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A project to give the U.S. Air Force enhanced space surveillance capability for detecting and tracking space objects has passed its system design review. The Raytheon Co. said the system design review of its "Space Fence" program included the prototyping of critical system elements to demonstrate increased technical and manufacturing readiness levels. "As our nation's defense becomes increasingly more dependent on the space domain, a system like Space Fence will be a critical component in the space surveillance network, tracking tens of thousands of objects daily," said David Gulla, vice president, National & Theater Security Programs for Raytheon Integrated Defense...

The carrying capacity of Chinese rockets and their reliability remain low and there is still a wide gap between China and nations with advanced technologies, a noted Chinese expert has said as India’s PSLV programme put into orbit five satellites on Monday. “Although China's carrier rocket has made great achievements in the past 40 years, it is difficult to meet the demands of future development under the existing technology and there is still a wide gap between China and countries with advanced technologies,” Long Lehao from the Chinese Academy of Engineering who specialised in rocket technology said. He said compared...

Without it, ATMs would stop spitting out cash, Wall Street could blunder billions of dollars in stock trades and clueless drivers would get lost. It's GPS, and it's everywhere. Although most people may associate the Global Positioning System with the navigation devices that are becoming standard equipment on new cars, GPS has become a nerve center for the 21st century rivaling the Internet — enabling cargo companies to track shipments, guiding firefighters to hot spots and even helping people find lost dogs. "It's a ubiquitous utility that everybody takes for granted now," said Bradford W. Parkinson. He should know. Three...

military did no advance testing on a specific type of military GPS receiver that had problems picking up locator signals after a change in ground-control software, the Air Force said Monday. The Air Force tested other equipment, but none of it contained the type of receiver that was unable to lock on to Global Positioning System satellites after the change, said Joe Davidson, a spokesman for the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center. The manufacturer of the receivers, Trimble Advanced and Military Systems, said it ran its own advance tests using specifications from the Air Force GPS Wing and...

Canada’s MDA Corp., which has a well-established record in space robotics, is designing a satellite-servicing demonstration to refuel spacecraft in orbit and, when necessary, to push dead satellites into graveyard orbits, an MDA official said March 3. The company is prepared to finance the first mission at least in part on its own. MDA has signed an option with an unidentified satellite fleet operator that has agreed to provide an aging telecommunications spacecraft for a refueling operation as the inaugural customer, according to Logan Duffield, vice president for strategic business development of MDA Information Systems. Richmond, British Columbia-based MacDonald, Dettwiler...

Air Force strategic nuclear weapons, space-based communication and surveillance assets, and computer networks have all benefited from top-level Pentagon attention in recent years. These cornerstones of USAF’s global power have been relatively well-supported in every way. Yet there is unease about the future of these pivotal capabilities. Air Force leaders speaking at the Air Force Association’s Global Warfare Symposium in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Nov. 19 to 20, said USAF’s ability to effectively deal with nuclear threats, watch targets around the globe, and control on-orbit military systems are unmatched, but these advantages are fleeting. Some threats are obvious. For example,...

The recent Chinese missile defense test is just one of many signs that anti-ballistic missile systems are the “must have” military fashion accessory of 2010. For China the need for such weapons is obvious: the only neighbors they have who lack a real or potential short- to medium-range missile capability are Laos, Burma, and perhaps Mongolia. All of their other neighbors, especially Russia, North Korea. and India, have been building up their rocket forces at a rapid rate. For both Europe and China, any effective BMD requires space-based early warning sensors similar to the US Defense Support Program satellites based...

The U.S. Air Force will contract to have its Space Based Space Surveillance (SBSS) system satellite placed into storage due to continued technical difficulties with the Minotaur 4 rocket that have delayed the spacecraft’s launch indefinitely, according to government documents. The Minotaur 4 rocket, built by Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., and based in part on excess missile motors, was originally planned to debut in October 2009 with the SBSS launch. But the Air Force issued a statement that month saying the rocket had problems and would remain grounded indefinitely, though no further explanation was given. In a solicitation...

NASA’s managers have settled on a fix they say will protect astronauts from potentially dangerous levels of vibrations that could otherwise reach the planned Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle during its climb to orbit atop the Ares 1 rocket, according to information posted on a NASA Web site. NASA Constellation program officials decided Dec. 17 to update the Ares 1 vehicle design to include upper-plane C-spring isolators and an upper-stage liquid oxygen (LOX) damper intended to keep vibrations originating in the Ares 1 main stage from reaching Orion and its crew. The Constellation program is a 5-year-old effort to replace the...

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded Dulles, Va.-based Orbital Sciences Corp. a $75 million contract to develop the final design for a radically new space architecture in which traditional, large spacecraft are replaced by clusters of wirelessly connected orbiting modules. Dubbed System F6, short for Future, Fast, Flexible, Fractionated, Free-Flying spacecraft, Orbital’s design was selected among four competing study contracts issued in 2008 and 2009, according to a Dec. 18 company news release. The new contract is valued at $74.6 million over a one-year period. Gregg Burgess, Orbital’s vice president for national security systems in the company’s Advanced...

Press Release Source: Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company Lockheed Martin Space Systems Delivers NASA's Space Infrared Telescope Facility to Kennedy Space Center for April LaunchFriday March 7, 2:01 pm ET SUNNYVALE, Calif., March 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- NASA's Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) has completed integration, testing and prelaunch checkout at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Sunnyvale, California, and has been delivered to the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida for an April 2003 launch. SIRTF's Cryogenic Telescope Assembly, which includes the scientific instruments, was built by Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colo., and was delivered to Space Systems in Sunnyvale...