NEW DELHI — The MiG-21 FL fighter, a variant of the MiG-21 that heralded the supersonic era of the Indian air force (IAF), will enter the annals of military aviation history after the aircraft fly their last sortie on Dec. 11. Marking the beginning of the end of almost 50 years of MiG-21 operations in the IAF, four MiG-21 FLs will fly a “box formation” as their final sortie. “The deafening roar of the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 FL afterburner, an iconic delta-wing fighter aircraft, will no longer be heard after Dec. 11,” an IAF spokesman says.
Crews traveling to Mars and back with today’s technology will face a 5% increase in their chances of developing cancer later in life, based on new data from NASA’s Curiosity rover released at the International Geophysical Union in San Francisco Dec. 9.
Over the next three years European aerospace and defense giant EADS will reduce its head count by 5,800 — including up to 1,450 layoffs -— as part of a plan to put its defense and space business in line with projected revenues, the company announced Dec. 9. The plan, presented to the group’s European Works Council, follows a July decision by the EADS board of directors to consolidate its Cassidian, Airbus Military and Astrium units into a single Airbus Defense and Space Division (Airbus DS), and to rebrand the company as the “Airbus Group.”
A remote-sensing satellite built by China and Brazil failed to reach low Earth orbit following a Dec. 9 launch atop a Chinese Long March 4B rocket from the Taiyuan space center in northern China, according to Brazil’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. In a Dec. 9 statement the ministry said the rocket carrying the CBERS 3 satellite malfunctioned after liftoff at 11:26 a.m. local time and that it failed to deliver the satellite to its intended Sun-synchronous orbit at 770 km altitude.
AIR FORCE Lockheed Martin Corp., Marietta, Ga., has been awarded a $48,500,000 modification (P00230) to previously awarded FA8625-11-C-6597 for advance procurement funding of long lead efforts associated with five additional C-130J aircraft. The work will be performed at Lockheed Martin Corp., Marietta, Ga., with an expected completion date of Dec. 31, 2016. Fiscal 2012 aircraft procurement funds in the amount of $48,500,000 are being obligated at time of award. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, is the contracting activity.
The U.S. Navy launched and recovered its new E-2D Hawkeye airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft from a carrier for the first time earlier this month. The aircraft were launched and recovered Dec. 3 from the CVN-71 USS Theodore Roosevelt following hundreds of practice landings on shore.
In December 2011, Iran proudly displayed on state television a stealthy U.S. unmanned aircraft it claimed it had downed while conducting reconnaissance overflights. The trophy was a Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel, an aircraft publicly acknowledged by the U.S. Air Force two years earlier. The Pentagon played down the embarrassing loss. One reason may now be clear.
An International Launch Services (ILS) Proton M/Briz M rocket successfully orbited the first of four new all-Ka-band satellites Dec. 9 for London-based fleet operator Inmarsat, delivering the Boeing-built spacecraft to supersynchronous transfer orbit during a 15-hr. and 31-min. mission.
Scientists have found new evidence that ultra-low frequency (ULF) waves are a force behind the long-mysterious acceleration of highly energetic plasma particles within the Earth’s Van Allen Belts to near-speed-of-light velocities. The findings come from data gathered by NASA’s twin Van Allen Probes.
NEW DELHI — India’s indigenous Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) is due to achieve the second milestone in its two-step initial operational clearance (designated IOC-II) on Dec. 20, three decades after the development of the aircraft began to replace the aging MiG-21s in the Indian air force (IAF).
DEFENDING IRAQ: Iraq’s defense and security spending is estimated to grow at a rate of 8.68% over the next five years and reach $26 billion annually by 2018, according to a new report from Strategic Defense Intelligence. The Iraqi government spent $17.1 billion in 2013 on defense equipment and training. “National security has become a core issue for the Iraqi government, and in the past five years the country’s defense expenditure registered a growth rate of 15.56%,” the group says.
NAS PATUXENT RIVER, Md. — F/A-18 E/F manufacturer Boeing has until roughly March to decide whether to put its own funding toward continuing production of the Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler aircraft without further U.S. Navy orders, says Mike Gibbons, the company’s Super Hornet vice president. The last Super Hornet/Growlers on order are expected to roll off the production line in 2016; the supply chain has a roughly two-year cycle.
The Romanian air force (RoAF) is testing a firefighting system developed for the C-27J Spartan tactical airlifter. The system, called Caylym Guardian, loads the back of the aircraft with up to six cardboard containers containing 1,000 liters of water or fire retardant that is dropped onto forest fires. The system has been being tested by the RoAF and manufacturer Alenia Aermacchi in a Romanian mountain range. “The system allows for a quick, accurate and innovative way to fight bushfires,” said Alenia Aermacchi.
LONDON — The French army will replace its Milan anti-tank missile with a new weapon developed by MBDA. The MMP (Missile Moyenne Portée) will be used by the French army from 2017 following the signing of a development and production contract from the DGA, the French defense procurement agency, announced Dec. 3. The deal, signed as part of the defense ministry’s military planning act, includes the development of the system, 400 launchers and 2,850 missiles. Around 175 launchers and 450 missiles will be delivered between 2014-2019.
The Pentagon’s acquisition czar has a growing chart in his office of defense programs and their current and past managers, and it is just one of the subtle, albeit significant, personnel-oriented changes being pursued in what is dawning as a new era of acquisition reform. It is not quite Santa’s list of who is naughty or nice, but for the U.S. defense and space sector, it is close.
TEL AVIV — The Israeli Air Force (IAF) is conducting a first-of-its-kind multinational exercise at the southern training base of Ouvda that kicked off last week, where 60 aircraft from four nations are taking part in realistic air combat training, practicing how air forces from different nations can cooperate in a coalition under one command.
KEPLER REVIVAL: NASA has given the green light to continued work on a plan to extend its crippled Kepler Space Telescope mission by using an orbital maneuver to compensate for the loss of two of the spacecraft’s four gyro-like reaction wheels. “To be clear, this is not a decision to continue operating the Kepler spacecraft or to conduct a two-wheel extended mission,” Paul Hertz, head of NASA’s astrophysics division, said last week.
U.S. partners and allies in the Asia-Pacific region are set to invest heavily in shipbuilding defense programs over the next 10 years, according to an Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN) analysis of data provided by Avascent Analytics, an online market analysis toolkit for global defense programs.
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V 501 successfully launched the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office’s classified NROL-39 mission from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., at 11:13 p.m. Pacific Time on Dec. 5.
