China’s development of a ballistic missile able to attack ships could represent a “game-changer” for the U.S. Navy mindset in that region, says Adm. Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations, as the Asian nation reasserts itself as a maritime Pacific power.
ISTANBUL — Alenia Aermacchi and Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) are partnering to offer the maritime patrol variant of the ATR-72 turboprop airliner.
As the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1) USS Freedom gets ready for its Asian public debut at next week’s Imdex Asia Maritime Defense Show in Singapore, the U.S. Navy is again finding itself in the position of defending the cost and quality of the ship and the program.
Buy American advocates are mounting a fresh push on Capitol Hill to speed passage of legislation favoring U.S. companies, backed by what they claim is the most comprehensive unclassified study on offshoring’s effects on the U.S. defense industrial base and warfighting capabilities.
ISTANBUL — Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) is testing out a lightweight, rotary-wing UAV that could go on to form the basis of a shipborne platform for the country’s navy. The 300-kg (660-lb.) R-300, previously known as the R-IHA, is an enhanced version of a UAV developed by the helicopter division of TAI before 2012. The company’s UAV division took on the program during mid-2012 and has been retesting elements of the various flight control systems using a 10-kg helicopter as a testbed.
Europe’s Vega light launcher lifted off late May 6 with the European Space Agency’s Proba-V Earth-observation satellite and smaller spacecraft for Vietnam and Estonia, overcoming a weather delay at the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana to go two-for-two in successful launches. Liftoff into a 1-sec. window came at 11:06 p.m. local time (10:06 p.m. EDT) Monday, following a weather scrub at the same time on May 3.
WASHINGTON—The Pentagon’s ad hoc review of roles, missions and spending, due over the next month or so, will propose significant cost savings in nonmilitary departments while tackling health care costs through increased fees and copays and related reductions of facilities and personnel, Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter said May 7.
Advocates of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) recently passed by the U.N. General Assembly are trying to drum up political peer pressure before the treaty’s unveiling for national signatures June 3 in New York.
The U.S. Air Force and United Launch Alliance (ULA) are planning to loft Boeing GPS IIF satellite 4 on May 15 between 5:38-5:56 p.m. local time. The satellite will carry an improvement to the precision clock and it will be the first to launch on the Atlas V rocket, says Col. Stephen Steiner, chief of the space division at the service’s GPS directorate in Los Angeles.
Boeing plans to flight test radar signature reductions for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet designed to give the U.S. Navy the option of using the aircraft for first-day-of-war strikes either alongside or instead of the Lockheed Martin F-35C Joint Strike Fighter. Conformal fuel tanks, enclosed weapons pod and signature-reduction improvements to the basic airframe, including new coatings, will be flight tested in late summer, says Mike Gibbons, F/A-18 and EA-18 vice president.
Crewmembers on the International Space Station have been experimenting with the use of ultrasound scans to image their spines, a new application for the technology that could prove useful on the ground as well. Briefing members of the Senate Commerce space subcommittee Tuesday, Expedition 35 Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn said the ultrasound instrument can help flight surgeons learn about the sometimes painful spinal recompression experienced by spacefarers when they return to gravity.
SPACEX LEASE: SpaceX signed a three-year lease for land and facilities at New Mexico’s Spaceport America for flight testing its reusable Grasshopper vertical-takeoff-and-landing rocket. Gov. Susana Martinez announced the agreement Tuesday, noting that the Hawthorne, Calif.-based company wants to expand its test envelope now that it has completed low altitude tests at its facility in McGregor, Texas.
The U.S. Navy’s Northrop Grumman X-47B unmanned combat air system (UCAS) demonstrator completed its first arrested landing at NAS Patuxent River, Md., on May 4. The shore-based test paves the way for operations from an aircraft carrier later this month. Arrested landings are the final step in shore-based testing before the X-47B deploys for sea-based testing, “catapulting from the carrier deck and potentially completing landings” on the USS Bush, says Naval Air Systems Command.
U.S. Air Force officials are preparing by year’s end to begin flight testing of a communications gateway technology designed to solve the vexing problem of allowing stealthy aircraft to communicate with legacy fighters, though they operate using different protocols.
The U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) has developed something “similar to a master remote control for military ground, air and undersea unmanned systems that will work across the services,” the Navy acknowledged earlier this month. The data model is based on software that enabled development of the Common Control System, which is comprised of many different common control services, ONR says.
The launch of the European Space Agency (ESA) Proba-V Earth observation satellite atop a Vega light launcher was scrubbed May 3 due to unfavorable weather over the Guiana Space Center, Europe’s equatorial spaceport in French Guiana on the northeast coast of South America. The mission, which was constrained to a 1-sec. launch window at 11:06:31 p.m. local time, is also carrying Vietnam’s VNREDSat-1 Earth observation spacecraft and the ESTCube-1 solar-sail demonstrator for Estonia.
EXELIS POSITIONED: ITT’s defense information and technical services spin-off Exelis believes it is positioned to meet the Pentagon’s move toward sustaining legacy systems as it shies away from major new programs, but it does have its hopes up over one new weapons system, according to Wall Street analysts who met with Exelis management recently.
