JSF MRO: A 14-member government-industry team is visiting six U.S. military depots — three Air Force and three Navy — to review their capabilities ahead of solidifying MRO plans for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The JSF Depot Activation Team includes representatives from prime contractor Lockheed Martin and major subcontractors Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems and F135 engine provider Pratt & Whitney, in addition to the armed service depot personnel. The group started with the Navy’s Fleet Readiness Center-Southeast in Jacksonville, Fla., a month ago.
NO ISSUE: The ejection of Boeing and Lockheed Martin from India’s competition for its Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) is “a great disappointment,” says the U.S. assistant secretary for south and central Asian affairs, but Washington is focusing on the $35 billion in additional Indian military acquisitions to come. The official, Robert Blake, told defense writers in the capital this week that U.S.
WARTON, England — U.K. Royal Air Force (RAF) student pilots are due to start fully utilizing the Hawk T Mk. 2 trainer beginning in November. BAE Systems recently delivered a new operational capability standard for the aircraft (OC2) that provides embedded simulation on the advanced jet trainer. Instructor conversion and system familiarization is now taking place at XIX Squadron in advance of regular student training starting by year’s end, says Paul Dawkins, a business development director at BAE Systems Training Solutions & Services.
PARIS — The French military this year plans to launch an upgrade of the Rafale fighter’s targeting pod to introduce video capability to the system. The effort is one of a series of Rafale enhancements in the works and on the drawing board, but will be the next to go on contract, says Stephane Reb, the Rafale program manager at French defense armaments agency DGA.
MOSCOW — Development of the new Kamov Ka-60/62 medium twin helicopter — the first Kamov non-coaxial rotor aircraft — is gaining momentum through military orders and government subsidies. Russian Helicopters, the holding company for the country’s rotorcraft industry and Kamov’s parent company, is simultaneously preparing both the Ka-60 military transport and the Ka-62 civil version. The latter has a maximum takeoff weight of 6,500 kg (14,300 lb.) and can carry 12-15 passengers at 290 kph (180 mph) speed over a range of 750 km (460 mi.).
SEOUL — Korea Aerospace Industries will deliver 16 T-50 Golden Eagle supersonic trainers to Indonesia in 2013 under a $400 million contract. The deal further deepens defense technology ties between the two countries. It is a breakthrough for Korea Aerospace, whose previous attempts at exporting the T-50 have all failed. In this case, it prevailed over two other shortlisted candidates, the Yakovlev Yak-130 and the Czech Aero L-159B.
In observance of the U.S. Memorial Day holiday, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report will not publish an issue dated May 30. Our next issue will be dated May 31.
The defense budget season kicks into high gear next week, doubling down on existing fights over U.S. Army vehicles and missile defenses. The House Appropriations defense subcommittee takes up its version of the defense spending bill June 1. Though members remain mum about the details, it will cut $9 billion from President Obama’s $553 billion request. “It will be somewhat difficult,” says Rep. C.W. “Bill” Young (R-Fla.), the subcommittee chairman. “But we will not affect the soldier. We will not affect readiness.”
MERIGNAC, France — Snecma plans to complete testing of a major upgrade of the Rafale fighter’s M88 engine next month, with first deliveries to the French military planned for October/November.
Astronomers using observatories in orbit and on four continents have imaged the particle jets erupting from a supermassive black hole in the galaxy Centaurus A with unprecedented resolution, demonstrating how merging data from multiple sensors is helping science gain new views of complex phenomena. A close-up of the area around the galaxy core was collected by the Tracking Active Galactic Nuclei with Austral Milliarcsecond Interferometry (Tanami) project, which uses Southern-Hemisphere radio telescopes in Australia, Antarctica, Chile and South Africa.
Wary members of the House Science Committee pressed NASA and its two Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) industry partners at a May 26 hearing to provide reassurances that their efforts to supply the International Space Station (ISS) after the space shuttle retires will bear fruit.
Now about half-compete, the U.S. Navy’s DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer is coming to grips with the various program and design changes required in the wake of last year’s Nunn-McCurdy cost-growth breach. The Navy believes that the suggested radar modifications ordered following the breach will meet ship requirements, and the service is working to award a contract for the work to Raytheon within weeks, Capt. James Downey tells Aviation Week.
ARLINGTON, Va. — Lockheed Martin CEO Robert Stevens met questions about potential further production cuts for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Lockheed Martin’s largest anticipated revenue earning program, with resistance during the company’s pre-Paris Air Show media day here May 24.
Controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will shift the agency’s Deep Space Network and other assets to the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover mission, after giving up on the Mars Spirit Exploration Rover on May 25. Spirit last communicated with Earth on March 22, 2010, and engineers say there is a low probability the hardy rover will revive after spending a Martian winter without adequate power for its survival heaters.
HOUSTON — Endeavour astronauts Drew Feustel and Mike Fincke sailed through a third mission spacewalk outside the International Space Station early May 25, installing an anchor for the Canadian robot arm and extending a backup power cable to the Russian segment. The two men also successfully demonstrated an abbreviated airlock protocol before the spacewalk for the prevention of decompression sickness. The 7-hr. spacewalk concluded at 8:37 a.m. EDT.
After enduring flat funding for fiscal 2011, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates a 90% chance it will suffer a gap in polar-orbiting weather satellite coverage prior to the launch of its first Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) spacecraft later this decade, resulting in degraded weather forecasts.
U.S. Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli wants to use an upcoming communications exercise as a blueprint for how the Army acquires new communications gear. Set to kick off next month at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., the six-week, brigade-sized exercise is scheduled to test 29 developmental technologies and six programs of record.
Recent cutbacks in facilities and manpower at Lockheed Martin have been “painful,” but they were necessary steps for the company to address demands from the Pentagon for improved affordability from major contractors, CEO Robert Stevens says.
NASA plans to launch a probe to a primordial carbonaceous asteroid in 2016 for an $800 million New Frontiers mission to bring back a sample for study on Earth. Japan has returned tiny samples of the asteroid Itakowa, but the Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer (Osiris-Rex) program will be the first asteroid sample-return mission for the U.S.
SINGAPORE — Vietnam is planning to launch its first Earth-observation satellite in 2014 and also hopes to have a hyperspectral and a radar satellite at some point. Astrium has been contracted to build the satellite and France is providing financing through its overseas direct assistance program, according to Bui Trong Tuyen, satellite project management unit deputy director for the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology.
BOOSTING SATELLITES: Industry boosters are cheering a proposed amendment to the House’s version of the fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill that would authorize the president to remove commercial satellites and related components from the strictly monitored U.S. Munitions List.
