Raytheon Missile Systems and Boeing Co. recently completed a second government-sponsored test of a tactical missile that someday could be launched by a half-dozen different aircraft, The Arizona Republic reported Monday.

The Joint Air-to-Ground Missile, or JAGM, is expected to replace Hellfire, Maverick and TOW missiles in the U.S. military’s arsenal, the newspaper said.

The missile was successfully launched Aug. 13 from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the companies said.

The JAGM employed its infrared guidance system to lock on to the target before it launched and hit a stationary battlefield tank more than 2 miles away.

The Raytheon-Boeing proposal faces competition from Lockheed Martin. The winner will supply 33,000 missiles that can be launched from the F-18 fighter, the Apache, Seahawk, Super Cobra and Arapaho helicopters and the Warrior unmanned aerial drone vehicle.

“GOES-15 completes the fleet of advanced meteorological satellites that Boeing designed, built and launched to provide enhanced weather monitoring over North America and refresh NOAA’s operational fleet,” said Craig Cooning, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space & Intelligence Systems. “The United States will have state-of-the-art satellite images on nightly weather telecasts, better weather monitoring and prediction, and more accurate data for climate studies because of these new GOES satellites. We thank our NASA and NOAA customers for the nearly 13 successful years of cooperative development that has enabled us to deliver the full GOES fleet.”

“Clearly, this is a great day for NASA, NOAA and all of our team members,” said André Dress, GOES deputy project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. “We take great pride in knowing that all the years of hard work, late hours and diligence have paid off. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, ITT and United Launch Alliance have really shone on this mission, and it shows in the final product. GOES-15 will be a great addition to the constellation, and we look forward to seeing it in operation.”

GOES-15 was launched on March 4 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. The satellite successfully completed five months of on-orbit testing and demonstrated operational readiness of its subsystems, spacecraft instruments and communications services. GOES-15 has already started to deliver high-resolution photos from space, including the first visible and infrared images of Earth taken by its imager instrument, and the first image of the sun taken by its solar X-ray imager instrument.

The eight GOES satellites that Boeing has built for NASA and NOAA began with GOES-D, which launched in 1980. The on-orbit GOES constellation includes the three recently produced Boeing satellites known as GOES-13 (formerly GOES-N), GOES-14 (formerly GOES-O) and GOES-15 (formerly GOES-P). GOES-13 was activated as the operational GOES-East satellite on April 14, in time to monitor the 2010 hurricane season over the Atlantic Ocean. GOES-13 replaced GOES-12, which NOAA moved to 60 degrees west longitude to provide coverage for South America as part of the Global Earth Observing System of Systems. GOES-14 is currently in a storage orbit of 105 degrees west longitude, ready to become a primary operational satellite in the next two years. GOES-15 will be placed in an on-orbit storage location at 105 degrees west longitude.

The mission of the GOES satellites is to provide space-based Earth observation and global environment-sensing activities, delivering enhanced weather forecasting that protects life and property. In addition to providing the familiar weather images seen on television newscasts every day, NASA and NOAA also recently released a six-minute video of the 2009 hurricane season. The video includes data and images supplied by the GOES satellites.

In addition to the acceptance of GOES-15, Boeing also handed over a government satellite to the U.S. Air Force on Aug. 26. The delivery of two operational satellites to two customers in the same week marks only the second time this has occurred in Space & Intelligence Systems’ 47-year history, underscoring Boeing’s commitment to solid program execution.

The company’s advanced development programmes (ADP) division instead has released a new marketing campaign, with a promotional video posted on YouTube on 24 August revealing new details about the company’s technology.

Lockheed systems engineer Bob Ruszkowski confirms the company “absolutely” sees opportunities for new business, despite losing a competition for a $517 million contract from the US Army in June.

A Northrop Grumman/Hybrid Air Vehicles team instead won the deal to build the long-endurance multi-intelligence vehicle (LEMV), for deployment to Afghanistan in early 2012.

