Deconflicting

Deconflicting: "

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER - Shuttle commander Lee Archambault has used the thrusters on the space shuttle Discovery to maneuver the International Space Station 180 degrees from its normal attitude when an orbiter' is docked to it, adding drag to the two big spacecraft to lower their orbit out of the way of a threatening piece of space debris.

NASA TV

Archambault will leave the shuttle/station stack in the attitude normally used for docking and undocking,' with the orbiter forward instead of bringing up the rear in orbit. The tenuous atmosphere at the station altitude will supply enough drag to slow the two spacecraft by by about 1 foot per second over the three hours it will take to complete two orbits.

The maneuver , which started at 4:01 p.m. EDT, will lower the orbit enough to get the station and shuttle out of the way of a' 4-inch piece of an old Chinese rocket body that would otherwise pass too close to the docked spacecraft for comfort tomorrow. The projected conjunction is particularly worrisome because astronauts Joe Acaba and Richard Arnold are scheduled to go outside then for the third and final spacewalk of the STS-119/15A station assembly mission.

However, mission managers believe that by letting nature take its course in lowering the orbit, the Chinese' debris -- left over from' a 1999 launch -- won't pose a danger to the spacecraft or the spacewalkers.

Meanwhile, inside the ISS Expedition 18 commander Mike Fincke has been working all day to test the new urine distillation assembly Discovery took to orbit to replace a unit that' failed soon after it was installed last November. The unit worked well during dry run yesterday, but today Fincke and his crewmates have had trouble filling it with urine stored in the Russian section of the station.

NASA TV

After consultations with station controllers here, Fincke replaced the filter in the water recycling unit that includes the circular distiller, which must rotate to function in microgravity. That improved the flow, but the five-hour test still hasn't started.

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(Via On Space.)

Fully Deployed!

Fully Deployed!: "

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER' - The International Space Station has its full set of solar arrays at last, after an almost faultless deployment today.

With engineers at Mission Control Center - Houston here watching over their shoulder electronically, the crew inched out the two halves of the final solar array wing out one at a time.

NASA TV

The crew stopped motion in the middle of each deployment to give the arrays time to warm in the sunlight. Past array deployments have been hampered by chemical 'stiction' as the polymers in the array-blanket surfaces bond when they are jammed against each other in their launch boxes, and warming loosens the bonds.

The station also maintained a 'solar inertial attitude,' with the Sun beaming on the same side constantly, for more of the warming effect.

Each array measures 115-by-38 feet when fully extended. First the crew deployed the array designated 1B to the aft of the starboard end of the station truss, using thrusters on the forward-facing shuttle orbiter to maintain attitude control without damaging the unfolding array.

After that they switched control of the station to engines on the Russian side of the massive spacecraft, and deployed array 3B forward toward the orbiter. That array had been packed longer than its counterpart, and gave the crew their only bad moment of the deployment when one of the 'bays' appeared out of line when it stopped at the halfway mark.

NASA TV

After warming in the Sun for about 45 minutes,' the wrinkled bay flattened out as the array was cranked out to its full extension.

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NASA' TV

Throughout the deployment, the combined station and shuttle crews monitored the action on the arrays carefully, both through windows and with video displays on the laptops they use to manage the station's systems. NASA managers here were prepared to rewrite the scripts for the spacewalks scheduled tomorrow and' Monday if it was deemed necessary to to outside to correct a problem.

But in the end the arrays deployed fully in a little more than two of the four-and-a-half hours allotted to the task today, and the upcoming spacewalks will go as planned.

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(Via On Space.)

Report: U.S. journalists held in North Korea

Report: U.S. journalists held in North Korea: "North Korea's state news agency said Saturday the country detained two Americans this week for illegally entering the country, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

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(Via CNN.com.)

Stealthy F-15 Could breathe new life into Boeing St. Louis plant.

Click to enlarge.
Photo illustration by Steve Douglass


By Amy Butler/ AVWK

Boeing hopes to extend the life of its F-15 production line with the unveiling of a new variant to incorporate stealthy coatings and structures.

Company officials say the new F-15SE "Silent Eagle" - designed under a secret project called "Monty" - could garner up to 190 sales abroad, especially to nations already operating F-15s. The target market is South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

With Silent Eagle, Boeing is "slipping into the silent cloak of stealth," says Dan Korte, vice president and general manager of Global Strike Systems.

South Korea is the likely first customer: Seoul expects to embark on its F-X3 program soon, with a goal of buying about 60 F-15-class aircraft. A request for proposals is expected in the first quarter of 2010, with a downselect to a winner later in the year. A contract would follow in the first quarter of 2011.

The current F-15 backlog is 38 aircraft, with deliveries to both Singapore and South Korea pending. The production rate is about 12 per year, and that can be increased depending on demand.

The fate of Boeing's workforce in St. Louis is uncertain beyond the 2014 time frame. That's because Lockheed Martin won the massive Joint Strike Fighter competition and established the "fifth-generation" fighter market, capturing a host of international customers. Boeing also lost out on government-funded stealthy UAV work since losing the Navy Unmanned Combat Air System contract to Northrop Grumman last year.

Orders remain strong for the F/A-18E/F and EA-18G made here; they are expected to carry through 2014, including deliveries to the U.S. Navy and Australia.

St. Louis is also the site of manufacturing for the T-45 and some C-17 structures; but the C-17's future is murky, and the program has survived only with congressional intervention.

The idea behind the Silent Eagle is to capture orders from existing F-15 countries by adding what Boeing officials say are inexpensive modifications to the aircraft. But they say they're not targeting the market already served by the F-35 and F-22.

Stealthiness for the F-15 was explored about a decade ago for the U.S. Air Force as an alternative to the F-22, but it was dashed once the twin-engine Lockheed Martin Raptor program took root.

The Silent Eagle's main addition is the incorporation of a new conformal fuel tank (CFT) under either wing designed to carry weapons internally. "The internal carriage is what is new. The stealth is not," says Brad Jones, F-15 future programs director, adding: "We are not really after the F-22 or F-35 markets" with this new design.

Mark Bass, F-15 program manager, says the Silent Eagle configuration can be used for first-day strike operations that require stealth. The modified CFTs can be removed, and the original tanks outfitted with weapon pylons can be remated to the aircraft within about 2 hr. to conduct missions in permissive airspace. This configuration would allow use of the standard F-15 weapons suite, including larger antiship missiles.

Read the full story HERE.

Uncertainty Surrounds North Korea Launch

Uncertainty Surrounds North Korea Launch: "U.S. commanders are unsure whether the country plans to orbit a communications satellite or test an offensive missile."

(Via AviationWeek.com Space Channel.)