WGS-2 Launches
from Cape Canaveral
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ITT Corp.’s Systems Division in Cape Canaveral, FL received a $7 million task order to support the US Air Force’s Eastern and Western missile ranges.

The task order was issued as part of a 10-year, $1.3 billion contract awarded to ITT by the USAF.

The contract calls for ITT to modernize the USAF Spacelift Range System (SLRS). This work includes support for spacecraft launch, as well as ballistic missile and aeronautical testing.

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Boeing Delta IV Heavy
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The EELV program was designed to reduce the cost of government space launches through greater contractor competition, and modifiable rocket families whose system requirements emphasized simplicity, commonality, standardization, new applications of existing technology, streamlined manufacturing capabilities, and more efficient launch-site processing. Result: the Delta IV (Boeing) and Atlas V (Lockheed Martin) heavy rockets.

Paradoxically, that very program may have forced the October 2006 merger of Boeing & Lockheed Martin’s rocket divisions. Crosslink Magazine’s Winter 2004 article “EELV: The Next Stage of Space Launch” offers an excellent briefing that covers EELV’s program innovations and results, while a detailed National Taxpayer’s Union letter to Congress takes a much less positive view.

This DID Spotlight article looks at the Delta IV and Atlas V rockets, as well as the contracts that have been placed since the merger, which formed United Launch Alliance. The latest news is the successful launch of a Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellite by an Atlas V rocket…

• Delta IV
• Atlas V
• Military Satellite Payloads
• Contracts & Key Events
• Additional Readings
  
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Logical progression
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It might not be a Vulcan mind-meld, but it’s pretty close. The Department of Defense’s technology brain trust, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), has given 4 contractors the go-ahead to develop the advanced Vulcan combination engine system for hypersonic flight. The 8-month first phase features awards to: Alliant TechSystems, General Electric, Rolls Royce, and United Technologies.

The Vulcan engine will integrate a traditional jet turbine engine that performs well at low speeds, with a constant volume combustion (CVC) engine that performs well at higher speeds. The combination will help the vehicles go from standing starts to Mach 4 or so, where hypersonic engines can take over. DARPA’s ultimate goal is to design, build, and fly Mach 6+ re-usable, air-breathing, turbine-based hypersonic vehicles.

What current engines will the Vulcan program modify? What are the program’s goals? What is its structure? DID has answers…

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TECSAR
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The April 20/09 launch of the RISAT-2 satellite gives India the ability to monitor cross-border movements of suspected terrorists, as well as troop movements in Pakistan and other neighboring countries, at night and under all weather conditions. The satellite was reportedly a modified TECSAR satellite, purchased from Israel Aerospace Industries for $200 million. Indian sources state that the satellite launch was accelerated after the recent terrorist attack in Mumbai.

The 300 kg/ 660 pound TECSAR’s military X-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) provides up to 1 meter radar resolution was carried into low earth orbit aboard a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C-12) from the Satish Dhawan Space Center located on the barrier island of Sriharikota in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The PSLV-C-12 also carried the 40 kg/ 88 pound experimental communication ANUSAT satellite built by Chennai-based Anna University.

The satellite purchase marks a growing military relationship between India and Israel…

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FALCON HTVs
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The path toward a hypersonic space plane has been a slow one, filled with twists and turns one would expect given the technological leap involved. Speeds of Mach 8+ place tremendous heat and resistance stresses on a craft. Building a vehicle that is both light enough to achieve the speeds desired at reasonable cost, and robust enough to survive those speeds, is no easy task.

Despite the considerable engineering challenges ahead, the potential of a truly hypersonic aircraft for reconnaissance, global strike/ transport, and low-cost access to near-space and space is a compelling goal on both engineering and military grounds. The question, as always, will be balancing the need for funding to prove out new designs and concepts, with risk management that ensures limited exposure if it becomes clear that the challenge is still too great.

In October 2008, the US Congress decided that FALCON/Blackswift had reached those limits. That decision led to the program’s cancellation, though some activities will continue.

• The FALCON Hypersonic Vehicle: Program & Challenges [updated]
• The FALCON Hypersonic Vehicle: Industrial Teams [new]
• FALCON Hypersonic Vehicle: Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources

Black Brant XII
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As NASA’s sounding rocket program site tells us:

“Sounding rockets carry scientific instruments into space along parabolic trajectories, providing nearly vertical traversals along their upleg and downleg, while appearing to “hover” near their apogee location. Whereas the overall time in space is brief (typically 5-20 minutes), for a well-placed scientific experiment launched into a geophysical phenomena of interest, the short time and low vehicle speeds are more than adequate (in some cases they are ideal) to carry out a successful scientific experiment. Furthermore, there are some important regions of space that are too low to be sampled by satellites (i.e., the lower ionosphere/ thermosphere and mesosphere below 120 km altitude) and thus sounding rockets provide the only platforms that can carry out direct in-situ measurements in these regions.”

