ASIAN ALLIES: The U.S. State Department approved and reported to Congress more than $20 billion in U.S. arms sales to countries across the Asia-Pacific region in 2013, according to Acting Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs Tom Kelly. And for the fourth consecutive year, total U.S. Foreign Military Sales (FMS) have exceeded $30 billion, he told an audience earlier this month at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The latest statistics show U.S.
MUNICH — Airbus Military has set itself a target of obtaining two export contracts for the new Airbus A400M Atlas airlifter by 2016. CEO Domingo Urena-Raso, who will shortly become head of the Military Aircraft division of Airbus Defense and Space when EADS changes its name to Airbus in the New Year, said he was hopeful of achieving at least one contract in 2014 and another in 2015. These would be allocated for the first export production slots for the airlifter, which are due to become available in 2017.
In observance of the year-end holiday season, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report will not publish issues from Dec. 24 through Dec. 30. Aviation Week Intelligence Network subscribers can visit www.aviationweek.com/awin during that time for updates.
As the more information emerges about the recent fraud case involving overseas port service—or “husbanding”—contracts, U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has detailed a series of efforts the service is taking to prevent such abuses in the future.
Fixed-wing aircraft slated for air-warfare missions rank as the number one aviation and shipbuilding investment over the coming 10 years for U.S. partners and allies in the Asia-Pacific, according to an Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN) analysis of data provided by Avascent Analytics.
Three more major air traffic management organizations are joining Nav Canada in purchasing stakes in Aireon, a satellite-based surveillance system that has the potential to extend ATM coverage over oceanic airspace.
LONDON — The Chief of the U.K. Defense Staff has warned that overspending on equipment is leading to shortages in manpower to train on and use the matériel. In a December speech to the Royal United Service Institute (RUSI), Gen. Sir Nicholas Houghton, who became chief of the defense staff in July, said current levels of equipment spending could lead to a “strategically incoherent force structure.”
BRUSSELS — European Union governments have agreed to move forward, albeit slowly, on the joint development of key defense capabilities, including air-to-air refueling, a next-generation UAV, satellite communications and cybersecurity. During a two-day meeting in Brussels Dec. 19-20, the heads of state of the 28-member EU also discussed—but did not approve—joint funding of some military activities, such as those led by France in the Central African Republic.
BRAZILIAN SPACE: Brazil’s Visiona Tecnologia Espacial S.A. has signed contracts with Thales Alenia Space and Arianespace to build and launch a civil/military broadband communications satellite for the Brazilian government’s Geostationary Satellite Defense and Strategic Communications (SGDC) system. Visiona, a joint venture of Embraer and Brazil’s state-owned telecommunications company Telebras, is to become a satellite integrator for Brazilian space agency AEB. Near-term, the company has been tasked with integrating SGDC under Brazil’s national broadband initiative.
TERROR CONCERNS: The Moroccan government is boosting its defense budget in response to the risk of attacks from native terrorists and the arms race with neighboring Algeria, according to a new report from Strategic Defense Intelligence (SDI). The country spent $16.8 billion on defense between 2009-2013, and by 2018 that number is expected to grow to $20.5 billion. The country’s overall defense budget is expected to gradually increase from $3.8 billion in 2014 to $4.5 billion in 2018.
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The Bipartisan Budget Act (BBA) of 2013 notwithstanding, the top civilian and uniformed leaders of the Pentagon told reporters there Dec. 19 that the majority of so-called sequestration budget cuts remain in effect and that Washington faces tough choices about national security spending.
PARIS — The European Space Agency (ESA) launched its €940 million ($1.3 billion) Gaia star-mapping spacecraft Dec. 19 after postponing the mission one month due to technical issues involving a component flying on another satellite already in orbit. Equipped with twin silicon-carbide telescopes built around a single, 1-billion-pixel focal array, Gaia is designed to survey a billion stars in the Milky Way, providing a precise 3-D map to better understand the galaxy’s composition, formation and evolution.
Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 8 is training for NASA’s unmanned Exploration Flight Test-One (EFT-1) for its Orion spacecraft, scheduled for early next year off the coast of Southern California. HSC-8’s aircraft will launch from San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship LPD-22 USS San Diego and assist the crews that will recover the craft into the ship’s well-deck.
Rockwell Collins’ Control Technologies division has submitted a patent application for a Sun- and star-sensing system that could augment or substitute for an aircraft’s position, attitude and heading avionics in a GPS-denied environment. The technology was developed in part by the former senior director of Rockwell Collins Control Technologies, David Vos, who left the company in May 2012 to become a “technology entrepreneur.”
MUNICH — EADS Astrium has signed an agreement with Inmarsat to resell commercial and military broadband capacity on the London-based fleet operator’s new constellation of all-Ka-band Global Xpress satellites, giving them privileged access to the globally available mobile broadband network.
The U.K., which has hoped to sell Eurofighter Typhoons to the UAE, has learned that any potential deal is at least on hold. “The UAE have advised that they have elected not to proceed with these proposals at this time,” says a note to prime contractor BAE Systems’s investors. The U.K. had been negotiating with UAE for the sale of about 60 aircraft, with Prime Minister David Cameron traveling to the Dubai air show in the hopes of lobbying for BAE’s bid to sell the fighter jets.
LOS ANGELES — Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic are poised to push the SpaceShipTwo (SS2) suborbital vehicle to new heights and speeds during the third, and longest yet, powered flight test, which is planned for the coming days. The flight, from Scaled Composites’ Mojave, Calif., base, will be the most ambitious to date and is scheduled to include the first attempt at a supersonic re-entry using the vehicle’s tail-plane feathering braking system.
After sending the European Space Agency’s Gaia satellite to orbit atop a Soyuz rocket from the Guiana Space Center (CSG) Dec. 19, European launch services provider Arianespace confirmed the dates of its first two Ariane 5 launches in 2014.
