Aviation Week Laureate Awards March 6, 2014 National Building Museum Washington, D.C. Join Us! Aviation Week’s 57th annual Laureate Awards will recognize individuals/teams for their extraordinary accomplishments. Their achievements embody the spirit of exploration, innovation, vision or any combination of these attributes that inspire others to strive for significant, broad-reaching progress in aviation and aerospace.
This week could see a surge of news on fresh fiscal 2014 appropriations, as House and Senate appropriators are working feverishly to put together a so-called omnibus spending bill by Jan. 15, when the stopgap continuing resolution (CR) of 2013 funds runs out.
NEW DELHI — India has entered the multibillion dollar commercial launcher market with the successful liftoff of the GSAT-14 satellite aboard its Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-D5) heavy-lift rocket fitted with an indigenous cryogenic engine.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) plans to award Lockheed Martin a contract to continue development and conduct additional flight tests of the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (Lrasm), keeping the weapon on track for possible deployment in 2018. Pentagon efforts to transition Lrasm from a Darpa/Office of Naval Research (ONR) demonstration to a program of record without a competition have attracted controversy. But in a December notice, Darpa announced its intent to award Lockheed a sole-source contract for follow-on development.
HOUSTON — The International Space Station (ISS) Mission Management Team has cleared Orbital Sciences Corp. for a Jan. 8 launch attempt of its Antares rocket/Cygnus cargo carrier combination at 1:32 p.m. EST, if weather conditions permit. A mostly favorable launch forecast includes a low probability of cloud cover in the region that could prohibit the launch, NASA space station program spokesman Josh Byerly said. The spacecraft was transported from its hangar to the launch pad at Virginia’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Jan. 5.
Lawmakers have adopted a plan to transfer new Alenia C-27Js from the U.S. Air Force to the U.S. Coast Guard, and older Coast Guard Lockheed Martin C-130s to the U.S. Forest Service after a protracted interagency debate over the aircraft last year. The transfers were signed into law with the long-awaited passage of the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act last month.
CRACKING DOWN: U.S. law firm Hughes, Hubbard & Reed says the developing and Western world is catching up with American enforcements against business corruption. “Although the United States remains the most active anticorruption regulator, other agencies around the world (including national regulators and multinational development banks) have shown a greater proclivity toward prosecuting bribery offenses,” the lawyers say in a 2013 review of global antibribery actions. A recent example is India’s cancellation of its AgustaWestland AW101 helicopter buy.
U.S. Special Operations command recently leased the Lockheed Martin S301 Special Operations Forces dry combat submersible. In late 2013 the command awarded Lockheed an estimated $10 million sole-sourced lease of the S301, a commercially-classed dry submersible vessel, to support risk mitigation research, development, test, and evaluation in support of Socom’s long-term dry-combat-submersibles program objectives.
HONOLULU, Hawaii — As the U.S. continues to rebalance its naval forces to the Asia-Pacific region, one potential threat still looms large—the development of a Chinese anti-ship ballistic missile. “Known as the DF-21D, this missile provides the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] with the capability to attack large ships, including aircraft carriers, in the western Pacific,” the Pentagon says in its most recent annual report on Chinese military capabilities. “The DF-21D has a range exceeding 1,500 km [930 mi.] and is armed with a maneuverable warhead.”
India ranks as the leading naval ship supplier for Asia-Pacific partners and allies of the U.S., according to an Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN) analysis of data provided by Avascent Analytics. The analysis indicates that India will sell about $24.5 billion worth of naval ships and related equipment—including development services and production—to Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand over the period 2009-2023.
The U.S. Navy wants to take to sea the kind of robust simulations it gets on land at its Fleet Integrated Synthetic Training and Testing Facility (Fist2fac) operated by the Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division Keyport, located on Ford Island, Hawaii.
HAPPY NEW YEAR: Wall Street analysts at RBC Capital Markets see the large, publicly held, global aerospace sector enjoying a more “straightforward” year than 2013. “Across the various markets, we expect revenue growth, improved margins and good cash generation, with a notable recovery in the aerospace aftermarket and a belated pick up in business jet demand,” they say of 2014.
U.S. Transportation Command (Transcom), Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) and the related military services offices last week changed to an automatic identification technology that the Pentagon expects will save millions of dollars annually in transportation and distribution costs. The Pentagon is migrating Active Radio Frequency Identification, or aRFID, tags to the ISO 1800-7 standard.
NEW DELHI — India’s Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV), capable of assisting in maritime security and deep-sea operations, is readying for more sea trials. The AUV will be capable of a variety of missions including surveillance, sensor deployment and mine countermeasures, as well as ammunition delivery. It operates via a mother ship from which it is launched, controlled and recovered.
NEW DELHI — India’s space agency has approved a Jan. 5 launch attempt for the GSAT-14 communications satellite aboard a Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-D5). The indigenous, cryogenic engine-fitted GSLV-D5 will launch from the Sriharikota spaceport in India’s southern state of Andhra Pradesh. “A 29-hour countdown for the launch is set to commence around 11 a.m. local time on Jan. 4,” an Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) scientist says.
The U.S. Navy should take steps to help it weather enemy “surprise” capabilities, a recent National Research Council (NRC) report says. “U.S. naval forces as a whole do not seem to be utilizing the best methodologies for assessing surprise,” NRC says in a prepublication version of its report, released in December.
NEW DELHI — India’s Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) may have finally been cleared for entry into squadron service, but the coming year ushers in a critical round of testing for the Mk. 1 fighters to meet a final deadline of December 2014 to be fully operational. The tests are crucial to how the Indian air force (IAF) will deploy the jet, built chiefly to replace large numbers of MiG-21 interceptors still in service with frontline squadrons.
