NEW DELHI — India’s budget for space projects will see a slight increase of just over 1% for the 2012/2013 fiscal year, as the country’s space agency prepares human spaceflight missions and readies its long-awaited Geostationary Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mk. III, designed to make India self-reliant in boosting heavier communication satellites.
BARCELONA, Spain — The German defense ministry is considering an upgrade of the Taurus cruise missile currently operational on its Tornado fighter. A key element of the upgrade would be a data link to allow the missile to provide battle damage information, and possibly inflight retargeting, also providing an anti-ship capability to the weapon. The full scope of the upgrade package has not been set, however.
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CLEVELAND, Ohio — NASA should cut back on the breadth of its aeronautics research to free up funds within a flat budget to return to X-plane flight research, says a new report by the National Research Council (NRC). At only 3% of the space agency’s budget, aeronautics research funding is spread too thinly and unable to advance projects to the flight stage, which is vital to convincing industry and regulators to adopt new technologies, the report says
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Launch of the next hypersonic flight experiment under a U.S.-Australian joint program has been scheduled for May 1, from Kauai, Hawaii, carrying a supersonic-combustion ramjet payload to Mach 8.5 on a two-stage sounding rocket. Stakes are high following the failure of the second X-51A scramjet engine demonstrator flight in June 2011. The hydrocarbon-fueled, free-flying X-51 is expected to fly again in the summer, but the hypersonics research community needs a success.
An Astrium-built Russian satellite stranded in a useless orbit by a Proton launch mishap last summer may be salvaged to provide broadband satellite links to scientists working in Antarctica, according to one of the effort’s organizers. A working group of Russian agencies and companies with a stake in the disposition of Express-AM4 will decide later this month what to do with the spacecraft, which has been declared a total loss by its insurance underwriter (Aerospace DAILY, Sept. 12, 2011).
LONDON — European engine makers MTU and Avio have followed the lead of aircraft makers EADS Cassidian and Alenia Aermacchi in teaming up for potential cooperation in the field of medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) engines.
INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY: The British Parliament will scrutinize whether the U.K. government’s new defense industrial policy will provide the potential to address future threats. The body’s defense committee has just launched the new inquiry, only six weeks after the Defense Ministry published its industrial strategy white paper. That document caused some anxiety in industry because of its emphasis on buying off-the-shelf equipment and its lack of concrete steps to preserve industrial capabilities.
U.S. Air Force planners expect commercial communications satellites to have an ever-larger role in the operation of remotely piloted aircraft (RPAs) as war-on-terror funding dwindles and the U.S. military’s focus shifts to other theaters, including Africa, Latin America and the U.S. border regions.
HOUSTON — Robonaut 2, NASA’s five-year-old collaboration with automaker GM, has generated a prototype Human Grasp Assist device, or Robo-Glove, that shows promise as an aide to manufacturers and their workers by lowering the risk of costly repetitive-stress injuries as well as to spacewalking astronauts by enhancing their grip.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) put two of the U.S. Navy department’s biggest programs — the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) and the Ford CVN-78 aircraft carrier — in the crosshairs March 15 during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Navy’s fiscal 2013 budget request.
While the U.S. Navy has made strides in addressing congressional concerns about its small-boat procurement and maintenance, the service still can make improvements, a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report says. “The Navy has noted that successful execution of its maritime strategy requires the acquisition of not only surface combatants, but also small boats,” GAO notes in its March report. “The Navy reported that it received about $135 million in fiscal year 2010-2012 base procurement funding for small boats.”
The prospect of deep reductions to next year’s defense budget is already having a “chilling effect” on industry, and Congress should not wait until after the elections to deal with the deficit, the president of the nation’s largest defense company told a Capitol Hill audience March 14.
INDIAN AFFAIRS: EADS Cassidian has appointed Peter Gutsmiedl as the first chief executive officer of its India operations. Gutsmiedl, who will be based in Bengaluru, will lead the next phase of Cassidian’s engagement with India, a company release said March 14. Before assuming the new position, Gutsmiedl served in various senior and board-level roles at Cassidian, which is the security and defense company of EADS.
Under pressure from Gulf Coast state politicians, U.S. Air Force leadership confirmed they are reconsidering their plan to move C-130s to Montana from Texas. And the Air Force plans to wrap up its acquisition strategy for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program this spring, in a way that allows for increased competition. Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz offered these updates to the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee during a March 14 hearing.
Some astronauts who have spent extended periods in microgravity on the International Space Station (ISS) have developed abnormalities in their eyes and pituitary gland/brain connectors that are similar to a type of intracranial hypertension that occurs on the ground. The finding may help earthbound physicians understand what causes the potentially serious condition, but it already has NASA flight surgeons pondering how they can mitigate it when astronauts travel into deep space.
U.S. Navy aircraft took the biggest hit among naval procurement and maintenance accounts in the Pentagon’s proposed fiscal 2013 budget request, continuing a trend that developed in the latter half of the previous decade. The Pentagon cut about $14.6 billion from its fiscal 2013 request for Navy aircraft procurement compared to the proposed budget from the previous year. At the same time, the current proposal cuts about $3 billion from aviation operations and maintenance compared to fiscal 2012.
BARCELONA, Spain — Italy is exploring upgrades to its MBDA Storm Shadow cruise missile, in part reflecting lessons learned from last year’s NATO-led air war over Libya, where the Italian air force first used the weapon. Some of the upgrades are in line with what France and the U.K. are doing. The two partners behind the original development of the cruise missile also have committed to jointly explore upgrade options.
BARCELONA, Spain — Sagem expects to complete development of the laser-guided version of the AASM (Armement Air-Sol Modulaire) powered bomb this year. The laser guidance kit augments the inertial navigation system guidance with GPS updates. It is the third member of the AASM (or Hammer) weapon family, along with the INS/GPS system fielded first and the version augmented with an infrared seeker used operationally last year in Libya as well.
EXIT SIGN: The Canadian government has not ruled out the idea of pulling out of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, Associate Defense Minister Julian Fantino said March 13, according to Reuters. “We have not as yet discounted the possibility of backing out of the program. None of the partners have,” Fantino told the House of Commons defense committee.
BARCELONA, Spain — Astrium is trying to drum up European interest in its geostationary Earth-observation (EO) satellite concept, including a recent briefing to the European Defense Agency (EDA) to garner funding support.
