NEW DELHI — India plans to loft the heaviest variant of its Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), the Mk. 3, in 2014, even as the country’s space agency prepares for another mission with an earlier GSLV variant in July of this year, a senior space scientist says.
ARMY Argon ST Inc., Fairfax, Va., was awarded a $9,632,695 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to provide services in support of the Joint Unified Multi-Capable Protection System research and development program. Fiscal 2013 procurement funds are being obligated on this award. The bid was solicited through the Internet, with one bid received. The Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., is the contracting activity (W15P7T-13-C-A202).
RIO DE JANEIRO — South Africa’s Paramount Group brought a model of its Advanced High Performance Reconnaissance Light Aircraft (Ahrlac) to the LAAD Defense & Security show here, and says work on the first prototype is nearing completion and that the first flight should take place “around the third quarter of this year.” The company acknowledges that this is later than originally expected, but still says that the project – which was hinted at at LAAD in 2011 and revealed in September of that year – has still “gone very fast” for an all-new venture.
BAE Systems will train aviation technicians and maintainers for the Australian defense forces under an A$107 million ($113 million) contract covering the next five years. About 900 students a year will be trained in courses conducted at the Royal Australian Air Force’s base at Wagga Wagga in New South Wales, says the minister for defense material, Mike Kelly.
While the U.S. Navy is scaling down some of the proposed funding for its Standard Missile 6 (SM-6) in its fiscal 2014 budget, the service is ramping up some of the money for its AIM-9X Sidewinder missile.
BUCKING TRENDS: Overall the world spent less in 2012 on national defense, the first time since 1998, largely driven by declining budgets in the U.S. and its allies, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. But China and Russia continue to raise their military spending, “substantially” offsetting Western and allied reductions. China, the second largest spender by country last year, increased its expenditures 7.8% or $11.5 billion; Russia, third largest, rose 16% to $12.3 billion.
AIR FORCE General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., Poway, Calif., is being awarded an $18,251,274 firm-fixed-price contract for MQ-1/MQ-9 organic depot activation. The work will be performed at Hill AFB, Utah, Warner-Robins AFB, Ga., and Tinker AFB, Okla., and is expected to be completed by April 4, 2015. This award is a result of sole-source acquisition. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2011. The contracting activity is AFLCMC/WIIK, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio (FA8620-10-G-3038 0044).
MetiSpace Technologies, a new space systems engineering company, has been formed after a U.S. management buy-out from its Spanish parent company, Madrid-based GMV. Led by President and CEO Theresa Beech, the former president of GMV USA, MetiSpace will continue to provide GMV satellite control and mission planning software to the U.S. aerospace “institutional” market.
LONDON — Airbus Military has been conducting anti-ship missile release trials from C295 transport aircraft. The tests, which took place on March 21 in conjunction with missile manufacturer MBDA, saw an inert Marte Mk. 2 missile fitted and dropped from the underwing pylon of the C295 as part of a program to validate the integration of the weapon onto maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) variants of the C295.
The fourth Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-4), the Coronado, is expected to resume pre-delivery builder’s trials next week after minor engine-related problems prompted a temporary pause in testing April 13, U.S. Navy sources confirm. LCS-4 was being put through full-power trials before engine problems developed on port and starboard diesel engines, creating smoke and a small fire first on the starboard engine and then the port one, Navy sources said. There were no injuries and the ship returned to port so engineers could ascertain the cause of the problems.
AgustaWestland has unveiled its contender for the U.S. Army’s Armed Aerial Scout (AAS) as industry waits to find out whether plans to replace the Bell OH-58D Kiowa Warrior will survive budget cuts. The Anglo-Italian company took the wraps off a full-scale mock-up of its AW169 AAS on April 11 at a subdued Army Aviation Association of America convention in Fort Worth.
COLORADO SPRINGS — Inspiration Mars, the bold plan to send a man and woman on a 501-day trip around the Red Planet beginning in January 2018, reports individuals and industry are offering their services for the task, including “hundreds” of couples who have qualifications that would put them in the running.
The U.S. Navy is shifting funds around on some of its leading UAV programs, including Northrop Grumman’s Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) and MQ-8 Fire Scout programs, within the service’s proposed fiscal 2014 budget.
With the likelihood of U.S. Navy aircraft being grounded due to maintenance funding cuts, the service is looking at cutting some near-term training flying. Aircraft depot maintenance, which dropped from about $1.17 billion in fiscal 2012 to about $1.16 billion in fiscal 2013, is proposed for another dip to about $916 million in the fiscal 2014 budget. The percent funded of the total requirement is similarly dropping, from 100% in fiscal 2012 to 94% in fiscal 2013 and 79% in the proposed fiscal 2014 spending plan.
COLORADO SPRINGS — Boeing’s space business is in a “relatively healthy position” despite a flattening of the military space budget, says Roger Krone, president of Boeing Network and Space Systems.
With the majority of international sales opportunities for its ScanEagle small unmanned aircraft involving maritime operations, Boeing subsidiary Insitu is planning to qualify its larger Integrator vehicle for shipborne launch and recovery. The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps’ RQ-21A small tactical unmanned aircraft system (Stuas), which is based on the Integrator, conducted its first shipboard launch and recovery in February, on the amphibious transport dock USS Mesa Verde.
RIO DE JANEIRO—Saab’s leadership is ready to offer co-development of the carrier-based Gripen N under a fixed-price, five-year deal, according to company executives at the LAAD Defense & Security show here. The decision follows a detailed review of the design by a 35-member engineering team formed in the U.K. in 2011 to mature the concept.
Key players and timelines for a seminal, and perhaps unprecedented, report on the future of the U.S. Air Force — from roles and missions to force mix among active, reserve and Air National Guard units — are coming together, according to announcements made around this week’s release of the fiscal 2014 budget request.
Now that the U.S. Navy’s fiscal 2014 budget proposal is out and aircraft carrier acquisition, repair and funding is better defined, service officials expect to secure an agreement soon for inactivation work on the USS Enterprise, the nation’s first nuclear-powered carrier. “The Enterprise is funded and supported in this budget,” Rear Adm. Joseph Mulloy, deputy assistant Navy secretary for budget, said April 10 during a budget briefing. “In fact, Enterprise will go to contract sometime here in the spring.”
