The U.S. Navy’s next-generation aircraft carrier CVN-78 Gerald R. Ford could exceed the current contract’s price by about 11%, Naval Sea Systems Command (Navsea) officials confirm. The Navy now has a $5.2 billion design-and-construction contract with the Newport News Shipbuilding unit of Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) for the carrier, which features a reconfigured and redesigned Nimitz-class hull. But the company may exceed that amount by about $562 million, Navsea confirms.
NEW YORK — EADS remains interested in making defense acquisitions in the U.S., but high prices and uncertainty over future budgets could stand in the way. While the European aerospace giant has made several major purchases this year – including a recently announced $960 million deal to buy mobile satellite services provider Vizada – it has yet to pull the trigger on a big acquisition that would move it closer to the goal of increasing its U.S. revenues sevenfold to $10 billion annually by 2020.
HOUSTON — Plant and bacteria strains demonstrated early signs of a beneficial relationship called biological nitrogen fixation during NASA’s final space shuttle mission — a finding that could lead to significant contributions to the recycling of air, water and food within colonies on the Moon and Mars, researchers with Qinetiq North America announced Aug. 9.
Spacebel, a software engineering company based in Liege, Belgium, will negotiate with the government of Vietnam to build its second small Earth-observation satellite. The Vietnam Natural Resources Environment and Disaster monitoring small Satellite (VNREDSat) program selected Spacebel for the task after the Vietnamese government gave the go-ahead for a second satellite, designated VNREDSat-1B.
LONDON — In a bid to increase Australian companies’ workshare on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Australian government is making A$8.2 million ($8.5 million) available as a financing crutch for local companies and research establishments. The money is being provided through the so-called New Air Combat Capability Industry Support Program, the Australian defense department says. Funding is being made available through 2014.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is gaining confidence that an unmanned aircraft carrying electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) sensors can plug a gap in data on ballistic missile threats early in their flight. MDA has conducted 10 experiments using the Airborne Infrared (ABIR) UAV, including the General Atomics Reaper outfitted with the Raytheon MTS-B sensor, according to Rick Lehner, the agency’s spokesman. There are three questions facing the ABIR project, he says: • Do forward-based airborne sensors enhance earlier target intercept goals?
NO-FLY ZONE: The F-35 Joint Program Office authorized a return to ground operations for developmental Joint Strike Fighter test aircraft on Aug. 10 after a weeklong suspension of ground- and flight tests. The grounding followed the Aug. 2 failure of an integrated power package (IPP) that caused a fire in test aircraft AF-4. The fire was contained by an onboard fire-suppression system. “Preliminary root cause indicates that a control valve did not function properly, which led to the IPP failure,” says Joe Dellavedova, program office spokesman.
LOS ANGELES — The U.S. Air Force confirms it will attempt the second flight of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2) from Space Launch Complex 8 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on Aug. 10 at 7 a.m. PDT.
THAI SIERRAS: Sikorsky and Lockheed Martin on Aug. 8 declared the first delivery of the MH-60 to an international customer after the U.S. Navy flew two MH-60S helicopters from Owego, N.Y., to the Port of Baltimore ahead of their ocean voyage to Thailand. The contractors said the Thai navy has expressed interest in additional “Sierra” purchases. The U.S. foreign military sale includes pilot and maintainer training, spares and logistical support.
Aviation Week Webinar Materials Debate: The Future of Airframe Construction FREE WEBINAR! Wednesday, August 31, 2011 9:30 am - 10:30 am EDT (GMT- 4) The webinar will assess the current balance and co-existence of metals and composites, how this may change in the coming years, and what external factors may force the industry’s hand to select one material over another. Sign up now at www.aviationweek.com/events
The U.S. Navy has taken concrete steps to address the litany of surface-ship maintenance shortfalls explicitly detailed in a report last year, but service officials say they still have a long way to go to alter the decades-long course of poor decisions and neglect that crippled those vessels.
The cost of cybercrimes aimed at corporations has jumped by 56% over 2010, according to a new study by the Ponemon Institute. The study, which was sponsored by Hewlett Packard subsidiary ArcSight, surveyed 50 companies to assess their experiences with attacks on their networks and found that the median cost of cybercrimes was $5.9 million, most of which was attributable to hackers using more sophisticated techniques.
Four U.S. companies will spend up to $600,000 each to define demonstration missions that would validate the concept of storing cryogenic propellants in space to reduce the need for large launch vehicles for deep-space exploration. Touted as an alternative approach to space exploration by the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee headed by former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine, orbiting fuel depots would be launched ahead of vehicles designed to escape Earth’s gravity and move on to the Moon and beyond.
Recently proposed legislation that imposes harsher penalties on those who counterfeit and sell military parts is a good first step, but the government also needs to change its purchasing methods to keep counterfeits out of the supply chain, says a board member from the Independent Distributors of Electronics Association.
At the same time the U.S. Navy was promoting — and investing in — the restoration of its DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyer fleet equipped with the Aegis shield as the backbone for international ballistic missile defense (BMD), the ships and radars were being neglected and run down, Navy officials assert. Now, though, Navy brass says it is starting to get back on course to maintain the ships and Aegis radar systems properly.
LONDON — In one of his first public outings since becoming Brazil’s defense minister, Celso Amorim has committed to sustaining the drive to modernize the country’s armed forces. But absent in his Aug. 8 comments were program details, and in particular any mention of the F-X2 fighter modernization program that industry officials fear has been losing steam in Brazil. Boeing, Dassault and Saab are each in the running for the project.
U.S. military and government officials are investing more in advanced computing technology – such as next-generation supercomputers and quantum computing – to better secure their cybernetworks and communications, according to Richard Hitt, president and CEO of Hypres, which has projects under way to develop its digital superconductor integrated circuit technology for such equipment.
PLUG, PLAY: NASA’s Ames Research Center and the Swedish National Space Board will work together over the coming year to develop a small spacecraft bus compatible with plug-and-play avionics pioneered in the Scandinavian nation. AAC Microtec will develop the platform using Ames’s experience in building small scientific satellites. Also contributing will be the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles Directorate, with the aim of producing operationally responsive satellite technology. Testing at Ames is expected to begin in June, NASA says.
NEW DELHI — India is likely to complete construction of its first indigenous aircraft carrier, called the Air Defense Ship, by the end of this year, says Defense Minister A.K. Antony. “Regarding the Air Defense Ship being constructed at Cochin Shipyard Limited, 75% of hull work has been completed and [it] is expected to be launched in December 2011, after which further works will be undertaken prior to commissioning,” Antony says.
NASA will spend up to $10 million over the next two years to fly science and engineering payloads to the upper atmosphere and out to the edge of space on reusable commercial vehicles, some of which will also be carrying humans. Under indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts, seven U.S. companies will provide flight services to the agency’s Office of the Chief Technologist as it works to advance new space technologies for future exploration.
With an eye on future sales in the region, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) plans to establish a Dhruv helicopter maintenance center in South America. “HAL is in the process of setting up a regional maintenance center for Dhruv to cover after-sales service, technical and logistic support in the entire Latin American region,” M.M. Pallam Raju, deputy defense minister, told India’s parliament Aug. 8.
