Lockheed Martin reports that is has delivered the flight structure for the third Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite in just 10 months since contract start. Julie Sattler, Lockheed space systems VP calls it “a significant achievement.” Technicians at the company’s space and technology facility in Mississippi now will mate the flight structure with its propulsion subsystem. Lockheed expects to begin final assembly on the first AEHF sat early next year, working toward launch in April 2008. And the second AEHF would launch a year later.
The Air Force has begun flying its CV-22 Ospreys again. But that is just the start of a multi-step process to return the fleet to normal operations following a deadly crash last year, the service says.