LONDON — The Indian government has named the final candidates in its Medium Multirole Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) program. The MMRCA competition keeps the Eurofighter Typhoon and Dassault Rafale in the mix. Saab confirms the Gripen has been eliminated. Industry officials indicate the other three contestants — the Boeing F/A-18E/F, Lockheed Martin F-16 and MiG-35 — also have been eliminated, although India will not formally announce the lineup until April 28.
swap meet: South Korea and Spain will exchange spare parts to cut the cost of keeping old fighters flying. The Spanish air force will supply parts for F-4 Phantoms to the South Korean air force, which will reciprocate by sending parts that Spain can use on F-5B Freedom Fighters. Spain’s Phantom parts are presumably surplus, since it retired the type in 2002. It operated F-4Cs, whereas South Korea has F-4Es. South Korea flies F-5E/Fs, while Spain has F-5Bs.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates will leave office June 30 and Leon Panetta, currently director of the CIA, will take over leading the Pentagon starting July 1, a senior administration official says. The moves assume Senate confirmation in time for the change of commands. If so, Panetta will become defense secretary as lawmakers are still likely to be hammering out the fiscal 2012 budget.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — NASA managers on April 27 cleared Endeavour for a launch attempt at 3:47 p.m. EDT April 29 on STS-134, the last mission for the orbiter designated OV-105, with one flight to follow before the shuttle program ends. “Endeavour’s in great shape. We had an easy call to say that we’re ready to go. We’re looking forward to Friday’s launch,” says Mike Moses, launch integration manager. The weather outlook for the flight is good, with just a 20% chance that crosswinds would violate launch constraints.
Boeing is looking to add capacity to its defense business through organic growth as well as via merger and acquisition activity. “We are convinced that this is an incredibly important area,” Chairman, President/CEO James McNerney told analysts April 27. “The bias is to keep developing that field aggressively.” The potential shopping list for Boeing Defense, Space and Security (BDS) is broadly based, but not in its traditional strength areas of fighters or tankers, in which it made gains over the past year despite declining defense budgets.
Shipbuilders that want to obtain or retain U.S. Navy work should look to the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program for inspiration, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus says. “You have to build with open architecture,” Mabus told a group of defense writers in Washington on April 27. “You have to build modular ships like the LCS, so you don’t have to change the hull when technology changes.”
One of the biggest lessons the U.S. Navy learned during the recent Libyan conflict and global disaster relief efforts is the ability to use its amphibious ships for roles and missions generally identified with aircraft carriers. “We don’t have 11 carriers; we have 22 because the big-deck amphibs can do the same things, in a different way,” Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus told a group of defense writers in Washington April 27.
From the hazards posed by deep-space radiation to the subtleties of spacesuit and closed-loop life-support system design, the U.S. faces significant technical and financial challenges if humans are to break out of low Earth orbit, according to witnesses testifying before a National Research Council (NRC) panel.
BEIJING — The Boeing Vigilare command-and-control system is ready for operation in Australia after passing its last formal test. As part of the trials, conducted at RAAF Williamtown in Newcastle, New South Wales, the system was used in an exercise in which pilots and air defense operators were trained as instructors and controllers in advanced fighter tactics.
NEW DELHI — The Indian army is trying to stay mindful of cultural differences and stress management as it develops training strategies for new recruits. “We are now dealing with new-age soldiers,” says Brig. Gurdip Singh, commandant at the Madras Engineer Group and Center (MEG&C). “Their thinking levels are different. We ensure that our training patterns don’t add any stress to a young recruit. The days of corporal punishment have gone. Instructors are told to handle every candidate differently.”
NEW DELHI — An explosive-detection kit (EDK) developed by India’s secretive defense research agency soon will be introduced to U.S. government personnel. U.S.-based Crowe & Co. has signed a memorandum of understanding with India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) to license the EDK technology. The kit, developed by DRDO’s High-Energy Material Research Lab (HEMRL), is already in use with the Indian armed forces, paramilitary and state police.
Next month the U.S. Army will kick off a two-year competition for a contract to supply 70,000-100,000 new carbine rifles to replace the M4. Late last month the Army hosted an industry day to answer questions and provide the assembled industry representatives a little more guidance on what will be in the request for proposals (RFP).
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — Countdown clocks at Kennedy Space Center began ticking down on April 26 toward the planned April 29 liftoff of space shuttle Endeavour, carrying a particle physics experiment and spare parts to the International Space Station on NASA’s penultimate shuttle flight. Launch of the STS-134 mission, the 25th and final flight for Endeavour, is targeted for 3:47 p.m. EDT. Meteorologists with the U.S. Air Force’s 45th Space Wing are forecasting an 80% chance that the weather will be suitable for flight.
The first Space-Based Infrared System (Sbirs) has been encapsulated in preparation for a May 6 launch into geosynchronous orbit (GEO), according to U.S. Air Force officials. The trip to GEO will take about nine days, says James Sponnick, mission operations director for United Launch Alliance, which built the Atlas V 401 configuration rocket that will carry the satellite.
Details have begun to emerge on Canada’s ambitious C$5 billion ($5.26 billion) plan to buy thousands of new tactical wheeled vehicles — including reconnaissance vehicles, infantry carriers and logistics trucks — as the date approaches for contract awards.
The U.S. Navy appears to be finally throwing its weight behind electric-drive propulsion, and it’s about time. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine how a service that was so relatively quick to recognize and embrace the benefits of nuclear-powered propulsion for its aircraft carriers and submarines could take so long to develop deployable electric- and hybrid-drive ships.
Iran’s government networks have been infiltrated by a cyberworm for the second time in eight months, according to one of Tehran’s officials. Dubbed the “Stars” worm, “the new cyberproblem has been detected and is undergoing forensic examination,” according to Iran’s MehrNews agency. Some of the nation’s industrial processes, including its nuclear program, were infected by the Stuxnet Worm in September 2010.
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HUMMING AWAY: Flight testing of the Boeing A160T Hummingbird unmanned helicopter resumed on April 25 at Victorville, Calif., after tail-rotor modifications. The A160T has been grounded since an aircraft crashed in September 2010 in Belize while being operated by U.S. Special Operations Command, carrying the Forester foliage-penetration radar. The first production A160T rolled off Boeing’s assembly line in Mesa, Ariz., on March 17 and will fly later this spring.
