Air Force buys souped-up, stealthy version of Predator drone

Adding to its growing arsenal of robotic aircraft, the Air Force has purchased a new high-flying hunter-killer drone.

For $15 million, the military bought one stealthy, jet-powered drone, dubbed Avenger, from General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. -- the same San Diego company that builds MQ-1 Predators and larger MQ-9 Reapers.

The remotely piloted Predators and Reapers have become a central element for the Obama administration to hunt and destroy targets in the Middle East. The Avenger, also known as Predator C, is General Atomics’ third and latest version of these drones.

With a length of 44 feet and maximum takeoff weight of 15,800 pounds, the Avenger is larger, faster and can carry more weaponry than its predecessors.

For example, the propeller-driven Reaper is 36 feet long and has a maximum takeoff weight of 10,500 pounds. The largest bombs it carries weigh 500 pounds and hang from its wings.

The Avenger, on the other hand, has an internal bomb bay like other modern fighter and bomber jets. It is designed to carry 2,000-pound bombs, as well as heavier camera and sensor packages.

Both the Reaper and Avenger have 66-foot wingspans with a maximum altitude of around 50,000 feet.

The Reaper can stay aloft for 30 hours at time –- 10 hours longer than the Avenger. But with the power of a turbofan engine, the Avenger’s top speed is around 460 mph, much faster than the Reaper's 276 mph.

General Atomics first flew the Avenger back in April 2009 at the company's Gray Butte Flight Operations Facility in Palmdale. But even with more than two years of flight tests under its belt, the Avenger is strictly a test aircraft for the Air Force to evaluate its “performance characteristics,” said Jennifer Cassidy, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

“There is no intention to deploy the aircraft in the war in Afghanistan at this time,” she said.

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Photo: General Atomics' Avenger in mid-flight. Credit: General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc.

New York Times says mea culpa after oops email to 8 million people

More than 8 million people received an erroneous email from the New York Times Co. telling them that they would no longer be receiving home delivery of the newspaper.

The email, sent Wednesday, was a mistake, the company said.

“A Times employee inadvertently sent an email that was intended for a short list of people to a long list of people,” said Eileen Murphy, a Times Co. spokeswoman.

When the error was recognized, the company sent out another email that said: “Please disregard the message. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.”

The paper also has a blog post on NYTimes.com that says the initial “message sent off a flood of Twitter reactions and calls to The Times.”

There were concerns that the paper had been hacked and questions were raised about whether or not personal information had been compromised, the post said.

Murphy assured readers that there was no breach.

“We weren’t hacked,” she said. “And no private information was shared.”

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Air Force says pilot at fault in fatal F-22 Raptor crash

The Air Force made public a long-awaited report about the death of a pilot who crashed in the Alaskan wilderness in the military's most expensive fighter jet, the F-22 Raptor.

An Air Force accident investigation board issued a report that said Capt. Jeff "Bong" Haney, 31, was at fault when his F-22 crashed near Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson during a test mission at night in November 2010.

Investigators came to that conclusion despite finding that the aircraft's air intakes had experienced a malfunction and caused an automatic shutdown of various systems -- including the main oxygen supply -- which cut off air to Haney's mask.

The report found that Haney's oxygen supply was stopped automatically after the F-22's onboard computers detected an air leak in the engine bay. When that happened, the system shut down the oxygen system to protect itself from further damage, as designed.

To save himself and the plane, Haney should have engaged an "emergency oxygen system" by pulling a green ring located under his seat by his left thigh or by simply taking his mask off, the report said.

Instead Haney, flying about the speed of sound above the snow-covered valley below, tried to slow down and began to descend in an attempt to get himself air, the report said. When that didn't work, Haney became disoriented and his aircraft began to roll into an inadvertent dive that he was too slow to pull out of, the report said.

Haney's "channelized attention" to get himself oxygen through his mask instead of engaging the emergency system led to factors that contributed to the crash, the report said.

Haney, known to be a highly skilled fighter pilot, crashed about 138 miles north of the base in the Talkeetna Mountains, the Air Force said.

