ATK Suborbital Rocket Crashes Off Wallops Island

 

An Alliant Techsystems (ATK) ALV-X1 suborbital rocket carrying two NASA hypersonic flight experiments was destroyed by range officials shortly after launch from the U.S. space agency's Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's eastern shore. 

 

NASA officials said no injuries or property damage were immediately reported following the Aug. 22 launch failure. While most of the debris from the rocket is thought to have fallen into the Atlantic Ocean, NASA said it had received conflicting reports of debris being sighted on land.

 

"NASA is very disappointed in this failure but has directed its focus on protecting public safety and conducting a comprehensive investigation to identify the root cause," NASA said in a press release. "NASA is assembling a multidiscipline team, along with the rocket's maker Alliant Tech Systems, or ATK, of Salt Lake City, to begin the investigation promptly." 

 

The launch occurred at 5:10 a.m. EDT. Kent Rominger, vice president for advanced programs at ATK Space Systems, told reporters the experimental rocket lifted off as expected but veered off course, prompting range officials to trigger the vehicle command destruct safety mechanism 27 seconds into the flight. Rominger said the rocket had reached an altitude of approximately 3,300 meters to 3,600 meters by the time it was destroyed.

 

The launch marked the first and only flight of the ALV-X1, a rocket ATK built and paid for to test various proprietary technologies, which Rominger declined to identify. NASA's Hypersonic Boundary Layer Transition and the Sub-Orbital Aerodynamic Re-entry Experiment payloads were on board the nearly 17-meter tall rocket.

 

Juan Alonzo, director of NASA's fundamental aeronautics program, said the agency had spent about $17 million on this mission, including $11 million for the two payloads and the remaining $6 million for system integration, range fees and other expenses.

 

 

Thales Alenia, ILS Picked for Inmarsat's S-Band Satellite 

 

Inmarsat has selected Thales Alenia Space to build a large S-band satellite for two-way mobile communications in Europe to be launched aboard an International Launch Services (ILS) Proton Breeze M rocket in early 2011. The satellite construction and launch agreements are subject to Inmarsat's receipt of a license from the European Commission to operate the service, London-based Inmarsat said Aug. 22.

 

The European Commission has set an Oct. 7 deadline for bidders to express their interest in using a part of the 2-gigahertz, or S-band, portion of the radio spectrum to provide mobile data or video links throughout the 27-nation European Union. Depending on the number of bidders, the commission will select winners based on how quickly they could enter service, whether all of Europe is covered, and other public service-related factors.

 

Thales Alenia Space of Cannes, France, said Aug. 22 that its agreement with Inmarsat, which is called an Authorization to Proceed, will permit the satellite builder to complete work up to a critical design review of the spacecraft, which is to be called EuropaSat. The European Commission expects to award licenses by early 2009. 

 

Thales Alenia Space said EuropaSat will be based on the company's Spacebus 4000C3 satellite design and will weigh 5,700 kilograms at launch. Operated from 31.5 degrees east in geostationary orbit, EuropaSat is expected to have a 15-year service life and deliver 8.5 kilowatts of power to the S-band payload. Thales Alenia Space said EuropaSat would feature a 12-meter-diameter S-band antenna and a digital processor for onboard routing of signals that will be built with support from the French space agency, CNES.

 

Thales Alenia Space already is building a satellite for one of Inmarsat's competitors in the S-band spectrum license competition. The Eutelsat W2A satellite to be launched in 2009 carries an S-band antenna financed by Solaris Mobile of Dublin, Ireland, a joint venture between satellite-fleet operators Eutelsat of Paris and SES of Luxembourg.

 

Two startup U.S.-based satellite operators, TerreStar Networks and ICO Global, both based in Reston, Va., have said they would enter the European competition in addition to building satellites for North American coverage in S-band.

 

 

Orbital Sciences To Build Next Intelsat Satellite 

 

Orbital Sciences Corp. will build Intelsat's IS-18 satellite under a contract Dulles, Va.-based Orbital announced Aug. 21. IS-18 will operate from 180 degrees east and will replace the IS-701 satellite currently in operation there and in orbit since October 1993.

