New programs to continue research into boost-glide hypersonic weapons for tactical and global precision strike are included in the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (Darpa) $2.82 billion budget request for fiscal 2013.
THE PENTAGON — After years of shipbuilding plans that congressional analysts thought were removed from fiscal reality, the U.S. Navy finally appears to be charting a more realistic course. In years past, analysts at the Congressional Research Service and Congressional Budget Office have said the service simply wanted or said it needed more ships than it could afford with the money it was budgeted to spend.
Andrew Mellon Auditorium Washington, D.C. March 7, 2012 The Aviation Week Laureate Awards recognize individuals and teams for their extraordinary accomplishments. Their achievements embody the spirit of exploration, innovation and vision that inspire others to strive for significant broad-reaching progress in aviation and aerospace. Join us at this black tie dinner and celebrate the best of the industry’s best! www.aviationweek.com/events/current/lau/index.htm
PARIS — Europe’s new Vega rocket lifted off like a streak from its launch pad at the Guiana Space Center in Kourou during a flawless Feb. 13 debut that carried nine satellites to orbit: the Lares laser relativity satellite, Italy’s Almasat-1 and seven cubesats developed by European universities.
Bottom line up front on the U.S. Army’s fiscal 2013 budget request: Communications and rotary-wing aircraft win, most new ground vehicles live to fight another day, and the service’s modernization plans look pretty secure. While the service is being forced to trim about 80,000 soldiers over the next five years, it is still investing in upgrades to existing platforms. In fiscal 2013, the Army plans to spend about $3.6 billion on its top three rotary-wing aviation programs and $10.6 billion on ground vehicle programs, the Defense Department announced Feb. 13.
THE PENTAGON — The U.S. Air Force’s $154.3 billion fiscal 2013 budget request — roughly $12 billion less than the service requested in 2012 — includes termination of two aircraft efforts aimed at building partnerships with allies, as well as a new missile outlined for use in stealthy aircraft.
The Obama administration is proposing $525.4 billion in fiscal 2013 base defense spending, along with $88.5 billion for overseas operations — the first real reduction in military spending over the last decade. And it proposes to cap future war spending at $450 billion through 2021.
PUT OFF: The U.S. Air Force is effectively punting on procuring a new fast-jet trainer, dashing the hopes of industry players vying to compete for the T-38C replacement program. Aircraft development will begin in the future years defense plan, but there is no significant funding set aside in the fiscal 2013 request. Air Force officials still plan, however, to begin buying a replacement trainer in 2017.
THE PENTAGON — The U.S. Navy’s topline fiscal 2013 baseline budget request of about $155.9 billion is a study in compromise, protecting some of the service’s signature programs by reducing some, delaying some, and scuttling some other programs altogether. The request is about $9.5 billion less than planned for in the fiscal 2012 budget, and the proposed Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) includes about $58 billion less than had been planned going into the middle part of the decade.
The new NASA budget request pulls the plug on two long-planned joint missions to Mars with the European Space Agency, but agency managers say they are already in touch with their ESA counterparts about a smaller-scale Mars mission in the 2018 planetary launch window.
The U.S. Coast Guard’s fiscal 2013 budget request of about $10 billion — roughly $344.4 million less than the fiscal 2012 plan — looks to fully fund a sixth National Security Cutter (NSC) and start efforts to buy a new polar icebreaker. Shipbuilding analysts have come to herald the NSCs as a major success story and the Coast Guard has made it clear it would like to buy as many of the ships as it can.
DALLAS — French engine maker Turbomeca is seeing a rebound in business and predicts a buoyant 2012-2013 on the back of new sales and increased production. “The trough is behind us and the market is picking up again,” says Turbomeca chairman and CEO Olivier Andries. Engine deliveries climbed to 950 in 2011, a 20% increase over 2010. “We also repaired 1,450 engines, which is 10% higher than 2010.”
Like most everyone else in the federal government, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s budget request has been trimmed slightly for fiscal 2013. In documents released Feb. 13, the agency asks Congress for $44.9 billion for fiscal 2013, down from the $46.2 billion it was budgeted in fiscal 2012.
Faced with a cut in its fiscal 2013 aeronautics budget, NASA plans to reduce its hypersonics research, but maintain spending on technologies for subsonic and supersonic fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft. NASA is requesting $551.5 million for aeronautics research in 2013, down from $569.4 million in 2012. “The budget is very tight. We got $18 million less than we requested,” says Jaiwon Shin, associate administrator for aeronautics.
The sleeper hit of the U.S. Army’s fiscal 2013 budget proposal may just be its network and communications modernization program, as encapsulated in the Network Integration Evaluation effort that takes place twice a year at Fort Bliss, Texas. It’s there that the Army puts an entire Brigade Combat Team (BCT) in the field to take part in weeks of operational assessments of dismounted and vehicle-mounted radios, handheld devices, sensors and surveillance equipment, while linking them though a single robust battlefield network.
THE PENTAGON — The U.S. Navy has grand procurement plans for its submarine fleets — just not right now. The Navy intends to expand its contracts for its Virginia-class submarines and develop the replacement fleet for its Ohio-class ballistic missile vessels, but those plans are being stretched in the face of other increasing shipbuilding needs and decreasing funding availability.
BUDGET COVERAGE: When the U.S. government’s fiscal 2013 budget proposal is released on Feb. 13, Aviation Week Intelligence Network subscribers should be sure to visit http://www.aviationweek.com/2013budget, which will feature all the latest budgetary and programmatic news, data and analysis grouped together in one place. (See p. 7 of this issue for a budget preview chart.) To allow for all the latest budget news to be included, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report subscribers should expect a delay in the arrival of their issue dated Feb. 14.
After two launch failures with Orbital Sciences Corp.’s Taurus XL solid-fuel rocket, NASA has decided to try to launch its replacement Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2) on another vehicle. The agency and the company signed a bilateral contract modification Feb. 2 that will terminate Orbital’s task order to loft OCO-2 under its NASA Launch Services II (NLS-II) contract. An agency spokesman said the action does not end Orbital’s NLS-II contract, which provides NASA with different launch options under a “catalogue” approach.
Lockheed Martin will unveil a reduced-cost C-130XJ variant of the Hercules airlifter at the Singapore Airshow, one that is aimed at customers requiring only a small fleet of aircraft capable of being equipped to perform special missions in addition to providing tactical transport. With 246 C-130Js delivered and another 71 in backlog, the company believes it has barely scratched the surface of the market to replace the 1,200 Hercules airlifters operated by 72 countries worldwide, many requiring fleets of only 4-8 aircraft.
DELAYED PIT: The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) says the Obama administration will announce a delay to planned construction of a Los Alamos (N.M.) National Laboratory facility that would enable the U.S. to produce more plutonium pits, the core of modern nuclear weapons. The administration will announce its fiscal 2013 budget request Feb. 13, and senior officials from the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management will host a conference call at 4 p.m. EST.
NEW DELHI — India successfully test-fired an interceptor missile Feb. 10 from a base in India’s eastern state of Orissa as part of its two-layer ballistic missile defense program, according to a senior Indian defense official.
NASA will take only an $89 million cut in its topline spending request for fiscal 2013 compared to this year’s operating plan, sources said Feb. 10, but the $17.711 billion NASA budget proposal due out Feb. 13 will axe the joint effort with Europe to return samples from Mars, to pay for development overruns on the James Webb Space Telescope.
