The U.S. Navy’s fiscal 2015 budget plan maintains funding for air- and missile-defense programs, but delays implementation for some of the platforms, sensors and equipment because of the lingering effects of sequestration and other financial concerns. The Navy still plans to field its Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA) Increment I, with the Northrop Grumman E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft, in 2015, but only in four air wings—compared to the six wings proposed in the Navy’s fiscal 2014 budget.
With the recent acceptance trials by Mobile Landing Platform (MLP-2) USNS John Glenn, U.S. Navy officials are boasting of MLP capabilities and the need to get the ships into service. The Glenn finished its acceptance trials earlier this year off the coast near the General Dynamics National Steel and Shipbuilding Co. (NASSCO) shipyard in San Diego, as the Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey (Insurv) tested the vessel and its equipment to demonstrate and evaluate the performance of all of the ship’s major systems.
LONDON — The U.K. is to provide Eurofighter Typhoons to support the Baltic Air Policing mission in Lithuania for the first time. The move, announced by U.K. Defense Secretary Philip Hammond in Parliament on March 17, will see several Eurofighter Typhoons deploy to Siauliai air base in April, where they will join Polish air force fighters also deployed for the operation.
CHINESE TRAINERS: Avic subsidiary Hongdu Aviation Industry Group will build a 1.225 billion yuan ($198 million) factory for manufacturing parts of trainer aircraft in its home city, Nanchang. Completion of the 208,000-sq.-meter (2.2 million-sq.-ft.) plant is due in three years, local media report, citing approvals from the Nanchang government. Hongdu is one of two trainer specialists in Avic’s defense subsidiary, Avic Aviation Techniques. The other is Guizhou Aircraft. Some of the trainer parts will be made under contract, presumably for Guizhou.
Investigators probing the loss of a U.S. Air Force Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker in Kyrgyzstan last year have concluded that component failure and a lack of crew experience were key factors in the aircraft’s loss. Three air force personnel died when “Shell 77” crashed just 11 min. after takeoff from Manas International Airport. The aircraft, which had arrived at the base only 12 hr. before as an airframe swap, had taken off to support coalition air operations over Afghanistan.
LONDON — Helibras, the Brazilian arm of Airbus Helicopters, has delivered the first upgraded AS565 Panther helicopters back to the country’s army. Two AS565 Panther K2s were handed back to the Brazilian army on March 13. These aircraft will be evaluated by the army’s aviation command (AvEx) in mission operations, and if the evaluations “prove favorable” according to Helibras officials, then AvEx will contract Helibras to upgrade the remaining 32 aircraft through 2021.
The U.S. remains unequivocal about its number-one funding and development priority now and for coming years: replacement ships for its SSBN Ohio-class ballistic nuclear-missile fleet. But despite the effort and focus, Navy officials say, the program remains at risk.
THE PENTAGON — For now the 11 U.S. Navy cruisers slated to be “laid up” pending major upgrades can conduct limited missile defense, but the ships need the improvements to remain relevant, U.S. Navy officials say. “If they don’t get modernized, they’ll become obsolete,” says Adm. Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations. The ships now “can still go out with a carrier and still do air defense,” he told reporters March 11, but they would be unable to do ballistic missile defense (BMD), which is an increasingly important mission for such vessels.
HOUSTON — NASA’s ongoing studies of a mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa include evaluating the use of the agency’s Space Launch System to showcase the heavy lifter’s utility for the robotic exploration of the outer Solar System, according to James Green, the agency’s director of planetary sciences.
The Defense Department should give Congress more information about its regional missile defense plans and programs, a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report says. GAO also questions the Pentagon’s acquisition approach for the regional ballistic missile defense (BMD) of Europe, called the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA), in its March 14 report.
The U.S. Navy awarded deals worth a total of about $1.4 billion this month for DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class ships that will augment the service’s destroyer fleet and ballistic missile defense (BMD) abilities. The fiscal 2014 deals fall under previously awarded fiscal 2013-2017 multiyear procurement (MYP) contracts. The Navy awarded General Dynamics Bath Iron Works (BIW) a $642.6 million modification to its existing fixed-price incentive firm target (FPIF) contract to exercise options for the destroyer’s construction.
The third SpaceX commercial cargo mission to the International Space Station has been delayed until no earlier than March 30 because of payload contamination that may require some new parts to be installed. Originally set for March 16, the Falcon 9 launch was delayed on March 14 to “ensure the highest possible level of mission assurance and allow additional time to resolve remaining open items,” according to a NASA update that quoted SpaceX and referred additional questions to the Hawthorne, Calif., commercial-cargo launch service provider.
LONDON — Russian state-owned helicopter consortium Russian Helicopters increased revenues by 10% in 2013 despite delivering fewer helicopters during the year. The company, which is owned by state-funded Rostec, recorded revenues of 138.3 billion rubles ($3.76 billion), up from 125.75 billion rubles in 2012. Profits were up slightly, 1.3%, to 9.47 billion rubles ($260 million), with the company delivering 275 helicopters in 2013 compared with 290 in 2012.
Russia is gaining on America’s dominance of military sales globally, and in one measure Moscow has become the prime provider of weapons to the Indian imports market (the world’s largest), according to the latest analysis from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri). According to the Swedish defense think tank, the five largest suppliers of global arms exports during 2009–13—responsible for a combined three-quarters of all exports—were the U.S. with 29%, Russia at 27%, Germany at 7%, China at 6% and France with 5%.
ViviSat, a satellite-servicing startup developing life-extension vehicles for end-of-life commercial communications satellites in geostationary orbit, has signed three customers and expects to begin building its specialized spacecraft by the end of 2014.
HOUSTON — U.S. and Russian flight control teams coordinated the first debris avoidance maneuver for the International Space Station in 16 1/2 months late March 16, to avoid a debris fragment from Meteor 2-5, a weather satellite launched by the former Soviet Union in October 1979. The ISS crew — commander Koichi Wakata, of Japan; NASA’s Rick Mastracchio, and Russia’s Mikhail Tyurin — were asleep and in no danger as the debris of unknown dimensions passed at 12 p.m. (Midnight on Sunday, EDT March 16), NASA spokesman Josh Byerly said.