“We are exploring opportunities for hybrid airships beyond LEMV,” Ruszkowski says.

Lockheed lost the contract despite investing significantly in hybrid airship technology. The ADP, or Skunk Works, division manufactured a demonstrator aircraft called the P791, which first flew in January 2006.

“The P791 demonstration aircraft still exists. It’s still in our hangar. It’s available to use again for other demonstrations,” Ruszkowski says. “We learned quite a bit from it, and we’re exploring other opportunities for hybrid airships.”

In the new video, P791 programme manager Bob Boyd and other programme officials describe details of the hybrid airship technology.

The P791 is described as guided by a two-axis thrust vectoring system that is steered by fly-by-wire flight controls. The tri-hull airship is built using a “high-strength, lightweight woven material that’s heat-sealed together”, Lockheed says.

Lockheed’s hybrid airship also incorporates an air cushion landing system with four pads, which both soften landings and “grab” the ground so no mooring equipment is required.

The company plans to offer a hybrid airship as both a surveillance and cargo aircraft. In the latter configuration, new versions of the technology scaled up to seven times its current size could haul as many as 300 freight containers at a time, Lockheed says.

The video also offers hints that Lockheed sees an opportunity with hybrid airships to break into the commercial aircraft market for the first time since the early 1990s. Its future airships will be designed to offer availability rates on a par with commercial aircraft, of between 95 and 99%, the company says.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government will work to fill its manned spacecraft needs with more permanent replacements from private sector companies like SpaceX and will fill in the gaps with NASA technology. On Tuesday, NASA made a critical step forward to filling one of those gaps, completing a successful test of its DM-2 solid-fuel heavy-lift rocket.

Some may recall that NASA was contracting Lockheed Martin to develop a Shuttle successor named the Crew Exploration Vehicle, later renamed to the Orion. That project was slated for cancellation by President Obama in February 2010. The administration later recanted somewhat on that order, and in April decided to repurpose the Orion design for use as a rescue vehicle for the ISS.

Of course something needs to blast Orion into orbit. That’s where NASA’s heavy-lift rocket comes in. The five stage rocket is a marvel of engineering and is the largest solid-fuel rocket in history. It can output 22 million horsepower and generate as much as 3.6 million pounds of thrust.

The design is the result of a collaboration between NASA and an aerospace contractor, Alliant Techsystems’ (ATK) subsidiary ATK Space Systems. The test was carried out amidst a desert backdrop in ATK Space Systems’ home state of Utah.

Aside from the brand-new fifth segment that helps the rocket set power records, the rocket also features other significant improvements from past designs. It includes a modified nozzle throat and upgraded insulated liner. These refinements make the rocket safer and more efficient.

The first test was a resounding success. All segments of the rocket successfully fired at full power. Better yet, they did so after being chilled to 40 degrees Fahrenheit, simulating cold weather conditions from likely launch locations like Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The rocket isn’t slated to see action until 2015, so the program is well ahead schedule and has plenty of time for additional testing and fine tuning.

Andy Schorr, first stage, five-segment motor lead for Ares Projects at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama comments, “The successful DM-1 test provided our team with great results. All performance measurements were within specified limits and 46 total objectives, covering each significant design feature of the motor, were met.”

“Our team is responsible for developing a robust propulsion system that can provide the thrust necessary to escape Earth’s gravitational well and safely deliver astronaut crews and payloads to the International Space Station and beyond. As we press forward, our goal is to optimize every aspect of the system for peak performance.”

Some haven’t been impressed by NASA’s recent direction, though. Rob Zubrin, President of the Mars society in April lambasted President Obama’s space vision, commenting:

Under the Obama plan, NASA will spend $100 billion on human spaceflight over the next 10 years in order to accomplish nothing”
Obama called for sending a crew to a near Earth asteroid by 2025. … Had Obama not canceled the Ares 5, we could have used it to perform an asteroid mission by 2016. But the President, while calling for such a flight, actually is terminating the programs that would make it possible.”

