HAWKS GROUNDED: Officials grounded the fleet of Royal Australian Air Force Hawk 127s after one of the trainers at RAAF Base Pearce “experienced a technical fault while taxiing before takeoff” on Oct. 11, causing the aircraft to shut down. The BAE Systems Hawks, which are also based at RAAF Williamtown, were grounded pending further investigation. “Safety as always is our highest priority,” said an Australian defense department statement.
SOC SOON: India is set to launch a system on chip (SoC) for avionics applications. It is a single chip solution for the existing printed circuit board-based onboard computer. A select group of scientists are currently engaged in the design and development of the SoC at the Real-Time Embedded Computer Directorate attached to Research Center Imarat under the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO). The chip will be ready by May 2011.
With the final crews in training for NASA’s last three space shuttle missions, the number of astronauts in the corps is down to 65 – a 25% drop since last year. NASA plans to keep its roster of astronauts at 65 to support spaces station operations and other programs, including the development of the agency’s Orion deep space capsule and planned commercial crew vehicles, said Jerry Ross, a seven-time shuttle veteran who heads the agency’s Vehicle Integration Test Office, an engineering support team for the Astronaut Office.
LONDON – The head of a key U.K. government intelligence organization argues that an effective cyberdefense strategy will require closer cooperation with allies and also with key industry players. In a rare public appearance, Iain Lobhan, the boss of the U.K.’s primary signals intelligence organization, GCHQ, has raised some key issues related to cybersecurity.
Paris – Astrium Services’s Paradigm unit has contracted to use all of the capacity on an X-band hosted payload to be carried on Anik G1, a new spacecraft Telesat plans to launch in the second half of 2012. Telesat ordered Anik G1 in June from Space Systems/Loral without a launch customer for the X-band payload, on the assumption that hot demand for such capacity among government and military users, particularly in the U.S., would soon fill it. Paradigm purchased the payload for its entire 15-year life.
HEAVY TRANSFER: As part of the German military’s review of its force structure, there are growing indications the army will lose some of its helicopter force and have to hand over those responsibilities to the Luftwaffe. At stake is the future of the CH-53 fleet, which has been used heavily in Afghanistan. A service official says a final decision has not been made, but there are growing indications in Germany that the change will indeed take place. The fallout in terms of basing structure is also not yet clear. Also uncertain is how the NH90 fleet will be divided.
United Kingdom – Plans by Russia to start building Israel Aerospace Industries unmanned aircraft have advanced with an industrial agreement between IAI and Oboronprom. The Oct. 12 deal, signed during a visit by Russia’s industry and trade minister, Viktor Khristenko, to Israel, calls for implementation of the agreement. The accord has been in the works for most of the year, but was at risk of faltering over Russian arms sales to countries adversarial to Israel. The core element of the deal is the Searcher Mk III.
Hyderabad – The Research Center Imarat (RCI), a sensitive and less-discussed wing of India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), is playing a key role in India’s next-generation missile programs. RCI is currently involved in air defense systems (ADS) and the Agni-V long-range strategic missile. “The lab has successfully participated in successful demonstration of ADS with over five launches so far,” an RCI official says.
HYDERABAD – Indian armed forces and industry are seizing on an opportunity to equip various Indian platforms with homegrown advanced systems, like navigation systems. The development is a twist of fate as India tries to overcome obstacles once laid down by the West’s Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). Satheesh Reddy, director of navigation systems at the Research Center Imarat (RCI), claims that India can now rub shoulders with the best in the business of making missiles.
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Paris – Space Systems/Loral has contracted to supply a 6-metric-ton, 12 kW telecom satellite to Asia Broadcast Satellite. The Hong Kong-based operator inked a preliminary agreement for the spacecraft, ABS-2, in June 2009, but lacked the financing to close the deal. A management buyout in partnership with the Permira private equity fund, announced last month, enabled the purchase to go forward. U.S. Export-Import Bank financing had been sought for the satellite, but it was not immediately clear if this had been obtained.
CYBER DEAL: A new cyber deal between the U.S. Defense and Homeland Security departments “is designed to put the full weight of our combined capabilities and expertise behind every action taken to protect our vital cyber networks, without altering the authorities or oversight of our separate but complementary missions,” according to a joint statement. Officials announced the memorandum of agreement Oct. 13.
LONDON — A halt in Nimrod MRA4 flight operations owing to safety concerns is expected to last at least several more weeks. The project team and type-airworthiness authority of the U.K. Defense Ministry identified a “potential safety issue” with the MRA4. “The aircraft will not fly again until we are fully satisfied that it is safe to do so,” a ministry official says. The work is expected to take a “minimum” of four weeks, the official adds.
L-3 Communications is playing down the impact on its P-3 Orion upgrade business following the U.S. Navy’s decision to cancel a contract to supply new outer wings. The decision clears the field for Lockheed Martin to supply new wings to extend the P-3’s life. Lockheed has orders in hand from Canada, Norway, Taiwan and the U.S. for 54 shipsets of new outer wings, which provide another 15,000 hr. of airframe life. U.S. customers include Customs and Border Patrol and the Navy for special-mission P-3s.
FOG OF WAR: Total reset and personnel costs for the U.S. military from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan “will probably total at least several hundred billion dollars over time,” according to the Center for Strategic & International Studies, which notes in a new study that they will come on top of operational costs already identified in supplemental spending bills. But the report adds that “obscurity in war cost accounting since the beginning of [war on terror] operations obfuscates any effort to extrapolate future costs based on past and present data.”
Following a successful operational evaluation, the U.S. Marine Corps plans to request approval for full-rate production of the new AH-1Z attack helicopter. A Defense Acquisition Board meeting is set to review the project early in November, says Col. Harry Hewson, who manages the Huey and Cobra upgrade programs for Naval Air Systems Command.
PORT BLAIR, India — India’s Tri-Service Command is gradually increasing its assets in order to monitor Chinese strategy in the region. The command is situated in Andaman and Car Nicobar Islands with Port Blair as its headquarters. O fficials from the Andaman Nicobar Command (ANC), confirmed that India is keeping a close watch on the activities of China and other countries in the region.
The U.S. Air Force’s financial and operational future lacks “complete certitude,” but the auguries are nonetheless grim, says the chief of staff, Gen. Norton Schwartz. In a nutshell, the budget is “likely to continue to flatten” and buying power likely to decrease, Schwartz says.
Sierra Nevada Corp. is moving into fabrication of the aeroshell structures for its planned Dream Chaser lifting-body crew vehicle, after winning NASA approval for the tooling needed to build the hardware.
HYDERABAD, India — India is developing a homegrown computer operating system (OS) to ward off hacking and data theft. V.K. Saraswat, head of India’s Defense Research Development Organization (DRDO), says that India’s new OS will significantly increase cybersecurity.
LONDON — MBDA has completed the latest test in the development program for a French-British warhead designed to improve the ability to defeat hardened, deeply buried targets. The system uses a precursor charge with a follow-through penetrator to destroy hardened bunkers, which could house command-and-control and sensitive military research facilities. The second trial, this one last month at the Biscarrosse missile test range in France, involved a sled test in which the follow-through bomb penetrated the target and exited the other end.
U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command failed to correctly administer a ship maintenance contract covering three global regions during the past four years, a recent Pentagon Inspector General (IG) report says. “In October 2006, the Navy awarded a contract to Fincantieri Marine Systems North America (FMSNA) for ship maintenance services to be performed in Bahrain, Japan and Texas,” the IG says in its report, dated late last month. “Navy contracting officials did not properly manage this contract.”
