The U.S. Navy started its first E-2 Hawkeye and C-2 Greyhound Field Carrier Landing Practice (FCLP) operations at Wallops Flight Facility, Va., earlier this month, in the wake of an agreement with NASA to support FCLP training for squadrons operating from Naval Station Norfolk Chambers Field, also in Virginia.
For the second time, Lockheed Martin has tested the unique fairings that will shield radiators and other delicate hardware on the Orion crew capsule’s service module during launch, using pyrotechnics and release mechanisms to jettison the hardware with simulated ascent heating. Engineers at the company’s facility in Sunnyvale, Calif., heated one of the three fairings to 200F and achieved what they termed “successful separation of all three fairings while under flight-like thermal and structural conditions.”
Europe’s Sesar air traffic management (ATM) modernization program has funded nine projects to demonstrate the integration of unmanned aircraft systems into non-segregated airspace. The projects will support plans to begin integration of UAS into European airspace in 2016. Backed by €4 million ($5.4 million) in funding from the Sesar Joint Undertaking (JU), the demonstrations include integrated pre-operational flight trials and are expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2015.
U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command recently formally established a Regional Maintenance Center detachment in Rota, Spain, to support four Arleigh Burke-class destroyers scheduled to be forward-deployed there starting in 2014. The detachment will provide management, industrial, engineering, technical and contractor oversight services for the vessels. Proper maintenance will be key in establishing U.S. destroyer basing plans in Spain.
ODDS ON SEQUESTRATION: A month into the second so-called super committee of lawmakers in Congress, many aerospace and defense observers in Washington still expect a full-year continuing resolution and for the next, larger round of sequestration budget cuts to take effect early next year. United Technologies’ lobbyists and government affairs consultants expect as much by a ratio of 2 to 1, according to Jay DeFrank, vice president for communications and government relations at the conglomerate’s Pratt & Whitney engine maker. DeFrank spoke Nov.
PARIS — Paris is investing in a major upgrade of its nuclear deterrent force through 2030, with plans to modernize strategic submarine and aircraft fleets, missiles, warheads, communications networks and production facilities. Since the end of the Cold War, France has roughly halved its nuclear arsenal and eliminated the option to conduct land-based strikes. It now has 300 warheads in its stockpile.
LONDON — France and Peru discussed Lima’s plans to buy an Earth observation satellite in the coming months during an official visit by French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian to the Andean nation Nov. 4-5.
HOUSTON — Staffing of the International Space Station (ISS) temporarily surged to nine astronauts on Nov. 7, with the launch and docking of the Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft carrying three astronauts, including Japan’s first ISS commander.
The top acquisition policymaker in the U.S. Defense Department says new, internal research shows the Pentagon has paid higher contracting reward fees for relatively poor program performance.
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LONDON — Mobile satellite fleet operator Inmarsat of London says NATO and so-called “five-eyes” countries will have access to the military Ka-band payload on its new Global Xpress commercial communications satellites.
Key documents laying out the path to integration of unmanned aircraft in national airspace have been released by the U.S. government, but achieving the goals will require “predictable and reliable” funding for the NextGen airspace modernization program, cautions FAA Administrator Michael Huerta.
Engine manufacturer GE Aviation plans to buy 500,000 gal. of biofuel annually for engine testing, beginning in 2016. The company uses more than 10 million gal. of jet fuel a year at its engine test centers. GE Aviation has signed a 10-year agreement with the D’Arcinoff Group to purchase synthetic jet fuel made from a combination of cellulosic biomass and natural gas using the Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) process.
ANCHORED: Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert is appealing to Congress for more than $1 billion in investment dollars for this fiscal year. A current stop-gap spending bill and sequestration-related cuts put a dent in plans to buy Virginia-class submarines, leaves the Navy’s next-generation nuclear submarine $500 million away from its request, and removes the same amount from what is needed to finish current work on Ford-class aircraft carriers, Greenert told the Senate Armed Services Committee Nov. 7.
The 3G-like capability that will eventually be available to warfighters from the U.S. Navy’s Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) is U.S.-only for now, but the spacecraft’s legacy UHF payload will remain available for allied use, according to U.S. Strategic Command. The Lockheed Martin-built MUOS satellites feature both the Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) payload and Boeing’s legacy UHF payload flying on the military’s existing Ultra High-Frequency Follow-On (UFO) satellites.
The 19-meter meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, was a fragment from a main-belt asteroid that broke up long ago and was too faint for detection by existing asteroid surveys, according to a new analysis of the Feb. 15 event.
The tri-national Medium-Extended Air Defense System (Meads) achieved two successful intercepts in its second and last planned flight test Nov. 6, as prime contractor Lockheed Martin readies itself to proceed with a production program despite a lack of U.S. support going forward. Meads successfully acquired, tracked and destroyed two targets — one air-breathing and another ballistic missile — fulfilling two of the test objectives, says Marty Coyne, Lockheed Martin’s lead business development official for Meads.
Europe’s Selex ES has unveiled the BriteCloud expendable active decoy, designed to counter radar-guided missiles. Saab will be first to offer the decoy, as an option for existing and new Gripen fighters. The radio-frequency (RF) decoy is the same size and shape as an infrared flare and dispensed from a standard 55 mm flare cartridge. Qualification missions and flight trials still lie ahead, Selex says, with tests on the Gripen planned for 2014.
Bechtel Marine Propulsion of San Francisco has been awarded a $7.1 billion contract modification to a previously awarded contract for naval nuclear propulsion work at the Bettis & Knolls Atomic Power Laboratories. The modification represents more than the Navy spent for nuclear reactor work over the previous decade, according to an Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN) analysis of contacting data aggregated by the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting.
