A new, fully instrumented test aircraft is what tops the V-22 Osprey program manager’s Christmas list this year, representing an unusual and unusually urgent request.
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
CYBER BILL: A new bill in the House of Representatives would reauthorize several National Science Foundation programs to enhance cybersecurity. H.R. 4061 also would require the National Institute of Standards and Technology to establish a cybersecurity awareness program and implement standards for managing personal information stored on computer systems. The legislation also would establish a task force to recommend actions to improve cybersecurity research and development. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that implementing H.R.
CATCHING A WAVE: The U.S. Air Force X-51A WaveRider finally made its first captive-carry flight Dec. 9 under the wing of a B-52H from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., according to Pratt & Whitney. The WaveRider previously was supposed to achieve the carriage flight by late October or early November, but defense officials eventually cited integration issues with the mothership, as well as maintenance issues on the B-52, as reasons for the slip (Aerospace DAILY, Oct. 22).
STUAS PICK: Originally expected in September, award of a contract for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps’ Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (Stuas/Tier 2) has been delayed to March 2010 to allow more time to evaluate the bids. This pushes initial operating capability back to the second quarter of Fiscal 2013, from the fourth quarter of Fiscal 2012, and Boeing’s contracts to provide surveillance services with the ScanEagle UAV will be extended to bridge the gap. AAI, Boeing, Raytheon and General Dynamics/Elbit company UAS Dynamics are bidding for STUAS/Tier 2.
MAINSTAY MODERNIZATION: Upgraded A-50U Mainstay airborne early warning and control aircraft should start entering Russian air force inventory next year, says Maj. Gen. Oleg Barmin, its head of armament programs. The Beriev design bureau and project partner Vega say the first upgraded A-50U has been completed. The effort is aimed at introducing more modern electronics to the system, which was first fielded in 1984. As part of the overhaul, power consumption and weight also are coming down.
SEVILLE, Spain and PARIS The Airbus Military A400M took to the air at 10:15 a.m. (local time) Dec. 11 for a 3-hour-47-minute first flight — the culmination of a two-decade long struggle on Europe’s part to develop a next-generation airlifter. Powered by its four 11,000 shaft horsepower Europrop International TP400D engines, MSN001 took off from the EADS facility in Seville with Airbus’s chief military test pilot Ed Strongman at the controls and Ignacio “Nacho” Lombo in the right seat.
Alliant Techsystems (ATK) has run its first test on the new Castor 30 solid-fuel rocket motor it is developing for a variety of applications, including the upper stage of the Taurus II medium-lift launch vehicle that Orbital Sciences Corp. is building to deliver cargo to the International Space Station.
The U.S. Army’s much-anticipated fly-by-wire Black Hawk UH-60M Upgrade program may be halted after developmental testing so that a pressing need for more baseline M models can be filled. Brig. Gen. William Crosby, head of the Army’s program executive office for aviation, said Dec. 11 he has recommended the M Upgrade program not proceed to procurement yet. Crosby said he is responding to a request from Maj. Gen. James Barclay, chief of army aviation, for more baseline M helicopters.
GAINING CLEARANCE: The chairman and ranking Republican of the Senate government management subcommittee are pushing a bill “to eliminate delays in the security clearance process that have been a barrier to getting people to work on some of the nations most complex missions, in the government and private sector alike.” Spearheaded by Sens. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio), the so-called Security Clearance Modernization and Reporting Act (S.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) engineers plan to continue diagnosis of what appears to be a seized up wheel on the already stranded Mars rover Spirit. The new problems with the right hand side rear wheel emerged during operations to try and free Spirit from soft soil where it has been trapped since late April when it broke through an unseen crust covering an old impact crater in an area dubbed “Troy” (Aerospace DAILY, Nov. 13).
MONEY BACK: The same approach adopted by some U.S. states to help keep their roadsides free of litter may help hold down the level of orbital debris around the Earth. One of the ideas broached at a three-day conference on the problem sponsored by NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is requiring satellite operators to pay a deposit before launching a new spacecraft. “If a satellite owner-operator or third party then removed the satellite from orbit, it gets the deposit back,” says Brian Weeden, technical advisor to the Secure World Foundation.
Continuing problems with a vernier thruster on its Delta II launch vehicle have delayed the start of NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Surveyor Explorer (WISE) mission until Monday, Dec. 14. Workers at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., were to replace a suspect component Dec. 11 in the thruster mechanism, which isn’t properly moving the steering jet, to clear the way for a new launch date at 9:09 a.m. EST Monday. Originally set for launch on Dec. 9, the mission has been delayed both by weather at the California site and by the thruster anomaly.
BEIJING China launched its seventh Yaogan remote sensing satellite on Dec. 9, barely a year after putting the fourth of the series into orbit. “It will be mainly used for scientific experiment, land resources survey, crop yield estimates and disaster prevention and reduction,” says the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, without mentioning potential military uses.
FLAG WAIVING: The Pentagon is waiving U.S. legal limitations on more defense items produced in the U.K. They include air circuit breakers, welded shipboard anchor and mooring chains with a diameter of four inches or less, gyrocompasses, electronic navigation chart systems, steering controls, pumps, propulsion and machinery control systems, and totally enclosed lifeboats. Such waivers are legally encouraged with favored allies like Britain, with which the U.S. has had a defense trade memorandum of understanding (MOU) since 1975.
FULL STEAM: The world market for military naval vessels and equipment is forecast at more than $200 billion over the next 10 years, according to a report by IQPC. The market includes surface combatants, submarines and underwater warfare systems, as well as weapons, sensors and C4I equipment. The largest growth will be in offshore patrol vessels, but there are also many destroyer, frigate and corvette programs under way or planned, the report says. U.S.
As the U.S. Marine Corps V-22 Osprey fleet expands, the program office asserts it is steadily tackling readiness and reliability issues that have plagued the tiltrotor aircraft, while continuing to grow the effort.
ARLINGTON, Va. — By March 10, 2010, the U.S. Air Force will have determined the scope of its next-generation UAV program, or MQ-X, according to Air Force Col. Eric Mathewson, director of the service’s UAV task force.
NASA plans to begin opening the telescope cavity door on its Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (Sofia) aircraft in-flight for the first time later this month following the successful completion of a functional check sortie from Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif., on Dec. 9.
The U.K. government has decided to create a dedicated space agency. Space activities had previously been coordinated by the British National Space Center (BNSC), with responsibility for budgets and policy spread among a half dozen departments, two research councils, the technology strategy board and the weather office. The new agency, announced Dec. 10 by Science and Innovation Minister Lord Paul Drayson, who is in charge of space, will replace the BNSC and bring together all the different bodies involved in space for the first time.
PARIS — France has contracted with Thales Communications and Thales Alenia Space to accelerate delivery of new medium and very high rate protected ground stations for its Syracuse III secure military communications satellite system, and to modernize an overseas communications facility for the system.
NEW YORK — Improved confidence in the performance of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) new midcourse tracking anti-ballistic missile satellites is allowing Navy officials to curtail ambitious requirements for their next-generation cruiser program. This will allow for development of a less expensive system, which is more likely to garner support as the Pentagon is stretched to continue funding wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