Key moments in history at Space Park campus in Redondo Beach

Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Space Park complex in Redondo Beach is being honored Wednesday in a formal ceremony by the American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics.

The professional society, made up of aerospace engineers and scientists, is designating Space Park as a historic aerospace site.

Here are some key moments in its history. 

1960: A 110-acre site is purchased in Redondo Beach for the Space Park site and ground is broken.

1961: Space Park opens its new buildings and facilities for what would become TRW Inc.

1965: TRW supplies descent engines for Apollo moon-landing missions.

1967: Several scenes for an episode of the television show “Star Trek” are filmed at Space Park. The location was chosen for its appearance, as described in "The Star Trek Compendium": “A series of symmetrical buildings, this modern complex provided the ideal surroundings for a colony of the future.”

1978: The first-ever shoot down of a rocket in flight by a high-powered laser occurs with a chemical laser built by TRW for the Navy and the Advanced Research Projects Agency.

1983: Pioneer 10, a robotic space probe to Jupiter becomes the first man-made object to leave the solar system. The probe was launched in 1972.

1994: The first of five Milstar military anti-jam communications satellites is launched, carrying a low-data-rate payload engineered and built by TRW.

1996: A TRW laser shoots down a short-range rocket in flight.

2002: Northrop Grumman acquires TRW. TRW’s operations become Northrop’s Space Technology and Mission Systems sectors.

2005: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope team, of which Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor, completes the initial step in manufacturing all the primary mirrors for the next-generation space observatory's telescope. It is now under development to replace the Hubble Space Telescope. It’s expected to launch in 2014.

A story about the Space Park complex appears in The Times today.

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Photo: TRW Inc.'s Space Park circa 1968. Credit: Northrop Grumman Corp.

Billionaire Paul Allen launches new commercial space company

Seattle billionaire and Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen is launching a new commercial space travel company that would carry tourists into orbit with the help of Southern California aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan.

The Huntsville, Ala., company, named Stratolaunch Systems, promises to bring “airport-like operations to the launch of commercial and government payloads and, eventually, human missions.” The company plans for a first flight within five years.

In a news conference Tuesday, Rutan and former NASA chief Mike Griffin said they joined Stratolaunch as board members. Along with Allen, the trio introduced the company’s novel idea of launching payloads into orbit aboard what would be the largest aircraft ever flown.

The plane is set to have a wingspan of 385 feet and be powered by six engines found on Boeing Co.’s 747 jumbo jets. The wingspan is 67 feet longer than Howard Hughes’ H-4 Hercules, dubbed Spruce Goose, and bigger than the length of a football field.

The plane will be developed by Mojave-based Scaled Composites, an aerospace design shop founded by Rutan in 1982.

The aircraft will need to be large enough to carry a manned rocket ship under its wing to 30,000 feet. Once there, the rocket ship will separate and blast into orbit. A video of how it works can be seen below or here.

The rocket ship will be powered by a multi-stage booster, manufactured by Hawthorne-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp., better known as SpaceX.

Stratolaunch brings together the heavyweights and big names of the commercial space industry.

This new space race started in 2004 when Allen and Rutan teamed up to build the world’s first commercial spaceship, aptly named SpaceShipOne, for a demonstration flight.

“I have long dreamed about taking the next big step in private space flight after the success of SpaceShipOne -- to offer a flexible, orbital space delivery system,” Allen said in a statement. “We are at the dawn of radical change in the space launch industry. Stratolaunch Systems is pioneering an innovative solution that will revolutionize space travel.”

 

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Photo: Screen shot of Stratolaunch Systems YouTube video. Credit: Stratolaunch Systems

FDA's 1-800-GET-THIN warning follows L.A. County official's complaint

The Food and Drug Administration has ordered 1-800-GET-THIN, the company behind the ubiquitous advertising campaign for Lap-Band weight-loss surgery, to take better steps to warn consumers about risks associated with such procedures.

