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10 Sep 15. United Launch Alliance (ULA), the biggest supplier of rockets for the U.S. military, will ramp up rocket engine work with Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos’ space company, the companies said on Thursday.
The move comes as ULA, a partnership of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co, is considering a $2bn cash buyout offer from Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Aerojet also is developing an alternative engine for ULA’s next-generation rocket, called Vulcan. ULA and Bezos’ space company, Blue Origin, said last year the companies would jointly develop a liquid natural gas-fueled rocket engine to replace the Russian-made RD-180 engines that currently power ULA’s workhorse Atlas 5 booster. ULA can no longer import the Russian engines for U.S. military launches, the bulk of its business, under a congressional ban enacted in response to Russia’s involvement in Ukraine.
Aerojet is working on another engine, called the AR1, though its development is at least 16 months behind Blue Origin’s BE-4, ULA Chief Executive Tory Bruno said at a congressional hearing in June.
ULA has a contract with Aerojet to use the AR1 as a backup if Blue Origin’s development program stumbles. ULA, Lockheed, Boeing and Aerojet have declined to comment about the reported buyout offer. However, on Thursday ULA and Blue Origin said they had agreed to expand the production capabilities of the BE-4, which is targeted to make its debut flight in 2019.
“This new agreement is an important step toward building BE-4s at the production rate needed for the Vulcan launch vehicle,” Bezos said in a statement.
Bezos is scheduled to be in Florida on Tuesday to unveil plans for its own rocket manufacturing plant and launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, located just south of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Blue Origin intends to use the BE-4 engine in its rockets as well as sell them to ULA and potentially other customers. (Source: Reuters)
10 Sep 15. Satellite operator Inmarsat said it would play a role in border monitoring through a new partnership deal, opening up a new revenue stream at a time of growing demand from countries for technology to control entry to their territories. The company said on Thursday it was linking with U.S.-based border security company Securiport to jointly develop services for governments interested in border monitoring, particularly in remote areas. With 12 satellites orbiting the earth, London-headquartered Inmarsat would be able to boost Securiport’s services by providing secure connections for border staff to access central databases, including that of Interpol, anywhere in the world.
“It’s about giving a country access in real time to the critical information to make security decisions about risks,” Inmarsat market development director Gordon McMillan told Reuters.
The partnership follows Inmarsat’s successful launch of a satellite in August which it said would allow it to offer mobile broadband service to customers in the most remote regions of the world.
McMillan said discussions were underway with a couple of interested countries and a deal was likely in the medium term.
“I would hope and expect that we will be doing some real business with them (Securiport) by the middle of next year,” McMillan said.
While Europe’s migration crisis has highlighted the difficulties countries face in trying to monitor their borders, McMillan expects the service offered by Inmarsat and Securiport to be more attractive to governments in remote places in Africa, where would-be attackers try to move between countries.
“In Nigeria you have the problem with Boko Haram. In Kenya they have the problems with al-Shabab. African governments need