Force Protection has been winning new orders for its range of survivability solutions.  Chairman and CEO Michael Moody, pointed to Force Protection’s selection by the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence as the preferred bidder for the Wolfhound Tactical Support Vehicle (Heavy) program as an example of the way his company is strengthening its capability to respond to urgent operational requirements, “We completed design work and built two prototypes for Wolfhound, which is based on our highly successful Cougar vehicle, in just 90 days. During this time we also carried out blast tests and mobility trials.”

Executive Vice President for Customer Operations Damon Walsh stated, “The selection of Force Protection to produce the Wolfhound confirms our responsiveness to customer needs. We offer our customers, including the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence, the flexibility to set aggressive production schedules to meet their unique requirements. In addition, our vehicles, once delivered, continue to demonstrate an operational readiness rate exceeding 90 percent. Many truck manufacturers worldwide offer the capability to deliver large quantities; what sets Force Protection apart is having both delivery performance capability and the most survivable, sustainable vehicles in the field.”

Force Protection proposes to deliver these vehicles in conjunction with their UK integration partner, NP Aerospace.

Two customised Cougar variants are already featured in major United Kingdom Ministry of Defence programs. The Mastiff 6×6 is in service with British forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Deliveries of the Ridgback 4×4 began in August of this year. The United Kingdom Ministry of Defence has also recently ordered 24 more Mastiffs together with 14 Force Protection Buffalo route clearance vehicles.

Michael Moody said that the increasing adoption of Force Protection vehicles by the UK, the United States, Italy, France, Canada and Iraq was evidence that the company had, “The right technology at the right time. Cougar and Buffalo continue to prove their worth as the most survivable, sustainable vehicles on the battlefield.”

Space Exploration Technologies successfully conducted a full mission-length firing of its Falcon 9 launch vehicle’s first stage at its McGregor Test Facility in Texas, on November 22. For the static test firing, the first stage remains firmly secured to the massive vertical test stand, where it fired for 178 seconds or nearly three minutes – simulating the climb of the giant rocket from the surface of the Earth towards orbit.

At full power, the rocket generated 855,000 pounds of force at sea level. In vacuum, the thrust increases to approximately one million pounds or four times the maximum thrust of a 747 aircraft. The test consumed over half a million pounds of propellant. All nine engines fired for 160 seconds, then two engines were shut down to limit the acceleration and the remaining seven engines continued firing for 18 more seconds, as would occur in a typical climb to orbit.

The test firing validated the design of SpaceX’s use of nine engines on the first stage, as well as the ability to shut down engines without affecting the functioning of the remaining engines. This demonstrates the ability of Falcon 9 to lose engines in flight and still complete its mission successfully, much as a commercial airliner is designed to be safe in the event of an engine loss. Like an airliner, the Falcon 9 engines are enclosed in a protective sheath that ensures a fire or destructive loss of an engine doesn’t affect the rest of the vehicle.

The Falcon 9 will be the first vehicle since the Saturn V and Saturn 1 to have the ability to lose any engine/motor and still be able to complete its mission without loss of crew or spacecraft. Engine out reliability proved crucial to mission success on two of the Saturn V flights.

“In the past month, we performed significant upgrades to the test stand and flame trench in preparation for this test,” said Tom Mueller, Vice President of Propulsion for SpaceX. “We added the flight base heat shields around the engines to protect the bottom of the rocket from the prolonged blast of heat and vibration.”

“The full mission-length test firing clears the highest hurdle for the Falcon 9 first stage before launch,” said Elon Musk, CEO and CTO of SpaceX. “In the next few months, we will have the first Falcon 9 flight vehicle on its launch pad at Cape Canaveral, preparing for lift-off in 2009.”

The nation’s first aerospace business incubator opened it doors this week at the Colorado School of Mines, positioning the state as a global economic center for the commercialization of space-derived technologies. With primary funding from the Colorado Economic Development Commission (EDC), the 8^th Continent Aerospace Business Incubator now serves as a virtual home for entrepreneurial companies that turn innovations from the Space Program and defense industries into profitable businesses and investment opportunities.

