DIVESTING: SES confirms it will sell off its non-performing European government service unit, ND Satcom. In recently announced first-half results, the company says it is taking a €38.5 million ($50.8 million) charge for the German-based unit and will exclude it from future results. ND Satcom is a partner in Germany’s SatcomBW-2 secure milsatcom network, alongside Astrium, which is considered a potential buyer. Without the troubled unit, SES would have added nearly three points to its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, the company says.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has proved to be a master at divesting the services of their most beloved programs. He stopped the U.S. Air Force’s longer-term production of the F-22 and killed its combat search-and-rescue replacement (CSAR-X) plans. The Army’s Future Combat System is now just a hollow cave filled with the echo of spinoffs. But Gates may have met his match when taking on the U.S. Marine Corps and its expeditionary fighting vehicle (EFV), which Gates has started to speculate — quite publicly — might not be worth the risk and cost.
INFLUENCE: U.S. aerospace and defense companies have increased congressional lobbying by more than 7% in the first half of 2010 compared with the same period last year, according to analysis by the watchdog Center for Responsive Politics. A National Journal report citing unidentified lobbyists noted that A&D firms are looking to Congress to help protect favored programs, while also reacting to a “difficult legislative cycle” where even popular defense bills are getting held up by partisan wrangling.
STRATEGIC SCIENCE: The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is standing up a Defense Programs Science Council to “explore cross-cutting issues.” The move follows President Barack Obama’s vision to better utilize nuclear weapons technology to help tackle other challenges, as NNSA has increasingly opened up to doing in the last decade.
Plans to acquire aircraft for the U.S. Coast Guard’s Deepwater modernization program remain underfunded due to rising program costs, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says.
BENGALURU, India — In a major setback to Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.’s (HAL) efforts to market its flagship Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH), India’s Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has issued a report portraying the helicopter in a very poor light. CAG’s observations are part of its report on public sector undertakings (PSUs), which was presented to the Indian Parliament on Aug. 5.
UAE A&D: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is expected to significantly increase the level of its defense and aerospace procurements and investments over the next five years, as well as greatly expand the level of spending in homeland security and critical national infrastructure-related services and capabilities, according to the U.S.-UAE Business Council. The growth has helped spur the National Defense Industrial Association to organize a trade mission there in early October.
The Senate approved a NASA authorization bill late Aug. 5 that accelerates development of a heavy-lift launch vehicle and clears the agency to fly one more space shuttle mission beyond the two remaining on the manifest.
Inmarsat will create a global Ka-band broadband system to complement its L-band system, the company announced Aug. 6. As expected, Boeing will supply three 702HP spacecraft for the space segment of the system, which will be known as Inmarsat 5. Each satellite will be equipped with 89 fixed spot beams and have some in-orbit processing (Aerospace DAILY, Aug. 6).
BENGALURU, India — Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony, a staunch supporter of homegrown projects, says the country’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) is totally focused on enhancing India’s self-reliance in developing military hardware.
BENGALURU, India — The Indian Air Force’s (IAF) HPT-32 Deepak trainer aircraft fleet, grounded after a fatal crash last year in Hyderabad, is set to return to the air soon with a parachute recovery system. HAL sources tell AVIATION WEEK that more than 100 of the aircraft will receive the system to increase pilots’ survival chances in an emergency. “The airframe will have to be given some modifications to take the additional weight,” a source said. The Indian Parliament was informed of the decision on Aug. 4.
COMMON LANGUAGE: L-3 Communications is to develop a gigabit-capacity Common Data Link (G-CDL) under a $13.1 million U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory. Work on the G-CDL was begun under independent research and development funding by L-3’s Communication Systems West division, which produces CDL and Tactical CDL radios now in widespread use on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms. CDL and TCDL have a maximum capacity of 274 Mbps.
OZ TRAINING: Raytheon Australia is to offer the Bell 429 light twin for the Australian Defense Force’s Helicopter Aircrew Training Systems program, also known as Phase 7 of the country’s Air 9000 helicopter re-equipment program. Raytheon and Bell Helicopter have teamed to offer aircraft, simulators and courseware for army and navy rotary-wing flight training. Eurocopter subsidiary Australian Aerospace plans to offer the EC135, while Boeing Australia signed an agreement in 2008 to offer the AgustaWestland A109.
