GENOA, Italy — The Italian ministry of defense is increasing the pressure on both the U.S. government and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter prime contractor Lockheed Martin to win better terms for technology transfer and local industry involvement.
TANKER EXTENSION: The Pentagon is willing to extend the deadline for bids for the U.S. Air Force KC-X to July 9, giving industry another 60 days to prepare proposals. The move comes as EADS has leaked its interest in bidding for the beleaguered aerial refueling tanker program against Boeing. Although EADS had indicated it wanted 90 more days to bid, “We consider 60 days to be reasonable in this case,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said late March 31. The Air Force will compress its bid evaluation period, so it can still award the contract this fall as planned.
The U.S. Air Force is proposing to take over management of the Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) Battle Management Command and Control (BMC2) and integrate it into a global network of air operations centers (AOCs), Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz says. Schwartz says other services are interested in managing the system once it is transferred from MDA for operational use, and this decision will likely be made among senior uniformed officials on the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon.
It would be in the interest of taxpayers to allow EADS North America an extension of the U.S. Air Force’s due date for KC-135 replacement bids if the company is serious about entering the competition, Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz says.
The Pentagon is still discussing what tactical unmanned aircraft to provide the Pakistani military, and the outcome of the talks could lead to a change in the original plan to deliver 12 Textron AAI Shadow UAVs.
NASA’s abandonment of the Constellation program represents a “change in approach and philosophy,” but not a change to the ultimate goal of sending human explorers into the Solar System, according to the agency’s number two exploration official. The Obama administration plans to terminate the Constellation program, including the Ares launch vehicles and Orion spacecraft being developed for a lunar return, in favor of a multipronged effort aimed at enabling technologies for future deep-space exploration.
GENOA, Italy — The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) plans to start operating its second Alenia Aeronautica ATR-42 MP maritime patrol aircraft, which will be based at Benin City AB, 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of Lagos. The second ATR-42 was delivered March 29. The order for two of the aircraft, worth $73 million, was announced in 2006 but signed in March 2007 and called for the delivery of both aircraft by the end of 2009. The first one was delivered in December.
LONDON — Procurement problems at the core of the decision-making process on one of the U.K.’s largest private finance initiative (PFI) projects — the Defense Ministry’s Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) — are laid bare in a report by the government’s finance watchdog, the National Audit Office (NAO).
BENGALURU, India — India’s human spaceflight program is funded for a four-year development-and-trial effort that will build and fly an unmanned capsule to test its crew environmental control and life-support system (ECLSS) and launch-escape system, says K. Radhakrisnan, the new chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
PUBLIC OFFERING: ViaSat plans to issue 5.5 million shares of common stock to help fund the rollout of its 125-Gbps high-speed Internet satellite. ViaSat-1 is to be orbited in early 2011 to provide additional capacity for broadband operator WildBlue Communications, which was acquired by ViaSat in December, and prepare for future growth. About 2.5 million shares are to be sold by ViaSat.
INDIAN CYBERSECURITY: The Indian government recently passed laws beefing up the country’s data-privacy regulations in an effort to combat increasing cybersecurity threats, according to Sachin Pilot, the minister of state for the Technology and Communication ministry. Plans are in the works for India to collaborate with the U.S. on cybersecurity, he says. “Indian companies have global clients and must show that India has the capacity to prevent cyber-attacks,” Pilot says.
When the Defense Department releases its annual Selected Acquisition Reports early next month, the U.S. Army’s Apache AH-64D Block III program will be cited as having breached the Nunn-McCurdy statute. The report will be presented to Congress in the first week of April, according to a source close to the program. At issue are 56 new-build aircraft, the inclusion of which in the baseline program caused the cost overrun.
WE HEAR YOU: Washington has received suggestions from Japan on relocating the U.S. Marine Corps air base in Okinawa, and U.S. diplomats and defense leaders are reviewing the offer, a State Department spokesman told reporters at the agency’s headquarters. “We haven’t changed our position, but obviously, we indicated we would listen to the Japanese current thinking on the subject,” State’s Philip J. “P.J.” Crowley said March 29.
The new U.S.-Russian Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty does not cover conventional weapons, which is why it will not inhibit proposed prompt global strike (PGS) capabilities or even missile defenses, a key U.S. diplomat told Washington reporters March 29.
NEW DELHI — It was a busy weekend for the Indian military, with three missile tests carried out by the Defense Research Development Organization. On March 28, a 700-km. (435-mile) range Agni-1 short-range ballistic missile was fired from a mobile launcher from the Integrated Test Range at Wheeler Island on the Bay of Bengal in the east Indian state of Orissa. The test was part of the army’s user-training exercise. It hit the target after a 500-sec. flight, one government official reportedly said.
LONDON — European regulators have given approval for Dassault Systemes to buy the IBM unit distributing product life cycle management. Dassault Systemes, which is behind major aircraft design software tools, most notably the Catia suite, in October announced plans to buy the IBM sales and client support operations. The IBM unit was already selling Dassault Systemes products. The deal carries a price tag of $600 million in cash.
NATION BUILDING: Georgia, Croatia, Estonia, Lithuania, Hungary and Latvia will receive Pentagon funds to help troops from those nations operate with U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan, the U.S. Defense Department announced March 26. Yemen and the Philippines will also receive money to strengthen their militaries inside their countries. Called Section 1206 for the portion of the 2006 defense authorization act that created it, the funds are supposed to help allies develop coalition capacity to work effectively with U.S. forces.
LONDON – The U.K. Defense Ministry is now confirming what has been expected for some time — that it intends to cut its procurement plans for the Airbus Military A400M airlifter to 22 units, following industry and the partner nations outlining a new path for the much-delayed program.
BIG STUFF: Small companies face challenges to getting into federal contracting, difficulty retaining that business as they grow and daunting costs that can even kill some of them along the way, an Aerospace Industries Association member and industry executive told the House Small Business Committee recently. “The federal contracting process is complex and, for small businesses, the process can be too difficult to manage,” said Robert Sprole III, chief executive of Therm, which manufactures jet engine turbine air foils.
NEW DELHI —Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems is close to accepting a 26% equity stake in a joint venture with India’s public sector company, Bharat Electronics Ltd., giving speed to the overdue project. The venture is to develop advanced imaging infrared seekers for the Python 5 fifth-generation air-to-air missile. India has ordered 18 Spyder systems that use advanced air-to-air missiles as ground-launched surface-to-air missiles. Besides the Python 5, it has the beyond-visual-range Derby missile, which has an active seeker.
FRANKFURT and LONDON — EADS plans to decide whether it will bid for the U.S. Air Force’s tanker within the next two weeks, Airbus CEO Thomas Enders told Aviation Week. But at this stage, Enders is “still skeptical” if EADS should go ahead with a bid.
AUSTRALIAN CHINOOKS: The Australian Defense Materiel Organization (DMO) signed a $513.5 million contract with the U.S. Army Security Assistance Command to acquire seven Boeing CH-47F Chinook helicopters, two simulators and associated spares, according to a DMO statement. The aircraft will replace the existing fleet of six CH-47D Chinooks, with the first two to enter service in 2014. All seven should be in service by 2017.
The U.S. Air Force officially launched its plan to replace its HH-60G Pave Hawk rescue helicopter fleet with the release of a request for information (RFI) March 23. The Air Force abandoned its last effort to replace the Pave Hawk — the Combat, Search and Rescue Replacement (CSAR-X) program — after multiple industry protests following an initial award to Boeing (Aerospace DAILY, April 7, 2009).
