Sikorsky has begun blades-on powered testing of the CH-53K ground test vehicle (GTV) ahead of the official May 5 rollout of the U.S. Marine Corps’ new heavy-lift helicopter at its West Palm Beach, Fla, final-assembly and development-test center. The GTV achieved shake-down light off on April 17, beginning 200 hr. of testing required to clear the CH-53K for a first flight late this year. Bare-head light off, with rotor hubs turning but no blades attached, was achieved in December.
BIG SQUEEZE: Boeing’s contentious squeeze on suppliers is gaining traction despite complaints from below and still has a lot more to give, according to Chairman and CEO Jim McNerney, who says Boeing is in “the early innings” of turning the Partnering for Success (PFS) supply chain policy into contracts, and that Wall Street will increasingly see the benefits over the coming decade. “It’s already in the order of billions of dollars over a medium and long term, and there’s more where that came from,” he said during a recent earnings call.
So far, Wall Street seems to agree with Orbital Sciences Corp. CEO David Thompson that his company’s proposed merger with Alliant Techsystems (ATK) offers “compelling benefits for all of our stakeholders.” Orbital’s stock jumped more than 16% in regular closing in New York while ATK’s rose almost 7%. “It’s very clear this deal was very well considered and the explanation is pretty clear,” said analyst Howard Rubel of Jefferies during a joint teleconference by the companies’ CEOs.
LONDON – European missile manufacturer MBDA has been awarded a £36 million ($60.5 million) contract toward the development of a new surface-to-air missile system for the British army. The long-awaited announcement of the land-based Future Local Area Air Defense System (Flaads) contract had been expected in March.
HOUSTON — The Lockheed Martin-built Orion capsule that will conduct NASA’s Exploration Flight Test-1 has successfully completed a series of powered-up vibration tests simulating launch and ascent forces, according to space agency and company assessments. EFT-1 is the first unpiloted orbital test flight of the deep-space mission spacecraft. The two-orbit EFT-1 launch atop a Delta IV Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral is tentatively set for December.
Aging, underfunded equipment in NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation Network could jeopardize the operations of more than two dozen orbital missions, including the International Space Station (ISS) and Hubble Space Telescope, as well as some Defense Department spacecraft, according to NASA’s inspector general.
As the U.S. Navy continues to tweak its redesigned Block III Virginia-class submarines, the service is pushing ahead with its Block IV Virginia plans, awarding a $17.6 billion contract this month to General Dynamics’ Electric Boat Corp for 10 subs between fiscal 2014 and 2018. “The Block IV award is the largest shipbuilding contract in U.S. Navy history in terms of total dollar value and builds upon the Virginia-class program’s successful Navy and industry relationship,” says Rear Adm. David Johnson, program executive officer for submarines.
Three of NASA’s top priorities – the Orion spacecraft, the Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift rocket and the James Webb Space Telescope – fared well in a bill to authorize $17.64 billion in fiscal 2015 for the space agency approved by the House Science, Space and Technology Committee on April 29. The same could not be said for NASA’s commercial crew program. The committee sliced $152 million from the Obama administration’s $848 million request.
LONDON — Four U.K. Royal Air Force (RAF) Eurofighter Typhoons have arrived in Lithuania to help reinforce the Baltic Air Policing mission in light of the ongoing Ukraine crisis. The deployment — the first for the RAF’s Typhoons, and only the second time the RAF has taken part in the air policing mission in the last decade — reinforces a Polish air force contingent of four MiG-29 Fulcrums at Siauliai air base, from where the fighters can police the airspace of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
The proposed merger between Orbital Sciences Corp. and the aerospace and defense divisions of ATK could yield a more powerful – and politically palatable – Antares launch vehicle, according to company officials. Orbital Chairman and CEO David Thompson says his company is considering an ATK proposal to develop a solid-rocket propulsion system to replace the modified Russian NK-33 engines that power the Antares rocket’s Ukrainian-built first stage.
SEATTLE – With an eye to the development of a wider commercial space market beyond the needs of ferrying crews to the International Space Station (ISS), Boeing has revealed a new commercial interior concept for its Crew Space Transportation (CST-100) manned space capsule.
LONDON — Airbus Helicopter’s Brazilian subsidiary Helibras and missile manufacturer MBDA have begun work to integrate the AM39 Exocet B2M2 anti-ship missile onto locally produced EC725 helicopters. Eight of the Brazilian navy’s 16 EC725 Caracals will be modified to carry the anti-ship missile with integration of the weapon and the associated mission equipment and systems by Helibras.
Work by General Electric and a Honeywell/Pratt & Whitney team on demonstrators for 3,000 shp-class helicopter turboshafts has been extended by the U.S. Army as it works to launch development of a new engine to upgrade the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk and Boeing AH-64 Apache. The Advanced Affordable Turbine Engine (AATE) technology demonstration program, begun in 2007, has been extended into 2015 after budget issues caused a delay in releasing a request for proposals (RFP) for Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP) engineering and manufacturing development.
Fresh from its recent win of the U.S. Navy’s coveted Air-and-Missile-Defense Radar (AMDR), Raytheon now has an $8.5 million deal from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) to design the Flexible Distributed Array Radar (Flexdar). “Migrating digital technologies closer to the front end of radars will allow for more reconfigurability and ultimately more flexible radars resulting in game-changing improvements,” says Paul Ferraro, vice president of Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems Advanced Technology Programs.
A new U.S. conventional arms transfer policy governing direct commercial and Foreign Military Sales signed by President Barack Obama this year is supposed to allow Washington officials to make ad hoc decisions about military exports, including industrial competitiveness, an official said recently.
General Electric has begun component testing for a large turboshaft demonstrator that will lay the groundwork for engines to power the U.S. Army’s planned Future Vertical Lift (FVL) family of advanced rotorcraft. The detailed design review for the Future Affordable Turbine Engine (FATE) demonstrator was completed in November. “Now we are running components tests, including particle separator and combustor,” says Mike Sousa, new product development manager.
HOUSTON – NASA is seeking fast-track proposals from the worldwide science and engineering communities for a cost-constrained mission to assess the habitability of the ice- and ocean-covered Jovian moon Europa, while providing the surface reconnaissance needed to plan for a future instrumented lander.
The U.S. will find the money to fund the refueling and overhauling of the aircraft carrier CVN-73 USS George Washington, says U.S. Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.), the chairman of the House Armed Services Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee.
As it develops an “extensible” program of human and robotic missions aimed at landing humans on Mars in 20 years, NASA is likely to include an in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) experiment on the nuclear-powered robotic rover it plans to send to the Red Planet in 2020.
