Space Force to start charging more spaceport fees this summer

On the same subject

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  July 6, 2020 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR

  Airbus Defence and Space : focus sur le nouveau radar Captor E-Scan

  Air & Cosmos consacre un article aux performances du nouveau radar à balayage électronique Captor E-Scan. Airbus Defence and Space a récemment remporté un contrat pour le développement, la fourniture et l'intégration de 115 radars Eurofighter E-Scan destinés à la flotte allemande et espagnole d'Eurofighter. Ce radar, opérant en bande X, améliore « la portée efficaces des missiles air-air de l'avion et permet une détection et un suivi plus rapides et précis de plusieurs aéronefs en même temps », rappelle le magazine. « Le contrat pour le radar Captor E-Scan est une réalisation majeure pour équiper l'Eurofighter de capteurs qui assurent aujourd'hui la domination de l'avion », a déclaré Dirk Hoke, CEO d'Airbus Defence and Space. Air & Cosmos du 3 juillet

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  February 5, 2020 | International, Naval

  Navy awards a $178M contract to update GPS systems

  By: Nathan Strout The Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific has awarded Booz Allen Hamilton a $178 million contract for to modernize GPS systems in partnership with the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center, the company reported Jan. 24. The Naval Information Warfare Center heads the Navy's research, development, and engineering efforts for space systems, and its Positioning, Navigation and Timing Division oversees research and development for the service's navigation sensors and systems. Under the contract, Booz Allen will support the modernization of the GPS architecture, specifically through programs such as Military GPS User Equipment, GPS III and the Next Generation Operational Control System. In other words, the company will help the Navy and Air Force modernize all three segments of the GPS enterprise, from the user terminal to the ground system to the new GPS III satellites. Booz Allen will provide system definition, requirements synchronization, capability improvement, cybersecurity engineering, platform integration and testing and acquisition program management. The contract comes at a key moment for GPS, with the first GPS III satellite on orbit and online and the military working to ensure that ground systems are capable of fully interacting with and utilizing the new satellites' more advanced features, including increased accuracy and stronger anti-jamming capabilities. While the Next Generation Operational Control System being custom built to work with the GPS III satellites is years behind its original schedule, the Air Force has contract with Lockheed Martin to provide a contingency operations software update that allows the current ground segment to work with the new, more advanced satellites. According to a Jan. 30 report from the Pentagon's Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, slips in scheduling to all three segments of the GPS enterprise have caused testing delays. Those delays, especially to the user segment, could lead to integration issues for those platforms developed to rely on GPS. “The Air Force has improved the GPS Enterprise schedule by addressing schedule and performance risks; however, articulation of program risks with stakeholders continues to be incomplete, increasing the probability of unmitigated risks causing further program problems and delays,” the report warned. The Air Force plans to conduct operational testing of the enterprise in 2020. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2020/02/04/navy-awards-a-178m-contract-to-update-gps-systems

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  January 3, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  China’s Moon Landing: ‘New Chapter in Humanity’s Exploration of the Moon’

  By Steven Lee Myers and Zoe Mou BEIJING — China reached a milestone in space exploration on Thursday, landing a vehicle on the far side of the moon for the first time in history, the country's space agency announced. The landing of the probe, called Chang'e-4 after the moon goddess in Chinese mythology, is one in a coming series of missions that underscore the country's ambitions to join — and even lead — the space race. China landed another rover on the moon in 2013, joining the United States and the Soviet Union as the only nations to have carried out a “soft landing” there, but the Chang'e-4 is the first to touch down on the side of the moon that perpetually faces away from the Earth. The mission “has opened a new chapter in humanity's exploration of the moon,” the China National Space Administration said in an announcement on its website. The agency said the spacecraft landed at 10:26 a.m. Beijing time at its target on the far side of the moon. The probe sent back to the earth the first close-up image of the moon's far side using a relay satellite China calls “Queqiao,” or “Magpie Bridge,” the space agency said in a notice that included images it said were taken by the probe. Although a latecomer by decades to space exploration, China is quickly catching up, experts say, and could challenge the United States for supremacy in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and other fields. “This space mission shows that China has reached the advanced world-class level in deep space exploration,” said Zhu Menghua, a professor at the Macau University of Science and Technology who has worked closely with the Chinese space agency. “We Chinese people have done something that the Americans have not dared try.” China now plans to begin fully operating its third space station by 2022, to put astronauts in a lunar base by later in that decade, and to send probes to Mars, including ones that could return samples of the Martian surface back to Earth. Though the moon is hardly untrodden ground after decades of exploration, a new landing is far more than just a propaganda coup, experts say. Full article: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/world/asia/china-change-4-moon.html