ISLE OF MAN — Excalibur Almaz says it could be launching manned space tourism operations by 2014. Displaying two space stations and one of its four Reusable Re-entry Vehicle (RRVs) at its Jurby, Isle of Man facility, the company says it will need to fly up to six orbital flights per a year before it becomes financially viable to launch a space station. Each of the RRVs are designed to carry two passengers plus a commander, at roughly £35 million ($57 million) a seat for five days.
PARIS — Both the Airbus Military A400M and Airbus A380 will not participate in the daily flying display at Le Bourget because of unrelated technical incidents. The A400M will only participate in the opening ceremony fly-by. The flight demonstration has been canceled for precautionary reasons after an engine gearbox problem was found on a test flight aircraft.
LE BOURGET — The European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Defense Agency (EDA) signed a cooperative agreement June 20 aimed at using space assets to develop European capabilities for crisis management and common security and defense.
LE BOURGET — With France and the U.K. looking to pursue a bilateral medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft program, EADS warns of creating competing European programs by not going for a broader, cooperative approach. If the French and British work alone “the risk is all the countries develop their own program,” says EADS CEO Louis Gallois. “We need a European program,” he says. If not, “we’ll have two.”
Aircraft Composite Repair Management Forum September 26, 2011 Hotel Meliá Avenida América, Madrid, Spain This technical education forum will highlight key developments, challenges, and best practices in aircraft composite repair and maintenance technology. Walk away empowered with valuable information to assist decisions on future strategy and planning at your organization!
PARIS — The Honeywell/Pratt & Whitney Advanced Turbine Engine Co. (ATEC) says it is on track to demonstrate up to 25% fuel savings on its future HPW3000 engine contender for the U.S. Army that could save up to $1 billion in fuel costs per year.
PARIS — As the Pentagon attempts to trim $400 billion from its long-term budget plans, a detailed industrial base study could emerge as a guide for which contractors and sectors can withstand additional funding reductions, Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn says.
PARIS — Eurocopter, the EADS helicopter business, is prioritizing its potential bid for the U.S. Army Armed Aerial Scout (AAS) program over what could be an iffy chance at winning the forthcoming U.S. Air Force Common Vertical Lift Support Program (CVLSP), according to Dominique Maudet, executive vice president for global business and services. This slightly more conservative position on CVLSP prospects comes after EADS’ failed bid for the U.S. Air Force’s aerial tanker program.
PARIS — After a lull, EADS North America is seeing increased interest from the Pentagon about a potential purchase of Airbus Military C-212 light transports. There have been “intensifying interest” in the last month for the C-212 to potentially serve as a new light mobility aircraft, says Sean O’Keefe, CEO of EADS N.A. The program outline is still emerging, but O’Keefe says it could entail the purchase of 50-100 aircraft.
PARIS — EADS Astrium expects to achieve €400 million ($572 million) in annual savings by 2015 after trimming some 2,000 workers from the company’s 17,000-strong European workforce over the next five years, Astrium CEO Francois Auque said June 18.
The U.S. Air Force and Boeing are testing a fix to correct an electrical problem on the first GPS Block IIF satellite that was launched May 27, 2010, and is now in orbit. The satellite’s “M” code signal, optimized to reduce jamming for military operations, has been shut off until there is verification that the problem has been solved. The glitch was discovered during testing of another GPS IIF satellite on the ground, according to program sources.
GUNNING FOR GUNSHIPS: Alenia Aeronautica, Selex Galileo and Alliant Techsystems this week plan to announce a strategic partnership to work together on an AC-27J gunship concept. The U.S. Special Operations community for some time was interested in such a system, but unable to secure funding. A program revival is still several years off. ATK is making a strategic push to become a gunship specialist, having performed similar work on the Airbus Military CN-235 and Cessna Caravan.
NASA’s Glenn Research Center wants proposals for possible solar electric propulsion (SEP) demonstration missions that could advance the technology needed to push beyond low Earth orbit for human and robotic missions to deep space. A broad area announcement (BAA) issued by the Cleveland field center is open to non-government U.S. organizations with ideas for a demonstration mission that would fly through the Van Allen Belts to shake out the technology for converting sunlight into high-efficiency electric propulsion.
Maj. Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, the new commander of the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, granted nearly all of the available award fee to Lockheed Martin for high marks on the GPS III program, a project that she dubs a “flagship” for her center. The company earned just over $24 million for Performance Period 3, which spanned from May 15, 2010, to May 14, 2011, according to a June 16 memo from Pawlikowski to Joanne Maguire, Lockheed Martin Space Systems executive vice president.
TOKYO — Japan has terminated operations for its first infrared space telescope, Astro-F, after controllers were unable to restore battery operations aboard the satellite. This satellite had renewed the 20-year-old all-sky maps made by Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), a joint project of the U.S., U.K. and the Netherlands.
Fresh off a hearing about continued cost increases on Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) on June 16 approved a bill that would require the government to buy the next batch of aircraft on a fixed-price contract, requiring the Pentagon’s largest contractor to absorb any additional costs. “That’s really an overhaul of how we acquire large items such as the Joint Strike Fighter,” Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), committee chairman, told reporters June 17 in unveiling the markup.
GIVING SHELTER: The Indian army has received integrated, thermally regulated shelters to protect soldiers against the extreme climatic conditions of the Himalayan region. The shelters, designed and developed by the country’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), are equipped with integrated temperature regulators, biodigestors and air-monitoring systems, says V.K. Saraswat, scientific adviser to the defense minister. The shelters have been designed to withstand earthquakes, winds up to 120 mph and temperatures down to -35C.
PARIS — Marshall Aerospace is trying to entice the U.K. to upgrade some of its Royal Air Force C-130s to address maritime patrol needs left unmet following the cancellation of the Nimrod MRA4 program. At this point, the company is still in the early stages of defining its plans. It notes that “we would be seeking to address part or all of the maritime capabilities (search and rescue, maritime surveillance, maritime patrol and maritime attack) although the solution is not defined.”
HOUSTON — NASA’s four STS-135 astronauts marched through their last suited ascent simulations on June 16, lifting off four times in an integrated training session with their Johnson Space Center Mission Control team to test their readiness to tackle the shuttle program’s final flight, a 12-day supply mission to the International Space Station. The mission is scheduled for a July 8 liftoff at 11:38 a.m. EDT.
The U.S. Navy is finding more structural problems with its new Littoral Combat Ships (LCS). The service acknowledged June 17 that LCS-2—the USS Independence built by the subsidiary of Australia’s Austal and General Dynamics—“is experiencing galvanic corrosion and pitting in the area of the water jet propulsion ‘tunnel’ areas due to dissimilar metals.”
ST. CLOUD, France — Dassault Aviation is once again proposing the Heron TP unmanned aircraft to meet the French government’s near-term military needs in Afghanistan, either through a sale or fee-for-service arrangement.
As the U.S. Navy awaits its first dual-band radar (DBR) suite for the Ford-class aircraft carrier, there is some concern about just how well the sensor package will operate on its first deployment at sea later this decade. The DBR combines S-band and X-band radars to provide a larger and more enhanced defensive bubble for vessels. Navy officials consider it a steppingstone for its future Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) to provide ship and ballistic missile defense (BMD).
