallocation of DOD's investment priorities to focus more on homeland defense.
Although the Sept. 11 terrorist hijackings have prompted some calls for stronger doors between the cockpit and the passenger cabin, access by the flight crew to other parts of the aircraft must be preserved, according to some aviation analysts.
Warning that the $40 billion defense increase will mostly go towards "rebuilding what has been lost" in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, former Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.) called for increasing the defense budget to 4 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), along with a massive re-evaluation of entitlement spending.
The upcoming decision on whether to pick Boeing or Lockheed Martin as winner of the Joint Strike Fighter competition probably won't be affected by events of the past week, two observers said yesterday.
SPACEHAB, INC., announced that its Astrotech Space Operations subsidiary has completed a $20 million financing of its satellite processing facility expansion project in Titusville, Fla. The expanded facility, scheduled to be completed in October, will accommodate larger satellites for launch on Lockheed Martin's Atlas V and Boeing's Delta IV. SouthTrust Bank, headquartered in Birmingham, Ala., is providing the financing.
SPACEDEV, of Poway, Calif., has begun testing CHIPSat, NASA's first University Explorer microsatellite. The company designed and is building CHIPSat for Mark Hurwitz of the University of California at Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory. The completed satellite will weigh about 150 pounds and will smaller than a typical coffee table. NASA's ICESat, scheduled to be launched at the same time as CHIPSat next June, weighs about 2,000 pounds and is the size of a sport-utility vehicle.
Rockwell Collins, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has been picked to provide avionics systems to the Boeing Co. as part of the Air Force's C-130 Avionics Modernization Program, the company announced Sept. 19. The company will supply systems, valued at more than $400 million, for more than 500 Air Force C-130s.
Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.), the new chairman of the House Armed Services readiness subcommittee, plans to hold hearings in a few weeks to examine whether the U.S. military should play a more active role in homeland defense, a spokeswoman told The DAILY Sept. 19.
BOEING ELECTRON DYNAMIC DEVICES of Torrance, Calif., has received its first contract for linearized traveling wave tube amplifiers (LTWTAs) from Orbital Sciences Corp., which placed an order for 32 C-band LTWTAs as part of a contract initially worth $5 million. The total value could grow to $16 million, according to Boeing. The LTWTAs will be used on a C-band commercial geosynchronous satellite that Orbital Sciences is building for PanAmSat Corp.
The Boeing Co. has completed the preliminary design review of the radar and identification friend or foe (IFF) systems for Australia's Project Wedgetail, the company announced Sept. 19. This is the first major design milestone in the development of the 737 airborne early warning and control system, according to Boeing. The preliminary design review included a general review of the radar and IFF design, and a comparison with the Wedgetail radar subsystem requirements established by the Australian government.
COMMAND AND CONTROL TECHNOLOGIES CORP. of Titusville, Fla., won a NASA contract to establish a computer test facility for experimenting with new techniques for operating space missions. The facility, known as the "Launch and Range Operations Testbed," will provide computer simulations of space launches for research into human performance models and new operations concepts. NASA's Intelligent Systems program, managed by the Ames Research Center, Calif., is funding the project.
In a surprise admission early last week, the government of Peru confirmed that it possesses Russian-made air-to-air missiles, which could make it easier for Chile and other countries in the region to purchase the American-made Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM). While the U.S. government has said that it would like to sell AMRAAM to Chile, it must operate within the limits of the Arms Export Control Act, which currently blocks the transfer of beyond-visual-range missiles to the region.
NEW VIEW: Orbimage's one-meter resolution OrbView-4 satellite is scheduled for launch on a Taurus rocket Friday, Sept. 21 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. OrbView-4 will also carry a hyperspectral imaging instrument for the Air Force ResearchLaboratory's Warfighter-1 program.
Congress will approve all funding requested in the FY 2002 and FY 2003 defense budgets and some weapons programs could see new life in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to an analyst's report. Paul Nisbet, an aerospace analyst with JSA Research Inc., said the proposed 2002 defense budget of about $329 billion "could go as high as $350 billion before it's all over, and the 2003 budget that will come out in January (2002) could reach $400 billion, quite possibly."
The Boeing Co. announced early Sept. 19 it is drafting plans to lay off between 20,000 to 30,000 employees in its Commercial Airplanes division by the end of 2002. The reductions are necessary, a company spokesman said, "to address the changed business environment in light of last week's terrorist attacks against the United States."
Aerospace companies, including the Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp., are donating millions to relief efforts in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against New York and Washington. Boeing - which built all four of the commercial jets hijacked in the attacks - plans more than $5 million in donations to relief agencies aiding victims of the attacks.
The European Space Agency has launched a new initiative aimed at helping small companies enter the satellite communications field, by providing early-stage investment and support. The initiative, run by ESA's Telecommunications Department, is aimed at small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups in the information technology and telecommunications fields.
NASA's Stennis Space Center has signed an agreement with archeologist Ken Karsmizki, curator of history at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center and Wasco County Historical Museum in Oregon, to use NASA remote sensing technology to identify and map sites along the trail of explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. NASA will work with Karsmizki to combine precision airborne and satellite imagery with detailed maps of Lewis and Clark journal entries to locate and preserve sites along their trail, from South Dakota to Oregon.
BAE Systems Technical Services, part of BAE Systems North America, will continue its support of the Instrumentation Radar Support Program under a $38 million Air Force contract, the company announced Sept. 19. The contract value could exceed $90 million, including six years of options and follow-on work, according to the company. BAE Systems Technical Services will provide logistics and technical support for 156 instrumentation radar systems on 28 ranges worldwide.
CACI International Inc., of Arlington, Va., will provide battlefield modeling and simulation under a $30 million contract awarded by the Defense Department's Joint Information Operations Center in San Antonio, Texas. Under the contract, CACI will model and simulate battlefield situations to train senior commanders in managing information operations and command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) activities.
Northrop Grumman Corp. announced it has been selected over Raytheon Co. to proceed to the next phase of the Affordable Moving Surface Target Engagement (AMSTE) program, intended to locate and track moving vehicles and destroy them with low-cost precision weapons. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), in conjunction with the Air Force Research Laboratory, funds the project.
Preparations are on track for the Sept. 25 launch of the Atlantic Bird 2 satellite on Sept. 25, according to Arianespace. Atlantic Bird 2, built by Alcatel Space for Eutelsat, will expand Eutelsat's orbital relay capacity over the Atlantic Ocean for TV, data and high-speed Internet services. The 26-transponder satellite is designed to provide high-power, "single hop" communications from the Americas to Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, according to Arianespace.
House negotiators were considering the possibility late Sept. 19 of cutting missile defense funding in the fiscal 2002 defense authorization bill by a few hundred million dollars in hopes of reaching a compromise on the contentious issue and avoiding a divisive floor debate, according to an aide to a member of the House Armed Services Committee.
