ARMY Raytheon Co., Marlborough, Mass., was awarded on May 21 a $92,472,706 firm-fixed-price contract for AN/TSC-154A advanced extremely high frequency Secure Mobile Anti-jam Reliable Tactical Terminals. The work is to be performed in Marlborough, with an estimated completion date of March 21, 2018. One sole-source bid was solicited with one bid received. CECOM Acquisition Center, Fort Monmouth, N.J., is the contracting activity (W15P7T-07-D-L405).
Telesat will be the latest satellite operator to deploy a hosted payload for government and military use. The X-band payload will be installed on Anik G1, which is being built by sister company Space Systems/Loral. International Launch Services will perform the launch, set for the second half of 2012. To be located at 107.3 deg. W. Long., G1 also will carry 16 extended Ku-band transponders to be operated by Shaw Direct, as well as 12 Ku- and 24 C-band transponders to serve for the hot South American market.
Initial data from last week’s partially successful X-51A Waverider hypersonic demonstrator reveals the scramjet engine was still running normally when the vehicle began experiencing control difficulties prior to flight termination.
AIR FORCE Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., Herndon, Va., was awarded a $7,996,064 contract which will provide systems engineering warfare/radio frequency survivability and vulnerability analysis. At this time, $267,857 has been obligated. 55 CONS/LGCD, Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., is the contracting activity (SP0700-03-D-1380).
ARIANE LAUNCH: Arianespace has set June 23 for the next flight of its Ariane 5 heavy-lift rocket. The flight will carry South Korea’s multipurpose COMS satellite and the Arabsat 5A telecom satellite. The mission, the company’s second of the year, follows the Ariane 5’s successful return to flight on May 21 after a grounding to investigate a helium pressurization system malfunction. Engineers will have to perform six flights over the second half of the year — a rate of one a month — to meet Arianespace’s objective of seven missions for 2010.
Deutsche Post DHL will finalize on June 2 the transfer to local Ohio authorities some 1,500 acres of the Wilmington, Ohio, Air Park, which is under consideration by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory as a test site for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
PARIS — Thales Alenia Space (TAS) has concluded a compromise deal that will enable it to proceed with the supply of two Yamal 400 satellites for Russia’s Gazprom Space Systems. To be deployed to 90 deg. E. Long., Yamal 401 will be equipped with 36 Ku- and 17 C-band transponders and will be intended to reinforce coverage in Russia and polar regions. Yamal 402 will carry 46 Ku-band transponders and will be positioned at 55 deg. E., where it will serve Russia, Europe, Africa and the polar regions. Yamal 402 will also provide mobile coverage.
ARMY GREEN: The Army is undertaking a “comprehensive” review of its acquisition processes and people and will include recently mandated congressional reforms and lessons learned from eight years of counterinsurgency wars. The Pentagon says the Army review is taking place at the same time as a Pentagon-led examination of acquisition issues, and will call upon the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review and Gansler Commission Report on expeditionary contracting.
LONDON – The U.K. Civil Aviation Authority is setting aside further airspace for unmanned aircraft operations to clear the way for the pending start of Watchkeeper UAV operations. The additional segregated airspace is being created for UAVs flying at the Wiltshire aerodromes of Upavon and Boscombe Down. The new areas will formally become active on July 1.
HOUSE RULES: Boeing congressional proponents in the USAF KC-X tanker duel won a minor victory on Capitol Hill last week with an amendment to the House’s Fiscal 2011 defense authorization bill.
NEW YORK – The results of Aviation Week’s 15th annual Top-Performing Companies (TPC) study are in, with Lockheed Martin topping the rankings of large aerospace and defense contractors for an unprecedented third year in a row. But a surging Raytheon passed General Dynamics to claim second place and moved within striking distance of the top spot.
F-35 DISPUTE: Air Combat Command chief Gen. William Fraser does not agree with the Navy’s projections that the F-35 will cost more to maintain than previously expected. Officials at Naval Air Systems Command calculate a higher cost for operating the system for 65 years than the Joint Strike Fighter joint program office. The recent Navy study finds sustainment for the single-engine stealthy fighter could cost about $442 billion (in Fiscal 2002 dollars) more than planned. “We don’t agree with the Navy numbers,” Fraser tells Aviation Week.
NASA PLANNING: NASA is prohibited by Congress from spending Fiscal 2010 money on shutting down its Constellation Program of exploration to the Moon, Mars and beyond, but it is moving ahead with long-range planning for the new approach reflected in the Fiscal 2011 budget request.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) june 2 - 3 — Hegan Basque Aerospace Cluster’s Aerotrends 2010, Bilboa Exhibition Center, Teruel, Spain. For more information go to www.hegan.com/aerotrends June 8 - 13 — ILA Berlin Air Show, Berlin-Schoenefeld Airport, Berlin, Germany. For more information go to http://www.ila-berlin.coms june 13 — Royal Air Force’s Cosford Air Show. For more information go to www.cosfordairshow.co.uk/
Flight testing of micro air vehicles (MAV) in a controlled urban environment is underway in the U.S. Air Force Laboratory’s new indoor flight facility, officially dedicated on May 27 at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. The Air Force is interested in unmanned aircraft with wingspans of less than 2 ft. that can descend below rooftop level and operate in cluttered urban canyons. This requires flight testing in urban terrain in a controlled environment, says Gregory Parker, MAV team lead.
The Boeing 747SP-based Sofia observatory developed by NASA and the Germany Aerospace Center, DLR, has completed its first airborne measurements. The “first light” observations took place overnight between May 25-26 with the 747SP flying from NASA’s Dryden facility on an eight-hour mission. The aircraft reached 11,000-meters altitude, DLR says.
A United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket carrying the first of 12 planned next-generation Global Positioning System satellites lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Thursday night, following four delays for technical issues.
SOCIAL STRATEGY: Analysts and observers reacting to the Obama administration’s new National Security Strategy are focusing on President Barack Obama’s emphasis on international partnership and cooperation. “The burdens of a young century cannot fall on American shoulders alone,” Obama said ahead of the new strategy’s late-May rollout. But aside from Democratic supporters, the president ran into immediate skepticism. “The United States, the document explains, can no longer afford to be the world’s sole policeman,” says Christopher Preble of the libertarian CATO Institute.
OPEN ARCHITECTURE: The Naval Open Architecture (NOA) Contract Guidebook For Program Managers will undergo additional review of a new clause requiring contractor identification of open source software. In the meantime, a temporary version of the new NOA Contract Guidebook version 2.0, issued May 27, will serve as a collection of contracting best practices and lessons learned from implementing IT Open Architecture principles across the Navy and Marine Corps enterprise.
NAVY LASER: The U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) will continue to integrate increasingly more powerful lasers into the Navy’s Laser Weapon System Program. On May 24, NAVSEA successfully tracked, engaged, and destroyed a threat representative UAV while in flight. This was the first Detect-Thru-Engage laser shootdown of a threat representative target over water in a combat scenario. A total of two UAV targets were engaged and destroyed during the testing, the second series for the Laser Weapon System Program.
