THE SPECTRUM ASTRO/NORTHROP GRUMMAN CORP. Space Based Infrared System Low (SBIRS Low) team has completed its system design review for the Air Force missile defense-related program, the team announced May 7. The team now moves to the preliminary design review, slated for early 2002.
Airplane manufacturers and operators must change the way airplane fuel tanks are designed, maintained and operated under a rule issued May 7 by the Federal Aviation Administration. The rule is expected to cost the industry $165 million over the next decade, according to the FAA.
Dov S. Zakheim has been sworn in as under secretary of defense-comptroller and chief financial officer for the Department of Defense, the Pentagon announced May 7. David O. Cooke, the director of administration and management for the office of the secretary of defense, administered the oath of office on May 4. Zakheim had been confirmed by the Senate on May 1.
Sikorsky Aircraft Co., Stratford, Conn., is being awarded a $47,577,922 modification to firm-fixed-price contract DAAJ08-87-C-0005 for five aircraft and incorporating the conversion of the five UH-60L Blackhawk aircraft into the HH-60L configuration on the production line. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This is a sole source contract initiated on July 17, 1997. The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command is the contracting activity.
POWELL A. MOORE was sworn in as the assistant secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs, May 4, at the Pentagon, the Defense Dept. announced. He previously served as the chief of staff for Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) Moore was appointed assistant secretary of State for Intergovernmental and Legislative Affairs in 1982 and served former President Ronald Reagan as deputy assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs in 1981.
McDonnell Douglas Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Boeing Co., St. Louis, Mo., is being awarded a $33,602,026 modification to previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract (N00019-97-C-0046) for two USMC AV-8B remanufactured aircraft. Work will be performed in St. Louis, Mo., and is expected to be completed by September 2003. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity.
General Dynamics Electronic Systems has been awarded a $7.8 million contract to demonstrate how the company's data infusion technology can integrate radar, missile and laser threat-warning data to improve the situational awareness of helicopter crews. The contract, which the company announced May 7, will also involve integrating other digital battlefield information.
Now that Dennis Tito, the first "space tourist," is back on the ground, some NASA and industry officials are still saying he shouldn't have gone to the International Space Station Alpha - at least not yet. There is a place for space tourism in manned space flight, but not while the station is still being built, a former astronaut and a current high-ranking NASA official said May 7.
LIBRATION STATIONS: Libration points - relatively stable points between the gravitational pulls of celestial bodies - will factor heavily in NASA's future plans for space exploration, says Doug Cooke, manager of the Advanced Development Office at the Johnson Space Center. Travel between such points can be achieved with relatively low energy. For example, the libration point between the Earth and the moon - known as L1 - could allow low-energy access to all points on the lunar surface, Cooke says.
LIGHTER PENETRATOR: Israel Military Industries Ltd. (IMI) has developed a hard-target penetration bomb that it believes will be of interest to the U.S. Navy. According to IMI, the PB-500A1 has 80 percent of the performance but less than 50 percent of the weight of Lockheed Martin's 2000-pound BLU-109 hardened target bomb.
The problem that caused a four-day stand-down of 180 T-1 Jayhawk training aircraft has been identified and remedied and the aircraft were returned to flying operations May 4. Air Education and Training Command (AETC), Randolph Air Force Base, Tex., had issued a 72-hour operational stand-down from flying for the aircraft on April 30 while the planes underwent inspection for elevator and rudder discrepancies (DAILY, May 4). The stand-down was then extended by 24 hours, to Friday morning, May 4.
The Military Aircraft unit of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. (EADS) recently finished a major test campaign of the CAPTOR radar for the Eurofighter program, the company has announced. The objective of the seven flight tests, which were conducted in the last half of March, was to assess the air-to-air modes of the CAPTOR in a multi-target and heavy clutter and interference scenario, according to the company.
NEW COMMITMENT: Eberhart thinks America must renew its commitment to space endeavor. "We need to recommit ourselves as a nation to the exploration of space ... much as we did in a reactive way in 1957 and 1961," Eberhart says. "Obviously we're a spacefaring nation. We've made that decision. We need to stay the course. This isn't easy.
