Japan’s Akatsuki Venus atmospheric probe is en route to its target planet after launching on an H-IIA F17 rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center in Southeast Japan early on May 21 local time. Mission liftoff — delayed three days because of bad weather over the island launch site — came at 6:58 a.m. Japan Standard Time (5:58 p.m. EDT May 20). The spacecraft separated 27 min. 29 sec. after liftoff, following a “smooth” ascent, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Riding piggyback was the Ikaros solar-sail experiment.
ONE MILLION: The U.S. Army is celebrating passing the one million flight-hour mark with its unmanned aerial vehicle fleet. As of April 14, the fleet flew 1,002,731 hours, 88 percent of those in Iraq and Afghanistan. On May 25 and 26 in the Pentagon courtyard, the Army will display several components of its unmanned aerial systems including the MQ-1C Extended Range/Multi-Purpose (ER/MP) UAS, Shadow with Launcher, Raven, One System Remote Video Terminal (OSRVT), and Ground Control Station (GCS).
SLOW GOING: Contractual talks between A400M customers and manufacturer EADS to cover cost overruns on the military transport are moving more slowly than expected. In March, government and industry agreed in principle on how to share the extra costs. But EADS Chief Financial Officer Hans-Peter Ring says translating that into a contract is taking more time than hoped. Ring acknowledges that “we are not progressing at the pace we would like.” However, he stresses “we are progressing.”
LONDON — The state of flux concerning the Netherlands’ involvement in the Lockheed Martin Joint Strike Fighter program is expected to last several more months. The lower house of the Dutch parliament has narrowly voted to cancel the purchase of an F-35 initial operational test and evaluation (IOT&E) aircraft, but the caretaker government now in place is refusing to follow suit and wants the decision left to the new government.
Republican reaction on Capitol Hill was mixed immediately following the announcement late May 20 by President Barack Obama’s intelligence chief that he was leaving by the end of the month, which has added fuel to the policy debate over the role and authority necessary for the position. Blair’s announcement follows heavy criticism of intelligence community (IC) shortfalls in relaying information over recent terrorist attempts in the U.S.
The U.S. Coast Guard has exercised another year of a contract with TIMCO Aviation Services for HC-130H Hercules depot maintenance. TIMCO’s target is a 160-calendar day turnaround to complete the progressive structural inspections — basic and resultant repairs that are required every 48 months for this transport and air-sea rescue aircraft.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) june 2 - 3 — Hegan Basque Aerospace Cluster’s Aerotrends 2010, Bilboa Exhibition Center, Teruel, Spain. For more information go to www.hegan.com/aerotrends June 8 - 13 — ILA Berlin Air Show, Berlin-Schoenefeld Airport, Berlin, Germany. For more information go to http://www.ila-berlin.coms june 13 — Royal Air Force’s Cosford Air Show. For more information go to www.cosfordairshow.co.uk/
SPINNING UP: Having awarded contracts to Boeing, Sikorsky and tiltrotor joint-venture Bell-Boeing for Phase 1 of the Mission Adaptive Rotor (MAR) program, the U.S. Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (Darpa) says it is focused on integrating and demonstrating an adaptive rotor in flight by 2018, so that the technology will be ready for the next U.S. military rotorcraft program. MAR will bring together multiple complementary technologies to change rotor attributes in flight, to increase range and payload, and reduce noise and vibration.
DEMAND DOWNWASH: Although cancellations for commercial helicopters are starting to slow, Eurocopter still saw 18 cancellations in the first quarter, EADS Chief Financial Officer Hans-Peter Ring says. While demand is improving over 2008, EADS warns that “commercial appetite is still far below 2007 and 2008 levels.” Deliveries also were down to 86 units from 93.
NEW GUARD: Adm. Robert Papp will be sworn in as the new commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard on May 25. He will replace Adm. Thad Allen, who is taking on the role of National Incident Commander to coordinate efforts to clean up the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Allen has recently been outspoken regarding Coast Guard policies, grabbing headlines in a National Press Club speech in February by calling attention to the armed services’ tradeoff between force structure and its modernization efforts like the beleaguered Deepwater acquisition program.
