BENGALURU, India – India’s Parliament Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture says that it is in favor of reopening the old airport now under the custody of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL).
ORLANDO, Fla. — U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, says the country’s human space program is “teetering right on the edge,” with a final shot coming this week for Congress to approve a blueprint for NASA.
Northrop Grumman has powered up its Bell 407-based Fire-X unmanned helicopter demonstrator as the U.S. military moves a step closer to deploying autonomous rotorcraft for cargo resupply missions in Afghanistan. The Fire-X is nearing completion at Bell Helicopter’s Xworx rapid-prototyping facility in Fort Worth, with external power being applied for the first time in mid-September. The modified commercial helicopter has been equipped with computers, actuators and other systems from Northrop Grumman’s MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned helicopter.
BEIJING — Indonesia intends to acquire 180 Sukhoi Flankers and also to buy Lockheed Martin F-16s, Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro says, setting out plans for a massive expansion of the Southeast Asian country’s air combat force. If Indonesia is serious about buying 180 Flankers, then Canberra will almost certainly fund the Royal Australian Air Force’s plan for 100 Lockheed Martin F-35s, says Andrew Davies, an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Until now, there was a significant chance that Australia would buy fewer F-35s.
The U.S. Air Force has selected PMA maker Belac LLC to provide first-stage, high-pressure turbine blades for its aging General Electric F108 engines in a one-year contract valued at $2.6 million. Belac, a joint venture company, is one of a small handful of companies that has developed parts manufacturer approval (PMA) parts for use in the engine gas path. A spokeswoman for Chromalloy, the largest of three stakeholders in Belac, declined to reveal how many blades that the U.S. Air Force would acquire.
COUNTERPROLIFERATION CONUNDRUM: The Department of Defense has failed to identify what proportion of its programs are devoted specifically to counterproliferation since 2004, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) says in a Sept. 28 report. GAO made this assessment after reviewing biennial reports from the interagency Counterproliferation Program Review Committee (CPRC) that include information on projects and activities dedicated to deterring the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Washington-based cyberwarriors and analysts remain keenly interested in the Stuxnet cyberworm that has shut down some of Iran’s digitally controlled industrial capabilities, including some systems in its nuclear powerplant. Mahmud Liai of Iran’s Industries and Mines Ministry says 30,000 computers have been invaded and the event is being considered an electronic act of war against the country. Speculation by the press and some analysts points to U.S. or Israeli authorship of a cyber-delay of what may be an Iranian nuclear weapons program.
The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) is calling for the creation of a U.S. national space management and coordination body that reports to the president as part of a strategy to address the range of challenges facing the nation’s space national security and economic futures.
The U.K. is pursuing approximately 60 urgent operational requirement (UOR) upgrades in the air domain to push needed equipment quickly to deployed forces, says Air Chief Marshal Stephen Dalton, chief of staff of the Royal Air Force. The upgrades are only the latest in a series of such rapid fielding programs, through which Dalton says about £1 billion ($1.6 billion) have been spent on air-related efforts. Many of them are aimed at reducing risk for crews operating in Afghanistan, he tells AVIATION WEEK’s MRO Military symposium in London.
PRAGUE — Russia will use the leased facilities at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to test the proposed Rus M launch vehicle that is expected to replace the venerable Soyuz rocket, and although the Rus M will eventually be launched from a new facility on Russian soil, Russia has no plans to abandon Baikonur before the lease expires in 2050.
THE AVENGERS: The historic legal case over the 1991 cancellation of the U.S. Navy’s A-12 stealthy attack aircraft will get its day in the U.S. Supreme Court, justices announced Sept. 28. But the Court indicated justices will focus on the state secrets element of the earlier legal case. The previously separate Boeing and General Dynamics cases will be combined under this review, scheduled for the Court’s term starting Oct. 1. If the companies win, it could allow them to reargue parts of their case in lower courts.
