Special operators in remote locations will soon have the ability to refuel one of their hand-launched UAVs simply by visiting a local market. Lockheed Martin’s Stalker eXtreme Endurance (XE) UAV — an upgrade to its Stalker in operation since 2006 — uses a propane fuel cell along with a small, conventional, lithium-polymer battery.
Senators who agree that NASA is taking too long to develop a design and procurement strategy for the heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) that Congress ordered last year cannot agree among themselves on exactly what that design should be. At issue is what kind of power will be used in the strap-on boosters needed to get the SLS off the pad, pitting powerful senators from both sides of the aisle against members of their own political parties in a letter-writing campaign to the executive branch aimed at generating jobs for their constituents.
The cyber-cavalry is coming over the horizon to save U.S. industries from foreign intelligence organizations and criminals who prey on increasingly vulnerable commercial Internet communications. A pilot program being tested by at least 20 companies, four Internet providers and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will soon be expanded to the rest of the industrial base, a top defense official says.
UUV MOTHERSHIP: The U.S. Navy is doing an analysis of alternatives (AOA) for its proposed Large Displacement Unmanned Underwater Vehicle, a “mothership” platform that would operate underwater and release and control other smaller unmanned underwater vehicles, says Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder, director of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. “We only just started the AOA,” Klunder said after an Aug. 18 panel discussion at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International’s Unmanned Systems North America 2011 conference.
NEW DELHI — India’s air force and navy will take the final deliveries of the 123 Hawk advanced jet trainers (AJT) they have ordered by 2016. Defense Minister A.K. Antony says the government signed an agreement in March 2004 with BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce Turbomeca U.K. for procurement of 24 Hawks, with state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) building another 42 aircraft under the technology-transfer route.
NEW DELHI — The Indian Air Force (IAF) is taking steps to reduce crashes, after having lost 26 fighter aircraft during the last three years, Defense Minister A.K. Antony says. “Six service personnel and six civilians were killed, and 25 civilians were injured in these accidents,” Antony says. Antony says the government has taken steps to reduce crashes, including “increased use of simulators to practice procedures and emergency actions, [and] focused and realistic training with additional emphasis on critical aspects of [the] mission.”
The Pentagon has approved the requirement for an “endurance upgrade” to the U.S. Navy’s Northrop Grumman MQ-8 Fire Scout unmanned aircraft system, with a larger air vehicle to provide increased payload and range to support special operations forces. After also evaluating the Boeing A160T Hummingbird and Lockheed Martin/Kaman K-Max unmanned helicopters, the program office has recommended using the Bell 407 airframe, Capt. Patrick Smith, the Navy’s Fire Scout program manager, said Aug. 17 at the AUVSI International show in Washington.
SINGAPORE — Japan’s coast guard has ordered three Eurocopter EC225 helicopters to help replenish its fleet in the wake of the March tsunami. Coast guard helicopters were damaged in the tsunami and rendered unserviceable, says Eurocopter, adding that the coast guard’s move to purchase three EC225s will replenish its fleet and give it the technology it needs to perform anti-piracy missions and conduct complex search-and-rescue missions. It says the coast guard purchased two EC225s in 2006.
Aerovel’s Flexrotor VTOL long-endurance small UAV, designed by some of the same engineers who developed the Insitu ScanEagle, has completed its first transition from rotor-borne vertical to wing-borne horizontal flight.
BIOFUEL PUSH: Obama administration officials say the U.S. Navy will provide the market for the nation’s nascent biofuel industry as part of a White House initiative to kick-start the alternative energy sector. The Navy and Marine Corps will partner with the Energy and Agriculture departments to share equally in a $510 million investment over three years — estimated at half the private sector’s cost — in the production of so-called “drop-in” aviation and marine biofuels, which can be used with existing fuels to power military and commercial vehicles.
