INDIA VISIT: Adm. Gary Roughead, Chief of Naval Operations of the U.S. Navy, is visiting India through April 16 at the invitation of Adm. Nirmal Verma, India’s chief of naval staff. Roughead also will be visiting various naval ships and establishments in Mumbai and Goa and training establishments in Kochi. Meanwhile, the next edition of the MALABAR series of exercises is scheduled from April 23 to May 2. Four capital warships and one submarine and a few aircraft from each side are scheduled to participate.
NEW DELHI — ITT Defense International is focusing its efforts on the Indian market with the opening of an office here April 9. “We are very excited,” said Lt. Gen. (ret.) David Melcher, president of ITT Defense & Information Solutions. “India is the largest [growing] market in the world. ITT can be a great partner in that.” While ITT is advocating its Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast (ADS-B) system to India’s ministry of civil aviation, in the defense arena the company expects its night vision devices to attract interest.
AFGHANISTAN’S AIRCRAFT: The fleet of the Afghan National Army Air Corps (Anaac) is slated to increase by another 21 rotorcraft, with three more L-39C jet trainers also likely to be acquired. The U.S. government, through U.S. Naval Air Systems Command, says it plans to award a fixed-price contract for 21 Mi‑17V5s or Mi-171/172s. The helicopters are to be delivered to Kabul International Airport within two years of contract award. In parallel, the Pentagon is looking to buy three L-39Cs to augment the inventory of the Czech-made trainer now in the Anaac inventory.
DENIAL OF SERVICE: Israel’s preparations for its communications and military networks to be disabled by electronic attack in future conflicts are being taken to heart by the U.S. “We also are making sure that we can still fight with our networks degraded,” says Maj. Gen. Tom Andersen, director of requirements at Air Combat Command. “There are a couple of major projects that commanders are focused on. One that reported out at the four-star and service secretary level was the ability to operate in denied environments.
LONDON — The British Defense Ministry is rejecting parliamentary allegations that it was “unhelpful” and “obstructive” in discussing a multibillion-pound hole in its procurement budget. The British Parliament’s Defense Committee made clear its “disappointment” over how the Defense Ministry addressed the issue during its hearings in its Defense Equipment 2010 report.
A series of demonstrators is being planned by the U.S. Air Force to mature technology for the Reusable Booster System (RBS), its chosen replacement for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) family beyond 2025. The first of the demonstrators, the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) RBS Pathfinder, is planned to fly in 2013 to evaluate the “rocket-back” maneuver that would enable the unmanned first-stage booster to return to a runway landing at the launch site.
FIRST POSEIDON: The U.S. Navy’s first Boeing 737-based P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft will begin operational test and evaluation at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., following a ferry flight from Boeing Field in Seattle. T1, the first P-8, will be flown by the Poseidon integrated test team (ITT) comprising Navy Air Test and Evaluation Sqdns. VX-1 and VX-20 as well as Boeing. The aircraft is assigned to airworthiness testing while T2, which is expected to arrive from Seattle in the next month, will be used for mission systems tests.
HOUSTON — Spacewalking astronauts started a coolant tank exchange, retrieved a science experiment and replaced a rate gyro assembly outside the International Space Station early April 9. Rick Mastracchio and Clay Anderson, two of seven astronauts from the shuttle Discovery, plan spacewalks early April 11 and 13 to finish the task of replacing a 1,700 pound ammonia coolant tank positioned on the station’s right side truss. Friday’s six-and-a-half-hour outing drew to a close just before 8 a.m., EDT.
NASA’s Constellation Program, although facing cancellation, is moving ahead with the development of key technologies, including a sophisticated Launch Abort System for the Orion capsule that could be used by commercial crew transportation services or a follow-on government spacecraft. The steerable life-saving system is scheduled for its first test flight on May 6, at the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range, N.M.
T-50 TESTING: A second Sukhoi T-50 prototype is expected to join the test flight program before the end of this year, following the delivery of the first prototype of the fifth-generation fighter and a ground test airframe to the Gromov Flight Test Center in Zhukovsky near Moscow last week. Six flights of the T-50-1 were carried out from the Sukhoi production site in Komsomolsk prior to the aircraft being moved by Antonov An-124 to Zhukovsky. The T-50 design is intended to meet the Russian air force’s requirement for a next-generation fighter, known as PAK FA.
