Northrop Grumman Team To Study New Generation, Small Launch Vehicle

ROCKET SCIENCE

DARPA Selects Northrop Grumman For Small Launcher Study

let's try that one again

San Diego - Apr 23, 2002
Military and commercial users would be able to launch payloads more rapidly and at lesser cost under a study project being undertaken by Northrop Grumman Corporation for a new generation, rapid response, small launch vehicle to place small payloads in low Earth orbit.

The company has been awarded a contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for the first phase of the program, known as Responsive Access, Small Cargo and Affordable Launch (RASCAL).

During the nine-month first phase, Northrop Grumman will provide technical and cost information to determine the feasibility of developing a RASCAL demonstration system.

The three-phase demonstration program will comprise four critical technology areas: high-powered, short-cycle propulsion systems; a low-cost reusable launch vehicle (RLV); a low-cost expendable rocket vehicle (ERV), and the technology to stage the ERV and control the RLV in the Earth's outer atmosphere. Orbital Sciences Corporation (NYSE: ORB), Dulles, Va., is the lead for the ERV portion of Northrop Grumman's RASCAL concept.

"Both commercial and military customers have an urgent need to significantly reduce the cost of putting payloads into orbit, and in the case of the military, there is often a requirement for very rapid response," said Mark Gamache, Northrop Grumman's RASCAL program manager. "RASCAL will demonstrate how we might help those customers achieve their cost and performance objectives in the future. This agreement also is significant for Northrop Grumman because it continues our expansion into space systems."

Northrop Grumman's work on the $1.9 million contract will be performed at its Integrated Systems facility in San Diego, Calif.

Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, is a premier aerospace systems integration enterprise.

Integrated Systems has the capabilities to design, develop, integrate, produce and support complete systems, as well as airframe subsystems, for airborne surveillance and battle management, early warning, airborne electronic warfare and air combat aircraft. It is also integrating these capabilities for emerging network-centric warfare concepts.

MICROSAT BLITZ

Cadets Complete Testing On FalconSat-2 Model

Albuquerque - Apr 18, 2002
After two weeks of recent testing on the qualification model of the FalconSAT-2 satellite at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M., cadets on the FalconSAT-2 Small Satellite team here are now preparing to build the actual flight model that is scheduled to be launched aboard NASA's Space Shuttle STS-114 in January 2003.

Microspace Vs. Terror

Herndon - Feb 26, 2002
Linoleum. 15 years of watching teachers etch chalk on blackboards, watching black minute hands on round white faces tick, sitting on plastic, writing on that amoeba-like blob of formica protruding out from the vicinity of my cramped right elbow, feet planted on Linoleum.

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