Controllers in Nigeria and the U.K. are commissioning NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X following the launch early Wednesday on a Dnepr vehicle that lifted off from Yasny, in southern Russia. Ground stations in Guildford, U.K., and Abuja, Nigeria, established contact with the spacecraft in their 686-km (426-mi.) Sun-synchronous orbits following separation from the launch vehicle, and reported a successful launch.
HOUSTON — NASA Johnson Space Center safety chief Terry Wilcutt, a veteran astronaut, has been appointed to succeed Bryan O’Connor as the agency’s chief of safety and mission assurance, effective Sept. 1. “As NASA looks beyond the space shuttle to new programs of human exploration, technology development and scientific research, we remain committed to the highest standards for mission success and the well-being of our workforce,” says NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, who announced the appointment late Aug. 16.
MOSCOW — The conflict in Libya has cost Rosoboronexport $4 billion in contracts that have been canceled or pending deals that were not finalized, estimates Alexander Mikheev, the company’s deputy director general. The turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa “has had an effect on our contract portfolio,” he says, noting that the entity’s backlog stood at $36 billion, down slightly from $37 billion earlier in the year.
BUDGET BATTLE: U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says upcoming budget cuts will affect national security, and that he and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton want the U.S. public — and their elected leaders — to recognize the importance of keeping a strong national defense. Panetta says Washington must look beyond discretionary accounts like the Defense and State departments.
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan’s state-owned aerospace conglomerate Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC) aims to design and build a new jet trainer, the XAT-5. “The concept is based on the corporation’s Indigenous Fighter (IDF), but the internal structure may change,” says Mike Lee, secretary-general of the National Defense Industrial Association of Sino and special assistant to AIDC Chairman Jason Liu.
HOUSTON — The U.S. remains top ranked among 10 nations in space competitiveness for 2011, but it is losing ground to global competitors as its space policy undergoes a major transition, especially in the area of human spaceflight, according to the Futron Corp.’s 2011 Space Competitiveness Index.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Brett Lambert, the Pentagon’s industrial policy chief, says access to cash is a potentially major problem for third- and fourth-tier suppliers, who are critical to building and maintaining defense systems. This is one the preliminary findings of his sweeping “sector-by-sector, tier-by-tier” industrial base study, which is under way now (Aerospace DAILY, Aug. 4). “The small guys are getting squeezed for credit,” he tells Aviation Week during an interview at the Space and Missile Defense Conference here.
Although U.S. Army unmanned aerial systems (UAS) have logged over 1.2 million hr. of combat flight time over Iraq and Afghanistan, unmanned aircraft still can’t “do it all,” the U.S. Army’s aviation chief told a crowd at AUVSI’s Unmanned Systems North America summit in Washington Aug. 16. “We are not there yet within the UAS arena but give us a bit of time to finish that process,” says Maj. Gen. Tim Crosby, Army program executive officer for aviation. “For UAS in the army, there are so many aspects and new areas we can be focused on.”
Northrop Grumman CEO Wes Bush called for changes in both the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) to boost U.S. exports of UAVs in an address at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International conference in Washington today. Existing rules “hurt industry, without making us more secure,” Bush said, citing the expanding number of countries developing UAV systems for their own use and for “ITAR-free” export.
A ground-based sense-and-avoid system being prototyped by the U.S. Army would have prevented the mid-air collision of a C-130 Hercules airlifter with RQ-7 Shadow unmanned aircraft at a forward operation base in eastern Afghanistan on Aug. 15, a service official says. “Had we been operational with GBSAA [ground-based sense and avoid] we would have completely averted the incident,” says Tim Owings, deputy project manager for Army unmanned aircraft systems.
MOSCOW — That Russia wants to revive its air and ballistic missile defense system — with the much-touted S-500 as its centerpiece — is not a big surprise. But now the design bureau behind the effort has released a road map.
MCLEAN, Va. — It should come as no surprise that China would dominate discussions at a gathering of intelligence professionals. The Asian giant is the closest nation that represents a future peer competitor for the U.S. With the recent buildup of Chinese naval forces, everyone’s trying to figure out what the country has on its collective mind.