 

Orbital said IS-18 is the third order this year for the company's Star-2 commercial geostationary satellite platform. Company officials told investors in July that they expect to end the year with four or five new commercial Star-2 orders. IS-18 will carry 24 C-band and 12 Ku-band transponders and deliver 4.9 kilowatts of power to the payload. By contrast, IS-701 carries 26 C-band and 10 Ku-band transponders. Bermuda-headquartered, Washington-based Intelsat has not announced a launch date or a launch vehicle for IS-18, which like IS-701 will cover the Pacific Ocean region and the western United States.

 

 

JSAT, Stratos Global Form Joint Venture 

 

Satellite-fleet operator JSAT Corp. of Tokyo has formed a joint venture with mobile satellite services provider Stratos Global Corp. to provide mobile satellite links to Japanese corporate and government users starting in early 2009, Bethesda, Md.-based Stratos announced Aug. 21.

 

The joint venture, called JSAT Mobile Communications Inc., will use satellite links provided by Bethesda-based Iridium Satellite LLC, which operates a constellation of low-orbiting satellites; and by Inmarsat of London, which operates a fleet of spacecraft in geostationary orbit. Stratos said the new joint venture is expected to receive Japanese regulatory approval to provide service to maritime and aeronautical users by early 2009. The venture will be using the new Inmarsat-4 satellites, a three-spacecraft system whose final satellite was recently launched. The Inmarsat-4 system is expected to be in full service in Asia by March 2009, Stratos said.

 

Firms To Resubmit NASA Space Suit Contract Bids 

 

Oceaneering International and Hamilton Sundstrand said they intend to resubmit bids for a $180 million Constellation space suit contract NASA awarded to Oceaneering in June and terminated Aug. 15 following a bid protest Hamilton Sundstrand filed with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).

 

NASA wrote the GAO Aug. 14 acknowledging the agency had failed to request a cost accounting standards disclosure statement from Oceaneering. According to a copy of the letter obtained by Space News, NASA requested the GAO dismiss Hamilton Sundstrand's protest on the grounds that the agency would be terminating Oceaneering's contract and seeking revised bids from both companies. 

 

Hamilton Sundstrand, which has been designing space suits for NASA since the 1960s, questioned whether NASA would fully address the issues raised in its protest but said it would continue to pursue the contract.

 

"We are currently awaiting formal direction from NASA on the re-bid's criteria and we will watch carefully to see if those criteria will address the concerns we raised with the GAO," Hamilton Sundstrand spokesman Dan Coulom said Aug. 22. 

 

Oceaneering also announced its intention to re-bid. "While we are disappointed that NASA terminated our contract, we believe in their process and support their decision," Mark Gittleman, vice president and general manager of Oceaneering Space Systems, said in an Aug. 20 statement. "We are pleased the GAO has dismissed the protest. We look forward to submitting a limited final proposal revision as required by NASA and to a timely contract award."

 

 

GAO Denies Protest, Gives Northrop Nod for BAMS  

 

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has upheld the U.S. Navy's decision to give Northrop Grumman the contract to build a new unmanned surveillance aircraft.

 

The decision clears the way for Los Angeles-based Northrop to begin work on the RQ-4N Global Hawk Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) aircraft.

 

The Navy announced its selection April 22, choosing Northrop over proposals from Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin and Boeing Co. of Chicago. The system development and demonstration contract initially is worth $1.16 billion, but the service plans to buy more than five-dozen aircraft, priced at about $55 million apiece. 

 

In filing the protest May 5, Lockheed said in a statement that the company "protests contract awards infrequently, and only when we believe that the benefits of our offerings were not fully considered during the evaluation process."

 

GAO spokeswoman Susan Becker said Aug. 13 that Lockheed challenged the evaluation of proposals and the resulting source selection.

 

"GAO denied the protest, finding that the selection of Northrop Grumman was reasonable," she said.

 

Capt. Bob Dishman, program manager of the Navy's Persistent Maritime Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program that oversees the BAMS effort, expressed satisfaction in the selection process.

 

"The [GAO's] decision underscores that the source selection competition for the system development and demonstration contract followed a rigorous process that adhered to stringent Federal Acquisition Regulation and Naval Air System Command processes and documentation requirements," Dishman said in an Aug. 11 statement.