In this century, the South China Sea will become what the Persian Gulf became after World War II, and Chinese and U.S. interests could increasingly collide there, according to Robert Kaplan, senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “This region will become the center of the world,” he told a Council on Foreign Relations teleconference April 30. China, which is experiencing a nationalistic, Monroe Doctrine-style expansion, is looking to build up its military capability to protect its economic coming-of-age.
CAPE CANAVERal, Fla. — The first flight of Space Exploration Technologies’ (SpaceX) Falcon 9 rocket will fall behind the targeted May 14 launch of space shuttle Atlantis on the STS-132 mission. The California-based firm, which holds NASA contracts for Falcon 9 development, demonstration and cargo delivery missions to the International Space Station, had been targeting a “no earlier than” May 8 launch date on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station range schedules.
Lockheed Martin is changing the leadership on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, promoting one of the program’s two general managers and bringing in the head of the F-22 program to replace him. Dan Crowley, executive vice president (EVP) and F-35 general manager (GM) since May 2005, will take on the newly created position of chief operating officer of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics.
FORT WASHINGTON, Md. — The U.S. Navy’s Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler fleets could last 50% longer than planned, current studies are showing.
HOUSTON — Space station Program Manager Mike Suffredini would prefer a summer 2011 flight if NASA moves forward with an extra shuttle mission using orbiter Atlantis. The timing would permit the shuttle to supply the orbiting laboratory with additional scientific hardware and components for the water recovery system that is recycling condensate from the breathing air and urine into drinking water for the six-person crews, Suffredini said May 3.
HOT FIGURE: The U.S. counts 5,113 nuclear warheads in its stockpile, according to a Pentagon official who disclosed the total formally for the first time May 3. State Department officials said the U.S. has dismantled more than 13,000 nuclear warheads since 1988, and has reduced the number of operationally deployed nuclear weapons from about 10,000 in 1991 to 1,968 as of the end of 2009. The U.S. also has dismantled more than 3,000 non-strategic nuclear weapons. The revelations come as the U.S.
NEW DELHI — Indian engineering and manufacturing company Quality Engineering & Software Technologies (Quest Global) is looking to raise $50 million as part of its ambitious plans to grow at 40% annually for the next five years. As the company looks at strengthening its supply base, it will consolidate its position in Europe through mergers and acquisitions in the fields of aerospace and defense, power generation and engines, CEO Ajit Prabhu says.
FORTHCOMING FACO: Negotiations between the Italian defense ministry and an Alenia/Lockheed Martin joint venture to establish a final assembly and checkout facility (FACO) for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter are expected to wrap up by the end of May, says Tom Burbage, Lockheed Martin’s executive vice president of F-35 program integration. They were expected to be finished early this year. “It is a complicated situation,” he says. “They are late in closing the agreement.” The goal is to deliver the first Italian-assembled F-35 in 2014.
U.S. Special Operations Command (Socom) officials have tested the integration of a wing-mounted 250-lb. GPS-guided bomb on a new MC-130W variant hastily designed to provide armed overwatch for ground personnel in Afghanistan. Testing was conducted in four weeks, a Socom official says, but the system has not been put into operation. This official presented photos and a video of the Boeing Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) on the modified MC-130W during the recent Precision Strike Association annual program review.
DOWNSELECT TARGET: The U.S. Air Force now expects to select a winner in late May for the Small Diameter Bomb II competition to design a 250-lb.-class precision guided weapon capable of killing moving targets. The duel is between a Boeing/Lockheed Martin team and Raytheon. The goal is to field a weapon with the same weight and handling characteristics of the original SDB model, but with a tri-mode seeker to allow the weapon to destroy moving targets in bad weather. A contract should be signed in June.
SELF-PROPELLED: The U.S. Army is working on technologies that will enable it to field a fleet of tactical vehicles that churn out enough wattage to produce their own fuel and water, perhaps from biomass. In the long run, Lt. Gen. Michael Vane, deputy commander of the Army Capabilities Integration Center, wants each designated vehicle to generate a megajoule of energy—equivalent to 1 million joules, or roughly the amount of kinetic energy generated by a 1-ton vehicle moving at 100 mph. “With that level of power,” Vane says, “I could make my own water [and] my own fuel.