SUPER TRIALS: The USS Jason Dunham, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, will be delivered to the U.S. Navy this summer, having recently completed its last significant milestone trial. On May 20, the 58th ship of its class finished a “super trial” — a combination builder’s and acceptance trial geared to mature ship classes. The ship is expected to be officially commissioned in November.
PARIS — Thales head Luc Vigneron says Thales remains open to resuming discussions with Safran on pooling electronics assets, provided conditions are acceptable. Thales and Safran broke off talks recently when it became clear the two companies could not identify a business case for pooling the assets, which were centered mostly on the companies’ optronics activities (Aerospace DAILY, May 13). But the French government, which has been pushing the rationalization move as a way to decrease its R&D costs, cried foul.
THINKING AHEAD: Airbus Military is pondering the future development of its light and medium families of military transport aircraft, the C-212, CN-235 and C-295. Regarding the C-212, the company is working with program partner Indonesia to drive further cost out of the light military transport, while in the medium arena it has looked at a number of options in the 16-21-ton-class turboprop aircraft, dubbed C-XX.
A request for information (RFI) from industry on how to human-rate commercial spacecraft designed to take government astronauts to the International Space Station offers considerable latitude for “tailoring” safety requirements to the new approach envisioned in NASA’s Fiscal 2011 budget request.
BENGALURU, India — The official first flight of India’s Light Combat Helicopter (LCH) is set for May 23. Designed and developed by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), the light chopper had its unofficial first flight on March 29. Since then, HAL’s Helicopter Complex has test flown the aircraft as many as 20 times to check various flight parameters. The LCH is based on the Dhruv platform and features a glass cockpit.
LONDON — South African missile manufacturer Denel Dynamics is aiming for the first test firing of its A-Darter dogfight air-to-air missile from a Saab Gripen by the end of this year. Ground-launch shots of the imaging infrared-guided missile will conclude this month. The development program is scheduled for completion by mid-2012. South Africa is developing the A-Darter with support from Brazil.
The U.S. Defense Department is improving in its major weapons acquisitions, according to nonpartisan congressional auditors, but it has a ways to go to institutionalize recent reforms — and the Pentagon may still have to cut the number or size of its programs now just to meet expected budget pressures in the future.
PIECE BY PIECE: The fifth segment of an Ares I first stage was moved into the test stand at Alliant Techsystems’ (ATK) facility in Promontory, Utah, last week, in preparation for the second ground test firing of the rocket Sept. 2. Data from the test will be analyzed using last September’s ground test, as well as the results of the Ares I-X launch in October 2009, according to ATK. The Obama administration has proposed scrapping the Ares I in favor of nurturing commercial systems for transporting humans to low Earth orbit (Aerospace DAILY, May 20).
PARIS — Arianespace has been selected to launch Britain’s new Skynet 5D satellite, an Astrium-built unit set to be orbited in the first half of 2013. Together with a contract for Intelsat 17 awarded earlier this week, the Paris-based launch provider says it now has seven telecom orders so far this year, including two unannounced, and five dedicated Soyuz missions. The Intelsat 17 order was transferred from Sea Launch, which is still in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and could not meet Intelsat’s late 2010 target launch date (Aerospace DAILY, May 18).
Rolls-Royce’s Next Generation Nuclear Propulsion Plant (NGNPP) will deliver what the company calls “a step change in safety, capability and availability” for submarine propulsion. But its significance may go well beyond this application. The genesis of the NGNPP was in 2007 when the U.K. announced plans to replace Vanguard submarines. This means spending £11 billion-£14 billion ($16.8 billion-$21.4 billion) on four new subs, to be operational in the 2020s.
The latest in a series of requests for information (RFIs) from NASA under its proposed Fiscal 2011 budget lists six “flagship” space testbeds costing $400 million to $1 billion each that would push technologies needed for exploration beyond low Earth orbit.