Kennedy Space Center engineers plan to meet Sept. 29 to evaluate data collected after five lightning strikes hit within 5 mi. of the space shuttle launch pad. Preliminary sensor readings indicate no damage to Launch Pad 39A or shuttle Discovery, which is at the pad in preparation for its last flight. Liftoff is targeted for Nov. 1. A tropical depression that brought heavy rain and wind to Kennedy Space Center is expected to pass offshore the morning of Sept. 30, forecasters with the 45th Space Wing said in a NASA status report.
SUPPORTING MARSHALL: NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center has awarded Jacobs Technology, Inc., a $170 million, one-year contract extension for engineering, technical and scientific support, propulsion work, program management and business services. The extension, effective Oct. 1, raises the total value of the original contract awarded in October 2005 to Jacobs, of Tullahoma, Tenn., to $962.5 million.
MARINE MOVING: The U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on Sept. 28 endorsed Marine Corps Gen. James Amos to be the next commandant, clearing the way for what should be the first aviator to hold the maritime service’s highest uniformed job (Aerospace DAILY, June 17). Amos’ and 3,272 other military nominations immediately were reported to the Senate floor for full-chamber confirmation.
LONDON — The German army is mulling upgrades to its helicopters to improve their self-protection equipment. The Afghanistan-deployed CH-53s already have benefitted from electronic warfare suite updates, but more activities are planned. One effort would involve adding a device that creates smoke around the helicopter, mirroring a self-protection device already used on ground vehicles, Lt. Col. Michael Vogt tells an airborne electronic warfare conference held by IQPC.
AIRSHIP CONTROL: AAI has received an $8.9 million contract from Northrop Grumman to provide a variant of its Universal Ground Control Station (UGCS) for the U.S. Army’s Long-Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV), an unmanned hybrid-airship demonstrator with three weeks of endurance carrying multiple sensors. A mobile launch-and-recovery ground station with multiple workstations will provide flight control of the airship from takeoff to landing.
LONDON — Eurocopter is testing a new hybrid helicopter demonstrator that aims to reach 220 kt. forward speed. The twin-turboshaft-powered helicopter uses two propellers on a short wing for forward flight, with a five-blade main rotor. Eurocopter at one point explored a tiltrotor design but later rejected that idea. The company says the X3, or H3 – for high-speed, long-range hybrid helicopter – could be used for military, search-and-rescue and other applications, including intercity transport.
Roughly 8,000 soldiers from the U.S. Army Evaluation Task Force are camped out in the New Mexico desert taking part in a training and technology experiment that pits soldiers armed with the latest surveillance gear against a “Red Team” of soldiers playing the part of Taliban fighters.
PORT BLAIR, India — The Indian navy soon will add one more floating dock to repair and refit warships at sea. The request for information (RFI) for the second Floating Dock Navy (FDN) facility was issued to shipbuilders worldwide in March. The new facility will be smaller than the existing one and will be ready by 2014. It could lift up to 8,000 tons once fully operational and is expected to cost around Rs 250-300 crore ($55-66 million).
Alenia Aermacchi and its business partner Boeing have won a contract that involves providing 12 Alenia Aermacchi advanced jet trainer aircraft, as well as associated spares and training, to the Singapore air force. Singapore government-linked company ST Aerospace will be purchasing the 12 M346 jet trainers on behalf of the air force, says ST Aerospace, which estimates the aircraft, along with associated spare parts and ground-based training system, will cost S$543 million (U.S. $413 million).
LONDON — The German defense armaments office, the BWB, has formally cleared the German air force to start operating its new tanker fleet. The move gives the Luftwaffe its first strategic refueling capability. The program dates back to 2000, when a decision was made to modify four Airbus A310 multi-role transports into multi-role tanker transports.
Final checkout of Canada’s robotic special purpose dexterous manipulator (SPDM) is expected next spring or summer, once engineers complete analysis of the force needed to remove a failed power controller on the International Space Station. The two-armed SPDM, known as Dextre, was not able to pull the unit during a July rehearsal because the engineering analysis was based on low-fidelity hardware to save money, according to Sarmad Aziz, a robotics flight controller at the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
