While the Pentagon has made strides in improving its past-performance assessments of contractors, the department still has a problem getting the work done on time, a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report says. “DOD (Defense Department) faces challenges completing assessments on time,” GAO says, noting in its June 27 report that more than half the assessments continue to be late.
NEW DELHI — India has plans to loft two new satellites over the next two years to boost its communications capability and augment current services. A proposal for the development and launch of GSAT-15 and-16 was approved at a June 28 meeting of the federal cabinet, says India’s finance minister, P. Chidambaram. GSAT-15 is expected to be built within the next 18 months, and GSAT-16 in the next 24 months.
SAN FRANCISCO — NASA reports “a great insertion orbit” for its newest orbiting telescope for studying the Sun’s dynamic temperature bands, which was drop-launched from a former airliner off the central California coast at 7:28 p.m. PDT June 27.
PARIS — Thales Alenia Space of France and Italy will lead development of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) new Euclid cosmology satellite under a contract valued at €322.5 million ($420 million), the company announced June 27. Scheduled to launch in 2020 atop a European variant of Russia’s Soyuz, Euclid will explore dark energy and dark matter using a payload module to be built by EADS Astrium of Toulouse that includes a silicon-carbide telescope for infrared measurements and a 1.2-meter-dia. mirror to observe distant galaxies.
The U.S. military is close to finalizing a new set of rules of engagement (RoE) for cyberwarfare, and for responses to attacks it will likely reflect the homeland defense regime set up after 9/11, according to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “We now have a playbook for cyber,” Army Gen. Martin Dempsey told a Brookings Institution audience here June 27. “And we have forces allocated to the mission.”
As the U.S. Marine Corps starts to withdraw from Afghanistan, there is a greater emphasis on getting its equipment out of the country and back to the U.S. than there was during the withdrawal from Iraq. When leaving Iraq, Marines were shifting much of their equipment and gear to repurpose in Afghanistan. But now sequestration is making the service concentrate more on getting its goods back home for repairs and upgrades, says Gen. James Amos, Corps commandant.
LONDON — The U.K. Royal Air Force is working with BAE Systems to increase the service intervals on its Eurofighter Typhoons. BAE says the changes, which will see Typhoons serviced every 500 flight hours rather than the current 400 hr., will make the aircraft more available for frontline operations. It will also save around £100 million ($153 million) once all the aircraft have entered operation.
CAS GAP: The Senate Armed Services Committee wants the U.S. Air Force and Army to report whether the planned retirement of 1970s-era A-10s and the introduction of so-called fifth-generation F-22s and F-35s actually leaves a gap in close-air support (CAS) for troops.
With what is traditionally a first “piece” for a new airplane, Boeing’s workers loaded the wing spar for the U.S. Air Force’s KC-46A tanker into jigs at its widebody headquarters in Everett, Wash., on June 26, marking the start of major assembly work that should lead to a first flight a year from now.
For the U.S. Coast Guard, it is the beginning of the end — and not in a good way — as the service eyes a massive proposed cut to its long-struggling recapitalization efforts.
The medium Earth orbit constellation designed to bring broadband satellite service to the “other 3 billion” (O3b) customers in the developing world is taking shape above the equator with the June 25 launch of the first four spacecraft on an Arianespace Soyuz flying from the Guiana Space Center on the north coast of South America. Another set of four satellites is scheduled for launch later this year, and the third and final group of four is set to go up in the first half of next year.
Canada’s armed forces have taken delivery of the first of 15 new Boeing CH-147F Chinook transport helicopters. The first aircraft was handed over on June 27 and will eventually go on to join a new unit, 450 Tactical Helicopter Squadron, based at Petawawa, Ontario. The aircraft were purchased under the Canadian forces’ CDN$5 billion ($4.8 billion) Medium-to-Heavy Lift Helicopter Project, for a highly modified version of the CH-47F Chinook capable of operating in the challenging environment of Canada.
The U.S. Air Force’s MQ-9 Reaper received some hefty cuts from the Senate 2014 defense policy bill, but the defense-wide program for the UAV got a $25 million boost to a $3 million total request. Overall, the mark from the Senate Armed Services committee, approved June 21 and reported this week, barely changed the request: less than 1% was cut from the procurement base budget; less than half a percent added to the research budget. Only 85 lines were changed, from the more than 1,600 lines in the Defense Department’s investment accounts.
F-35 TAILS: Magellan Aerospace has signed an agreement with BAE Systems for work on the F-35 Lightning II program. Magellan will produce more than 1,000 sets of horizontal tails for the conventional takeoff and landing variant. The work has a potential value of more than CDN$1.2 billion ($1.15 billion) over 20 years. The agreement was announced last week at the Paris air show. Magellan says it has achieved sales of more than CDN$100 million on the F-35 program to date.
Shenzhou 10, China’s longest human mission to date, ended safely early Wednesday with a landing on a Mongolian steppe. Touchdown of the mission’s return capsule with its crew of two men and a woman came at 8:07 a.m. local time (8:07 p.m. Tuesday EDT), 15 days after it was launched from the Jiuquan launch site on a Long March 2F rocket.
While most of the recent focus in the Asia-Pacific has centered on China’s aircraft carrier development or the deployment of the U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) to Singapore, some of the real regional investment is in the more midrange amphibious ship fleets and their mobile ability to launch fixed-wing aircraft.
Aviation Week NextGen Ahead Air Transportation Modernization Conference September 9-11, 2013 Washington, D.C. Re-Defining NextGen: Setting Priorities • Implementing Capabilities • Delivering Benefits Join industry experts including airlines, government agencies and leading technology providers as they answer: What’s next after sequestration?
AgustaWestland has carried out the first flight of its initial ICH-47F Chinook destined for the Italian army. The aircraft made a 15-min. flight on June 24 and is the first “Foxtrot” model of the Chinook to be produced outside the U.S. The aircraft is the first of 16 Chinooks and four options ordered by the Italian defense ministry’s procurement agency, ARMAEREO, in 2009. First delivery will be in early 2014, when the aircraft will begin replacing the Italian army’s aging CH-47Cs, which have been in service since 1973.