ON TRACK: U.S. Army leaders have been dropping hints over the past several months that they might be leaning toward a tracked design for the Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV), as opposed to the wheeled family of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected or Stryker combat vehicles the service has been buying over the last decade. Lt. Gen. Robert Lennox from the Army’s G-8 department tells AVIATION WEEK that the Army indeed seems to be leaning toward tracks. “As you start asking what you want the vehicle to do in terms of survivability, weight is a factor,” Lennox says.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) May 3 - 5 — Speednews Eighth Annual Aerospace and Defense Industry Suppliers Conference, Intercontinental Los Angeles at Century City, Los Angeles, Calf. For more information go to www.speednews.com
MOVING ON: NASA Chief of Staff George T. Whitesides, one of the architects of the turnabout space policy embodied in the agency’s Fiscal 2011 budget request, is leaving the agency for a post in the private sector. David P. Radzanowski, deputy associate administrator for program integration in the Space Operations Mission Directorate, will replace Whitesides as chief of staff. The transition is effective May 10. Whitesides was executive director of the National Space Society for four years.
REAL ANGST: Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and Evan Bayh (Ind.) are calling on the Pentagon to take immediate action to address counterfeit parts that have apparently slipped into the military’s supply system, according to a new report from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. (See story p. 3.) “Until there is a department-wide system in place to detect these counterfeit parts, we can’t even judge the scope of the problem or estimate the full extent of the risks to U.S.
SENSORY INPUT: ITT Corp. has wrapped up thermal vacuum testing of the new Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS), which is the last sensor to be integrated onto the Ball Aerospace Npoess Preparatory Project (NPP) satellite. The satellite is an operational pathfinder for the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (Npoess). Though the Obama White House terminated the joint Commerce-Defense Dept. Npoess program in favor of separate systems for the two different customers, NPP is needed to demonstrate performance of the sensors.
FORT WORTH — The U.S. Air Force and Lockheed Martin—prime contractor for the single-engine, stealthy F-35—are in the midst of negotiations for low-rate initial production (LRIP) Lot 4, with price a key sticking point in the negotiations.
A preliminary version of an upcoming report on the link between national security and U.S. commercial launch capabilities warns that U.S. leadership in space is threatened by poor coordination in setting space policy. The Center for Strategic and International Studies is seeking website comment on its report — “National Security and the Commercial Space Sector” — in the hope that several ongoing government space policy reviews will incorporate the best advice on sound commercial launch policy in their findings.
MARTIAN LIFE: Scientists on Earth have made a discovery that could indicate new places to look on Mars for signs of ancient fossilized life or preserved organic material. Researchers at NASA, the University of California at Los Angeles and Arizona State University have for the first time found diverse microscopic fossils in the soft mineral gypsum, which precipitates out of saltwater when it dries up. The discovery has tantalizing implications for Mars, which has abundant gypsum deposits at its north polar and equatorial regions.
B-1B RADAR: Flight testing of an upgraded radar on the U.S. Air Force’s Rockwell-built B-1B bomber has begun at Dyess AFB, Texas. The Reliability and Maintainability Improvement Program (RMIP) replaces the receiver/transmitter and radar processor in the B-1’s APQ-164 radar with derivatives of units from Northrop Grumman’s APG-68(V)9 radar for the F-16. Software has been rewritten from Ada to C++ to improve supportability.
A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) on counterfeit parts cites a number of incidents in which these parts they have made their way into key Pentagon programs, including the F-15 and V-22 Osprey. While Defense Department officials agree they need to do a better job identifying and dealing with counterfeits, Pentagon officials say they know of no mission that has been compromised. But experts say one of the reasons for that is the DOD has no method to track those parts in its supply chain (Aerospace DAILY, April 22, 26).
CAPITAL CONCERN: Members of the Aircraft Carrier Industrial Base Coalition rallied on Capitol Hill April 29 to press for far more spending and attention for the U.S. fleet as build cycles for new flattops officially stretch and stabilize at five-year cycles. “While I am heartened by the current plans I have seen regarding long-term stability for aircraft carriers, the reality is that the vendor base may already be in trouble—stretched by the move to five-year [cycles],” says Rep. Glenn Nye (D-Va.), whose district includes the East Coast home of Navy forces.
