HANDED OVER: Three months after its launch, the U.S. Air Force has accepted control of WGS-4 following Boeing’s in-orbit testing of the spacecraft, which is based on the 702HP commercial satellite bus. WGS-4 will be the first Block II in operation following USAF acceptance testing. Block II spacecraft feature three times faster data rate transmissions of airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance imagery as compared to Block I. WGS-5 is in production and due for launch in 2013. The WGS is the successor to the Defense Satellite Communications System.
UNMANNED PRESSURE: Military operations will be a significant contributor to the coming wave of unmanned aircraft in the national airspace system (NAS), according to John Langford, president and CEO of Aurora Flight Sciences Corp. Langford offers this measure of the pressure unmanned aircraft will bring to the NAS: Around 1999, there were about 100,000 unmanned flight hours yearly. It now approaches one million. Almost all those flight hours occurred outside U.S. airspace, in military vehicles on military missions.
NEW DELHI — China’s growing military profile is a source of increasing worry in India, as evidenced by a recent report from the Indian defense ministry. “Rapid infrastructure development in Tibet and Xinjiang has considerably upgraded China’s military force projection capability against India and improved its overall strategic and operational flexibility,” the report says. “India remains conscious and watchful of the implications of China’s military profile in the immediate and extended neighborhood.
NEW DELHI — India’s defense ministry on April 10 dismissed reports of ammunition and other stocks running low, and stressed that the country is fully prepared in the event of war. “I can assure you India is well-prepared and in a stronger position as compared to the past,” Defense Minister A.K. Antony says. His comments come in the wake of a statement made by S.K. Singh, the departing Indian army vice chief, who said hardly any ammunition was left with the service’s armored regiments.
SELECTED ACQUISITIONS: The Pentagon’s 2011 year-end Selected Acquisition Report includes four programs with cost decreases resulting from partial or full cancelation. The RQ-4A/B Global Hawk program cost decreased because of a quantity reduction of 21 from the cancelation of Block 30. Three programs had cost decreases from cancelation: the BDMS Airborne Infrared Program, JTRS Ground Mobile Radio and the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System.
HOUSTON — A European Space Agency (ESA) inquiry points to a still-unexplained problem with a computer communications interface as the culprit in a temporary power loss that followed the recent docking of the cargo- and propellant-laden Automated Transfer Vehicle-3 with the International Space Station.
The beginning of a major downturn is not the best time to launch a new company. But the executives who run ITT Exelis didn’t have much choice. The 20,000-employee defense and information systems operation was spun off last October as part of a breakup of multi-industry ITT Corp. designed to appease restless shareholders. And Exelis, which draws nearly 70% of its sales from defense, clearly was not the piece of ITT that investors saw as a growth play.
Boeing may have clashed recently with commercial air carriers over the issue of export financing. But the head of the company’s defense division reached out to the commercial side of the industry in an April 12 speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, saying that America needs a “game plan” for aviation. Other countries are investing in the commercial and defense industries with the idea that both are integral, Dennis Muilenburg, president of Boeing’s defense, space and security division, says.
QUIET DOWN: The Office of Naval Research (ONR) and NASA are teaming on a project to reduce jet noise. ONR is awarding grants and contracts to six academic institutions and two commercial companies to develop noise-reduction technologies, as well as measurement and prediction tools and noise source models to dampen noisy jet plumes.
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Calling optical systems “the next era of space communications,” NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has selected Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) to host a laser communications relay demonstration (LCRD) payload on a 2016 commercial mission. The technology has two attractions: optical communications use an uncongested portion of the spectrum compared to the radio frequencies that currently transmit data from space; and they hold the promise of orders of magnitude higher data rates than RF communications.
PARIS — The European Space Agency (ESA) is working to re-establish contact with the 10-year-old Envisat spacecraft, which the agency says stopped relaying data to Earth April 8. The 8,000-kg (18,000-lb.) spacecraft has been in orbit twice as long as its five-year design life, but ESA hopes to keep the satellite operating until the launch of a follow-on mission under Europe’s Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) program.
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Hawker Beechcraft is calling on the U.S. Air Force to re-write specifications when it re-bids the botched Light Air Support (LAS) contract. Chairman Bill Boisture says the original requirements laid out by the Air Force did not include standards mandated in other fixed-wing competitions in areas such as pilot safety and the use of proven U.S. or NATO munitions. That should be corrected when the service releases a new request for proposals later this month, he told Aviation Week editors in an interview.
With the ability of heavy-lift rockets to do piggy-back launches, it is surprising to learn that even after making 100 A2100 geosynchronous communications satellites since 1996, Lockheed Martin has yet to see two of the spacecraft launched on the same ride. That string is set to be broken May 15 when the 100th and 101st satellites in the series, JCSat-13 and Vinasat-2, are to be lofted by an Ariane 5 from Arianespace’s launch facility in Kourou, French Guiana. The two spacecraft were shipped to Kourou on April 12.
The Pentagon budget will face sequestration in some form in the coming budget year, a panel of experts predicts, but with qualifications. In fiscal 2013 there is “no way it won’t happen, and programs will be affected” says Sean O’Keefe, CEO of EADS North America. But those facts might lead Congress to legislate some relief. The “fair-share” approach, in which all services bear the brunt of cuts equally, has been the default path in the past, O’Keefe says, but is not the same as cuts based on strategic emphasis.
The U.S. Navy has temporarily suspended MQ-8B Fire Scout flight operations for 14 of the unmanned helicopters in the wake of two recent crashes of the UAVs. No one was injured and no other aircraft were damaged in the crashes, the Navy reports. A Fire Scout operating off USS Simpson (FFG-56) on March 30 was ditched at sea upon returning from a maritime surveillance mission in support of Africa Partnership Station, the Navy reports.
Canada’s government has stripped its Department of National Defense (DND) of the lead role in the country’s planned acquisition of the Lockheed Martin F-35A Joint Strike Fighter, placed a cap on the program’s cost and directed the DND to evaluate alternative ways to sustain Canada’s fighter force, in the wake of a scathing report from the country’s auditor-general, Michael Ferguson.
LONDON — The U.S. Air Force and Lockheed Martin are preparing a short flight-test campaign to assess aerodynamic drag-reduction features for the C-130 to reduce fuel burn on the latest J-model as well as on older Hercules airlifters. A variety of design features are due to be looked at during about a month of flight testing, including winglets, strakes and guide vanes. Wind tunnel data indicate savings of 5-7% in fuel burn are possible, says Jim Grant, vice president for new air mobility business at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics.
AIR DEFENSE: Russia is planning to field its newest air and missile defense system, the S-500, after 2015. Work on the new system, which would be the follow-on to the S-400 now being fielded, will take place at a new facility that manufacturer Almaz-Antey is building in Nizhny Novgorod for around 9 billion rubles ($30.6 million) in government funding, according to the company. The facility is to be completed in 2015.
Boeing is developing designs for a secure mobile phone that could relieve the woes of government officials and senior business executives who use Blackberries for their security features, but hope to have the functionality of a more modern device such as the iPhone. The company is developing the system with partners, but officials decline to name them for now. They say more detail is coming on the design and the team later this year, with a product launch slated by year’s end.