Industry sources say Inmarsat has agreed to acquire a fleet of three high-throughput Ka-band broadband satellites from Boeing. The first of the new Inmarsat spacecraft, which are said to carry a total price tag of more than $1 billion, would be available by 2014, sources say. Inmarsat declines to confirm the reports, but says a big announcement will be made Aug. 6.
The Moscow Times is reporting that Iran has obtained four S-300-family (which includes the SA-10, SA-20 and SA-22), long-range, high-altitude air defense missiles. The Aug. 5 report, the Times says, originated with the Iranian “Farsi News Agency,” which has ties to the Revolutionary Guard and Qods Force. The initial report says that Iran received two S-300s from Belarus and two more from another unnamed source.
The Boeing Co. is pursuing plans for a seven-person commercial crew transportation system that could be in operation by 2015, as part of a larger NASA-supported framework that includes extended International Space Station operations as well as development of an Orion-like spacecraft and new heavy-lift rocket for human deep space missions, company officials said Aug. 5.
LONDON — Cobham has identified elements within the company it plans to divest as part of a broader plan to realign and strengthen the business through acquisitions, new company CEO Andy Stevens says.
HOUSTON — International Space Station mission managers on Aug. 5 decided to wait until Saturday, Aug. 7 to begin a quickly devised dual-spacewalk strategy to repair the orbiting laboratory’s cooling system, which was crippled by a July 31 electrical short in an external pump module assembly. The first of the six-and-a-half to seven-hour spacewalks by Expedition 24 flight engineers Doug Wheelock and Tracy Caldwell Dyson of NASA is scheduled to get underway on Saturday at 6:55 a.m. EDT.
BENGALURU, India — Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.’s Helicopter Complex (HC) in Bengaluru has a new chief, P. Soundara Rajan, who is also director of marketing and corporate planning at HAL’s headquarters. AVIATION WEEK has learned from HAL insiders that Soundara assumed his additional responsibilities on Aug. 3, though HAL has yet to issue any formal announcement. This comes in the wake of current managing director R. Srinivasan going on extended leave, citing health reasons.
COLLISION COURSE: Missile defense giants Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are teaming up in an effort to nab a $600 million contract to oversee future operations and sustainment of the Ground-Based Missile Defense (GMD) system. The U.S. Missile Defense Agency is expected to issue a request for proposals within weeks, and bids would be due 60 days later. The contract could come as soon as early 2011. A Boeing loss of this work would be a major blow to the GMD prime’s penetration of the missile defense market.
PARIS — African telecom users and the global satcom community each have something to be happy about following the successful launch of Rascom-QAF1R and Nilesat 201 Aug. 4 in Arianespace’s third launch so far this year. Rascom-QAF1R will permit the deployment of the first pan-African geostationary telecom service. It will replace an initial unit whose lifetime was cut short not long after launch in December 2007.
BENGALURU, India — Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony says the first batch of the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) Antonov AN-32 transport aircraft has been sent to the Ukraine for a life extension and overhaul program. Antony told the Indian Parliament’s upper house on Aug. 4 that the move followed a deal that India signed with the Ukraine in June 2009.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has a healthy set of case law exploring the question of proposal tardiness upon which to draw during its review of the U.S. Aerospace protest of the U.S. Air Force’s KC-X source selection process, according to a GAO official. Ralph White, managing associate general counsel for procurement law, says that there have been many similar cases reviewed by GAO in its 50 years of handling bid protests.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) has begun what is described by one U.S. defense official as a “pre-Nunn-McCurdy” review of the Global Hawk UAV program. If there is a so-called Nunn-McCurdy breach of cost growth caps, this would be the second breach of the statute that dictates how to handle major cost increases in government programs for the high-flying UAV. The first took place in 2006 and resulted from a miscalculation of the work required to shift from the Block 10 configuration to a more robust Block 20.
