LEWIS DEPARTS: After 33 years in Congress, Rep. Jerry Lewis, the former chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, has announced he will not run for re-election. The Republican from Southern California is legendary in defense circles and in a sense represents a style of lawmaking that is being squeezed by an emphasis on government-wide belt-tightening. Lewis led the defense subcommittee dealing with Pentagon spending from 1999 to 2005, which included the early years of the Bush boom in military spending.
HOUSTON — The International Space Station maneuvered Jan. 13 to avoid an impact threat posed by a 5-in. fragment from a 2009 orbital collision involving U.S. and Russian satellites. The 54-sec. debris avoidance maneuver (DAM) was carried out at 11:10 a.m. EST, using thrusters on the station’s Russian Zvezda service module.
In observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report will not produce an issue dated Tuesday, Jan. 17. The next issue after that will be dated Wednesday, Jan. 18. Aviation Week Intelligence Network subscribers may visit www.aviationweek.com/awin at any time for news updates.
The U.S. Army and Air Force are in the final throes of hashing out a memorandum of agreement on the light cargo lift mission, the latest chapter in a years-long saga over this mission despite two wars and one fizzled buy of the C-27J. The agreement is being made by the chiefs of staff of both services. At issue is which service will manage the light cargo support mission; this includes the shuttling of small loads of supplies to forward Army units in the field.
PARIS — The Russian space agency Roscosmos says its moribund Phobos-Grunt spacecraft could reenter Earth’s atmosphere over the southern Atlantic Ocean Jan. 15, raining down 20-30 chunks of heat-resistant debris off the coast of Argentina. But the agency’s forecast differs wildly from those published online by satellite-tracking enthusiasts and professional orbital analysts in the U.S. using the same publicly available data to predict points of entry that are literally all over the map.
LONDON — The U.K. will not set a firm plan until at least next year for when it will begin fielding the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The government has long said it plans to have F-35Cs in service for the launch of its new aircraft carrier around 2020, but has been coy about details of its acquisition strategy. Peter Luff, minister for defense equipment and support, tells Parliament, “We will not set a firm in-service date until after our next Main Gate decision in 2013.” Main Gate is the milestone at which the formal procurement phase begins.
While the U.S. Army’s budget is set to shrink and its end strength decline by about 100,000 over the next several years, the service’s top brass aren’t planning to pull back on overseas deployments any time soon. That was the takeaway from Unified Quest 2012, an annual three-day event sponsored by the Army that uses war games and planning events to help determine what capabilities the service will need to confront future threats and challenges.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) JAN. 9 - 12, 2012 — American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics 51th Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit, Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center, Nashville, Tenn. For more information call (703) 264-7622 or go to www.aoaa.org/events
LONDON — A key planning document the U.K. Defense Ministry has been working on to spell out its industrial strategy in the wake of the Strategic Defense and Security Review is now not expected to emerge until February. The document, which industry hopes will pinpoint areas the U.K. government will continue to support, was due last year. But release of the so-called White Paper encountered several delays, in part because of the change in the defense secretary position; Philip Hammond replaced Liam Fox in October.
FOR LATER: The 15 remaining RD-25D space shuttle main engines are on the way from Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, where they will be stored until needed to power the core stage of NASA’s planned heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS). As many as five of the reusable liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen engines will be used on the SLS, now scheduled to make its first flight test late in 2017.
Sikorsky has unveiled the industry team supplying components and equipment for, and sharing the cost of, private-venture development of the S-97 Raider light tactical helicopter prototype. The team of 35 companies includes several that together are providing 25% of the total cost of building two prototypes of the high-speed, coaxial-rotor S-97. Sikorsky is providing the remaining 75% from its independent research and development funds.
MARKET UP: The global military aircraft market was worth $38 billion in 2011 and is expected to reach $71.9 billion by 2021, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.58%, according to research report being shopped around by ResearchMoz, a self-described market report warehouse. The U.S., then Europe and Asia-Pacific are the dominant markets, with Europe increasing its share of the global market due to the need to recapitalize aging fleets, despite its budget woes.
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
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — To get more out of future unmanned air systems and reduce manpower requirements, UAVs should “be allowed to do more things on their own,” says Al Romig, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works. Speaking at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics New Horizons Forum here, Romig says increased autonomy will be key to cutting cost. “One of the biggest expenses in the military is manpower, so clearly that’s critical to us.”
TRAINER TEAMMATES: BAE/Northrop Grumman are expecting to announce on Jan. 12 that they will bring L-3 Link, known for its crew training experience, onto their team to bid for the U.S. Air Force’s T-X trainer competition. The team, offering a Hawk-based proposal, will likely compete against Alenia’s M346 and Lockheed Martin/KAI with their T-50. Boeing, which had pushed the idea of its own bid based on a clean-sheet design, could eventually opt to join forces with Alenia, but the two so far are mum on negotiations.
Ron Paul, the Republican presidential candidate most likely to support reductions in defense spending, ranks third in terms of donations to GOP hopefuls from defense industry employees.
TOUCHDOWN: The first two U.S. Marine Corps F-35B short-takeoff-vertical-landing Joint Strike Fighters arrived at Eglin AFB, Fla., the home of pilot training for the stealthy Lockheed Martin fighter, on Jan. 11. The troublesome F-35B variant was put on probation a year ago by then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates due to technical problems and lackluster testing performance.
Top U.S. Navy leaders are calling for shipbuilding and vessel repair companies to do a better job in the coming years as the service struggles to bolster and retain its fleet strength in a climate of financial austerity. Speaking Tuesday at the Surface Navy Association’s 24th Annual Symposium, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the chief of naval operations, calmly reprimanded shipbuilders for schedule delays and asked repair contractors to help the service meet its needs.
In its recent request for proposals (RFP) for the latest round of Aegis Combat System upgrades — commonly known as Advanced Capability Build (ACB) 16 — the U.S. Navy took great pains to make sure there would be a true competition for the work, according to officials at Raytheon, one of the competing contractors. When the draft RFP was released last year there was concern across the industry that the wording heavily favored Lockheed Martin, which has been the prime for Aegis for more than four decades.
Now that the U.S. has lowered the flag on official combat operations in Iraq, Pentagon officials and other military strategists are building libraries of lessons learned there. One volume that includes a somewhat detailed account of what works — and what does not — is the book “American Sniper, the Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History,” by Chris Kyle, a former Navy SEAL who spent his career stalking and killing insurgents and other enemies in Iraq.
Engineers developing NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) for future deep-space human exploration missions are polling the worldwide launch industry for an existing upper stage they can use to propel the Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle (MPCV) on two test flights around the Moon.