The move, in an FDA letter to eight California surgical centers and the marketing firm 1-800-GET-THIN, comes one year after Los Angeles County's public health chief, Dr. Jonathan Fielding, asked the FDA to take action.

In a December 2010 letter, Fielding said "advertising of this medical device by 1-800-GET-THIN ... inadequately informs consumers of potential risks."

Since 2009, five patients have died following surgeries at centers affiliated with the ad campaign. A series of lawsuits blamed the deaths on mistakes by the surgery centers and doctors who performed the surgeries.

An attorney for 1-800-GET-THIN filed a complaint against Fielding with the county, contending that the county official had a conflict of interest because he's a former executive and a shareholder of Johnson & Johnson, which competes with Lap-Band manufacturer Allergan Inc. in the gastric-band market.

Fielding said he wasn't aware when he wrote to the FDA that Johnson & Johnson, where he worked in the 1980s, makes gastric bands. Regardless, he said, he would delegate any issues related to weight-loss devices to members of his staff.

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Photo: Paula Rojeski died Sept. 8 after having Lap-Band weight-loss surgery at an outpatient clinic in West Hills, officials said. She was the fifth person to die in the last two years after having surgeries at clinics that, according to wrongful-death lawsuits, are affiliated with the 1-800-GET-THIN ad campaign. Credit: Marni Rader

FDA accuses 1-800-GET-THIN centers of deceptive advertising

Weight loss surgical centers affiliated with the 1-800-GET-THIN marketing campaign have been accused by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of misleading consumers about the risks of the Lap-Band device used to treat obesity.

On Tuesday, the FDA announced that it has taken action against eight California centers by issuing warning letters because Lap-Band is a restricted medical device that is being misbranded because of allegedly deceptive advertising by the centers.

In a news release, the FDA announced that it warned that the organization’s billboards and advertising inserts used by recipients of the warning letters “to promote the Lap-Band procedure fail to provide required risk information, including warnings, precautions," and possible side effects.

Steve Silverman, director of the Office of Compliance in the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said in a statement: “The FDA takes seriously its responsibility to protect consumers from products promoted without adequate warnings. It's particularly troublesome when advertisements don’t communicate the serious risks associated with medical devices."

Five people have died since 2009 after Lap-Band surgeries at clinics affiliated with the 1-800-GET-THIN campaign, according to lawsuits, autopsy reports and interviews.

In all, the FDA sent letters to Bakersfield Surgery Institute Inc., Beverly Hills Surgery Center, Palmdale Ambulatory Center, Valley Surgical Center, Top Surgeons LLC, Valencia Ambulatory Center LLC, Cosmopolitan Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery, San Diego Ambulatory Center LLC and 1-800-GET-THIN LLC.

[Updated at 11:53 a.m.: 1-800-GET-THIN, the ubiquitous marketing campaign on billboards, television and the Internet, has led to a surge of Lap-Band weight-loss surgeries in Southern California. More than 100,000 people called 1-800-GET-THIN in its first 15 months of business, leading to more than 10,000 scheduled surgeries, the marketing company said in a trademark lawsuit.

The Lap-Band, manufactured by Irvine-based Allergan Inc., is a silicone ring that is surgically implanted around the stomach to discourage overeating. The surgeries vary in cost — ranging from $12,000 to about $20,000 by some accounts — and often are covered by insurance.

The patients' deaths and injuries have led to a series of wrongful-death and personal injury lawsuits against 1-800-GET-THIN, its affiliated surgery centers and doctors who performed the procedures. Allergan is not affiliated with 1-800-GET-THIN.

Another lawsuit, seeking class-action status, accuses 1-800-GET-THIN of false advertising, saying the ads failed to provide adequate warnings about the risks of the surgery. Wrongful death lawsuits allege that two brothers, Julian and Michael Omidi, were part of a "joint venture" that included the surgery centers and the 1-800-GET-THIN marketing firm.

Both Omidis have been disciplined by the state medical board over issues unrelated to 1-800-GET-THIN, according to state records.

Michael Omidi did not return a telephone call seeking comment. His attorney, Robert Silverman, also did not immediately comment.

