LONDON — Europe’s space sector received a shot in the arm April 4 with the European Commission’s (EC) release of a policy statement supporting the sector’s long-term ambitions and making “independent access to space” a cornerstone of the push. The statement could lead the EC to devise a space program this year, with a clearer path forward to emerge by June, depending on the input it receives from stakeholders. The program would become part of future multiyear funding.
NEW REALITY: Business spin-offs and divestitures — like Northrop Grumman’s recent shedding of its shipbuilding unit — will become even more prevalent among aerospace and defense (A&D) companies as they focus on rebalancing their portfolios during a period of slower organic growth, according to consultants at PricewaterhouseCoopers’s A&D practice.
AIR FORCE United Launch Services, Littleton, Colo., is being awarded a $292,958,632 cost-plus-award-fee contract modification for an extension of the period of performance of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle launch capability contract by three months. The work will be performed at Littleton. The Space & Missile Systems Center, El Segundo, Calif., is the contracting activity (FA8816-06-C-0002-P00275). NAVY
ARMY The Boeing Co., Ridley Park, Penn., was awarded on March 28 a $528,125,000 firm-fixed-price contract. The award will provide for the procurement of 25 CH-47F (Chinook) new-build cargo helicopters. The work will be performed in Ridley Park, with an estimated completion date of Dec. 30, 2013. The U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (W58RGZ-08-C-0098). NAVY
SOYUZ SCHEDULE: Flight trials are due to commence this year for the new light two-stage Soyuz-1 launch vehicle. The test program will last several years and include five launches. Soyuz-1 was derived from Soyuz-2-1b by removing a side booster and installing an NK-33-1 engine on the central module. The new modification will use the standard nose fairing of the Soyuz family. Soyuz-1 has a liftoff weight of 158 tons and will be able to orbit 2,800 kg (6,200 lb.) of payload.
The House Budget Committee chairman is preparing a government-wide proposal to trim the deficit by $4 trillion over the next decade. But lawmakers say Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who will announce his plan April 5, intends to do it largely without touching the Pentagon’s billions in fiscal 2012. That would be no small feat, indicates Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
LONDON — Violence shaking parts of the Middle East and Africa is raising concerns in the British Parliament about some of the arms shipments authorized by the government. In a report examining arms controls, a group of committees says “both the present government and its predecessor misjudged the risk that arms approved for export to certain authoritarian countries in North Africa and the Middle East might be used for internal repression.” The legislators endorsed the decisions made this year by the government to revoke several export licenses.
AEROSPACE REBOUND: The operating profit of the world’s top 100 aerospace and defense companies climbed 19% in 2010 to $58 billion as the industry recovered from the global recession, according to a new study by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Revenues rose 2%, reaching a record $646 billion. The study also found a steep reduction in large-program charges and impairments that had dragged down performance in prior years.
LONDON — Goodrich has acquired aerospace component provider Microtecnica from private equity firm Stirling Square Capital Partners. The value of the deal, which still requires regulatory approval, has not been disclosed. Sterling says it has affected a 27% boost in revenue and tripled operating earnings since acquiring the Italian company, which also has a research and development (R&D) facility in the U.K.
AeroVironment’s GO-1 Global Observer hydrogen-powered high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) unmanned aircraft crashed at Edwards AFB, Calif., on April 1. The aircraft was 18 hr. into its ninth envelope-expansion test flight. The cause is being investigated. A second aircraft is almost complete, but funding for the U.S. Special Operations Command-led Global Observer joint concept technology demonstration (JCTD) is running out.
NASA has negotiated a series of six one-month contract options with United Space Alliance (USA) to support the final space shuttle mission preparations and operations. Effective April 1, the agreement carries a potential value of $436.5 million, the agency says in a March 31 announcement.
Some work continues, albeit on a low level, at Boeing on the company’s potentially defunct win of a $323 million U.S. Army contract to build new intelligence aircraft, according to company officials. Lockheed Martin/Sierra Nevada, Northrop Grumman and L-3 Communications protested Boeing’s win of the Army’s Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance (Emarss) system in December. Per standard procedure, the Army halted Boeing’s work pending the outcome of a contracting audit.
Boeing’s Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) missile shield program is in a financial quandary owing to ongoing anemic Congressional funding from continued resolutions passed this fiscal year and an ongoing review into the program’s last flight-test failure. Though Boeing is continuing to produce the Orbital Ground Based Interceptors (GBIs) made by Orbital Sciences, some suspect components are on hold pending the outcome of an investigation into what caused the failure during a January intercept attempt.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) Apr. 4 - 6 — International Symposium on Asteroid Mitigation and Exploration, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas. For more information go to http://aeweb.tamu.edu/isam/index.php
HOUSTON — Endeavour’s 25th and final mission, a 14-day flight to equip the International Space Station with the $2 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and external spare parts for the orbiting laboratory’s thermal control, electrical and communications systems, cleared a March 31 NASA shuttle program Flight Readiness Review (FRR).
As Boeing leads the close-out of NASA’s space shuttle operations, it is bidding for work under the second phase of the agency’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev 2) program as well as helping craft the future of U.S. heavy-lift rocket capability.
ANOTHER TRY: Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR) says the first chance to rerun the second X-51 hypersonic demonstrator attempt could come this week, and adds the third flight test attempt is targeted for June. PWR also confirms the last-minute mechanical issue that prevented the March 24 attempt was not related to the scramjet engine (Aerospace DAILY, March 31).
LONDON — The European Union has made good on its promise to launch a snap appeal of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) ruling that Boeing has received illegal subsidies for its commercial aircraft programs.
COCOA BEACH, Fla. — Hoping to parlay the U.K.’s 6% share of global aerospace business into a 10% stake, a British trade delegation is courting potential partners in Florida, which for its part is looking to diversify its NASA-dominated space program as the space shuttle nears retirement.
BENGALURU, India — India’s Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) achieved sales of Rs 13,061 crore ($2.9 billion) for the fiscal year 2010-11 — a 14% increase over the previous year. The government-owned company’s profit before taxes stood at Rs 2,718 crore ($604 million), while its order book jumped by Rs 8,524 crore ($1.9 billion).
Defense officials acknowledge that while the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) may be technically correct in reporting a large increase in the total cost of the Navy’s DDG-51 destroyer program, the congressional auditors fail to give enough credit to the greater number of ships the service is buying. It’s the bigger vessel acquisition, the Navy says, that largely accounts for the extra costs.
LONDON — The World Trade Organization (WTO) has determined that Boeing benefited from state aid that violates international trade rules to the tune of several billion dollars. In publishing its findings on the case the European Union (EU) brought against the U.S. (DS353), the WTO did not calculate the entire level of harm done by the illegal state aid, which it will do later, but found that assistance provided by NASA, U.S. federal and state governments and the U.S. Defense Department (DOD) all benefited Boeing in a way that was not acceptable.
