With the 2012 Olympics just a month away, the U.S. government is poised to set a new world record of its own — pulling in more than $50 billion in foreign weapons sales for the fiscal year that is not yet over. The previous record was set just one year ago at a little more than $30 billion, according to Andrew Shapiro, the assistant secretary of state for political military affairs.
Technicians at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center soon will begin integrating the first instrument received there for the James Webb Space Telescope. The Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), assembled by the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the U.K., will cover wavelengths of 5-28 microns from the Webb’s planned perch at the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrangian point.
Whether the Navy’s first demonstration of a biofuel-powered fleet represents a one-off effort or the potential start of a new industry may now rest in the hands of the U.S. Senate. The Navy bought 450,000 gal. of fuel made from algae or other crops purchased for about $27 per gallon to power its “Great Green Fleet” in the Rim of the Pacific exercises scheduled to start later this month. But if the defense authorization bill passed by the Senate Armed Services Committee stands, the biofuel-powered fleet would run aground next year.
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While the U.S. Navy is now in the middle of a shipbuilding program that is augmenting the fleet with new submarines, destroyers, amphibious ships and other vessels, the midterm future of those programs is murky, despite the promise of greater naval needs for the nation’s priority shift toward the Pacific.
ORION DELIVERY: Lockheed Martin delivered the fifth P-3 Orion with new Mid-Life Upgrade (MLU) modifications this week to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) more than 50 days ahead of schedule, according to the company. The MLU replaces certain equipment with enhanced-design components and incorporates a new metal alloy five times more corrosion resistant than the original material, reducing the cost of ownership for P-3 operators, Lockheed says.
TEL AVIV — Rafael, Israel’s leading missile development center, has quietly been working on an air-to-air derivative of the Stunner interceptor to be designated Python 6, also known as the Future Advanced Air-to-Air Missile (FAAM).
ARLINGTON, Va. — As the U.S. Marine Corps and Navy start to depend more on tiltrotor aircraft operations to conduct missions, the Navy is looking for ways to better understand and predict the effect of rotor downwash, especially with the expanded use of the aircraft on various ship classes. Of particular interest to the Navy is technology being honed by Advanced Rotorcraft Technology of Sunnyvale, Calif., which, according to company president Ronald DuVal, employs a viscous vortex particle analysis method to better ascertain the effects of downwash.
A $1 trillion reduction to defense spending over 10 years would put the Pentagon’s budget back in line with where it was relative to other government spending in 2001, says a top-ranking Democrat. The military is headed for an across-the-board budget cut that large if Congress fails to agree to $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction by the end of the year. The penalty known as sequestration was designed to be so harsh it would bring lawmakers to the table for an agreement.
NUSTAR FLIES: NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) is in orbit and sending back signals following its June 13 air-launch over the central Pacific Ocean aboard an Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL rocket dropped from the belly of an L-1011 Stargazer aircraft that took off from Kwajalein Atoll. Ignition took place at approximately 12 p.m. EDT. NuSTAR separated 13 min. later, and the first signals from the spacecraft were received by NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System at 12:14 p.m.
Sierra Nevada Corp. (SNC) has filed a lawsuit seeking reinstatement of its $355 million U.S. Air Force contract to supply 20 Embraer A-29 Super Tucano Light Air Support (LAS) aircraft to Afghanistan. The company says the Court of Federal Claims action is in response to a lawsuit filed by disqualified bidder Hawker Beechcraft (HBC), which led the Air Force to set aside the December sole-source award and reopen the competition.
Though a senior U.S. Air Force official has cautioned that Boeing’s plan to close its tanker finishing facility in Wichita presents a risk to the $51.7 billion KC-135 replacement effort, the company’s program manager views the shift as an opportunity to reduce cost and gain schedule margin.
A seven-year effort to develop technology for a stealthy, short-take-off-and-landing (STOL) airlifter is ending without transitioning to a development program, but it could feed into the Pentagon’s new focus on energy efficiency, according to the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory. AFRL’s Speed Agile concept demonstration sought to overcome the disadvantages of earlier STOL airlifter designs, the Boeing YC-14 and McDonnell Douglas YC-15, which achieved short-field capability at the expense of cruise efficiency.
HOUSTON — The enthusiasm for a Mars sample return mission remains high in Europe as well as in the U.S., but it can only be realized if the brightest minds in the global planetary science community can marshal the resources to overcome the technical and political obstacles, according to space agency officials who gathered here June 12 for a NASA-sponsored workshop.
As Pentagon spending legislation for fiscal 2013 moves through Congress this year, the differences are shaping up to be more between the House and Senate, rather than between authorizers and appropriators. The Senate defense authorization bill, approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) last month, made slight trims to the investment accounts: about half a billion from the $97 billion procurement request, and $121 million from the $69 billion research request.
SMALL UAVs: The Danish armed forces have placed a $9.6 million order for AeroVironment’s Puma small UAV, following a competitive evaluation, the company announced June 12. The 13-lb. Puma AE is designed for both land-based and maritime operations. Eighteen nations outside the U.S. have purchased AeroVironment’s Puma AE, Wasp or Raven B small UAVs, according to the company. Denmark previously ordered the Raven B in 2007.
