PUSH FOR PLUTO: The Planetary Society is ramping up its efforts to convince Congress to fund a mission to the icy planet Pluto. NASA recently solicited ideas from industry and the scientific community for a relatively low-cost mission. Five proposals were received (DAILY, April 19) but NASA's budget currently contains no money for such a mission and the program won't go forward unless Congress funds it.
Military officials and industry representatives met May 31 for the Navy Interoperability Workshop, a conference sponsored by the National Defense Industrial Association to discuss ways of meeting the technical challenges involved with interoperability. Interoperability, which is often defined as the ability of each service to effectively execute joint missions and combined operations, remains elusive.
MISSILE TALKS: House Armed Services Committee member Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) and the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis plan to have a range of experts participating in their upcoming conference on missile defense. Speakers are to include U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Rodney Rempt, assistant chief of naval operations for missile defense; Henry Cooper, former director of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization; Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy; and a member of the British Parliament.
All but one of six wind tunnels closed in the wake of a February tunnel accident at NASA's Langley Research Center are back online, officials at the U.S. space agency said Thursday. The remaining wind tunnel, which was damaged in the accident, has been repaired but needs clearance from NASA management before it can be used again. The approval could come by mid-June.
BANDWIDTH CHALLENGES:While each service progresses in their respective transformation efforts, several common themes emerge. One is the increased reliance on electronic transfer of information, and the complexity of that information. What this means is growing pressure on bandwidth. For instance, according to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, there were one tenth as many military personnel in Kosovo as in the Gulf War, but they used 100 times as much bandwidth. The civilian world is also competing for bandwidth as more and more high-tech gadgets become commonplace.
WEB-ENABLED AIR FORCE: Air Force communications will soon have to be compatible with standard web protocols, says Brig. Gen. Robert H. Latiff, vice commander of the Electronic Systems Center (ESC) at Air Force Materiel Command. "The ESC, in cooperation with the Air Force CIO [Chief Information Officer], will be publishing a series of directives on Air Force communications," says Latiff. "Any system we currently have that displays data of any type will have to have a web browser. We will web-enable our current systems. Data transfer will be XML-based.
SPACE INTEL: Air Force Space Command is moving to increase its situational awareness of the space domain. "We've made a commitment, and have a package currently in staffing, to establish for the first time in eight years an intelligence directorate in Air Force Space Command," says Lt. Gen. Roger G. DeKok, vice commander. The move, he says, will help offset a dramatic decline over the years in the number of space analysts in the intelligence community.
Orbital Sciences Corp. announced June 1 it has completed the sale of 12.35 million shares of its MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. subsidiary, part of its effort to refocus on its core space technology products. The shares sold for about $112 million to a group of Canadian investors that include CAI Capital Partners and Company II, L.P., British Columbia Investment Management Corp. and the Ontario Teacher's Pension Plan Board.
Even after the U.S. Air Force Materiel Command's Space and Missile Systems Center goes to Air Force Space Command on Oct. 1, Materiel Command will retain some key space capabilities linked to the needs of warfighters, said its commander, Gen. Lester L. Lyles.
Jupiter's magnetosphere, a huge ionized-gas bubble that encases the planet, is lopsided and "leaky," with an unexpected amount of high-energy particles bleeding out one side, according to measurements made recently by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Figuring out how the electrons and ions are escaping from the magnetosphere could help scientists understand the protective magnetic field that surrounds Earth, according to NASA.
SMALLER SPACECRAFT: The National Research Council is embarking on an evaluation of federal research programs on nanotechnology. The study will include an assessment of coordination among federal agencies and between the federal government and industry, according to one participant in the review. The study also will try to estimate when nanotechnology will be developed enough to produce ultra-small materials and devices. Advances in nanotechology could have many implications for aerospace, such as helping to miniaturize satellites.
GOODRICH CORP. is now the official name of the former BFGoodrich, the Charlotte, N.C.-based company announced June 1. Goodrich, a worldwide supplier of aerospace components, made the change to reflect its shift away from the tire manufacturing business and its focus on aerospace. Goodrich divested its tire business in 1986.