With current in-space propulsion technology, we can do a round-trip mission to a near-Earth asteroid or a one-way transit to Mars in six months … Holdren claims that he wants to develop a new electrically powered space thruster to speed up such trips. But without gigantic space nuclear power reactors to provide them with juice, such thrusters are useless, and the administration has no intention of developing such reactors.

Despite the successful engine test, there’s significant uncertainty, even with regards to the DM-2′s purpose. Initially the design was slated to carry a moon-lander called Altair for a mission by 2020. Under Obama’s new plan its left uncertain whether that mission will occur at all. As there are no plans to currently fund a lunar push (the focus is instead on a Mars mission), it seems unlikely the DM-2 will every be put to this use, barring a change in direction by a future administration.

As an interesting side note, the DM-2 shares its name with the respectively diminutive Soviet Blok DM-2 rocket engine, designed in 1982. That smaller engine has been used as recently as 2009, alone with Proton M, for GLONASS GPS satellite launches.

www.dailytech.com

The Kaman K-MAX helicopter has been adapted by defence company Lockheed Martin to fly without a pilot and can carry up to 6,000lbs of cargo – more than the aircraft’s empty weight, reports the BBC.

Transporting equipment to troops at Forward Operating Bases on the frontline would be the K-MAX’s primary use.

It would help reduce the need for large vehicle convoys lowering the risk of soldiers being ambushed or injured by IEDs (improvised explosive devices).

And it can be flown into under-fire areas without risk to aircrew.

A ground-based operator using a laptop is able to control the aircraft. They can input a flight plan detailing the destination and route.

It can also be flown hands-on from the cockpit if necessary and uses counter-rotating intermeshing rotor blades to generate its lifting power.

The adapted K-MAX can winch four different loads on its cargo hook and each can be programmed to release at different times. Its maximum airspeed with an external load is 80 knots (92mph).

It can also fly in weather conditions that would ground other helicopters and could also be used to lighten the workload of aircrew ensuring they get enough rest.

The helicopter is being developed for the US Army’s ‘Autonomous Technologies for Unmanned Air Systems’ (ATUAS) programme.

However the US Marine Corps could make use of the aircraft.

In Lockheed Martin’s contract to develop the helicopter the US military describes the project as having an “indefinite delivery” of an “indefinite quantity”, so a precise deployment date is currently unknown.

But if testing goes to plan it’s thought it could be sent to Afghanistan for assessment sometime towards the end of 2011. (ANI)

Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin, meanwhile, is set to begin adapting the ship-based Aegis BMD system for use on land as part of the United States’ planned European missile shield under a nearly $70 million sole-source contract the Defense Department announced the same day.

The Aegis BMD system is designed to counter short- and medium-range ballistic missiles and is currently deployed on 21 U.S. Navy ships. The system relies on the Lockheed Martin-developed Aegis weapon system, Standard Missile-3 interceptors and missile tracking radars. The Aegis BMD system has intercepted 20 of 24 targets in testing and operational missions, including the February 2008 shoot-down of a defunct U.S. spy satellite.

The current Aegis BMD configuration, known as version 3.6.1., was certified for operations by the Navy in March 2009, adding the capability for ships to defend themselves from short-range ballistic missiles in the terminal phase of flight. The Navy, Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and Lockheed Martin are now working on several increasingly capable versions of the system.

The Aegis BMD version 4.0.1 is the next upgrade to the system, which will be bundled into a new signal processing computer that will be integrated alongside ships’ existing computers. The 4.0.1 system will provide an enlarged coverage umbrella and enable enhanced target discrimination, according the MDA’s website.