The United States should help Russia rebuild its early warning satellite capability for detecting missile launches to help prevent false alerts that could lead to nuclear attacks, an MIT scholar says in a new analysis. In "Reducing a Common Danger: Improving Russia's Early Warning System," Geoffrey Fondren says the U.S. should invest $160 million to launch five Russian early warning satellites - the minimum needed to provide 24-hour coverage of U.S. missile fields.
'STRANGE IDEAS': The Israeli military is exploring "many strange ideas" in hopes of developing non-lethal weapons that can be used effectively against hostile crowds, according to Amos Yaron, the No. 2 official at the Israeli Ministry of Defense. One of the ideas involves "some kind of glue" that could be used against large numbers of people. But Yaron says Israel has yet to come up with any magic solutions, so its research continues.
BAE Systems is upgrading countermeasures systems on U.S. Navy and Marine Corps helicopters under a $6 million contract from the U.S. Army Communications and Electronics Command (CECOM), the company announced May 4. The upgraded system, the AN/ALQ-144A Countermeasures Set, provides protection against a wide spectrum of infrared-guided missile threats.
F-16 FATIGUE: RADA Electronic Industries Ltd. of Israel says it is working with U.S.-based Lockheed Martin to develop a more customer-friendly system for recording fatigue-related data on F-16s. The new system will run on computers that are easier to use than the ones running the existing system, according to RADA.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz suggested May 4 that Russia, which has been critical of President Bush's plan to develop a missile defense system, could itself benefit from such a protective umbrella.
The United Kingdom and Romania signed a Memorandum of Understanding last week confirming each country's commitment to promoting and evaluating commercial and technical cooperation between their aerospace industries. The MOU, announced by the Society of British Aerospace Companies, aims to identify suitable potential partners and encourage and enhance trade links between the two aerospace industries. It will also encourage the promotion of investments between aerospace companies in the two countries.
Israel is taking several steps at home and abroad in hopes of boosting its weapons exports and shoring up the defense industry, according to military and industry officials.
TO SUBSIDIZE OR NOT TO SUBSIDIZE: Government subsidizing of space launches will continue until technological advances increase launch rates, says space analyst Robert W. Eleazar, "because if you get the flight rate up to the point where [customers] can pay just a little bit, you can run the entire [launch] installation.
NANO, NANO: In addition to larger scientific satellites for such applications as X-ray and radio astronomy, nanosatellites may feature prominently on the wish lists of future astronomers. "But we'll need lots of them," says astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, webmaster of 'Jonathan's Space Report.' Such a collection of very small satellites could be very useful for near-Earth study. "A cluster of four spacecraft to study the magnetosphere is a start, but I want to instrument the magnetosphere like you would telemeter a rocket.
ROTORCRAFT PLANS: The U.S. Army, aiming to boost the efficiency and affordability of helicopters now in its fleet and to demonstrate technologies that could be used in future rotorcraft, has mapped out a challenging plan to come up with better rotors, structures and drive systems. Several technology efforts at the component or systems level will lead to an advanced technology demonstration program set to run from fiscal 2005 to 2009, which in turn will lead to development of a Large Cargo Transport Rotorcraft beginning in FY 2010.
Canadian civilian, industry and military experts agree that unmanned aerial vehicles are likely to take a big role in Canadian Forces surveillance and reconnaissance duties by 2010, and Canada's military - with virtually no UAV experience - is wrestling with just how to make that happen. "The hurdles are not in the technology," said Col. Mark Aruja, who heads Canada's Joint Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Surveillance Target Acquisition System (JUSTAS) project. "We need to grapple with doctrine, concepts of operation and command and control processes."
SENSOR SERENDIPITY:The Joint Experimentation Directorate (JED) of Joint Forces Command is seeing improved sensor capability by serendipity, says Jack Klevecz, director of the Futures Alliance Deptartment of the JED. While working on attack operations on critical mobile targets, JED took certain sensors designed for different functions and found that by using their algorithms in a different manner and changing some of the protocols, "they were very, very effective in detecting hard-to-get targets and their launchers," Klevecz explains.
