PARACHUTING IN: The Dutch defense ministry plans to buy 15 parachute cargo delivery systems through an open competition. The ministry says the payload weight should range from 70-1,000 kg (150-2,200 lb.) and the system has to accommodate A7 and A22 containers. The defense forces are looking for an off-the-shelf system that is certified as being airworthy. Moreover, the military says, “the system with the cargo payload has to be delivered to a predetermined location with a high accuracy, under several weather conditions and during day and night.” Bidders have until Oct.
SINGAPORE — Bombardier earlier this year delivered the eighth and final Q300 aircraft that the Japan Coast Guard had on order, but it is already working to sell the JCG one more. A Japan industry executive familiar with the situation says Bombardier is working to sell a ninth Q300 to the JCG and there is a good chance it will purchase the aircraft. This is because the JCG lost several Beechcraft King Air aircraft in the March 11 tsunami, the executive says.
The Pentagon’s Report to Congress on China’s military and security developments has been constructed this year not as a criticism but rather as a series of questions in an effort to limit political backlash from Beijing.
MAST UP: Norfolk Naval Shipyard completed the installation of the main mast aboard aircraft carrier CVN 75 USS Harry S. Truman on Aug. 20, marking the latest milestone in the ship’s 13-month dry docking planned incremental availability. The 112,000-lb. mast — which is 10 ft. taller and 23,000 lb. heavier than the mast removed on June 18 — supports the modernization of the carrier’s combat systems suite and radars for its new weapons systems.
The HTV-2 hypersonic glider achieved stable, controlled flight at Mach 20 for more than 3 min. before an unknown anomaly ended its Aug. 11 second flight prematurely, says the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa). Although the first and second flights of the dart-shaped, rocket-boosted HTV-2 each lasted only around 9 min., preliminary data indicate the second vehicle was in stable hypersonic flight for longer than the first HTV-2, launched on April 22, 2010.
The Aug. 24 failure of a Russian Soyuz rocket loaded with supplies for the International Space Station has underscored agreement on Capitol Hill that the U.S. should not rely on a single international partner for access to space. But while members of Congress who watch such things were quick to weigh in on the failure, the exact lesson to be drawn depends on the position of the politician in the continuing debate over how the U.S. should get its astronauts to orbit.
LONDON — As Britain’s defense industry adjusts to a new era of fiscal austerity, it has been looking for government guidance on what capabilities to preserve and where it can afford to retrench. But there is now growing concern that one of the key documents to allow that to happen will not deliver what has been expected.
HOUSTON — NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and others within the space agency acted without regard to political influence and in accordance with federal law in their choice of locations for the public display of the retired space shuttle orbiters Discovery, Endeavour and Atlantis, agency Inspector General Paul Martin concludes in an Aug. 25 special report.
HOUSTON — Russia’s Progress 44 supply capsule, filled with 5,900 lb. of supplies for the International Space Station, crashed back to Earth shortly after launching onboard a Soyuz rocket early Aug. 24, injecting uncertainty over future cargo and crew transport plans early in NASA’s post-shuttle era.
While China’s aircraft carrier development program is noteworthy, the Pentagon’s latest annual report on the country’s military underscores the breadth and depth of China’s other naval forces that have established the Asian nation as a maritime powerhouse. Indeed, Pentagon officials say, it is not one ship, platform or development that marks China’s rise as a naval power, but the combined maritime force enhancements.
BAE Systems and General Dynamics are revealing details of their U.S. Army Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) designs, after each received $400 million technology development contracts for the Bradley replacement effort last week. One of the biggest differences between the two teams’ proposals is the engine. General Dynamics is going with the Abrams tank-tested Allison x1100 transmission and MTU 883 diesel engine, while BAE Systems is heading in almost the opposite direction with a new hybrid-electric engine.
LONDON — The Australian defense ministry is financing research efforts aimed at keeping helicopters afloat when they land on water and improving the detection of objects in space. These are two of five new projects the government is funding under its Defense Capability and Technology Demonstrator activity. The total funding for the five programs, which were selected from 119 candidates, is A$13 million (U.S. $13.65 million).
Teal Group Vice President Richard Aboulafia has a simple message for companies interested in the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) market: “You’re wasting your time.” Aboulafia acknowledges such a blunt phrase is “a slight overstatement,” but goes on to say in his August briefing letter, “While UAVs have enjoyed impressive growth and will continue to do so, there has been almost no impact on traditional manned aircraft markets. . . . I don’t think there will be any such impact in the next decade.”
U.S. Navy Undersecretary Robert Work told the Navy and Marine Corps in July to provide lower-cost alternatives to the Navy’s current tactical aviation plan, and to examine the consequences of terminating either the F-35B short-takeoff/vertical-landing version of the Joint Strike Fighter or the carrier-compatible F-35C. Work is seeking decisions in time for the 2013 budget submission.
With the U.S. Navy opening up to competition its lucrative contracts to provide ship- and land-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) services, Sweden’s Saab sees an opportunity to break into the U.S. unmanned aircraft market. With CSC acting as prime contractor, Saab is offering its Skeldar V-200M vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) unmanned aircraft to meet that part of the Navy’s UAV ISR services requirement calling for a system able to operate from its Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.
STATIC FIRE: NASA and Alliant Techsystems Inc. plan a 2-min. static firing of a five-segment, solid rocket motor (SRM) at the company’s test facility in Promontory, Utah, at 4:05 p.m. EDT Sept. 8. The motor, designated Development Motor-3, is the most heavily instrumented solid rocket motor in NASA history, featuring more than 970 instruments. “This test will continue to advance understanding of five-segment solid rocket motor performance and specifically assess performance at the highest end of the motor’s accepted temperature range,” NASA says.
LightSquared is digging in its heels, blaming GPS manufacturers for poorly designed equipment that makes it susceptible to interference from LightSquared’s proposed high-power broadband transmitters that use a frequency adjacent to the spectrum used by GPS.
SOLAR POWERED: U.S. Naval Facilities Engineering Command Pacific has awarded a $500 million maximum, indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity, multiple-award contract (MAC) to Island Pacific Energy, Pacific Energy Solutions and Photon Finance on Aug. 19. The MAC contract will be used for the purchase of reliable, locally generated power from Solar Power Generation Systems (SPGS) at military installations in Hawaii. The work includes installation of SPGS on roofs, parking shade structures and vacant land.
Human-exploration managers at NASA are working out the 5% and 10% budget cuts ordered by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on its programs, including the heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS), even as an outside consultant is telling them their SLS cost estimates were off base before the potential fiscal 2013 cuts were ordered.
LONDON — The U.K. Royal Air Force is due to receive the first of 14 new CH-47 Chinook helicopters for testing in 2013, with the goal of fielding the aircraft in May 2014. The U.K. has long said it wanted to increase its fleet of the Boeing heavy-lift rotorcraft, having announced plans for 12 new aircraft and two additional ones to replace helicopters lost during combat operations. The contract has a price tag £1 billion ($1.65 billion).
