BENGALURA, INDIA – In a bid to reduce accidents, the Bengaluru-based Helicopter Academy to Train by Simulation of Flying (HATSOFF) is offering Indian pilots a limited amount of free training in its facility. The move is significant considering the spiraling costs of simulator time, with a majority of Indian helicopter pilots in the civil sector heading to Dubai for training. HATSOFF is a $66.2 million joint venture between Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) and simulation technology leader CAE of Canada.
INDONESIAN TWIN: Indonesia’s two telecom satellite operators, Telkom and Indosat, say they may jointly build a spacecraft to support high-definition TV and broadband demand. The $200 million project would replace Indosat’s Palapa C2, which was launched in 1996 and is nearing the end of its useful life. A newer spacecraft, Palapa D, was boosted into the incorrect orbit by a Long March rocket last year and its life was curtailed to 10 years. The new satellite also could replace Telkom 1, which will end its nominal life in 2014.
Anyone who owns an old car but can’t afford to buy a new one can understand the U.S. Army’s plight in trying to field a successor to its vaunted Bradley Fighting Vehicle. With the Pentagon clamping down on programs that cost too much, take too long and have questionable relevance to current or future conflicts, the Army’s strategy of putting its $40 billion Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) procurement on hold to make sure the service is getting what it really needs is a sound one.
BIG DEAL: The aerospace and defense industry is abuzz with speculation that Boeing could consider buying all or part of Northrop Grumman, fueled by the refusal of Boeing defense chief Dennis Muilenburg to rule out a large-scale merger involving Boeing and another contractor. As Lexington Institute analyst Loren Thompson put it in a recent blog, “Northrop Grumman is the most likely candidate.” But as Thompson also points out, such a merger would likely face some serious government-approval hurdles.
GALILEO TALKS: International Launch Services will submit a proposal this month to orbit the next batch of Galileo Full Operating Capability (FOC) satellites aboard a Proton launcher, following “encouraging talks” with the European Commission. The first 10 FOCs were awarded to Arianespace for launch on Soyuz from Kourou, French Guiana, under a €397 million ($505 million) contract. However, only €700 million has been budgeted for launching the FOC satellites, including 18 not yet contracted. ILS says it can launch the remaining spacecraft within the €700 million.
GENOA, Italy — The Italian air force is about to field the latest upgrade of the Panavia Tornado, effectively assuring an extended life for the fighter bomber in Europe even as other countries are looking at curtailing the fleet’s life.
SELF PROTECTION: Finmeccanica has been awarded a £400 million (€486 million) contract to provide the latest batch of Eurofighter Typhoons their electronic warfare self-protection system. The Tranche 3As are due to be equipped with the same electronic warfare suite already used on Tranche 2 Typhoons, says a company official. The Praetorian defensive aids subsystem includes missile warning sensors, electronic support measures and countermeasures subsystem. Finmeccanica says equipment should be delivered starting in mid-2012.
NEO SHORTAGE: NASA researchers warn the number of known large asteroids, or near-Earth objects (NEOs), may be insufficient to find a suitable candidate for a human visit, and that a space-based NEO telescope survey (NTS) should be considered to discover more targets.
Newly declassified details of the analysis behind the U.S. Air Force’s decision to opt for a next-generation reusable booster system (RBS) reveal a long-term preference for a rocket-based combined-cycle upper-stage orbiter over the nearer-term expendable solution. The RBS plan is in development to replace the Air Force’s Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELVs) beyond 2025, and aims to halve launch costs by combining a reusable first stage with expendable upper stages. The booster would take off vertically and return to a runway landing at the launch site.
HOUSTON — Russia’s Progress 39 cargo capsule lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan early Sept. 10, initiating a flurry of activity aboard the International Space Station that is expected to extend through mid-November. The liftoff at 6:22 a.m. EDT placed the space tug on a course to dock with the station’s aft-most docking port on Sept. 12 at 7:58 a.m. EDT, with just over 5,000 lb. of propellant, water, compressed oxygen, research gear, spare parts and other supplies.
LOS ANGELES — Boeing is sending a full-scale mockup of its CST-100 spacecraft to Johnson Space Center in Houston this week for tests with NASA flight crew, while simultaneously wrapping up proof-pressure tests of a vehicle at its Huntington Beach, Calif., facility. A range of other testing has been completed, marking rapid progress for the fledgling Boeing commercial crew development (CCDev) effort. “We started in January and already we’re doing a systems design review as well as a number of demonstrations,” says Boeing CCDev Program Manager Keith Reiley.