1-800-GET-THIN and the Omidi brothers have filed a series of lawsuits against The Times, its journalists and website commenters over past coverage of the surgery deaths. Judges have dismissed three of the lawsuits and ordered the plaintiffs to pay The Times' legal expenses and fees in two of the cases.]

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Photo: The 1-800-GET-THIN marketing firm promotes Lap-Band surgeries on Southern California billboards as well as on TV, radio and the Internet. Above, a pair of billboards in 2010. Credit: Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times

SpaceX poised to make history with space station docking

Hawthorne-based commercial space venture SpaceX is set to send its Dragon space capsule to dock with the $100-billion International Space Station -- a feat that's been accomplished only by the world's wealthiest nations.

NASA announced Friday that the private company, formally named Space Exploration Technologies Corp., will aim to launch its 18-story Falcon 9 rocket Feb. 7, pending completion of final safety reviews, testing and verification.

In a statement, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said the mission "will mark a historic milestone in the future of spaceflight.”

It’s also a mission that takes the company one step closer to cashing in on a $1.6-billion contract with NASA. The contract is to haul cargo in 12 flights to the space station for NASA.

If the February mission is successful, SpaceX would start in earnest to fulfill the contract. This would make the company the front-runner for the potentially multibillion-dollar job of ferrying astronauts to and from the space station now that NASA’s fleet of space shuttles has been retired.

While nearly everyone's eyes were on the final space shuttle flight in July, SpaceX engineers and technicians at Cape Canaveral, Fla., were readying the rocket that will lift the Dragon capsule into orbit.

The company had planned to dock with the space station this year but ran into delays.

SpaceX makes the Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket at a sprawling facility in Hawthorne that once housed the fuselage assembly for Boeing Co.'s 747 jumbo jet. The hardware is put on a big rig and sent to Cape Canaveral for launches.

Last December, SpaceX became the first private company to blast a spacecraft into Earth's orbit and have it return intact. Up to that point only five countries and one intergovernmental agency had been able to launch a spacecraft and have it successfully orbit and reenter the Earth's atmosphere.

If its capsule docks with the space station, SpaceX will join an even more exclusive club of the U.S., Russia, Japan and the European Space Agency.

“SpaceX is on the forefront of demonstrating how a partnership between the government and private industry can lead to new capabilities and provide a large return on investment,” said Alan Lindenmoyer, NASA’s program manager for commercial transportation services.

 

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Photo: SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is prepared in its hangar at Cape Canaveral, Fla. Credit: Al Diaz / Miami Herald

Iran shows off alleged captured U.S. drone [Video]

The Iranian government allowed television crews to shoot footage of the radar-evading, bat-winged drone the country claims to have hacked into and brought down over the weekend.

In the video, which you can see below, the aircraft looks pristine with barely a scratch on it.

Senior U.S. officials told The Times on Tuesday that the drone lost recently was on a CIA surveillance operation, and that it was unclear whether the drone's mission took it above Iran or whether it may have strayed there accidentally because of technical malfunctions.

The drone, alleged to be the Lockheed Martin Corp.-made RQ-170 Sentinel, has largely been kept a secret by the U.S. government. Little has been disclosed about the Sentinel's capabilities or operational usage. It is known that the cutting-edge drone was developed at Lockheed's famed Skunk Works in Palmdale.

Until now, only grainy and off-center photos of the Sentinel have surfaced.

The video shows Iranian military officials walking around and inspecting the aircraft. If this is the Sentinel, this marks the first occasion that the aircraft has been seen publicly in its entirety.

The Iranian government’s semiofficial Fars News Agency reported that that the captured drone has a wingspan of 85 feet, is nearly 15 feet long, nose-to-tail, and 6 feet tall. These numbers seem to match the specifications estimated by aerospace experts and aviation geeks since photos first of the Sentinel surfaced in 2009 when it was spotted on an airfield in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

For that reason the jet-powered Sentinel is also known as the ”Beast of Kandahar.” It is considered one of the most advanced aircraft in the U.S. arsenal. Its stealth technology, sophisticated computer systems, and high-powered cameras enable it to penetrate deep into hostile territory for spy missions without detection.

