Whether the dual-block buy for the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) makes long-term economic sense could depend on how the U.S. Navy develops the LCS combat systems, analysts say. The Senate approved legislation supporting the dual-block buy Dec. 21. The expectation is that the House will also approve the measure and President Obama will sign it into law.
NEW DISHES: NASA has awarded a $40.7 million contract to General Dynamics SATCOM Technologies of San Jose, Calif., for two additional 34-meter (112-ft.) Deep Space Network (DSN) antennas at Canberra, Australia. This is part of Phase I of a plan to eventually retire the network’s aging 70-meter (230-ft.) antennas. DSN consists of communications complexes in Goldstone, Calif., Madrid and Canberra. The 70-meter antennas are more than 40 years old and are showing signs of surface deterioration from constant use.
HOUSTON — NASA’s Mission Control exercised the Canadian Space Agency’s Dextre robotic manipulator on Dec. 23, establishing its readiness to unload cargo from Japan’s second unmanned H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) cargo transport, Kounotori, which is scheduled for a late January liftoff. The exercise followed a Dec. 22 reboost of the orbiting science laboratory using the thrusters of the Russian 39 Progress.
KIOWA MILESTONE: The U.S. Army’s OH-58F Kiowa Warrior passed its Milestone B review Dec. 21, officially entering its Engineering and Manufacturing Development phase. The OH-58F includes a Cockpit and Sensor Upgrade Program as well as Level 2 Manned Unmanned Teaming, a Common Missile Warning System, Health and Usage Monitoring systems, and enhanced weapons functionality via 1760 digital interface, according to the Army. The OH-58F upgrade program uses funds reprogrammed from the canceled ARH-70A Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter.
The U.S. Air Force is continuing efforts to field new wide-area surveillance systems in Afghanistan, including the recent first combat sortie of the Blue Devil aircraft project there. The Blue Devil program consists of two segments — one is a small aircraft and another, under development, includes the use of a large airship, government officials say.
Ashton Carter plans to resign his tenured position at Harvard University and continue his work as procurement czar at the Pentagon “as long as the president and the secretary of defense want me to keep doing what I’m doing,” he tells Aviation Week. Tenured Harvard staff members are given two years for a leave of absence for public service. Carter took his post as undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics on April 27, 2009. His time is near to cut ties there in order to stay at his Pentagon post.
Researchers who need microgravity to test new technologies may be matched with potential commercial suborbital-flight providers through a new solicitation by NASA’s Office of the Chief Technologist. Bidders will be able to propose technology payloads for parabolic atmospheric t rips and suborbital missions to help the U.S. space agency reduce risk as it expands its program of commercial spaceflight.
BENGALURU, India—India test-fired two nuclear-capable Prithvi-II short-range ballistic missiles on Dec. 22 from Launch Complex-3 at the Interim Test Range at Balasore, off the Orissa coast. The test of the 350-km.-range (220-mi.) missile was part of user trials conducted by the Indian army. Personnel from India’s elite Strategic Force Command (SFC) launched the first missile at 8:15 a.m. local time and the second at 9:15 a.m.
START ANEW: The U.S. Senate voted Dec. 22 to ratify the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) with Russia, at a final vote of 71-26. The pact, signed by President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev April 8, limits strategic nuclear warheads on deployed ICBMs and SLBMs to 1,550, down from the 2,220 limit allowed by the 2002 Moscow Treaty. The treaty also will allow the U.S. and Russia to resume on-site inspections of each others’ nuclear stockpiles, which ceased when the original Start treaty became defunct in December 2009.
While lawmakers may feel as if the U.S. Navy has backed them into a corner with its proposal for a dual-block buy of the service’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) fleet, approving the deal was probably the best play on the Hill. The Senate approved legislation supporting the dual-block buy Dec. 21. The expectation is that the House will also approve the measure and President Obama will sign it into law.