A prototype of the 4.0.1 system was installed on the USS Lake Erie in June 2009. The government-industry team in June 2010 completed a two-week demonstration of the 4.0.1 system that showed it meets all requirements, Nick Bucci, Lockheed Martin’s Aegis BMD director, said during a media briefing here. The system will continue to progress through testing before being certified by the Navy for operations near the end of 2011, Bucci said.

At the same time, Lockheed Martin is working on an Aegis BMD version 5.0, which will be the system’s first major hardware refresh. At the heart of the 5.0 system is Lockheed Martin’s new Multi-Mission Signal Processor that will be installed on Navy destroyers starting in 2012. The processor detected and tracked four live targets in early testing during a recent missile defense exercise, according to an Aug. 25 Lockheed Martin press release.

The Pentagon now plans to have a total of 38 Navy ships with the Aegis BMD capability available by 2015, the MDA has said. At one time the plan was to upgrade each of the ships to the 4.0.1 capability before moving to the 5.0 capability, but the military currently plans for some ships to go directly from version 3.6.1 to version 5.0, Bucci said.

Japan is the only other nation to deploy the Aegis BMD system, and that nation recently completed its installation on a fourth and final ship. The Japanese destroyer Kirishima will conduct its first flight test in October, Bucci said.

Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin has started work under an eight-month Missile Defense Agency contract for the Aegis Ashore program that is part of the new strategy for European missile defense announced by U.S. President Barack Obama last year. The revised approach includes sending Aegis BMD ships to European waters as soon as late 2011 and deploying a land-based version of the system in Europe by 2015.

Under an initial contract worth as much as $69.8 million, Lockheed Martin will facilitate a systems requirement review in September and a system design review in January, the Defense Department press release said.

www.spacenews.com

Rep. John Adler, D-N.J., said the two-year contract would support 250 engineering jobs in the region.

“The contract will strengthen Lockheed Martin’s operations in Burlington County, and sustain private sector jobs in our area,” he said in a statement.

Under the contract, Lockheed will be the Aegis Ashore engineering agent for the AA Missile Defense Test Complex, along with other military operations.

Lockheed Martin employs approximately 2,300 people from the 3rd Congressional district, according to Adler’s office, and about 5,000 people statewide.

The Pentagon currently spends about $2 billion on basic research, and this number should remain about the same in the near future. However, it will be difficult to find new above-and-beyond technologies that will be game changers in the world of defense. This is where additional money would come in handy.

The Pentagon sees technology as a helpful aid to increasing efficiency in the U.S. military, and according to Zachary Lemnios, director of defense research and engineering, their offices are already working to include new technologies on the battlefield. The main focus is on increasing speed, agility and innovation.

Military commanders have requested “joint urgent operational needs” and technology that can offer quicker response to troops on the battlefield. Lemnios’ office has began working on this technology, and will also put money toward long-term research projects much like one that was launched six months ago, which alerts Humvees when helicopters are being attacked by “listening” for the sound of bullets and then fixing their position. In fact, four helicopters have already been equipped with 16 microphones thanks to Sikorsky Aircraft, and will be sent to Afghanistan in October.

Speaking of Afghanistan, increased surveillance over military bases in this area has been provided by Lockheed Martin Corp., which built 13 air ships and sold them to the U.S. Department of Defense specifically for this purpose. In addition, more efficient mine-resistant trucks will be deployed in less than a year and will be sent to Afghanistan as well.

One of the largest technological innovations made by the Defense Department was learning to identify risks earlier by studying new weapons programs. Watchdog agencies and lawmakers have pushed the Pentagon to make this move for years because this saves the government a lot of money, since changes are usually made after the programs have been in service for years, losing both money and time only to find out it failed in certain areas.

“We’re actually doing that,” said Lemnios. “That’s our day job.”

The Pentagon plans to continue expanding and speeding analysis on intelligence, renaissance and surveillance data in order to develop better technology for the battlefield.

