NEW DELHI — Rosoboronservice India Ltd. (ROS(I), a joint venture between Rosoboronexport of Russia and India’s Krasny Marine Services, has launched the first Aviation Division in Goa for Kamovs, Tupolevs and Ilyushin aircraft in the Indian navy inventory. The $25 million center is expected to drastically reduce the turnaround time for aircraft that head to Russia for repairs and have often had to crimp operations as a result.
MOVING BUS: The Alliant Techsystems satellite bus for the U.S. Air Force’s ORS-1 has shipped to Goodrich to receive its electro-optical/infrared payload, according to Tom Wilson, vice president of spacecraft systems and services for ATK. Goodrich will add a payload fashioned after its U-2 Senior-Year Electro-Optical Reconnaissance System onto the bus prior to integrated system testing.
CONTROLLED DESCENT: The Obama administration will walk the U.S. back from the space-control posture adopted by President George W. Bush, at least if some White House aides have their way. A multi-agency review of national security space policy is underway at the National Security Council. Marine Corps Gen. (ret.) James Jones, President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, is overseeing the review, which is tentatively set to be finished this summer. One objective of the Obama administration is to soften U.S.
NO CARRIER: The Russian navy could be without an aircraft carrier from 2012 until 2017, if plans for a refit of the Admiral Kuznetsov go ahead. Interfax news agency quotes defense industry executives suggesting the carrier would be laid up in 2012 to undergo modernization. The ship entered service in 1991 and is part of the navy’s Northern Fleet. Its air wing includes the Sukhoi Su-33 fighter and Su-25UTG trainer as well as the Kamov Ka-27 anti-submarine helicopter. The upgrade reportedly will be carried out at the Severodvinsk-based Sevmash facility.
FAST POWER: Boeing is preparing to demonstrate a high-power, lightweight solar electric array developed under the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s Fast Access Space Testbed program, which it says could offer unprecedented power density for space vehicles. Delivering up to six times the power capability per cubic inch than current systems, the array consists of a louvered set of solar electric array elements that can be packaged in relatively small fairings for launch. The “wings” extend to 23.1 meters (76 ft.) on either side of the vehicle.
HOUSTON — Ad Astra Rocket Co. is assessing a cooperative unmanned rendezvous mission to a yet-to-be-selected asteroid with a spacecraft and scientific payload powered by the experimental Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (Vasimr), according to Franklin Chang-Diaz, the seven-time space shuttle astronaut who serves as the company’s CEO and president.
U.S. intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) in Afghanistan and Iraq is falling victim to too little bandwidth, too few trained analysts and a shortage of linguists who can survive a security investigation, but the U.S. Air Force’s ISR chief says solutions are on the way.
FORT WORTH, Texas — Calling the U.S. Army’s Aviation Study II “the never-ending aviation study,” Maj. Gen. James Barclay, chief of the aviation branch, said here April 15 that because of the “cost and importance” of aviation programs, he will continue to aggressively pursue success from the effort.
President Barack Obama on April 15 sketched out plans for an invigorated space exploration program that will put astronauts on an asteroid in the 2020s and in orbit around Mars a decade later. Speaking before an invitation-only audience at Kennedy Space Center’s Operations and Checkout (O&C) Building, Obama made no mention of extending the space shuttle or restarting manufacturing lines to provide components for a future heavy-lift rocket.
FORT WORTH, Texas — As competitors for the U.S. Army’s Common Infrared Countermeasures (Circm) program anxiously await the release of the request for proposals, Northrop Grumman announced here April 15 that it has integrated its Circm system with a mid-infrared transport fiber laser coupling.
FORT WORTH, Texas — EADS North America announced here April 15 that it will build three Armed Aerial Scout (AAS) 72X technology demonstrator aircraft with its own funds.
FORT WORTH, Texas — Industry is in a holding pattern as the U.S. Army has again delayed the release of a request for proposals (RFP) for its new Common Infrared Countermeasures (Circm) program, a replacement for its Advanced Threat Infrared Countermeasures (Atircm) system, which recently ran into cost overruns and a critical breach of the Nunn-McCurdy statute.
COOLING OFF: NASA has decided that a problem with the International Space Station’s thermal control system can wait at least a month before astronauts will have to perform a spacewalk to fix it. The decision means that shuttle Discovery’s crew will not have to perform an unscheduled fourth spacewalk, and can proceed with plans to depart the orbiting laboratory early April 17 and make a planned landing at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center April 19.
LONDON — The first production standard Watchkeeper unmanned aerial vehicle was flown in the U.K. for the first time April 14 at the Parc Aberporth UAV range in Wales. Delivery of the Thales-developed Watchkeeper system is slated to start toward the end of this year. The military is due to start using the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance system early in 2011.
An Indian Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV D3), powered by India’s first indigenous cryogenic engine, was lost due to an apparent engine failure April 15, taking with it an experimental satellite. While the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, K. Radhakrishnan, says India plans to test fly another cryogenic engine within a year following corrective measures, the failure is being seen as a major crisis for ISRO.
PARIS — The successful launch of Europe’s CryoSat-2 ice monitoring mission is helping to clear a roadblock in the manifest of Russia’s Dnepr-1 launch vehicle. CryoSat-2 was launched atop a Dnepr-1 on April 8, after a six-week delay due to an upper-stage steering engine problem. When it goes into operation in the fall, CryoSat-2 will provide scientists with much improved and more comprehensive data on land and ocean ice sheets (Aerospace DAILY, April 9).
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — China’s human spaceflight program has new plans to use versions of its Tiangong docking-target vehicle as a testbed for regenerative life support and early space-science experiments in preparation for operating a full-scale three-person space station late in this decade. But Wang Wenbao, head of the China Manned Space Engineering Office, is ready to cooperate across the board on human spaceflight with NASA and other agencies, including using China’s planned 13-ton cargo vehicle to resupply the International Space Station.
The ability to operate in cyberspace — in particular to attack networks — has “outpaced the development of policy, law and precedent to guide and control those operations,” says Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “This policy gap is especially concerning because cyber-weapons and attacks [could] be devastating, approaching weapons of mass destruction in their effects.”
The ash cloud caused by the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokul volcano that has grounded much of northern and central Europe’s air traffic also has caused military officials to stop flying. The U.S. Air Force says some of its European flights are not taking place. In particular, a decision by the U.K. National Air Traffic Services (NATS) to close off its airspace to all but emergency flights starting at midday April 15 led the Air Force not to operate its aircraft in Britain. NATS expects the restrictions to remain in place until at least early April 16.
Confusion over rules, or more accurately the lack of rules, to direct cyberwarfare is stymying efforts by the U.S. Air Force and Navy to develop tactical cyber-weapons. Such weapons must be able to analyze, identify and attack command and control as well as strike systems on the battlefield.
LONDON — Reviewing all big-ticket defense procurement projects and axing the “like-for-like” replacement of the Trident submarine-based nuclear deterrent are manifesto pledges made by the British Liberal Democrats. The last — and smallest — of the three main U.K. political parties released its election manifesto April 14. Britain goes to the polls May 6 to elect a new government. The manifesto also states the party would not go ahead with the “purchase of Tranche 3B of the Eurofighter (Typhoon).”
