After months of studying reasons for the growing cost of the United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELV), Air Force officials are focusing on how to reduce – or at least better account for – overhead rates and indirect costs on the program, according to senior service officials.
MERIDIAN LINK: Russian military controllers are setting up the fourth Meridian communications satellite following its launch May 4 on a Soyuz 2 rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. A communications link was established following the launch, and initial checkout turned up no anomalies, according to Russian press reports. The Meridian series is intended as a replacement for the aging Molniya constellation.
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Esterline Corp. is in talks to acquire the Souriau Group, a Versailles, France-based manufacturer of connectors for use in harsh environments, for $715 million in cash. Souriau currently is primarily owned by Sagard Private Equity Partners.
The U.S. lawmaker who sponsored the successful effort this year to retract funding for the F136 alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is considering again whether to push congressionally to make sure the General Electric-Rolls-Royce engine remains dead.
LONDON – Embraer has opted for Rockwell Collins as the provider of the avionics suite for the KC-390 tanker/transport aircraft. The Brazilian aircraft maker has been gradually rolling out suppliers for the KC-390 as it moves toward first flight in 2014 and first delivery in 2015. Rockwell will provide the Pro Line Fusion system.
MOSCOW – Sukhoi has begun flight trials of the first production Su-35S, the latest version of the Su-27 fighter. The flight took place on May 3 at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur assembly site in Russia’s Far East. Sukhoi reports that the first flight took 1.5 hr., and after completion of the factory trials the aircraft will be handed over to the Russian air force. In 2009 the military placed an initial order for 48 fighters, with deliveries to be completed by 2015.
Singapore – Australia has awarded BAE Systems Australia a new contract to provide basic flight training to the Australian Defense Force (ADF). BAE Systems Australia already has a contract for this work, but the Australian Defense Department says it has extended the contract for six more years, effective beginning in January 2012. The new contract is an interim solution until the ADF’s new pilot training scheme, Project Air 5428, is implemented sometime in the period 2015-17, it adds.
Washington – Japanese officials were told that the U.S. needed to keep a Marine Corps air station in Okinawa because of China’s growing military presence in the region, as well as the need to respond faster to natural disasters than is possible from Guam, according to newly leaked information. The normally unpublished assessment about China is part of a special package of articles published by Tokyo’s Asahi Shimbun news organization that analyzed documents obtained via WikiLeaks.
Congressional fights are ahead over how the House Armed Services Committee panel that deals with strategic forces has chosen to fund U.S. missile defense and space efforts in fiscal 2012. The subcommittee added $100 million for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system run by Boeing in a move that would protect the program from failures in the testing process, according to subcommittee chairman Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio.)
LIFE EXTENSION: The U.S. is providing “significant” technical support and life-cycle upgrades to systems sold to Japan and South Korea under old foreign military sales (FMS), says Andrew Shapiro, the U.S. State Department’s bureau chief for political-military affairs. In a May 3 speech in Washington, Shapiro cited upgrades to radar systems for F-15s in Japan and a modernization program for F-16s in Korea. “We are also always looking to strengthen these relationships.
Washington – According to budget documents submitted to Congress in February, an experimental vehicle-mounted active protection system is possibly being readied for deployment to Afghanistan.
IT NEXUS: A conflagration of trends may yet upset the Pentagon’s drive toward getting a handle on its information technology (IT), analysts at federal IT consultancy Deltek said May 4. The convergence of tightening budgets, IT acquisition reform, shifting warfighting requirements, and the move toward IT integration and standardization – all happening simultaneously – could both facilitate and hinder the Defense Department’s progress toward its goal of total IT transformation.
Los Angeles – ATK is gradually gearing up production of composite parts for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter from three ship sets per month to eight under a $110 million contract from JSF prime contractor Lockheed Martin.
Houston – Funeral services were conducted May 4 near Milan, Italy, for Maria Nespoli, the mother of European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Paolo Nespoli, who is serving onboard the International Space Station. She died May 2, according to a European Space Agency statement. Expedition 27 commander Dimitri Kondratyev of Russia, NASA’s Catherine Coleman and Nespoli are scheduled to descend to Earth onboard the Soyuz TMA-20/25S spacecraft on May 23, ending a 160-day mission.
