Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, November 24, 2014

Lockheed Martin has crafted a reduced-cost plan to “optionally man” the U.S. Air Force’s high-flying U-2 intelligence aircraft, throwing a new possibility into the mix as Congress weighs whether to shift to an all-Northrop Grumman Global Hawk unmanned aircraft fleet for high-altitude reconnaissance. With an optionally manned U-2, advocates for the so-called Dragon Lady say the venerable aircraft finally can match the endurance offered by the unmanned RQ-4B Global Hawk. Convincing lawmakers and the Pentagon likely will be an uphill battle, though.

The Pentagon and Lockheed Martin have agreed to cost targets for the eighth low-rate, initial production (LRIP) lot of F-35s, setting theirs sights on $94.8 million per F-35A. Target cost for the F-35B, to be used by the U.S. Marine Corps, is $102 million and the F-35C Navy variant is targeted at $115.7 million, according to Joe Dellavedova, F-35 spokesman for the Pentagon.

BEIJING – The Japanese defense ministry is holding open the possibility of joint international development for the country’s next fighter, but appears wary of being trapped in a late-running cooperative effort over which it has little control.

XCOR Aerospace has used its unique piston-pump technology to move two cryogenic propellants in a hot-fire test of the XR-5H25 engine it is developing as a pathfinder for a potential advanced upper-stage engine for United Launch Alliance (ULA) in the same class as the RL-10 engine in use today on the Atlas and Delta expendable launch vehicles.

NEW DELHI—India’s GSAT-16 telecommunications satellite is on track to be launched on Dec. 4 by Arianespace’s next heavy-lift Ariane 5 mission from French Guiana. “The GSAT-16 telecommunications satellite has been fueled at the spaceport for its launch,” a scientist at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) informs.

GENERAL ATOMICS AERONAUTICAL SYSTEMS INC. (GA ASI), HONEYWELL and FAA tested proof-of-concept sense-and-avoid (SAA) system for unmanned aircraft using a Predator B; GA-ASI also flight-tested pre-production air-to-air radar for SAA. NORTHROP GRUMMAN’s board of directors declared quarterly dividend of $0.70 per share on company common stock, payable Dec. 17, to shareholders of record as of the close of business Dec. 1.

The U.S. Department of Defense released its updated Military Intelligence Program (MIP) budget request for fiscal 2015 on Nov. 21. The total request, including base budget and core overseas contingency operations (formerly known as supplemental spending), is $16 billion. “The department determined that releasing this figure does not jeopardize any classified activities within the MIP,” the Pentagon says. “No other MIP budget figures or program details will be released, as they remain classified for national security reasons.”

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is tackling the potential of synthetic biology to improve national security, according to Darpa’s director. Arati Prabhakar said the science of creating new genetic code that doesn’t exist in nature could lead to developing highly energetic fuels, sensing capabilities, new ways to deal with infectious diseases like Ebola and ways to counter adversaries who might turn the new technology into a weapon.

NASA needed to make numerous modifications to the two early versions of the Northrop Global Hawk it inherited from the U.S. Air Force to make them capable of studying hurricanes, according to a space agency research meteorologist. The changes were needed to make the high-altitude, long-endurance UAV “science operative,” Scott Braun, the principal investigator for NASA’s Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) mission, said Nov. 18 at a conference on commercializing unmanned aircraft.

BEIJING—Studies by the Japanese defense ministry’s Technical Research and Development Institute (TRDI) point to the advantages of big fighters with the fuel capacity and aerodynamic optimization to keep them on station for longer.

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