HORNET FANS: Rep. Randy Forbes, the Republican chairman of the U.S. House Armed Services seapower and projection forces subcommittee, is adding his name to a list of lawmakers — most with ties to Boeing — calling on the Pentagon to maintain the Boeing F-18 production line beyond current Navy plans due to worries about losing industrial capacity. Forbes, whose southeast Virginia district surrounds the largest naval complex in the world in Norfolk, wrote Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Dec. 4 to say he thinks that “creating a single U.S.
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The current battle over East China Sea airspace shows the need for even greater cooperation between U.S. and Chinese military forces and officials, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says. “I would focus on one particular area … that is developing a stronger military-to-military relationship between the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] and the United States,” Hagel told reporters Dec. 5. “We have been working at that — both sides.”
The U.S. Navy recently completed the successful installation of the first operational next-generation tactical afloat network aboard the Arleigh Burke class guided-missile destroyer DDG-80 USS McCampbell. Based in Yokosuka, Japan, McCampbell completed its installation of the Consolidated Afloat Network and Enterprise Services (Canes) in November. Prior to that, the destroyer conducted sea trials in October to validate how the network would perform in an operational environment and that the network would meet mission needs, Navy officials say.
When it comes to shipbuilding for the Pentagon, there are really two U.S. Navies to consider — nuclear and non-nuclear — says Mike Petters, CEO of Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), the nation’s largest military shipbuilder. Both present their own set of challenges. “They certainly are different customers,” Petters said Dec. 3 during a presentation hosted by Credit Suisse. “The nuclear navy will try to engineer risk out of a program by making sure they ensure sustainability of the program,” he says.
The U.S.-led search for the existence of extraterrestrial life has reached a threshold, primarily through the discovery of alien planets made by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, making it theoretically possible that the biosignatures of gases produced by microbial life on planets circling nearby stars could be detected within a decade, experts told the House Science, Space and Technology Committee in a Dec. 4 hearing.
NASA’s Technology Capabilities Assessment Team is finding new acceptance of the agency’s need to improve efficiency by eliminating duplication across its scattered field centers, with some center directors actually willing to give up assets if they can use the savings to fund their core competencies.
LONDON — BAE Systems is set to begin flight trials early next year of the Panavia Tornado fitted with a Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS). Minister for Defense Equipment, Support and Technology Philip Dunne, in written answers to Parliament Dec. 3, said the system is being integrated on the aircraft by BAE under a £53 million ($87 million) contract.
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) launched its first Falcon 9 v1.1 mission to geosynchronous transfer orbit Dec. 3, marking the Hawthorne, Calif.-based startup’s entry into the commercial launch market and positioning it to unseat United Launch Alliance (ULA), the Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture that launches most NASA, U.S. Air Force and intelligence community missions.
While the U.S. Navy would rather not see deficiencies in the ships that contractors deliver to the service, it makes more economic sense to fix the ships later than to refuse to accept the vessels until the problems are addressed, shipbuilding officials say.
BEIJING — China is working on a ceramic matrix composite (CMC) but lacks practical applications of such material, says a leading Chinese researcher in the field. More than 4,000 CMC articles have been made for 360 types of parts in China, the researcher told attendees at the China Aeronautical Materials and Manufacturing Equipment Summit, organized by Galleon, in Beijing. Apart from work on parts for turbine engines, Chinese engineers have been applying CMC to ramjets and telemetry systems.
FIRST FLIGHT: The first Tranche 3 Eurofighter Typhoon has made its first flight in the U.K. The aircraft, BS116/ZK355, took off on Dec. 2 from BAE Systems’ Warton facility. The Tranche 3s are set to be the most advanced versions of the Typhoon and are equipped to provide more electrical power in preparation for the installation of the planned E-Scan radar, as well as the ability to potentially fit conformal fuel tanks on top of the rear fuselage.
Comet Ison, once hailed as a potential “comet of the century” for amateur sky watchers, faded dramatically after executing a Nov. 28 hairpin turn that took it through the Sun’s million-degree corona, leaving little optimism that any significant remnant will be visible to the naked eye late this week in the skies of the Northern Hemisphere.
LONDON — The Spanish air force is looking to purchase a trio of Airbus Military A330-200 multi-role tanker-transports (MRTTs) to replace its aging Boeing KC-707 tankers. The purchase of new tankers is now one of the air arm’s top priorities, according to Brig. Gen. Miguel Angel Martin Perez, head of the plans and policy division at the Spanish air force. He spoke at the Military Airlift – Rapid Reaction and Tanker Operations conference in Seville on Dec. 3.
NASA has failed to anticipate probable changes in funding for space science in its next strategic plan, increasing the likelihood that important exploration capabilities will fall by the wayside and “a generation of scientists” may be lost in some disciplines, according to a highly critical outside review of the plan draft.
The U.S. Army AH-64E Apache attack helicopter has achieved initial operating capability (IOC) with the 1-229th Attack Reconnaissance Battalion. “This is our initial operations capabilities check,” says Lt. Col. John Davis, battalion commander. “We’re a ‘Go.’” Designated as the Army’s first unit equipped with the newest attack helicopters, the Apache battalion, known as Tigersharks, was issued its first AH-64E Apache in January 2013.
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ACTING DEPUTY: President Obama has appointed Christine Fox acting deputy secretary of defense, effective Dec. 5, according to a statement from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. “Christine, who until recently served as the department’s Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation, is a brilliant defense thinker and proven manager,” Hagel said in a Dec. 3 statement.
GLSV LAUNCH: India will make a fresh attempt to launch its Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-D5) in January, carrying the GSAT-14 communications satellite, a scientist at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) says. The exact date and time has yet to be determined. The announcement comes more than three months after a previous launch attempt was called off due to a fuel leak in the rocket. On Aug. 19, a leak was spotted in the fuel system of the second stage during the prelaunch pressurization phase.