The US Marines’ “Immediate Cargo Unmanned Aerial System” compo has now been subsumed into an Army-run effort known as Autonomous Technologies for Unmanned Air Systems (ATUAS), and Aviation Week notes that a contract has been awarded to Lockheed Martin.

Lockheed’s offering for the unmanned robocopter contest was an automated version of the existing Kaman K-MAX intermeshing-rotors manned aircraft, and it appears that this will now be developed into the US forces’ first robot cargo skyhook.

The ATUAS K-MAX, in trials earlier this year, has shown that it can shift 3,000lb of cargo across 150 nautical miles in two flights within six hours – all without any input from ground operators other than specifying the destination and route. The machine is expected to offer the same performance, delivering cargo to a point within 10 metres of the target coordinates, even in weather which would ground a normal manned chopper. The K-MAX team has also shown off a nifty “four-hook carousel”, which lets the droidcopter make multiple dropoffs in a single flight.

The only serious rival to the K-MAX was the A160T robocopter offered by Boeing: but this gave a less-impressive lifting performance in trials, and also lacks the option for manned piloting, which could prove useful for legal reasons in civilian-controlled airspace.

The ATUAS capability really could be good news in Afghanistan, where supplies need to go by helicopter as much as possible, and sometimes have to be rushed in urgently to forward bases which are under fire at the time. The need to keep air crews within their allowed operating hours, and the need to lift them and their associated things – armour protection for instance – makes manned helicopters very expensive and eats into their lifting ability. Furthermore manned cargo helicopters must normally be escorted by Apache attack choppers, a thing which would presumably be unnecessary with ATUAS.

The Indian government would go down the route of a U.S. direct foreign military sale when ordering the Javelin, made by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. The process could frustrate European, in particular Russian, ATGM manufactures because it bypasses the global competitive tender route.

Defense Minister A. K. Antony told Parliament that a letter-of-request had been sent to the U.S. government for procurement of the third-generation off-the-shelf Javelin. Included in the letter is a transfer of technology request that could mean the man-portable Javelin is made under license in India.

Antony gave no indication of numbers of missiles needed, nor of numbers to be made in India.

What is known, however, is the army’s acknowledged shortfall of around 44,000 ATGMs — half of their required number. The Javelin order could run into the thousands until the first, vehicle-launched version of the NAG, meaning “snake” in Sanskrit, is inducted into the army next year.

The third-generation NAG with a 2.5-mile range has been 20 years in development and is on the verge of entering production.

But the army first will be getting the largest, vehicle-launch version of the missile, nearly 6 feet long, 7.5 inches in diameter and weighing around 95 pounds.

Other plans for the NAG include a helicopter-launched version with a range of nearly 5 miles. Launch systems are planned for the armed HAL Dhruv and HAL light combat helicopters produced by state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics.

A 6-mile air-launched version will probably be set up for use by the air force’s aging Anglo-French Jaguar fighters made by SEPECAT.

Also planned is a similar land version, to be launched from a hydraulically lifted mast. A man-portable version will be a direct competitor to the Javelin and weigh around 9 pounds, as against 26 pounds for the Javelin.

The army has ordered 443 NAG missiles and 13 Namicas, the missile’s tracked carrier, the main tank-busting vehicle. The missiles are carried on the sides of the Namica for offensive operations.

Currently, infantry units are relying on two man-portable ATGMs. The second-generation French Milan is made by Paris’s MBDA and has a range of just more than 1 mile. The Russian Konkurs ATGM, designed and made by Tula Machinery Design Bureau, has a range of around 2.5 miles.

Both of the wire-guided missiles are also produced under license in India by PSU Bharat Dynamics.

To help ease the shortfall of ATGMs , the army has ordered since 2008 around 4,100 of the advanced version Milan-2T missiles with tandem warheads and 15,000 Konkurs-M missiles.

The Javelin has been used by U.S. forces during bilateral battalion-level combat exercises, including the annual Yudh-Abhyas at the Indian army’s Babina base, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, last October.