Some agency of the USAF has issued a set of indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity contract for $250 million, allowing multiple awards within a 7-year ordering period to cover engineering and technical services that support the Sounding Rocket Program 3. SRP3 provides launch systems and services for sub-orbital ballistic trajectories up to 5,500 km downrange. At this time $200,000 has been obligated.

The DefenseLINK announcement lists Robins AFB, which is incorrect. Robins AFB believes the contracts were issued through Kirtland AFB, NM, but Kirtland’s PA department claims no knowledge of them. For good measure, the contract numbers were crossed with different day’s announcement re: ECM systems for Pakistan. As best we can determine, winners include:

• Orbital Science Corp. Launch Systems Group of Chandler, AZ (FA8818-08-D-0036)
• Space Vector Corp. of Chatsworth, CA (FA8818-08-D-0037)
• L-3 Communications Corp., Coleman Aerospace of Orlando, FL (FA8818-08-D-0038). Has a specialty in ballistic missile target simulators [PDF], which may also use this flight profile.
• ATK Launch Systems of Brigham City, UT ((FA8818-08-D-0039)

Dextre: part of ISS
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Alliant Techsystems announced today that it has negotiated definitive agreements with Canadian-based MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates to acquire its Information Systems and Geospatial Information Services businesses for C$1.325 billion (about $1.318 billion). MDA’s IS/GIS business has more than 1,900 employees and estimated FY 2009 revenues of approximately USD$ 500 million, and is a global leader in space-based radar systems, space robotics (the robotic arms for the NASA Space Shuttle and International Space Station are MDA products), satellite systems, and imaging satellite ground stations and processing; with additional world-class capabilities in satellite payloads, C4ISR, and geospatial services.

ATK’s rationale for the acquisition was straightforward:

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If you want to keep track of key Pentagon programs, Selected Acquisition Reports are an important resource. Shortly after the defense budget is submitted, the Pentagon releases details on major defense acquisition program cost, schedule, and performance changes on a periodic basis, summarizing the latest estimates of a major program’s cost, schedule, and technical status. Quarterly SARs are submitted for initial reports, final reports, and for programs that are rebaselined at major milestone decisions. Subsequent quarterly exception reports are required only for those programs experiencing unit cost increases of at least 15%, or schedule delays of at least 6 months.

Total program cost estimates provided in the SARs include research and development, procurement, military construction, and acquisition-related operation and maintenance (except for pre-Milestone B programs which are development costs only). Total program costs reflect actual costs to date, as well as future anticipated costs, and include anticipated inflation allowances.

The November 2007 SAR is a mixed bag, as usual…

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Before: Minotaur
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Northrop Grumman Space and Mission Systems, Missile Defense Division in San Bernardino, CA received an $8,.7 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to investigate a concept for a conventional ballistic missile capable of destroying targets at global range in less than one hour flight time. Northrop Grumman will deliver: (1) a delivery vehicle parametric design study, (2) a mission/program planning study. It will be interesting to see how the latency issues are addressed in NGC’s studies.

At this time, all funds have been obligated. Solicitations began April 2007, negotiations were complete May 2007, and work will be complete June 2009. The Headquarters Space and Missile Systems Center in Los Angeles Air Force Base, CA (FA8814-07-C-0005).

After: BLU-108s
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In order to make maximum use of existing system elements and reduce the cost and development risk associated with a future acquisition, Northrop Grumman will make use of Orbital’s Minotaur rocket, and a delivery vehicle designed to carry and dispense multiple BLU-108B/B sensor fused weapons to the target area. DID has covered these BLU-108 “cans of whup-ass” before; they’re tuna-can shaped explosively-formed penetrators (EFP) with millimeter-wave sensors that use parachutes to spread out in the air, then fire downward through the thin top-armor of enemy vehicles to kill those in their coverage area.

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F136 nozzle tests
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Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMCs) are seeing more us these days in aerospace, replacing the nickel, chromium and titanium alloys historically used in high-temperature zones like rocket motors and turbine engine hot exhaust areas. In addition to their thermal protection, they can offer weight reductions of up to 50%. The GE/Rolls Royce F136 engine that serves as the F-35 Lightning II’s “second engine” program uses Silicon Carbide CMCs, and the material is even being considered for naval and aircraft structures.

Aurora Flight Sciences recently announced that the company has received a grant from the West Virginia High Technology Consortium and NASA for the development of Laser Assisted Machining of Silicon Carbide Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMCs) for Space Propulsion Structures….

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