“With our aerospace workforce, research institutions and venture capital communities, Colorado is at the center of ‘Space 2.0,’ the emerging generation of entrepreneurial ventures that are solving some of the world’s biggest problems,” said Colorado Governor Bill Ritter. “From sustainable resources to alternative energy, from biosciences to IT, and from agriculture to tourism, aerospace technologies are integrating into every aspect of Colorado’s economy.”

The 8^th Continent Aerospace Business Incubator is supported by a $150,000 EDC grant matched by the Colorado School of Mines, the law firm Townsend and Townsend and Crew, and Metzger Associates Public Relations for a total of $372,000 in cash and in-kind services over three years. Incubator management and advisory services will be sourced through the Boulder Innovation Center, along with access to financial resources through 8^th Continent Funding Network partners including the Keiretsu Forum, Rockies Venture Club, TechStars and the Governor’s Office of Economic Development and International Trade.

“Our goal is to connect our Incubator tenants with the advisors, venture capitalists and service professionals who can help nurture inventions into profitable businesses,” said Burke Fort, Founder and Director of the 8^th Continent Project.

The 8^th Continent Aerospace Business Incubator also announced its first tenant today, an Australian company, flaik, Inc., that has developed a GPS-based skier tracking and social networking system that will debut at Steamboat and Copper Mountain this season. “Through the 8^th Continent Aerospace Business Incubator, flaik’s goal is to enter the North American market, and build a team with Colorado’s IT talent, ski industry and risk capital community behind it,” said Fort. “Companies like flaik are using commercial satellite technology to serve consumer markets, and is a perfect example of the Space 2.0 businesses that are forming in Colorado, and around the world.”

In client news this week, LynuxWorks distributed a press release that announced that Lockheed Martin has selected LynxOS 5.0 real-time operating system (RTOS) and Luminosity 3.0 development toolkit for the radar design and development portion of the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) program.  MEADS, under development by MEADS International for the United States, Germany and Italy, is designed to replace the Patriot and Hawk missile systems.

Combining battlefield protection with flexibility, MEADS protects maneuvering ground combat forces and provides homeland defense against tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and aircraft. The LynxOS 5.0 migration enables Lockheed Martin to take advantage of the latest LynuxWorks network stack and Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) technologies — both of which are now integrated into the software, while still maintaining POSIX conformance.

“Our decades of experience in the military market continue to be applied toward growing our partnership with Lockheed Martin and improving military technology,” said LynuxWorks CEO Gurjot Singh. “We have already demonstrated that our software was powerful enough to handle the stringent security demands of the MEADS launcher. We’re now going to prove it has the mettle to handle the MEADS radar controls.”

When completed, MEADS will be the only air defense system capable of immediate deployment upon arrival, beginning operations with a “plug-and-fight” capability. The system will provide greater firepower with less manpower than current systems, dramatically decreasing operations and support costs.

LynxOS 5.0 is a real-time POSIX-conformant operating system designed for real-time, mission critical systems. The high performance software supports application programming and Linux application binary interfaces (APIs/ABIs).

Luminosity 3.0 is a Java-based integrated development environment (IDE) that is based on the popular open-source Eclipse IDE platform. The third generation of Luminosity supports the latest LynuxWorks operating systems, including LynxOS 5 and LynxOS-SE and provides a simplified, flexible platform to create, edit, compile, manage and debug embedded and real-time applications. The easy-to-use interface gives developers easy access to a wide array of both enterprise and embedded plug-in tools to speed development and reduce time to market via the unique Luminosity Validated Plug-In Program.

Very exciting news if you follow either the aerospace or health care sectors. HepaLife Technologies, developing the first-of-its-kind bioartificial liver device intended for the treatment of liver failure, announced this week that its proprietary ‘PICM-19’ liver stem cell line is onboard the Space Shuttle “Endeavour” as part of a scientific experiment to investigate the differentiation and function of stem cells in space. The research is being performed under the International Space Station National Laboratory initiative.

“We are honored that America’s space program has selected HepaLife’s liver cells to be part of this important space mission. This event is testimony to the outstanding liver-like functionality of these cells and supports our long-held conviction that our patented PICM-19 cell line is a one-of-a-kind cellular model,” stated Mr. Frank Menzler, President, CEO and Chairman of HepaLife Technologies, Inc.

