ARLINGTON, Va. — The best way to access the darkest depths of the oceans may be from above. At least that is the thinking behind the station-keeping low-visibility glider (SK-Glider) being developed with U.S. Navy Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) funding by the LBI company of Groton, Conn. The SK-Glider can be deployed from standard launch tubes from P-3 and P-8 aircraft and transit a long distance to provide persistent surveillance in denied or hostile areas, the company says.
Saab is pulling its JAS 39E Gripen out of Canada’s fighter competition, having “decided not to take part,” according to a company official. The next-generation Gripen was among candidates to replace the Lockheed Martin F-35 as Canada’s future fighter. “Our conclusion is that the conditions were not yet ripe for us to act,” Saab spokeswoman Karin Walka said June 5. “We feel that we have a good dialogue with Canada in both this matter as well as in others.”
An Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL air-launched rocket is in final preparation to send a NASA scientific satellite into polar orbit to study a poorly understood region of the Sun’s atmosphere in unprecedented detail. The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (Iris) will combine an ultraviolet telescope and a multi-channel imaging spectrograph to study the interface region between the visible surface of the Sun and its upper atmosphere, which is the source of most of the Sun’s UV radiation.
KOUROU, French Guiana — French space agency CNES and the European Space Agency (ESA) are evaluating near-term options for boosting the payload capacity of the Ariane 5 ECA through hardware improvements that officials say could quickly enhance the launch vehicle’s performance ahead of a planned midlife upgrade already underway.
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SINGAPORE — New Zealand continues to face a tight fiscal budget, but is progressing with its plan to get new primary trainer aircraft for its air force, and to replace its Lockheed Martin P-3Ks and C-130Hs next decade.
EADS North America has withdrawn its proposal for the U.S. Army’s Joint Multi-Role (JMR) advanced-rotorcraft technology demonstration, to focus company resources on its offering for the service’s Armed Aerial Scout (AAS) requirement. CEO Sean O’Keefe informed Assistant Secretary of the Army Heidi Shyu of the decision in a letter sent May 29, just a day or two before the Army’s Aviation Applied Technology Directorate invited at least some of the JMR bidders to enter negotiations to build and fly demonstrators in 2017.
Bell Helicopter has joined the companies selected for the U.S. Army’s Joint Multi-Role advanced rotorcraft technology demonstration (JMR TD). A Sikorsky/Boeing team has previously confirmed it has been selected to negotiate a cost-sharing agreement to build and fly a JMR demonstrator in 2017. Industry sources say AVX Aircraft also has been selected to negotiate an agreement, but the small, Fort Worth-based company declines to comment.
Engineers are preparing to flight test a new night-vision camera by month’s end that is designed to address shortcomings of the original F-35 helmet system that prevented pilots from conducing nighttime aerial refueling and vertical landings in the developmental, stealthy fighter.
USAF STRUCTURE: The first public hearing of the National Commission on the Structure of the Air Force saw a strong presentation by reserve and Air National Guard advocates for better favoring of their wings of the total U.S. Air Force. Representatives from associations advocating for reserve officers, adjutant generals and the National Guard, testified that the Pentagon could save about $2.6 billion for every 10,000 airmen billets shifted out of the active force. The commission’s June 4 public hearing followed a closed-door session the day before with top U.S.
SINGAPORE — Canada’s requirements for search-and-rescue (SAR) aircraft and naval helicopters have been dogged by delays, but the country’s defense minister appears confident that progress is about to be made.
The House subcommittee tasked with allocating defense spending is doubling down in its fight over RQ-4B Global Hawks. The lawmakers are directing the U.S. Air Force to “obligate and expend” money previously directed by Congress to buy 12 of Northrop Grumman’s high-altitude surveillance UAVs.
International Launch Services (ILS) successfully placed the SES-6 satellite into a super-synchronous transfer orbit (SSTO) atop a Russian Proton launch vehicle June 3. The Proton lifted off from Pad 39 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan carrying the Astrium-bult SES-6, which weighed over 6 metric tons at liftoff. After a 15-hr., 31-min. mission, the satellite was placed into the target orbit by the Proton launcher. The launch marks the Reston, Va.-based company’s second SSTO mission with the Proton vehicle.
It is still far too early to tell, but at least one Capitol Hill advocate for American manufacturing is forecasting near-term congressional action that could restrict China’s access to the U.S. marketplace, particularly federal-related acquisitions. If so, such moves could affect several western companies, which have reached out to China as both a commercial provider and marketplace over the last two decades.
SATS BANKROLLED: The Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) has authorized a $343.3 million direct loan to Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co. Ltd. (AsiaSat) to finance the purchase of two Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) communications satellites, plus launch services. SS/L is building AsiaSat 6, a C-band satellite, and AsiaSat 8, a mixed Ku/Ka-band satellite, under a contract announced in November 2011. The launches, to be carried out by SpaceX, are planned for the first half of 2014.
NASA has awarded $38 million in contracts to four companies to address “system technology gaps that are exposed by the operational challenges” of the next-generation air traffic control system (NextGen).
TEL AVIV — Seeing future Syrian S-300 surface-to-air missiles as a threat to its own airspace, Israel has pledged to take preventative action. Fixed-wing aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles or through covert sabotage on assembly points could disable “S-300 missiles and similar weapons before becoming operational,” says retired army general and National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror to European diplomats.
Sequestration has failed to curb the U.S. Navy’s desire to bolster its Aegis-equipped destroyer fleet — the service awarded contract deals this week worth about $6.2 billion for new destroyers that will equipped with the combat system and able to perform ballistic missile defense (BMD) missions. The Navy awarded Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) a $3.3 billion fixed-price-incentive firm target (FPIF) contract for the design and construction of five DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class ships, one each in fiscal 2013-2017.
ARLINGTON, Va. — After more than a decade of proving its modeling and simulation worth for the U.S. Navy’s Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) satellite constellation, Los Angeles-based Scalable Network Technologies is looking to expand its Modeling and Evaluation Environment (M2E2) into other military applications.
