By Marina Malenic
The Air Force hopes to begin timing satellite purchases more efficiently in an effort to cut overhead costs under Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ efficiency initiative, the service’s Program Executive Officer for space said yesterday.
“One of the things we’d like to do is to time the buys to make sense for the factories,” said Lt. Gen. Tom Sheridan, the commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center at Air Force Space Command, Los Angeles AFB, Calif.
Coordinating those buys more efficiently would save manufacturing down time, as well as mitigate for parts obsolescence, Sheridan explained.
As the PEO for space, Sheridan manages the research, design, development, acquisition, and sustainment of satellite, launch and command and control systems. He was speaking to reporters via teleconference.
Sheridan also said that the Air Force and prime contractor Lockheed Martin [LMT] have “devised a plan” to get an errant communications satellite into orbit. The first Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellite is projected to be several months behind schedule in reaching its intended orbit after an engine shut down prematurely after a successful launch. AEHF-1’s liquid-apogee engine stopped after failing to reach expected acceleration twice, on Aug. 15 and Aug. 17, just days after the satellite was launched aboard an Atlas V rocket.
“This is not going to our original plan,” Sheridan acknowledged, “but these first few steps in the corrective actions are going well.”
Finally, the general said that he is still hopeful that the first Space-based Infrared System (SBIRS) missile-warning geosynchronous satellite can be launched in the spring.
“We are making good progress on flight software,” he said. “We’re closing toward spring 2011 launch, but we’re not ready to set a date yet.”
SBIRS GEO-1 was to have been delivered to Cape Canaveral, Fla., by Lockheed Martin in December 2010, in preparation for launch sometime in Fiscal 2011. But program managers have said they are now anticipating a spring 2011 delivery date. They have said the delay was caused by extended testing of a flight software redesign that began in 2007 (Defense Daily, June 7).
The SBIRS constellation of infrared satellites for detection and tracking of ballistic missiles in their boost phases is someday expected to replace the decades-old DSP constellation, which currently serves as the main U.S. early-warning system for missile launches around the world.