Its utility was demonstrated during the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan, where it provided surveillance for the operation.

But whether or not the aircraft in the video is indeed the Sentinel is still in question. Iran's media and government has a history of exaggeration and fabrication.

Earlier this month, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a nonprofit media organization based in London, found that the same Iranian television station that aired Thursday's drone footage “faked” accounts of 1,370 Somali deaths by U.S. drones and has assembled an extensive list of reports about purported drone strikes.

 ;

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Firm launches commercial rocket from New Mexico spaceport [Video]

Commercial space venture Armadillo Aerospace announced a successful launch of a sleek-sounding rocket from the nation's first commercial spaceport in New Mexico.

On Sunday, the Mesquite, Texas-based start-up blasted its STIG A rocket to an altitude of 124,000 feet above Spaceport America in Las Cruces, N.M.

Take a look at the video below as it climbs into space. An on-board camera gives you the opportunity to take a virtual trip to sub-orbit. (Beware: A trip on a rocket as it spirals into space can be dizzying.)

"This successful test of our STIG A reusable suborbital rocket technology represents major progress for the Armadillo Aerospace flight test program," Neil Milburn, company vice president of program management, said in a statement. "The flight successfully demonstrated many of the technologies that we need for our manned suborbital program."

The rocket carried a scientific experiment meant to study the liquid and gas flow process, which is sensitive to the gravity and acceleration levels encountered during spaceflight. It was designed by team of undergraduate students at Purdue University.

"Spaceport America has been an ideal launch facility for this kind of vehicle," John Carmack, Armadillo’s president and chief technology officer, said in statement.

In October, British billionaire Richard Branson’s commercial space venture, Virgin Galactic, moved into a newly completed terminal and hangar facility at Spaceport America. The company aims to launch paying customers beyond Earth’s confines within two years.

 

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Photo: View of Earth from Armadillo Aerospace's STIG A at 124,000 feet above Spaceport America in New Mexico

Air Force says it's extending mission of mysterious X-37B

The Air Force is extending the mission of an experimental robotic space plane that’s been circling the Earth for the last nine months.

The pilotless X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, which looks like a miniature version of the space shuttle, was launched in March from Cape Canaveral, Fla. At the time, Air Force officials offered few details about the mission, saying that the space plane simply provided a way to test new technologies in space, such as satellite sensors and other components.

The military did confirm that the 29-foot space plane was slated to land 270 days later, which would be Wednesday, on a 15,000-foot airstrip at Vandenberg Air Force Base, northwest of Santa Barbara. Now the Air Force has announced that the mission has been extended, but the exact landing date has not yet been set.

“We initially planned for a nine-month mission, which we are roughly at now, but we will continue to extend the mission as circumstances allow,” Lt. Col Tom McIntyre, the spacecraft's systems program director, said in a statement. “Keeping the X-37 in orbit will provide us with additional experimentation opportunities and allow us to extract the maximum value out of the mission.”

The X-37B was built in tight secrecy by Boeing Co.'s Space and Intelligence Systems unit in Huntington Beach. Engineering work was done at the company's facilities in Huntington Beach and Seal Beach. Other components were fabricated at its satellite-making plant in El Segundo.

Some industry analysts have theorized that -- because of its clandestine nature -- the X-37B could be a precursor to an orbiting weapon, capable of dropping bombs or disabling foreign satellites as it circles the globe. The Pentagon has repeatedly said that the space plane is simply a “test bed” for other technologies.

“We are learning new things about the vehicle every day, which makes the mission a very dynamic process,” McIntyre said.

The X-37B now orbiting the Earth is the second launched by the military. The first X-37B was launched in April 2010 and it landed 224 days later on its own -- fully automated -- at Vandenberg.

 

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Photo: The X-37B space plane, which resembles a miniature space shuttle, is hangared at a facility near Cape Canaveral, Fla.. before its launch in March. Credit: U.S. Air Force