Workers at Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR) have completed the second of two propellant turbopumps for NASA’s J-2X rocket engine, setting the stage for final assembly and hot-fire tests of the Saturn-heritage engine early next year. The J-2X fuel turbopump, which PWR says could drain a 20,000-gal. swimming pool in 2 min., moves liquid hydrogen through the engine to cool its combustion chamber and nozzle before mixing the fuel with liquid oxygen to burn for thrust.
Operational test flights of the RQ-4B Global Hawk Block 30 have been completed, paving the way for a decision on full-rate production as Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Air Force are in talks to drive down costs on the unmanned aircraft. Initial operational test and evaluation (IOT&E) flights of the Block 30M carrying the Airborne Signals Intelligence Payload (ASIP) were completed on Dec. 14.
Congress wants the U.S. Navy to submit a report by March 31 to show how the service plans to incorporate its ship-based ballistic missile defense requirements with its force structure needs, according to the recently passed defense authorization legislation. The report should include : • An analysis of whether the requirement for sea-based missile defense can be accommodated by upgrading Aegis ships that exist as of the date of the report or by procuring additional combatant surface vessels.
Congressional action to fund the government through March 4, 2011, leaves NASA pretty much right where it started in February when the Fiscal 2011 budget came out, with everything—from an extra space shuttle flight to early use of commercial replacements for the shuttle—uncertain.
Last weekend’s successful Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (Emals) at Lakehurst, N.J., did more than just save the future of the next-generation aircraft carrier. The Dec. 18 catapult shot of an F/A-18E Super Hornet using Emals also may have secured future Navy aviation, saved the job of more than one admiral and made Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding a much-more viable and valuable property should the unit be spun off as a stand-alone company.
The Pentagon remains willing to slow F-35 Joint Strike Fighter production to shore up problems in the development and testing portion of the single-engine stealthy fighter program, says Ashton Carter, who oversees procurement for the U.S. Defense Department.
HOUSTON — NASA will aim for a Jan. 26 Flight Readiness Review to formally assess the troubleshooting of small cracks in a pair of stringers on the external tank (ET) of the shuttle Discovery and a possible launch of the STS-133 mission during a window lasting Feb. 3-10. Discovery’s mission, the final flight of NASA’s senior orbiter, has been on hold since Nov. 5, when an unrelated hydrogen leak forced a scrub in the launch of the 11-day assembly and supply mission to the International Space Station.
The U.S. Air Force is continuing its work to field a Reaper-borne Gorgon Stare wide-area surveillance system. Two increments of the system are planned; both call for the use of two pods, one on each MQ-9 wing. Three aircraft have been modified to carry the pods and three shipsets have been delivered by Sierra Nevada (which oversees both increments). The final shipset for Increment 1 is expected in mid-2011.
Six months after contract award, elements of Northrop Grumman’s long-endurance multi-intelligence vehicle (LEMV) hybrid airship are coming together. The persistent-surveillance LEMV is designed to have an endurance when operating unmanned for 21 days at 20,000 ft. carrying a 2,500-lb. payload of sensors and communications equipment. The critical design review was completed at the end of November, final assembly is to begin in February and first flight is planned for the end of July 2011.
BLUE RIDGE BUY: Rockwell Collins has acquired Blue Ridge Simulation, a Leesburg, Va.-based supplier of high-performance sensor simulators to the U.S. Defense Department, as well as commercial and international customers. Terms were not disclosed. Rockwell Collins said the purchase of the 15-year-old company will enable it to expand its embedded simulation and training offerings.
AFRICAN DEFENSE: Annual growth in the African defense market is expected to slow to an average of just more than 3% through 2014, falling short of the 4% forecast before the global economic recession, according to Forecast International’s annual African market overview. Procurement trends in South Africa are shifting toward ground force modernization, although the South African Defense Force is still struggling with how to meet its air transport needs after terminating an order for eight EADS A400M airlifters.
BENGALURU, India—The Indian army on Dec. 21 received four nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) reconnaissance vehicles manufactured at Ordnance Factory Medak, with the NBC instruments integrated by Bharat Electronics Ltd. (BEL) in Pune. The Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) designed and developed the vehicles, while the Ordnance Factory and BEL executed mass-scale production under technology-transfer agreements.