LONDON — Three U.S. military personnel and a civilian have died in the first crash of a U.S. Air Force Special Operations CV-22 tiltrotor. The cause of the accident has not been determined yet, according to a statement issued by NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, which runs much of the military campaign in Afghanistan.
The U.S. Air Force is planning to trim its buy of C-5 Avionics Modernization Program (AMP) kits made by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics by 20 aircraft, indicating the service is likely to retire 20 aircraft if approved by Congress. The Pentagon’s April 2 Selected Acquisition Report (SAR) is the first public acknowledgment of the reduction in C-5 AMP numbers (Aerospace DAILY, April 5). The Air Force had sought to retire some of its oldest C-5s to save money for maintenance.
(Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) April 12 - 15 — 26th Annual National Logistics Conference & Exhibition, Hyatt Regency, Miami, Fla. For more information go to www.ndia.org/meetings/0730 April 13 - 15 — 11th Annual Science and Engineering Technology Conference/DoD Tech Expo, “Enabling Technologies to Fight Current & Future Conflicts,” For more information go to www.exhibits.ndia.org
DRY DOCK: The USS Hawaii, the first U.S. Navy Pacific fleet Virginia-class submarine to go into dry dock at Pearl Harbor, will undergo routine inspection and maintenance in the shipyard until early May. The shipyard has been researching, planning and training for dry-docking the subs since June 2008. Virginia-class submarines present unique challenges that make docking them more complicated than Los Angeles-class ships, requiring a special project team that was dedicated to dry-docking the Hawaii.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) April 12 - 15 — 26th Annual National Logistics Conference & Exhibition, Hyatt Regency, Miami, Fla. For more information go to www.ndia.org/meetings/0730 April 13 - 15 — 11th Annual Science and Engineering Technology Conference/DoD Tech Expo, “Enabling Technologies to Fight Current & Future Conflicts,” For more information go to www.exhibits.ndia.org
UP AND RUNNING: AgustaWestland last week said the U.K.’s WAH-64 Apache integrated operational support program is now fully underway. The integrated operational support (IOS) package — an availability-based contract — for the British army’s Apache attack helicopter was awarded to AgustaWestland in September 2009.
GOES-P HANDOVER: The third Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-P) built by Boeing has been transferred to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to begin on-orbit verification. Now named GOES-15, the spacecraft was launched as an in-orbit spare on March 4.
READY, PRODUCE: The U.S. Navy announced BAE Systems’ Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) has reached Milestone C and is ready to enter low-rate initial production. APKWS transforms standard 2.75-inch unguided rockets into smart, laser-guided missiles. The weapon will be used against soft and lightly armored targets, with the goal of minimizing collateral damage. The Marine Corps will initially deployed APKWS from AH-1W Cobra helicopters.
POSTURE REVIEW: Democrats, as expected, are praising the administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (Aerospace DAILY, April 7), and even most Republicans recognize a need to shift attention toward nonproliferation and counterterrorism. But conservatives question the wisdom of the U.S. declaring it will not use nuclear forces in certain situations; previous policy was deliberately ambiguous. “There could be clear consequences for some of the language and perceived signals imbedded in the review,” says Rep.
ORDERING CHINESE: China Great Wall Industry Corp. has signed a preliminary agreement to build and launch a telecom satellite for Bolivia. The spacecraft, Tupac Katari, is to be launched in three years. Tupac Katari will be based on China’s new DFH-4 telecom bus, which also served as a basis for Venesat-1, which China Great Wall built for Venezuela. The $300-million project will include two ground stations.IntelligenceBody
MEETING EXPECTATIONS: Nelson Jobim, Brazil’s defense minister, tells the country’s congress that the ministry will submit its final technical report to the government on its choice of fighter within two weeks. He also said last week that the Dassault Rafale was the only one of the three fighter contenders that fully met the government’s technology transfer requirements. The Boeing F/A-18E/F and Saab Gripen NG are the other contenders.
