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.
About $13.5 billion will be spent through 2022 on the research, development, and production of land- and sea-based electro-optical (EO) systems, Forecast International predicts. Of the major EO systems covered in Forecast’s report, 296,036 units will be produced over the next 10 years. During the first half of the forecast period, from 2013 through 2017, 156,561 units will be produced, with 139,475 units expected to be produced between 2018-2022.
The first Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1), the USS Freedom, recently arrived in Guam as it starts to wrap up its Western Pacific deployment with a transit across the Pacific Ocean that U.S. Navy officials hope will be free of power losses and other recent operational problems on the ship. Freedom arrived in Guam, the farthest western U.S. territory, as part of its return transit across the Pacific Ocean, on Nov. 29. The ship will receive fuel and supplies for the next underway period
India’s first Mars orbiter has propelled out of Earth’s orbit and embarked on a 10-month voyage to the red planet. The critical maneuver to place the Mars Orbiter Spacecraft (MOS) in the Mars Transfer Trajectory was successfully carried out Dec. 1, says K. Radhakrishnan, chairman of the state-run Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
Turbomeca and China’s Avic Engine have completed the first test bench runs of the new Ardiden 3C turboshaft that is destined for use on the Chinese version of the Eurocopter EC175. The tests, completed at Turbomeca’s Bordes facility in France, confirmed what the company called “good aeromechanical behavior and performance,” and allow the manufacturer to proceed to the test and certification phase of the engine’s development program.
FAA has decided a NASA astronaut may engage in operational flight functions up to and including piloting a commercial space vehicle for aborts, emergency response, and monitoring and operating environmental controls and life support systems during FAA-licensed commercial space launches and re-entries. But astronauts beware: training to become employable by commercial providers may force a take-it-or-leave-it proposition: either commit to becoming a NASA astronaut, or commit to a career as a commercial space pilot.
HOUSTON — Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Takuya Onishi will begin training in December for six months aboard the International Space Station. Onishi will be the sixth Japanese astronaut to serve aboard the orbiting science laboratory since 2009. Liftoff of his Expedition 48/49 mission is planned for mid-2016.
BANNED: The U.S. State Department said Nov. 27 it has issued an order administratively debarring LeAnne Lesmeister, former compliance officer at Honeywell International, from participating in any activities that are subject to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). According to State, Lesmeister — Honeywell’s senior export compliance officer in Clearwater, Fla., from 2008 to 2012 — used her position to circumvent Honeywell’s export compliance program in the fabrication of various export control documents that she presented as State authorizations.
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) on Dec. 2 again postponed the first launch of its Falcon 9 v1.1 to geosynchronous transfer orbit from Cape Canaveral to allow for more time to double-check various fixes following the mission’s aborted Nov. 28 attempt. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter that the 24-hr. delay to Dec. 3 will be spent “rechecking to be sure.” The launch window opens at 5:41 p.m. EST.
Comet Ison is providing the world’s astronomers and planetary scientists with a scientific bonanza as it makes a much-anticipated sweep around the Sun on Nov. 28, which is Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. Whether it provides as much of a spectacle for backyard stargazers in the Northern Hemisphere remains a mystery.
LONDON — Gulf Helicopters has signed the largest order by an offshore operator so far for the AgustaWestland AW189 eight-metric-ton helicopter. The Qatar-based operator will buy 15 of the aircraft, which is awaiting imminent certification from the European Aviation Safety Agency. The firm order, announced during the Dubai Airshow, is the second-largest for the new helicopter, behind Bristow Group’s, which has ordered six aircraft for offshore operations and a further 11 to support its U.K. search-and-rescue (SAR) contract awarded this year.
A recent study by the U.S. Navy sketches the time frame for the opening of the Arctic seaways due to melting ice and other related changes in the region. “For the near-term, defined as present to 2020, current trends are expected to continue, with major waterways becoming increasingly open,” Rear Adm. Jon White, Task Force Climate Change director, says in a recent online post.
BIDEN IN ASIA: Vice President Joe Biden embarks on a trip to Japan, China and South Korea Dec. 2-7. Although the trip is intended as a signal of the Obama administration’s commitment to the Pacific region and broadly encompasses many issues, China’s recent declaration of an air defense identification zone is an issue that looms over the visit.
