BENGALURU, India — The Tejas Light Combat Aircraft’s (LCA) naval prototype (NP-1) will be rolled out for the first time on July 6 here in Bengaluru, with Chief of Naval Staff Adm. Nirmal Verma on hand, sources tell AVIATION WEEK. The Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), which is in charge of the design and development of Tejas variants, and Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL), ADA’s principal partner and main manufacturer, are currently giving the aircraft a final structural fine-tuning at HAL’s Aircraft Research and Development Center.
AIRCRAFT SUPPORT: The U.S. Navy is awarding Honeywell International, Inc. of Tempe, Ariz., a $35 million contract for support for auxiliary power units for the F/A-18, P-3, S-3, C-2, and KC-130 F/R; F404 main fuel controls used on the F/A-18 aircraft; the P-3 engine driven compressor; and support for the Australian F/A-18 Super Hornet. Work is expected to be complete by June 2011.
ST. LOUIS — Boeing next month plans to fly an F-15E fitted with the conformal weapons bay being developed for the stealthy Silent Eagle variant. The conformal weapons bay (CWB) is to demonstrate the ability to shoot the AIM-9 Sidewinder and AIM-120 Amraam air-to-air missiles that have been moved from wing pylons to the internal bay to reduce the aircraft’s radar cross section. The CWB test activity is seen as a major risk reduction effort for Silent Eagle (Aerospace DAILY, June 24, 2009).
President Barack Obama relieved U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal of his command of U.S. and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) forces in Afghanistan June 23, in what amounted to a rapid-fire change of command in America’s primary war.
PARIS — Work on the new Soyuz launch site at Europe’s South American spaceport near Kourou, French Guiana, is proceeding rapidly, while Russia continues to lay the groundwork for a new cosmodrome that could offload operations from the venerable Baikonur site in Kazakhstan.
MARINE CORPS AIR STATION NEW RIVER, N.C. — The U.S. Marine Corps says MV-22 performance and reliability are improving, but operators are still pushing for further enhancements, including improving the system’s firepower. The Marines have been using the GAU-17 mini-gun interim weapon system in deployed operations (they can also ramp-mount a machine gun). While the weapon has proved useful, Marine officials say the system could be improved.
SATPHONE CHALLENGE: Inmarsat has upped the ante in its challenge to global satphone leaders Iridium and Globalstar with a new phone that it says will be the most robust and competitively priced on the market. The IsatPhone Pro, rolled out on June 15, offers 492 Kbps. of worldwide service for telephony, text and e-mail — far more than Globalstar and Iridium, which will not introduce their next generation systems for another two to seven years. Retailing at $699, IsatPhone Pro weighs just 279 grams (9.8 oz.), including battery, and offers up to eight hours talk time.
Retired Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio), the first American to orbit the Earth, worries that the U.S. is about to relinquish its leadership in space exploration, and wants NASA to keep flying the space shuttle at least twice a year to keep its edge.
2009 PENTAGON SPENDING ON TRACKED AND WHEELED VEHICLES 2009 PENTAGON SPENDING ON TRACKED AND WHEELED VEHICLES CONTRACTOR NUMBER OF CONTRACTS AND MODIFICATIONS TOTAL AMOUNT FOR CONTRACTS AND MODIFICATIONS AVERAGE AMOUNT PER TRANSACTION BAE SYSTEMS 326 $5,055,546,444 $15,507,811.18
CORPS MISSION: U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has indeed chosen Marine Corps Gen. James Amos to be the next commandant and Lt. Gen. Joseph Dunford to be the next assistant commandant, as expected. “I am convinced that Gen. Amos and Lt. Gen. Dunford are the right team to lead the U.S. Marine Corps at this time, especially as it balances the capabilities needed to support current operations, its unique maritime heritage and its future role defending America,” Gates said in a Pentagon statement. The announcement was leaked to several news organizations a week before.
PARIS — The Eumetsat council has given a provisional green light for development of the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) constellation, clearing the way for the space segment to be put on contract.
Boeing has shifted the second P-8A to the Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., to support the U.S. Navy maritime patrol aircraft’s development program, and the company also is finishing up work on the third and final flight test aircraft. The second P-8A, designated T-2, is the first with the primary mission system. The aircraft, which first flew with the mission equipment installed on June 8, was shifted to Pax River on June 19.
The Pentagon shift in focus from Iraq to Afghanistan last year did little to blunt the military’s appetite for ground vehicle acquisition. The Defense Department shelled out about $19.3 billion for tracked and wheeled vehicles in 2009, making ground vehicles the leading Pentagon expense for the second consecutive year, according to an exclusive Aerospace DAILY analysis of contracting data provided by the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting.
2009 PENTAGON SPENDING ON TRACKED COMBAT, ASSAULT AND TACTICAL VEHICLES 2009 PENTAGON SPENDING ON TRACKED COMBAT, ASSAULT AND TACTICAL VEHICLES CONTRACTOR NUMBER OF CONTRACTS AND MODIFICATIONS TOTAL AMOUNT FOR CONTRACTS AND MODIFICATIONS AVERAGE AMOUNT PER TRANSACTION BAE SYSTEMS 317 $5,054,821,783 $15
NEW DELHI – The delayed launch of the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) Cartosat-2B 0.8-meter resolution remote-sensing satellite from Sriharikota spaceport is now expected in mid-July, Aerospace DAILY has learned. Previously scheduled for May 9, the flight was delayed following the discovery during routine pre-launch checks of a marginal drop in pressure in the second stage of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (Aerospace DAILY, April 30).
INTEL LEADS: The U.S. Defense Department is expected to offset a “dip” in its total research, development, test and evaluation spending with more money toward ground forces supplies, services and technologies, according to consultancy Frost & Sullivan.
ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy is reimagining certain aspects of naval power, but if new capabilities proposed for procurement do not “come from the sea,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead says he is not interested in them.
A majority of U.S. aerospace and defense (A&D) executives surveyed by Accenture said they had no confidence in their companies’ abilities to develop future leaders, underscoring other worries about the state of the A&D industry’s workforce.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — An Obama administration proposal to use $100 million from a revamped NASA exploration program budget to mitigate the effect of upcoming layoffs in the aerospace industry would be particularly generous to Florida, which will begin disbursing more than $31 million in state funds for space industry initiatives on July 1.
PARIS — French defense armaments agency DGA has selected Thales’s Network & Infrastructure Systems unit to define an IP-based satellite communications ground network that could complement the ground segment built for France’s Syracuse III secure satcom constellation.
2009 PENTAGON SPENDING ON WHEELED VEHICLES 2009 PENTAGON SPENDING ON WHEELED VEHICLES CONTRACTOR NUMBER OF CONTRACTS OR MODIFICATIONS TOTAL AMOUNT OF CONTRACTS OR MODIFICATIONS AVERAGE AMOUNT PER CONTRACT OR MODIFICATION OSHKOSH 57 $1,847,753,033 $32,416,720 AM G
Boeing is assessing the future of its popular Delta II launcher, but plans to offer the vehicle to customers for another year before a decision is made on whether to pull the plug on the program. Roger Krone, Boeing Network & Space System president, says there are still five “uncommitted” launchers in the current production block — vehicles that are not yet under construction. Discussions are now underway to match the commitments with actual launches.
VOTE OF CONFIDENCE: NASA has picked Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., to launch the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite in February 2013 aboard a Taurus XL 3110 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. The estimated total cost for the launch services is $70 million. Designed to create a global map of carbon dioxide emission sources in support of climate change research, the first OCO was lost in February 2009 when the fairing failed to open on its Taurus XL. Orbital also built the OCO satellite, and is building OCO-2.
