July 17 News Items

Rockwell Sees 19% Boost in Fiscal Q3 Profit (Source: AIA)
Increased defense spending helped push Rockwell Collins' profits up 19% in the fiscal third quarter. The company reported net income of $174 million. CEO Clay Jones expects the defense business to continue to experience steady growth. The company, which makes flight control equipment and electronics, has also benefit from an increase in demand for business jets. (7/16)

Boeing Shuffles Executives in Tanker Program, EADS Remains Confident (Source: AIA)
Boeing has tapped Dave Bowman, its C-17 program manager, to take over as vice president of the Boeing tanker enterprise. The tanker program is now a separate business unit that will report to to Boeing Integrated Defense Systems President Jim Albaugh and to John Lockard, IDS chief operating officer. Meanwhile, officials at EADS, which partnered with Northrop Grumman in the tanker competition, said they are confident that the team will win the contract. (7/16)

NASA Directs Contractor To Adopt Ares and Orion Launch Date Postponements (Source: SpaceRef.com)
On 16 January 2008, Constellation Program Manager Jeff Hanley issued an internal agency memo wherein he asked a lot of people to adopt a series of Ares and Orion launch date slips. Most significantly, he said that Ares 1-Y would shifted 12 months from September 2012 to September 2013. All of this arm waving and denials aside, it would seem that Jeff Hanley knew what was going to happen - eventually. NASA sent Lockheed Martin a letter on 1 July 2008 asking that the company "develop a NTE value" for the several changes. (7/16)

NASA Spacecraft Shows Diverse, Wet Ancient Mars (Source: NASA)
Two studies based on data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have revealed that the Red Planet once hosted vast lakes, flowing rivers and a variety of other wet environments that had the potential to support life. One study, published in the July 17 issue of Nature, shows that vast regions of the ancient highlands of Mars, which cover about half the planet, contain clay minerals, which can form only in the presence of water. Volcanic lavas buried the clay-rich regions during subsequent, drier periods of the planet's history, but impact craters later exposed them at thousands of locations across Mars. The data for the study derives from images taken by the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, or CRISM, and other instruments on the orbiter. (7/16)

UK Space Competition Unearths Young Talent (Source: SpaceDaily.com)
UK students who have reached the final stages of a competition to design a space experiment to be flown on board a British-built satellite presented their ideas to Ian Pearson, Minister for Science and Innovation, during his visit to the Farnborough Air Show this week. The competition challenged teams of 14 - 19 year olds to design and build a small, compact satellite instrument. (7/16)

National Space Club Plans Lifetime Achievement Awards Luncheon on Aug. 12 (Source: NSC)
The Florida Committee of the National Space Club will present their annual Lifetime Achievement Awards during an August 12 luncheon at the DoubleTree Hotel in Cocoa Beach. This year's recipients include William Heink, Dr. Al Koller, and Harold Zweigbaum. The event will begin at 11:30 a.m. Reserve online at http://www.nscfl.org, call LaDonna, 321-505-2037, or email: mailto:ladonna.j.neterer@boeing.com to RSVP by COB Aug. 7. (7/16)

Orion Behind Schedule, Over Budget (Source: Florida Today)
A leaked report shows cost overruns and technical problems are threatening NASA's internal target dates for the first human launch of the Orion spacecraft. NASA says it remains on target for the March 2015 publicly-advertised target launch, but the slew of problems and cost overruns outlined in the report raise a lot of questions about whether the gap between shuttle retirement and the new program is about to widen.

The agency’s internal schedules targeted that first human mission for the summer of 2013. A revised schedule outlining dozens of technical dilemmas now shows that launch no sooner than August 2014. Decisions about changing the schedule could be made this week. The cost problems include an $80 million overrun on a motor system. The Orion spacecraft’s current design remains too heavy for the proposed Ares 1 rocket. Software development, heat-shield testing and a host of other complex work remains either behind schedule or over budget. Those are just a few of dozens of serious challenges and issues, many of which are noted as “worsening.” (7/16)