Inmarsat expects that costs for satellite-based flight deck safety services, which airlines typically use for ACARS (aircraft communications addressing and reporting system) messaging in oceanic regions, will be 30% lower than its traditional services when the SwiftBroadband Safety Services option is approved for use in 2014.
Thanks to early supervision and a tight working relationship between the U.S. Navy and contractor General Dynamics NASSCO, the service’s Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) vessel is set for manufacturing, the service says. “The Navy worked very closely with General Dynamics NASSCO to identify cost savings early in the MLP design work while pursuing a concurrent design and production engineering approach,” the Navy says in a recent blog.
The heavy-lift Space Launch System that Congress ordered NASA to build is ahead of schedule in some areas despite an austere funding profile, with hardware for the first NASA exploration flight test being machined and a critical design milestone coming up later this year.
Houston — Unconstrained by budget forecasts, and even the limits of current technology, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s 100-Year Starship project is surging ahead with concepts for the first human interstellar mission. The program is taking a visionary look at propulsion systems that extract their fuel from dark energy, manipulate space-time or look to other sources that have yet to be dealt with.
The Senate is poised to vote early Sept. 22 on a bill to continue funding the government in fiscal 2013 — legislation that will freeze funding for all programs, including Boeing’s U.S. Air Force KC-46A tanker program in a year when its budget was expected to take off. In fiscal 2012, the program received $877.1 million. The fiscal 2013 request was $1.8 billion.
NEW DELHI — India successfully conducted a development test of its nuclear-capable, surface-to-surface Agni-IV missile on Sept. 19 from a military base in the eastern state of Odisha. The missile will be introduced into service next year after undertaking one more developmental trial, a defense ministry official says.
NEW DELHI — The Indian air force (IAF) aims to spend $37 billion over the next 10 years to step up its modernization program, according to a defense official. “We are on [a] path of modernizing our assets,” says Air Marshal R.K. Sharma, IAF’s deputy chief. “In the last five-year plan [2007-12], IAF procurements were around $27 billion. We envisage [purchasing] assets worth more than $37 billion over the next two plan periods [by 2022].”
If budget sequestration hits, the U.S. Defense Department will protect wartime funding first, driving higher cuts to the base budgets. And next, more than 2,000 account lines and their contracts will have to be scrutinized, according to Pentagon officials. It’s not something the Pentagon wants to do, the department comptroller and four generals told the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Sept. 20. They want to avoid it, not plan for it.
With fuel consumption and thermal management concerns increasing as power demands on combat aircraft escalate, the Pentagon is seeking industry input on a national plan for research to address the energy, power and thermal needs of military platforms. A centerpiece of the Energy Optimized Aircraft (EOA) national plan will be the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s Integrated Vehicle Energy Technology (Invent) program already under way to develop adaptive smart aircraft power systems.
The secret to making sure the U.S. Navy’s restarted VXX presidential helicopter replacement effort is not canceled like its previous iteration will be setting a ceiling on requirements early, says Scott Winship, vice president of advanced programs for Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. Northrop is partnered with AgustaWestland, a Finmeccanica company, to compete for the proposed Marine One presidential helicopter. The companies will offer a U.S.-built variant of AgustaWestland’s 101.
JSC SUPPORT: S&K Global Solutions LLC, of Polson, Mont., has been selected by NASA’s Johnson Space Center to consolidate computer product support for the facility’s Engineering Directorate under a potential $50 million, five-year agreement. Effective Oct. 18, the contract includes a three-year, cost-plus, fixed-fee, firm-fixed-price agreement and a single two-year option. S&K Global Solutions’ team includes Booz Allen Hamilton, of McLean, Va., and S&K Aerospace LLC, of St. Ignatius, Mont.
LOS ANGELES — Boeing is revising the CST-100 air bag landing system for use in water landings, after tests and further analysis revealed the space capsule would encounter greater loads than expected on splashdown.
Rolls-Royce has begun testing a high pressure-ratio compressor for a future fuel-efficient engine for subsonic military transports, patrol aircraft and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms. The announcement comes after news that Rolls has not been selected for the next phase of a U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) program to demonstrate adaptive engines for post-2020 combat aircraft (Aerospace DAILY, Sept. 18).
Lockheed Martin officials are creeping closer to a solution to problems with the tailhook design for the U.S. Navy F-35C. The original design failed to snag the arresting wire in early testing owing to two problems: the point of the hook was not sharp enough to scoop under the wire and securely grab it, and a dampener device was not sufficient to maintain a hold on the wire. Essentially, the hook was bouncing upon landing, reducing the likelihood of a successful arrested landing.
