MODULAR SPACE: Northrop Grumman has completed the preliminary design review (PDR) for its modular space vehicle (MSV). The company is designing the vehicle under a NASA Ames contract, supporting the Department of Defense Operationally Responsive Space office at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M. The MSV is “being developed and manufactured as a rapid response space initiative for combatant commanders,” Northrop says. The PDR validates the design and moves the program one step closer to manufacturing, the company says. Major teammates are ATA and DesignNet Engineering.
DUBAI — Even as the United Arab Emirates’ fighter modernization program has taken a new turn into uncertainty, it is becoming increasingly apparent that next month could see an unusual flurry of big-ticket procurement announcements in Switzerland, Japan and India as well as the Persian Gulf.
HOUSTON — Russia’s Soyuz TMA-22 spacecraft sped toward a midweek docking with the International Space Station Monday, following launch with a three-man crew to mark the first piloted flight of the venerable booster since the August crash of the cargo version. Heavy snow fell as the Soyuz 28 mission carrying Russians Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin and NASA’s Dan Burbank lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Nov. 13 at 11:14 p.m. EST, or Nov. 14 at 10:14 a.m. local time.
The U.S. defense department now knows that its big weapons programs can incur multiple cost breaches and still not experience one penny of punishment from appropriators. Take fiscal 2012 appropriations, in which four programs with multiple breaches have so far not seen any funding cuts.
DUBAI — Introducing aircraft such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter may require heavier use of simulators than was necessary for the previous generation of aircraft, says Air Marshal Geoff Brown, the chief of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).
New details are emerging about the design and operational plans for an advanced U.S. Air Force missile and its exotic high-power microwave (HPM) weapons payload. The next-generation weapon is a product of the Boeing and Air Force Research Laboratory’s Counter-electronics HPM Advanced Missile Project (Champ).
AIR FORCE Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, Orlando, Fla., is being awarded a $841,500,000 firm-fixed-price contract for Sniper targeting pod sensor enhancement on hardware and software upgrades and associated host platform integration, initial spares, technical manual and technical orders, repair data, studies and spares recapitalization, and support the standup of organic depot repair requirements for the sustainment of the legacy Sniper pod fleet. ASC/WNQK, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8626-12-D-2138).
PARIS — Ministers from eight European nations are appealing to the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, to fully fund two large-scale projects of strategic interest to European energy, environmental monitoring and security. In a Nov. 9 letter to EC Vice President Antonio Tajani and Commissioners Janusz Lewandowski and Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, the ministers took issue with a plan to fund the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) project and a nuclear fusion program dubbed ITER outside the EU’s forthcoming multiyear budget.
NEW DELHI — India is reviewing its offset policy in defense procurement deals to remove all “ambiguities,” but there are no plans to do away with the clause. “The review is being done to take care of ambiguity in the current policy,” says Amit Cowshish, a defense finance official.
Advances in modular-architecture concepts could make the business case for a space solar-power (SSP) platform close in as little as a decade, provided there is funding to advance the technology readiness levels needed to make the concepts work.
ARMY Force Protection Industries Inc., Ladson, S.C., was awarded an $185,864,608 firm-fixed-price contract. The award will provide for the modification of an existing contract to procure 167 Buffalo A2 vehicles, without bar armor installed, and 102 bar armor kits. The work will be performed in Ladson, with an estimated completion date of Nov. 1, 2012. One bid was solicited, with one bid received. The U.S. Army TACOM, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (W56HZV-08-C-0028).
PARIS — Russia’s Phobos-Grunt spacecraft remains stranded in low Earth orbit, and if engineers are unable to salvage the Mars-bound mission by December, the robotic probe is expected to burn up on re-entry and pose no danger to Earth, the head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos said Nov. 14. “There is no doubt that the device will explode when entering the atmosphere,” Vladimir Popovkin, general director of Roscosmos, says in a statement posted on the agency’s website.
Laureate Awards March 7, 2012 Andrew Mellon Auditorium Washington, D.C. Aviation Week’s 54th annual Laureate Awards recognize individuals and teams for extraordinary accomplishments that embody the spirit of exploration, innovation and vision. Join us to celebrate their significant contributions and the inspiration they provide. The 2012 Awards will be presented in each of the following categories: -- Aeronautics/Propulsion
Click here to view the pdf Programs In Play: How Nunn-McCurdy Repeaters Fared ($ In Thousands) Programs In Play: How Nunn-McCurdy Repeaters Fared ($ In Thousands) Description Number Of N-M Breaches Request H
DUBAI — The Eurofighter consortium and MBDA are looking at the feasibility of integrating the Marte-ER air-to-sea missile on the Typhoon fighter to meet an Indian requirement that is part of the Medium Multirole Combat Aircraft program.
SALES UP: The U.S. State Department expects this year to have received and reviewed more than 85,000 direct commercial sales cases for the U.S. defense industry to sell abroad – “the largest ever,” according to Andrew Shapiro, assistant secretary for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. “The total value of authorized direct commercial sales per year is now roughly $145 billion, or about one percent of GDP,” he said Nov. 9. Meantime, foreign military sales (FMS) are on course to exceed last year by 9%. For four consecutive years, FMS have exceeded $30 billion.
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While the U.S. Navy remains on course with its current plan to build submarines, carriers, destroyers and other surface combatants, the future remains murky, says Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) CEO Mike Petters. Given the budget-cutting emphasis at the Pentagon and other matters more directly related to HII business, Petters declined to give Wall Street investment analysts predictions for the coming year during a Nov. 10 quarterly financial results conference call.
While others in the defense community fret about the future of next-generation aircraft carrier programs, the Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) Newport News (Va.) Shipbuilding unit remains on course to build the ships, says CEO Mike Petters. The company also remains on schedule for its other shipbuilding plans and the closure of its yard in Avondale, La., Petters says.
As a Nov. 23 deadline bears down on a congressional “Super Committee” charged with agreeing on how to cut another $1.2 trillion from the U.S. budget deficit during the next 10 years, Democrats and Republicans remain far apart.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) Nov. 15 - 16 — American Astronautical Society National Conference, "Celebrating Achievements, Celebrating the Future," Gilruth Center at NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston. For more information go to www.astronautical.org
