LONDON — Saab has secured a 200 million Swedish kronor ($27.4 million) contract for in-service support of Gripen multirole fighters. The contract was let by the Swedish defense materiel administration, acting for export customers of the single-engine combat aircraft in Thailand, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
LONDON — The Swiss government has taken delivery of the last of 20 EC635 transport and training helicopters. The acquisition of the rotorcraft was confirmed in the 2005 defense modernization spending plan, and the first helo was delivered by Eurocopter in July. The first four of the helos were assembled at Eurocopter’s Donauworth facility, with the final 16 undergoing the process in Switzerland at Ruag Aviation in Alpnach.
Three new crew members are en route to the International Space Station (ISS) after a safe launch in Soyuz TMA-17 from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The pre-dawn liftoff of the three-seat capsule came at 4:52 p.m. Dec. 20 EST, carrying cosmonaut Oleg Kotov, Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NASA’ s Timothy Creamer.
Construction started Dec. 17 on the first Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV), a ship praised by senior U.S. military leadership for its management up to this point. Rear Adm. Bill Landay, head of the U.S. Navy’s program executive office for ships, has hailed JHSV as a program that has managed to stay on track throughout its development. “Our goal for design maturity [on JHSV] was 85 percent,” he said. “Our analysis says we’re at 87 percent.” The program completed an extensive production readiness review Oct. 20 in preparation for the start of fabrication.
PARIS — The U.S. Export-Import Bank has agreed to help finance a broadband satellite for U.K.-based Avanti Communications, indicating a growing willingness on the bank’s part to counter a strong offensive by the French export credit agency Coface.
LEGISLATIVE FLURRY: The U.S. Senate approved the final Fiscal 2010 defense appropriations bill on Dec. 19 by a vote of 88 to 10. The bill — a congressional compromise with the House, which passed it Dec. 16 — then awaited President Barack Obama’s expected signature. Covering the fiscal year that started Oct. 1, the bill does not address the president’s new Afghanistan security strategy because the administration has yet to request any funding for that initiative (Aerospace DAILY, Dec. 21).
LONDON — The United Arab Emirates plan to procure four Boeing C-17 airlifters has taken another step forward with the formal foreign military sale (FMS) notification now submitted to Congress for parts of the transaction. The FMS deal would cover the logistics element of the acquisition, with the aircraft to be bought under direct commercial sales terms. The value of the logistics contract is estimated at up to $501 million.
UKRAINIAN BIRD: MacDonald Dettwiler & Associates (MDA) will build and launch a communications satellite for the Ukrainian space agency under a $254 million deal. The award includes the supply of ground stations for two other spacecraft. The contract win follows a $200 million award to provide payloads for the Russian Satellite Communications Company’s (RSCC) AM5 and 6 spacecraft, being built by Reshetnev ISS. MDA beat out Thales Alenia Space, Reshetnev’s traditional payload supplier, for the RSCC award.
NASA has opened for the first time in-flight the cavity door covering the 98-inch infrared telescope mounted in the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (Sofia), a modified Boeing 747SP. The one hour and 19 minute long flight, which took off from NASA’s Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif, included two minutes with the telescope’s door fully opened, the agency says.
OVERSIGHT SURGE: Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a former state auditor who made a reputation trying to do the same in Washington, is questioning the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the departments of Defense and State whether adequate mechanisms for oversight of contracts in Afghanistan are in place and if the lessons learned in Iraq are being applied to the war there.
The U.S. Navy announced Dec. 18 that Lockheed Martin’s Remote Minehunting System (RMS) program has triggered a Nunn-McCurdy cost/schedule breach notification. The company’s RMS is to be deployed on the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) as part of the mine countermeasures missions (MCM) module. It comprises a Remote Multi-Mission Vehicle (RMMV), its launch-and-retrieval system, the RMMV-towed sonar sensor and advanced communications equipment and software. The RMMV portion is the one that has run afoul of Nunn-McCurdy regulations.
With Republican senators using the spotlight to protest Democratic health care initiatives, Congress raced toward a deadline of providing more necessary national security funds Dec. 18.
KOREAN INTEREST: XCOR Aerospace will seek export licenses for its planned Lynx Mark II suborbital spaceplane so it can sell suborbital flight services to a non-profit South Korean education and research organization. The Mojave, Calif.-based company has retained counsel and consultants to help it win U.S. government approval to station a Lynx at the Yecheon Astro Space Center 150 miles south of Seoul. “This is a groundbreaking opportunity for our company, our industry and a very good opportunity for the U.S.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) Jan. 4 - 7, 2010 — 48th Annual American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ Aerospace Sciences Meeting, Including the New Horizons Forums and Aerospace Exposition, World Center Marriott, Orlando, Fla. For more information go to www.aiaa.org
BRITISH BULLSEYE: The Raytheon-Lockheed Martin Javelin joint venture will begin delivering missiles to the U.K. in 2010 and continue through 2012, the companies said Dec. 17. The joint venture has received a $176 million contract from the U.K. Defense Ministry for more than 1,300 Javelin missiles and associated engineering support. By using a Javelin, the companies claim a single infantryman can engage targets at ranges up to 1.6 miles. The missile is in use by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps and 11 allied customers.
IN ORBIT: An Ariane 5 lifted off with the Helios 2B military reconnaissance satellite Dec. 18 and placed the spacecraft in its sun-synchronous polar orbit almost an hour later. Liftoff of the big European launch vehicle — twice delayed by technical glitches — came at 11:26 a.m. EST in an instantaneous launch window.
INDEPENDENCE DAY: The U.S. Navy’s second Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), the future USS Independence, is scheduled to be commissioned Jan. 16 in Mobile, Ala., following delivery of the vessel to the service Dec. 18. The Independence is the first LCS built by the General Dynamics-Bath Iron Works team. The 417-foot high-speed aluminum trimaran will compete with Lockheed Martin’s hull form when the Navy downselects to a single ship type. General Dynamics now has until February 2010 to correct most of the trial cards received during the Acceptance Trials, completed Nov. 19.
Managers across NASA are looking for an “innovative and inspirational” way to deal with budget realities facing the agency, and are working on a plan to merge the spaceflight and exploration mission directorates into a single unit as the shuttle era draws to a close.