'BACK AND 4th': The target date for the fiscal year 2002 budget amendment has continued to slip, and now some are wondering if it may not be submitted to Congress until after the Hill's July 4 recess. Although Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley won't predict the date the amendment will come out, he does say it should be "in the ballpark" of late June or early July. "The honest answer is, whenever the president feels that he's satisfied with its status and content, he will submit it to the Congress," Quigley says.
International Space Station (ISS) astronauts will not have to perform an external spacewalk this week to fix problems with the $600 million Canadarm2 now that NASA has ruled out the Arm Controller Unit (ACU) as the source of recent problems. Had the ACU been identified as the culprit, a scheduled June 8 "internal spacewalk" - where astronauts work in a depressurized part of the station, in their spacesuits - could have been extended to include an external spacewalk to replace the unit.
OVER THE HORIZON: The Navy needs over-the-horizon (OTH) satellite capability for its current Link 16 protocol, says Capt. Dave Britt, commander of the naval cruiser USS Vicksburg. Britt and his crew participated in the recently completed operational evaluation (OPEVAL) of the Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) system (DAILY, Apr. 13). While unofficially calling the OPEVAL "successful," he says the exercise highlighted the need for OTH connectivity, which right now can only be achieved by falling back on the outdated Link 11.
Members of the Maine congressional delegation June 1 blasted the Bush Administration's decision to delay the award of a contract for the DD-21 Zumwalt-class destroyer, saying the move could have serious repercussions for Navy modernization and the defense industrial base. Maine is home to Bath Iron Works (BIW), the General Dynamics shipyard that is expected to share DD-21 construction with Northrop Grumman Litton Ingalls Shipbuilding in Mississippi.
STATION UTILIZATION: Members of industry, government officials and scientists plan to gather at the Estrel Convention Centre in Berlin this week to discuss commercial use of the International Space Station. "The aim of ISS Forum 2001 is to make the full catalogue of new and innovative possiblities available to a larger user population," says Karl Knott, the head of the European Space Agency's microgravity and space station utilization department.
Boeing sees the Air Force's award of a $7 billion E-3 AWACS modernization and sustainment contract as a commitment by the government to stay with the Boeing team and insure that the AWACS fleet remains ready for years to come. "This was an Air Force initiative, and we supported them in doing it," Ed Froese, Boeing's vice president for AWACS programs, said June 1.
TRANSDIGM INC., of Richmond Hts., Ohio, announced May 31 it has completed the acquisition of the assets of Champion Aviation Products from Federal Mogul Ignition Co. for about $160 million in cash. Champion manufactures igniters for turbine engines and spark plugs and oil filters for piston engines, products used in military and commercial aircraft. TransDigm designs and manufactures aerospace components.
Air Force officials say the day has come for the horizontal integration of command and control (C2) and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) data, and have tasked the Aerospace C2 and ISR Center here to develop a plan to do that. "We believe that the integration of manned, unmanned, space and surface sensing capabilities is the way we have to do business," USAF Maj. Gen. Jerry Perryman, AC2ISRC commander, said in an interview here.
The Bush Administration missed an opportunity with its fiscal 2001 supplemental defense spending bill to ease overseas doubts about the fate of the Joint Strike Fighter program, an aerospace expert told The DAILY June 1.
INHERENTLY INTEROPERABLE: The Joint Strike Fighter contains the "seeds" of interoperability, according to David Oliver, principal deputy under secretary of defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, who made his comments at a naval interoperability conference in Virginia.
France is seeking a possible foreign military sale for the manufacture and integration of four U.S. Air Force/NATO Radar System Improvement Program (RSIP) modification kits to install in the French E-3F AWACS aircraft fleet. The proposed sale, worth an estimated $190 million, includes installation in the aircraft as well as in a ground-based support facility, system software development and installation, support equipment and other related program elements to ensure the desired radar system performance.
Boeing's Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) has achieved initial operational capability (IOC) on the F/A-18C/D, Navy and Air Force officials told The DAILY on May 30. IOC was declared for JDAM guidance kits on the Mk. 84 2,000 pound bomb and the BLU-109 penetrator bomb. JDAM is a guidance kit that converts existing bombs into accurately guided "smart" bombs by adding an Inertial Navigation System/Global Positioning System capability.
Russian military space forces on May 29 launched a satellite from Plesetsk to conduct a dedicated mission for the Ministry of Defense. Russian officials said the satellite is designated Kosmos-2377.