In addition to serving as a model for stem cell differentiation and function, HepaLife’s PICM cell line is particularly suitable for assessing the effects of space flight and microgravity and on the ability of the human liver to regenerate, a normal but crucial attribute of the liver.

HepaLife’s PICM-19 cell line is the only stem cell known to successfully differentiate into either bile duct cells or hepatocytes, the two cell types that make up 98% of the liver’s tissues and perform the vital functions of the liver. As such, the PICM-19 cells are an ideal in-vitro liver model for either hepatocyte differentiation and function, or bile duct differentiation and function — the primary role of the cells in experiments aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour, launched late last week.

Endeavour was successfully launched on Friday, November 14, with the International Space Station as its destination. The shuttle is scheduled to return to Earth on Saturday, November 29, landing at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and bringing to an end its 22nd mission, the 27^th shuttle flight to the International Space Station and the 124th flight in shuttle program history. Endeavour is commanded by veteran space flier Commander Chris Ferguson, pictured in the center. Other crew members, pictured from left to right, are Mission Specialists Sandra Magnus, Steve Bowen and Donald Pettit, Pilot Eric Boe, Mission Specialists Shane Kimbrough and Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper. Image: NASA

Courtesy of NASA.gov

Just over three weeks since its Oct. 19 launch, NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft — the first mission designed to image the interaction at the edge of the solar system — concluded its orbit-raising phase and is beginning instrument commissioning in preparation to start science observations.  After its launch to low Earth orbit (about 140 miles) onboard a Pegasus rocket, the spacecraft used its own solid rocket motor and hydrazine propulsion system to perform a series of burns that ultimately raised its apogee (furthest point from Earth) to about 200,000 miles and its perigee (closest point) to about 8,000 miles above the Earth — an orbit ideal for its science mission.

“Because the orbit goes so far out — about five-sixths of the way to the Moon — it gets pushed around significantly by lunar gravity and evolves over time in altitude and inclination,” said IBEX Principal Investigator Dr. David McComas, senior executive director of the Space Science and Engineering Division at Southwest Research Institute. “We’re now in an orbit that provides excellent science viewing and no long eclipses for at least the next two to three years, without the need for additional burn maneuvers.”

Before the science investigation begins, the IBEX team will commission those spacecraft subsystems that weren’t needed for the orbit-raising period as well as the two IBEX science instruments. During commissioning, the spacecraft spin rate will be reduced from 23 rpm to 4 rpm and pointed toward the Sun. At that point, the remaining subsystems and instruments will be turned on and tuned to ensure optimum mission performance.

When it begins its science observations in early December, IBEX will use energetic neutral atom imaging to create the first-ever all-sky maps of the interactions between the million mile-per-hour solar wind blown out by the Sun and the low-density material between the stars, known as the interstellar medium. The spacecraft will complete an all-sky map of the interstellar boundaries every six months.

IBEX is the latest in NASA’s series of low-cost, rapidly developed Small Explorers spacecraft. SwRI leads the IBEX mission that includes a team of national and international partners. The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center manages the Explorers Program for the Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Following up on our coverage of BAE this week, I wanted to let you know that StockerYale has received a $2.1 million production order from BAE Systems to supply BAE with lasers for the Advanced Threat Infrared Countermeasure (ATIRCM) system. BAE’s ATIRCM system is a laser-based infrared countermeasures system that protects aircraft against widely deployed heat-seeking missiles. Production is expected to begin in the first quarter of fiscal 2009.

BAE’s $2.1 million order follows a series of development contracts to StockerYale that began in October 2002 for the development of BAE’s countermeasure systems. StockerYale worked closely with BAE’s engineers to develop a laser that met ATIRCM’s specifications.

“We are very proud to have been chosen by BAE Systems as a key partner to their next-generation countermeasure program via this production order,” stated Mark W. Blodgett, Chairman and CEO of StockerYale, Inc. “This contract award underscores our technological leadership in laser systems and highlights the reputation we have cultivated over the years in developing and delivering customized lasers to BAE.”

Stated Michael A. Pepin, Deputy General Manager Survivability and Protection Systems at BAE Systems, “StockerYale’s reference laser offers us solution combined with the engineering and customization skills necessary to meet the requirements of our ATIRCM project. We look forward to a continued and mutually beneficial relationship with StockerYale.”

