NASA’s Technology Capabilities Assessment Team is finding new acceptance of the agency’s need to improve efficiency by eliminating duplication across its scattered field centers, with some center directors actually willing to give up assets if they can use the savings to fund their core competencies.
LONDON — BAE Systems is set to begin flight trials early next year of the Panavia Tornado fitted with a Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS). Minister for Defense Equipment, Support and Technology Philip Dunne, in written answers to Parliament Dec. 3, said the system is being integrated on the aircraft by BAE under a £53 million ($87 million) contract.
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) launched its first Falcon 9 v1.1 mission to geosynchronous transfer orbit Dec. 3, marking the Hawthorne, Calif.-based startup’s entry into the commercial launch market and positioning it to unseat United Launch Alliance (ULA), the Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture that launches most NASA, U.S. Air Force and intelligence community missions.
While the U.S. Navy would rather not see deficiencies in the ships that contractors deliver to the service, it makes more economic sense to fix the ships later than to refuse to accept the vessels until the problems are addressed, shipbuilding officials say.
BEIJING — China is working on a ceramic matrix composite (CMC) but lacks practical applications of such material, says a leading Chinese researcher in the field. More than 4,000 CMC articles have been made for 360 types of parts in China, the researcher told attendees at the China Aeronautical Materials and Manufacturing Equipment Summit, organized by Galleon, in Beijing. Apart from work on parts for turbine engines, Chinese engineers have been applying CMC to ramjets and telemetry systems.
FIRST FLIGHT: The first Tranche 3 Eurofighter Typhoon has made its first flight in the U.K. The aircraft, BS116/ZK355, took off on Dec. 2 from BAE Systems’ Warton facility. The Tranche 3s are set to be the most advanced versions of the Typhoon and are equipped to provide more electrical power in preparation for the installation of the planned E-Scan radar, as well as the ability to potentially fit conformal fuel tanks on top of the rear fuselage.
Comet Ison, once hailed as a potential “comet of the century” for amateur sky watchers, faded dramatically after executing a Nov. 28 hairpin turn that took it through the Sun’s million-degree corona, leaving little optimism that any significant remnant will be visible to the naked eye late this week in the skies of the Northern Hemisphere.
LONDON — The Spanish air force is looking to purchase a trio of Airbus Military A330-200 multi-role tanker-transports (MRTTs) to replace its aging Boeing KC-707 tankers. The purchase of new tankers is now one of the air arm’s top priorities, according to Brig. Gen. Miguel Angel Martin Perez, head of the plans and policy division at the Spanish air force. He spoke at the Military Airlift – Rapid Reaction and Tanker Operations conference in Seville on Dec. 3.
NASA has failed to anticipate probable changes in funding for space science in its next strategic plan, increasing the likelihood that important exploration capabilities will fall by the wayside and “a generation of scientists” may be lost in some disciplines, according to a highly critical outside review of the plan draft.
The U.S. Army AH-64E Apache attack helicopter has achieved initial operating capability (IOC) with the 1-229th Attack Reconnaissance Battalion. “This is our initial operations capabilities check,” says Lt. Col. John Davis, battalion commander. “We’re a ‘Go.’” Designated as the Army’s first unit equipped with the newest attack helicopters, the Apache battalion, known as Tigersharks, was issued its first AH-64E Apache in January 2013.
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ACTING DEPUTY: President Obama has appointed Christine Fox acting deputy secretary of defense, effective Dec. 5, according to a statement from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. “Christine, who until recently served as the department’s Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation, is a brilliant defense thinker and proven manager,” Hagel said in a Dec. 3 statement.
GLSV LAUNCH: India will make a fresh attempt to launch its Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-D5) in January, carrying the GSAT-14 communications satellite, a scientist at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) says. The exact date and time has yet to be determined. The announcement comes more than three months after a previous launch attempt was called off due to a fuel leak in the rocket. On Aug. 19, a leak was spotted in the fuel system of the second stage during the prelaunch pressurization phase.
BEIJING — China, now making a limited volume of high-grade carbon fiber that it cannot buy from Western countries or Japan, plans to build a plant with 20 times as much capacity. The cost of the fiber, of T800 grade, will be 1,600 yuan ($262) per kg, compared with the 4,200 yuan per kg cost of the established Chinese product, T300, the new plant operator told a conference in Beijing, although it was unclear whether the operator was referring to output from its present facilities.
LOS ANGELES — Blue Origin, the secretive commercial space company established by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, is readying for qualification tests of its liquid hydrogen-fueled BE-3 engine for a suborbital flight following completion of a key ground demonstration that simulated a full mission of its New Shepard vehicle from launch to vertical landing.
In light of its problems with several major shipbuilding programs in recent years, the U.S. Navy is making some organizational changes to provide better quality assurance. Navy officials note that recent ship deliveries prove the service is doing a better job overseeing vessel construction. The proposed changes should strengthen that oversight, especially within Naval Sea Systems Command (Navsea) and the Supervisor of Shipbuilding (Supship), the service says.
NEW DELHI — India has approved a plan to spend 50 billion rupees ($792 million) for defense equipment, including night-vision devices and rockets for its armed forces. At a meeting earlier this month of the Defense Acquisition Council, the highest decision-making body for the country’s defense affairs, Defense Minister A.K. Antony approved the procurement of night-vision devices worth 38 billion rupees for infantry soldier carbines and 10,000 rockets worth 6.8 billion rupees, a defense official says.
With two new electronic warfare (EW) systems recently brought to market — Sage, which detects radio frequency emitters at distance, and Seer, a radar-warning receiver — Selex ES’s Electronic Warfare Operational Support (EWOS) center is becoming ever more important to the company’s EW business.
BEIJING — The lander of China’s Chang’e 3 lunar mission should reach the Moon’s surface around the middle of this month, officials said following a successful launch on Dec. 2. A Long March 3B launched the spacecraft into a lunar transfer orbit with an apogee of 380,000 km (240,000 mi.).
LONDON — Eurofighter consortium partner Alenia Aermacchi has started flight tests to support the integration of the Storm Shadow cruise missile on the Typhoon combat aircraft. The company began flight testing the 1,230-kg (2,710-lb.) missile on Nov. 27 from the company’s flight test center at Decimomannu air base in Sardinia, in conjunction with partner companies BAE Systems and Cassidian.
