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Space capabilities have become integral to all military operations, the commander of Air Force Space Command told reporters here during a Defense Writers Group breakfast yesterday. "It's hard to imagine what life was like before we had ... GPS providing very accurate targeting capability, military satellite communications providing all the reach-back that's needed, [and] missile warning providing cover for our deployed forces," Air Force Gen. William L. Shelton said. The Air Force launched and maintains the 24 satellites that make up the GPS navigation system. The all-weather, 24-hour system was intended for military use, but in 1983 President Ronald Reagan...

Over the past decade, the Air Force has poured more than $80 billion into space technologies, including new satellites, launch services and information systems. The plan for the coming years is to spend considerably less as pressure grows to reduce the U.S. defense budget. The Air Force still intends to modernize key satellite constellations and provide space-based communications and surveillance services for the military and intelligence community. But program costs are going to be scrutinized at an unprecedented level of detail, Air Force officials said. Every major space program is now the subject of “should-cost” reviews, which is the Pentagon’s...

The first Delta IV Heavy liftoff from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., illustrated the dramatic purge of hydrogen that results in flames swirling around the three Pratt & Whiney Rocketdyne RS-68 Common Core Booster engines that comprise the first stage. The Jan. 20 launch from Space Launch Complex-6 (SLC-6) boosted the classified NROL-49 mission into a highly inclined orbit for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). Because it was classified, details on the payload, its orbit and the results of the liftoff were not announced. But United Launch Alliance (UAV) reports, “The pad is in great shape and the rocket performed as the...

The U.S. Air Force on May 27 successfully launched the first of a new generation of GPS satellites aboard a Delta 4 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., the service announced May 28. The GPS 2F-1 satellite was placed into a roughly 17,600-kilometer orbit and joins an operational constellation of 30 previous-generation GPS satellites, the Air Force press release said. The GPS 2F satellites are more powerful than previous GPS satellites, generating more robust, jam-resistant signals, according to prime contractor Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems of Seal Beach, Calif. The satellites will also provide a third civil signal...

series of demonstrators is being planned by the U.S. Air Force to mature technology for the Reusable Booster System (RBS), its chosen replacement for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) family beyond 2025. The first of the demonstrators, the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) RBS Pathfinder, is planned to fly in 2013 to evaluate the “rocket-back” maneuver that would enable the unmanned first-stage booster to return to a runway landing at the launch site. An RBS architecture combining a reusable first stage and expendable upper-stage stack is defined in the new spacelift development plan now in the final stages of...

The Pentagon is participating in an interagency integrated team convened to explore how best to sustain the rocket motor industrial base — a mandate made all the more urgent given NASA’s planned cancellation of the Constellation program, according to Brett Lambert, the Defense Dept.’s industrial policy director. Each of NASA’s Ares V launchers would have required six RS-68 engines, which are common to the U.S. Air Force’s Delta IV Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV). Already, Air Force officials are seeing an uptick in the per-unit price of each EELV because procurement has slowed to keep pace with delayed satellite programs....

The pending Boeing/Lockheed "United Launch Alliance" (ULA) to provide the Air Force with expendable rockets would unfairly strand taxpayers with a half-billion-dollar-a-year subsidy: that's the message the 350,000-member National Taxpayers Union (NTU) delivered to Congress today, in an open letter urging lawmakers to end subsidies for the companies' current and proposed space-booster schemes. Federal policymakers are expected to consider the merger deal as early as this week. "Launch platforms for satellites can be expendable, but tax dollars never are," said NTU Director of Government Affairs Paul Gessing. "Over the past decade, the Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) initiative...

Griffin Favors Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster for Launching CEV NASA Administrator Mike Griffin said Monday that he favors launching the proposed Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) on a single solid rocket booster based on the ones that for the past two decades have helped lift the space shuttle off the launch pad. The so-called single stick approach, which refers to the use of a single solid rocket booster, has been touted by solid rocket maker ATK Thiokol as the safest and simplest solution to launching the CEV. The solid rocket would require an upper stage engine. Boeing and Lockheed Martin, meanwhile,...

Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics Hearing Charter: Future Markets for Commercial Space Future Markets for Commercial Space April 20, 2005 9:30 a.m. to 12:00 noon 2318 Rayburn House Office Building Purpose: On Wednesday, April 20, at 9:30 a.m., the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics will hold a hearing to examine the future of the commercial space market and the government's role in that future. Last year, the President signed into law the Science Committee's Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act, which dealt with regulating one aspect of commercial space - private, human suborbital flights, which are generally intended for space tourism....

I am in favor of space access: the sooner the better, the more the better, and, especially, the cheaper the better. Here are some policy options that I have ranked according to the benefit/cost ratio. 1. Encourage other nations to sell their launches at marginal cost instead of just for “government launches” as espoused in the U.S. Space Transportation Policy (STP). Russia has surplus ICBMs. We should be grateful they are beating their swords into plowshares. We should encourage them to harvest their surplus equipment for cash to worthy Western buyers who want access to space so that they do...

WASHINGTON, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Boeing Co. (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) will likely remain banned from launching military satellites until the U.S. government determines if a former Air Force official, who admitted favoring the company on some contracts, tainted a 1998 competition for the rocket launches. Acting Pentagon acquisitions chief Michael Wynne said a thorough review was needed to assess whether former No. 2 Air Force acquisitions official Darleen Druyun helped award Boeing the lion's share of a $1.9 billion contract under the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program. "It's really hard for the Air Force to move forward now that...

International Launch Services (ILS), a Lockheed Martin Corp. joint venture, has been given the green light for what will be the first Atlas V launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. The launch will be from Space Launch Complex (SLC) 3-East, which is being refurbished to support a late 2005 launch for this national security mission. The launch is for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), as one of 18 missions assigned to ILS and the Lockheed Martin-built Atlas V rocket under the U.S. Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program. This is the formal contract for one of those...

The largest and most powerful Atlas rocket in history rushed off its Cape Canaveral pad on a river of golden flame Thursday evening to expand Lockheed Martin's launcher family. The Atlas 5 rocket blasts off from Complex 41 carrying Rainbow 1. Credit: ILS Sporting new solid-fueled strap-on boosters for added liftoff power and a bulbous nose cone to house bigger satellite cargos, this latest version in the evolving line of Atlas rockets signaled the final qualification for pieces comprising the next-generation Atlas 5. "It is exciting that it puts the final exclamation point on the Atlas 5 family," said Adrian...

Lockheed Martin's second Atlas 5 rocket has lifted off on a mission to place the Greek Hellas Sat communications spacecraft into orbit. The rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 6:10 p.m. EDT (2210 GMT). Follow its climb to orbit in our Mission Status Center.

A Boeing Delta 4 rocket lifted off from its Cape Canaveral launch pad at 7:59 p.m. EST (0059 GMT) today on its first flight for the U.S. military. The $285 million mission will place into orbit a military communications satellite. Follow the rocket's ascent in our Mission Status Center.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Boeing's Delta 4 rocket successfully delivered its first satellite into Earth orbit on Wednesday. Lifting off at 5:39 p.m. EST (2239 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the 20-story rocket began its mission to loft the Eutelsat W5 spacecraft into Earth orbit. The mission, accomplished 37 minutes later, was greeted with cheers and applause by company officials who had waited seven years to launch the rocket that is their contribution to the Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program. "This is a new day and I think that we, Boeing, have proved a lot...