BAE Systems, under three separate U.S. Army contracts, will inspect, package and ship more than 3,000 spare parts for RG33 category II Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles. “BAE Systems continues to meet the needs of Marines, soldiers and Special Forces in combat areas,” said Matt Riddle, vice president for Wheeled Vehicle Programs at BAE Systems. “The MRAP spare parts will be shipped to the Defense Distribution Depot at Red River Army Depot for use by the men and women in theater.”

The three MRAP contracts are:

• $45 million for 2,400 axles, 10 engines, 26 transmissions and 26 winches.
• $15.9 million for 800 axle sets, including options for 800 additional sets, which if exercised would raise the total contract value to $31.8 million.
• $5.7 million for 101 diesel engines and 111 transmissions.

BAE Systems will work with suppliers in Wisconsin and Michigan to produce the parts. Final inspection, packaging and shipping on all items will be completed by the BAE Systems’ facility in Anniston, Alabama. Work under the contract will begin immediately by the existing workforce, and will run through May 2009.

The contract is managed by the Army’s TACOM Life Cycle Management Command.

BAE Systems manufactures three MRAP variants: the Caiman, the RG31 and the RG33. The RG33 is manufactured in several configurations including the Category I 4×4, Category II 6×6, the Heavy Armored Ground Ambulance (HAGA) and the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) vehicle. BAE Systems also recently unveiled a new command and control variant of the RG33. This vehicle creates a mobile, armored command post for operations at the brigade level and below.

We were honored this past week by receiving the 2008 Supplier Excellence Award from Northrop Grumman, a leading aerospace and defense firm.  The award was given for supplying the following client solutions:

• Internal Dashboard Metrics Collection and Auditing
• Dashboard Summary Reporting
• Requirements Flow-Down and N-Tier Analysis
• Program and Supplier Management Dashboards
• Oversight and Manager Assessment Dashboards
• SQM Scenarios

Unlimited Innovations, Inc.,  “demonstrated outstanding performance in providing key Mission Systems support data, information processing and change management solutions. Working hand-in-hand with executive management, UIUS solutions include systems for managing enterprise process improvement programs, executive reporting and decision support, process capability and productivity analysis, and the Supplier MA Assessment program.  Over the past six years UIUS proved that they can consistently bring new ideas, industry knowledge, technical skills and enterprise solutions to meet Northrop Grumman Mission Systems’ expanding business.“  - Northrop Grumman Mission Systems Evaluation Committee.

“Northrop Grumman endeavors to always provide the highest quality products and services to our customers so that they can succeed in their missions. When our suppliers meet or exceed Northrop Grumman’s expectations, we can do the same for our customers,” said Cynthia Hyland, Northrop Grumman Mission Systems sector vice president of contracts, pricing and procurement.

A LA Court jury awarded ICO Global Communications $236 million in punitive damages in its case against Boeing. This award is in addition to the at least $371 million awarded last week when the jury found Boeing liable for fraud, tortious interference, and breach of contract. In addition, the Court will determine the amount of pre-judgment interest to be added to the award, which ICO expects to be approximately $100 million. The total expected judgment to be entered against Boeing in favor of ICO is approximately $707 million.

“We appreciate the sacrifices made by the jury in performing their civic duty over this lengthy trial,” commented J. Timothy Bryan, chief executive officer for ICO. “ICO’s attention now turns to collecting all of the damages awarded, including all of the substantial post judgment interest which will accrue to ICO from the date of the judgment should Boeing pursue an appeal.”

In case you are unfamiliar with the company, ICO developed and launched the G1 satellite, which is intended to serve as the platform for the “ICO mim” (mobile interactive media) service. This service is planned to include live mobile television, interactive navigation and emergency communications capabilities, and will serve the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Alpha trials of this service will begin in 2008 in Las Vegas, Nevada and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. The company is working with Alcatel-Lucent and Hughes Communications on its alpha trials, and has an agreement with Delphi Corporation to develop its mobile video service for the North American automotive market. NBC Universal and Discovery Networks are providing live mobile video content for the trials.

The past two weeks have had both good and bad news for Boeing collectively.  As we reported at the beginning of the week, the machinist union strike ended this past Sunday, November 2nd.