MISSION ASSURANCE: Despite a focus on stability in launch vehicle purchasing, Gary Payton, principal deputy under secretary of the U.S. Air Force for space, says he will not relinquish his demand for complete mission assurance. “We cannot tolerate a reduction in mission assurance,” he says, noting that several payloads awaiting launch are critically needed. Satellite delays have opened the door to gaps in service in some areas — such as communications or missile warning — if a major failure occurs.
V FOR VETO: Defense Secretary Robert Gates will not be cowed by a groundswell of political support for buying more Boeing C-17 airlifters and funding an alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter — the General Electric/Rolls-Royce F136. “Let me be very clear: I will strongly recommend that the president veto any legislation that sustains the unnecessary continuation of these two programs,” he told Congress last week.
The first upgraded Lynx Mk9A helicopters will deploy to Afghanistan in April, with — as expected — the British Defense Ministry deciding to modify the remainder of its Mk9 fleet to the same standard. The ministry awarded AgustaWestland a £41.8 million ($62.1 million) follow-on contract to modify a further 10 Lynx Mk9s to the 9A standard. The ministry contracted for 12 Mk9As at the end of 2008 through an urgent operational requirement. Delivery of the modified aircraft to the Army Air Corps (AAC) began at the end of last year.
LONDON — The first export customer for the Boeing F/A-18E/F, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), now has the first of the fighters in its home country as efforts focus on reaching operational status.
PARIS — Eumetsat will be forced to wait at least until June to kick off its next-generation geostationary meteorological satellite system. The Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) system is expected to reinforce medium and long term weather forecasting while contributing critical data for monitoring seasonal and climate change.
CONCERNED IN ALABAMA: U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and fellow Republican lawmakers from Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions and Rep. Jo Bonner are waiting for the Congressional Budget Office to respond to a March 11 letter the three submitted that requests an extension of the Request for Proposals (RFP) for the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). Shelby and his counterparts would like the RFP to be extended beyond April 12 so that the LCS RFP receives “adequate attention to the role of operation and support costs in assessing the costs of LCS variants.” With the loss of the U.S.
RESEARCH FUNDING: The U.S. Defense Department plans to award $38.7 million to academic institutions to support the purchase of research instrumentation. Under the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP), 166 awards ranging from $50,000 to $930,000 will go to 96 academic institutions. DURIP will support the purchase of state-of-the-art equipment that augments current university capabilities or develops new ones to perform defense research.
EX-IM PLANS: The U.S. Export-Import Bank says it is working on new telecom satellite projects for possible export credit financing. Late last year, the Ex-Im Bank agreed to fund an initial project, Avanti Communications’ Avanti-2, to be built by Orbital Sciences Corp. France’s Coface has led the trend toward export credit financing, and is now finalizing a deal with Russia’s Gazprom. International Lease Financing Corp. says it expects by year’s end to begin using a plan being put in place by Russia.
The multinational Medium-Extended Air Defense System (Meads) is suffering from lackluster support from its U.S. Army champion, but it may be able to survive due to a strong desire at the Pentagon to publicly prove it supports international programs.
CANADIAN STORAGE: Curtiss-Wright Corporation received a $1.17 million contract from Canadian company MDA to provide High Altitude Rugged Storage Systems for the Canadian Forces Air Command’s (RCAF) CP-140 maritime patrol aircraft. The system is called SANbric SAN (storage area network). The RCAF CP-140 (P-3 Orion) Aurora maritime patrol and surveillance aircraft is undergoing a Structural Life Extension program to maintain the Canadian fleet through 2020.
A pair of upgraded Athena launch vehicles for small satellites should be ready for service in 2012 under a new teaming arrangement between Lockheed Martin and Alliant Techsystems (ATK). Designated the Athena Ic and Athena IIc, the new vehicles will incorporate the ATK Castor 30 solid fuel upper-stage to compete with the Pegasus XL, Minotaur I, IV and V, Taurus XL and planned Falcon 1e. The first and second stages will continue to be the Castor 120 solid-fuel motors.
LONDON and WASHINGTON — While Washington and Moscow are on the brink of a successor to the expired Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start), Russia continues to exercise elements of its nuclear triad. The follow-on treaty will reduce both warheads and delivery platforms, though given the comparatively small size of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet, whether it will be affected remains to be seen.
LONDON — U.K. plans for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) efforts must not be delayed by the pending Strategic Defense Review, and to do so would be “misguided,” according to the Parliament’s defense committee. The committee is concerned that ongoing ISR work could be adversely affected as a result of the defense review, due to get fully underway immediately following a general election.
LONDON — While BAE Systems has lost out on recent U.K. land and air systems programs, its naval business March 25 secured the assessment phase for the Royal Navy’s Type 26 frigate to replace the Type 22 and Type 23 designs. The first of class will enter service “early in the next decade,” according to the defense ministry. The Type 26 is one of two classes of ships that will be bought to meet the Royal Navy’s Future Surface Combatant (FSC) program. The four-year, £127 million ($189 million) contract will refine the basic design options.
STAGNANT C4ISR: The global command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) market is “stagnant” for now, according to U.S. consultancy Forecast International. The firm’s senior defense analyst, Richard Sterk, projects a market worth at least $53.8 billion over the next 10 years, but the value of the programs covered by his study will fall from $8.8 billion total this year to $3.6 billion in 2019, a 59.12 percent drop.
NEW DELHI — As field trials for India’s 126-aircraft Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) draw to a close, vendors vying for the program could get the opportunity to revise their pricing. The Saab Gripen is completing its final field trials in Leh, while the Eurofighter is due to start weapons and other equipment tests as part of the third phase of trials in the U.K. and Germany next month. Those trials are scheduled to be completed on April 29.
A National Academies report on monitoring compliance with climate change treaties formally endorses NASA’s plan to build and launch a replacement for its Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) spacecraft, although it suggests the agency consider changing its planned orbit to allow better monitoring of human sources of greenhouse gases.
LIMA PACT: L-3 Communications has teamed with New Zealand’s Pacific Aerospace to offer a variant of its single-turboprop short-takeoff-and-landing P-740 XSTOL for the U.S. Air Force’s Light Mobility Aircraft (LiMA) requirement for a light transport/trainer to be operated by the Afghanistan air force. L-3 Platform Integration, based in Waco, Texas, and prime contractor for the Air Force C-27J light cargo aircraft, will lead the bid. Companies that responded to a July 2009 request for information on the LiMA requirement also included Cessna with the Caravan.
The U.S. Air Force needs to pay greater heed to the testing schedule and results of its Global Hawk development program, according to a recent report by the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E).
Congress should weigh in on the use of unmanned vehicles in national security, and the federal government should do a better job of delineating its thinking on their nonmilitary application, such as CIA Predator strikes in Pakistan, a panel of experts told a House oversight panel March 23.
WOODFORD, U.K. — BAE Systems expects development testing of the MRA4 maritime patrol aircraft to wrap up in the coming weeks as the company commences operational trials of the system.
U.S. House defense authorizers and key Pentagon officials clashed March 24 over the Joint Strike Fighter, particularly whether to continue the General Electric/Rolls-Royce F136 alternate engine. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.), a leading minority member on the House Armed Services Committee, honed in on JSF cost growth that was recently acknowledged by the Defense Department. The congressman says he is “frankly concerned that cost growth will render it unaffordable in the long term.
NEW DELHI — Indian engineering and construction firm Larsen & Toubro has won an order worth $215 million for the design and construction of 36 high-speed interceptor boats for the Indian coast guard, and is in the running for more orders, including the Indian navy’s second line of conventional submarines.
