When it comes to next year’s anticipated congressional budget battles, a key player has changed. Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) will lead the Senate Budget Committee, replacing Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who had been the top Republican on the panel. Though Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the incoming majority leader, has officially denied encouraging the change in leadership, Enzi is seen as close to McConnell. McConnell has promised to return to the “regular order” of passing budget and spending bills on time.
The U.S. Navy has awarded General Dynamics National Steel and Shipbuilding a $498.1 million modification to a previously awarded contract to build a fourth Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB) ship.
The lingering mystery over Martian methane and the possibility of a microbial origin persists, though with a new urgency based on ground-level measurements from NASA’s Curiosity rover.
The recent Bold Alligator amphibious exercise off the coast of Virginia included a new unique mix of training technologies sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) at the agency’s Tactical Cyber Range to conduct cyber and combat operations simultaneously.
RAYTHEON has $344m USAF contract for logistics support for operational Command and Control Switching System; contract goes through 2019. PRAXAIR introduced SermeTel CF and SermLoy J CF chromium (VI)-free ceramic aluminum coatings for engine components ROCKWELL COLLINS has 4-year, $420m U.S. Navy contract to supply ARC-210 radios for >180 different aircraft platforms.
BEIJING—South Korea is checking whether it can satisfactorily contract Lockheed Martin to modernize most of its F-16s, following rejection of the price that the U.S. government put on an upgrade that was to have been done by BAE Systems. The defense ministry’s Defense Acquisition Program Agency says it has asked for a U.S. government quote for a price for a Lockheed Martin upgrade and will decide how to proceed once it gets a response.
Cubic, a travel, defense and maintenance services provider, is buying Dtech Labs, a military communications provider, for up to $114.5 million. “Dtech is the first step in our near-term strategy to build a niche $100-200 million C4ISR business generating mid-teen [pre-tax] margins,” said Cubic CEO and President Bradley Feldmann. The deal announced Dec.
ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Maryland — After a protracted development program, The U.S. Army is planning to finally deploy by year’s end the first of its new airships designed to aid in air and missile threat detection for the Northeastern U.S.
PARIS—Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has postponed a Dec. 19 Dragon cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) to Jan. 6 after a recent static fire test of the Falcon 9 v1.1 launch vehicle was cut short.
NEW DELHI – India successfully launched an unmanned crew capsule on its heaviest rocket – the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mk. 3, during its first experimental flight Dec. 18, bringing the country a step closer to fulfilling its human spaceflight ambitions.
PARIS – France accepted its sixth Airbus A400M military transport aircraft on Dec. 12, French defense procurement agency DGA says. DGA said the tactical airlifter is expected to arrive soon at air base Orleans, and is to be handed over in the same basic configuration as the three preceding A400M units delivered last summer.
PARIS – French space agency CNES, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the new Airbus Safran Launchers signed an agreement Dec. 18 giving CNES the lead in designing and building a new launch pad for Europe’s next-generation Ariane 6 rocket.
Inmarsat’s second Global Xpress (GX) satellite – Inmarsat-5 F2 – has arrived at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in preparation for launch atop a commercial Proton M/Breeze M rocket in early in 2015, the London-based fleet operator said Dec. 18. The Boeing-built satellite left the company’s El Segundo, California, manufacturing facility Dec. 16 and was flown from Los Angeles to Kazakhstan in an Antonov AN-124.
HOUSTON – NASA is closing out the flight phase of project Morpheus following a final encore ascent and descent of the four-legged, methane-fueled prototype planetary lander onto a simulated lunar scape at Kennedy Space Center on Dec. 15.
NASA’s Kepler space telescope has detected its first exoplanet since it started operating with only two of its four reaction wheels functioning, validating the “K2” workaround that uses pressure from solar photons to hold its lock on nearby stars long enough to measure the faint dimming caused by transiting planets.
NASA’s Kepler space telescope has detected its first exoplanet since it started operating with only two of its four reaction wheels functioning, validating the “K2” workaround that uses pressure from solar photons to hold its lock on nearby stars long enough to measure the faint dimming caused by transiting planets.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)-led Deep Space Climate Observatory (Dscovr) is closing in on a planned Jan. 23 launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral, kicking off a mission to provide advanced warning of potentially dangerous solar storms. Operating from the L1 Lagrangian point 1 million mi. from Earth, the $340 million Dscovr – a joint effort by NOAA and the U.S. Air Force – is set to become the world’s first operational deep-space satellite.
Which contractor team wins the U.S. Air Force Long-Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B) and Army-Marine Corps Joint Light Tactical Vehicle program in 2015 could decide who stays in the business, according to a widely followed U.S. defense industry analyst.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN has $657.4m U.S. Air Force contract for four RQ-4B Block 30 Global Hawk air vehicles, two spare engines and ground control equipment for the Republic of Korea; all deliveries complete by June 28, 2019. SIERRA NEVADA CORP . completed transfer of first six ORBCOMM Generation 2 (OG2) satellites to operator Orbcomm. Satellites were launched in July; remaining 11 OG2 spacecraft being prepared for mid-2015 launch.
NASA has delayed an expected decision on whether to bring a small asteroid or a boulder from a larger one into lunar orbit for astronauts to study, citing questions about whether the estimated $100 million more the second option would cost would be worth the technology gained for future human missions on the path to Mars. Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot said Dec. 17 the decision likely will be delayed until early next year, in time to support a mission concept review (MCR) at the end of February.
Boeing said Dec. 15 it will buy back more public shares. The $12 billion repurchase authorization approved by the board that day and announced after regular trading closed on Wall Street replaces a 2013 plan of which about $4.8 billion was remaining. Share repurchases for 2014 has wrapped up at $6 billion but is expected to resume in January 2015, Boeing said. The Chicago company also raised its regular quarterly dividend 25% to $0.91 per share.
As expected, the Pentagon has assigned heavy airframe and engine maintenance, repair, overhaul and upgrade (MRO&U) work for F-35s in the Pacific region to Japan and Australia. U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, F-35 program executive officer, said the initial airframe work will begin in both countries no later than 2018. The heavy engine MRO&U work will start no later than 2018 in Australia, with Japan’s capacity standing up no later than five years behind it, Bogdan said.
LOS ANGELES – Boeing has rolled out the first of the final batch of “whitetail” C-17 airlifters, two of which it says have now been sold to an unidentified customer.
MOSCOW — Russia’s military will resume development of the new Ilyushin Il-112V light transport aircraft that was suspended in 2010. The defense ministry signed a contract with United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) for development of the new aircraft, the deputy head of the corporation’s military aviation programs directorate, Vladislav Goncharenko, told the Echo of Moscow radio station. Deliveries are planned for 2018, he said.
LOS ANGELES – Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) says it has a 50% chance “at best” of successfully landing a Falcon 9 first stage on a floating platform on Dec. 19, but says lessons learned will enable it to land and relaunch a used first stage by the end of 2015.
