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.
The first Boeing P-8A Poseidon is slated to depart Nov. 29 for its first deployment, arriving in Japan Dec. 1, the U.S. Navy says. The deployment officially begins the aircraft’s initial operating capability (IOC), an important milestone for the Poseidon.
Winding down from war is taking just as big as a toll financially is it did to gear up for conflict, as logistics-related services have ranked high among U.S. Defense Department expenses, an Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN) analysis shows. Logistics support services ranked fourth among Pentagon expenses in 2011 with about $10.6 billion worth of contracts and contract modifications, according to the AWIN analysis of contracting data aggregated by the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting.
The U.S. Navy wants a fleet of next-generation amphibious ships, the nation’s top military shipbuilder says, but funding the vessels is another matter. “Does the Navy want it? The answer is yes, the Navy wants it,” says Mike Petters, chief executive officer of Huntington Ingalls Industries. “The second question is: can they fit it into their budget? This has been the dilemma,” Petters said earlier this month during a phone call with Wall Street analysts to discuss the company’s quarterly results.
LONDON — Airbus Military has formally retired Grizzly 1, the first prototype A400M airlifter, from flight-test operations. The aircraft, MSN1, made its final flight on Nov. 4, having completed 1,448 flight hours in 475 flights. It was manned by the same crew that took it aloft for its first flight on Dec. 11, 2009. The aircraft is now in storage at Toulouse as Airbus decides what to do with it; discussions about a final display site are being undertaken by the company’s heritage department.
LONDON — Eurocopter has claimed two climb records for its twin-engine EC175 as it moves the aircraft closer to certification. Eurocopter’s two records for the EC175, which have been ratified by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, are a time-to-climb to an altitude of 6,000 meters, performed in 6 min., 54 sec., and a time-to-climb to 3,000 meters, achieved in 3 min., 10 sec. The record-setting flights were performed in February of this year and are claimed by Eurocopter’s lead EC175 test pilot, Alain di Bianca.
In observance of the U.S. Thanksgiving Day holiday, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report will not publish issues dated Nov. 28 or Dec. 2. Aviation Week Intelligence Network subscribers can visit www.aviationweek.com/awin for updates.
NASA’s Ames Research Center and Ball Aerospace think they have found a way to resume the Kepler Space telescope’s search for Earth-like exo-planets. In May, the spacecraft lost the ability to point precisely in the direction of the new worlds it is trying to locate when the second of four of its reaction wheels failed.
LONDON — A freak hailstorm in Afghanistan left five of the U.K. Royal Air Force’s Lockheed Martin C-130J Hercules aircraft unavailable for operations, it has been revealed. Details of the incident, which occurred on April 23 at Kandahar airfield, were documented in a presentation by Marshall Aerospace at the Hercules Operators Council in Atlanta, Ga., in late October and in a citation of an award to the same company from the head of the RAF, Air Chief Marshal Sir Andrew Pulford.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and the Defense Microelectronics Activity (DMEA) failed to comply with interim federal regulations in granting recent cost-reimbursement contracts, the Pentagon Inspector General (IG) says. “Of the 88 contracts reviewed, valued at about $1.66 billion, MDA and DMEA contracting personnel did not consistently implement the interim rule for 72 contracts, valued at about $528 million,” the IG says in its report, released earlier this month.
LONDON — Marenco Swisshelicopter is to unveil the first prototype of its SKYe SH09 single-engine light helicopter during a ceremony in Switzerland this week.
NEW DELHI — India’s ambitious Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle (HSTDV) is shooting for a first flight test in 2014. Defense scientists are conducting a series of tests and have already achieved some milestones in terms of engine development. “We are working on a demonstrator vehicle in the hypersonic space which will hopefully lead us to design hypersonic vehicles and ways to manage the thermal environment,” says V.G. Sekaran, director general for missiles and strategic systems at the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO).
HOUSTON — NASA and startup Planetary Resources, Inc. have formed the first public/private partnership under the space agency’s Asteroid Grand Challenge (AGC) initiative to accelerate the search for near-Earth objects (NEOs) that pose a collision threat by using government sky surveys and crowdsourced algorithms. The Solar System’s population of known asteroids is 620,000, but that is estimated to be less than 1% of the actual total.
MOSCOW — MiG Corp. has delivered the first MiG-29K ship-based fighters to the Russian navy under a contract for 24 aircraft signed in February 2012, the Russian defense ministry announced Nov. 25. The first batch included two single-seat MiG-29Ks and a pair of MiG-29KUB two-seat variants. The deliveries will last until 2015.
Ahead of his Dec. 4 retirement, Deputy U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter told a U.S. Naval Academy audience last week that America must continue to invest in technologies that will be important this century — even as future sailors and Marines face more difficult circumstances than earlier graduates. “At times, you will be asked to lead our sailors and Marines with more limited resources than your predecessors enjoyed, and you will encounter situations in which you receive minimal guidance, and for which there is a very small margin for error,” he said.
NASA has engaged in “a number of questionable practices” in the organization’s long-running use of award fees to motivate its contractor ranks to improve the quality of their performance, according to the agency’s inspector general.