PHOTO OP: The Deep Impact spacecraft beamed the first images of the Hartley-2 comet on Sept. 5 as part of the Deep Impact Extended Investigation (DIXI), NASA officials announced at the First Comet Encounter Symposium Sept. 10 in Washington. The spacecraft, which is set to rendezvous with Hartley-2 on Nov. 4, will use two digital color telescopes and an infrared spectrometer to gather more than 64,000 images of the comet during its 78-day encounter.
NATIONAL AEROSPACE WEEK Sept. 12-18, 2010 From Takeoff To Liftoff and Beyond, The Aerospace and Defense Industry is powered by people. AEROSPACE AND DEFENSE: THE STRENGTH OF LIFT AMERICA. www.NationalAerospaceWeek.org Aerospace Industries Association Click here to view the pdf
HOUSTON — The U.S. Labor Department will make up to $5.4 million available to assist an estimated 600 workers facing layoffs from Johnson Space Center-related duties as a result of NASA’s plans to retire the space shuttle. The grant, awarded to the Texas Workforce Commission for implementation through the Gulf Coast Workforce Development Board, is intended to assist workers from more than a dozen contractors with skills assessments, basic skills training and career counseling.
GROWING BIRDS: Boeing says Intelsat has converted an option to expand C- and Ku-band capacity on IS-21, one of four 702 MP satellites acquired in a batch order last year. According to Boeing, the move will put IS-21 in the 60-transponder range, at the top of the 6-12-kw. 702 MP line. Two other spacecraft in the order — IS-27, equipped with a UHF hosted payload for the U.S. Navy, and IS-22, with an Australian UHF payload — will be in the 45-48-transponder class, in the middle of the 702 MP range. The fourth spacecraft remains to be assigned.
PARIS — Sea Launch President/General Manager Kjell Karlsen says the launch provider expects to exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in mid-October, once U.S. government approval for sale of the company to Russia’s Energia and legal details are complete.
LONDON — BAE Systems is looking to cut more than 900 jobs at two of its divisions, to reflect already announced defense program changes and also to prepare for further adjustments looming from the U.K.’s Strategic Defense and Security Review. The bulk of the cuts, 740 positions, are coming from the Military Air Solutions (MAS) business, with five sites affected. The Integrated System Technologies (Insyte) division will shed another 206 positions by the end of 2011. BAE Systems last year already announced the elimination of more than 2,300 positions.
LAND LAUNCH: Discussion of what to do with Land Launch, the land-based Zenit-3SLB variant that operates from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, will be taken up by the Sea Launch board once Chapter 11 is complete, Sea Launch President/General Manager Kjell Karlsen says. Land Launch is owned by Space International Services, which is owned by Zenit’s Russian and Ukrainian builders, but the marketing rights are owned by Sea Launch.
MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. — NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center expects to enter a second phase of flight tests of Boeing’s tailless flying-wing X-48B as early as next week. Those tests are a prelude to introduction of a revised version of the hybrid-wing aircraft in about a year that will be more fuel efficient, have lower emissions, and more closely resemble NASA’s ideal for hybrid wing-body aircraft.
The first Orion capsule passed a structural proof pressure test at the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, La., on Aug. 30. The proof test article will be used for ground and flight evaluations, which will correlate test data with analytical models to validate Orion’s flight design engineering. Tests included pressurizing the spacecraft up to 15.55 lb. per sq. in. (1.05 atmospheres) to check for leaks in the friction-stir welded aluminum-lithium alloy structure.
VEGA: Arianespace has contracted with the European Space Agency for the qualification flight of the Vega light launch vehicle. The flight is planned for mid-2011 carrying an Italian experimental payload. Arianespace also signed a framework contract with prime contractor ELV, a joint venture of Avio and Italian Space Agency ASI, for the first five Vega commercial launches to be performed under ESA’s Verta program.
NEW DELHI — India is quietly working on a new ramjet-powered cruise missile, which could test how the country’s missile development sector has evolved. The long-range cruise missile (LRCM) is apparently designed to be capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to a range of 1,000 km. (620 mi.) with speeds of Mach 3.2. Weapon schematics that are now emerging indicate the liquid-fueled ramjet under development by India’s Advanced Systems Laboratory (ASL) is designed for surface-to-surface, air-to-surface and anti-ship roles.
