ELEVENTH HOUR: On the eve of a House-Senate budget conference that will decide the fate of the F136 alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter, the General Electric/Rolls-Royce (GE/RR) Fighter Engine Team has submitted a formal fixed-price proposal for the initial batch of 21 engines to power Lot 5 low-rate initial production F-35s delivered in 2012-13.
The U.S. Air Force awarded more than $80 million in aviation maintenance, repair and overhaul contracts on Sept. 30, with more than $40 million designated to two C-17 contracts. McDonnell Douglas (i.e. Boeing in Long Beach) won a $26.2 million contract modification to produce more spare parts through the C-17 Globemaster III sustainment partnership. The U.S. Department of Defense said the full contract amount is obligated. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is responsible for the contracting activity.
BEIJING — Russian Helicopters soon will report early results from studies into a heavy helicopter that would be built with Avicopter and take the Chinese manufacturer into a new class of rotary-wing aircraft. The Advanced Heavy Lifter is being pitched as a civilian aircraft, but Avicopter will not rule out military uses (Aerospace DAILY, Sept. 24).
LONDON — The long-running spat between Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and BAE Systems is continuing, with the SFO announcing Oct. 1 that it intends to pursue prosecution over alleged corruption by the giant defense contractor. There have been widespread suggestions in the U.K. national press that the SFO had suggested that BAE Systems plea bargain and accept a fine, and that there was an end-of-September deadline for the company to accept as much.
PARIS — Engineers have finished installing TP400 turboprop engines on the first prototype of Europe’s A400M airlifter and completed engine flight-test trials aboard a C-130 flying test bed, moving the troubled program a step closer to a planned year-end first flight. Marshall Aerospace reported Oct. 1 that the TP400 had ended its test flight campaign aboard a C-130 flying test bed. The campaign, which began in July, totaled 54 flight hours over 18 flights and 110 hours of total engine run time.
The final draft of the Augustine panel’s report on the future of U.S. human spaceflight won’t be ready until mid-October, and it could take two or three more weeks after that before the Obama administration’s way forward is set. Consultants and staff for the review panel headed by former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine are still crunching the numbers and polishing prose, but the final results won’t change from what was discussed in public over the summer.
Congressional auditors are once again shining a spotlight on NASA’s beleaguered Constellation program to return astronauts to the moon by 2020, questioning whether the program has fully proven its readiness to go forward.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) is introducing an amendment to the fiscal 2010 senate defense spending bill that would block the use of funds for the U.S. Air Force’s KC-X competition unless the service agrees to disclose pricing data about Boeing’s proposal in 2008 to rival Northrop Grumman.
STRATEGIC SUPPLY: Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Air Force Global Logistics Center will form a strategic supplier relationship management team per an agreement announced Sept. 30. The teaming arrangement is intended to improve program performance through joint initiatives designed to reduce costs and supply chain cycle times; identify ways to improve readiness and supply chain availability; use value chain mapping to streamline business processes; and address diminishing manufacturing sources, material shortages and obsolescence issues.
PARIS — Giove A, the first Galileo test satellite, has been repositioned to a parking orbit after completing its planned mission. Built by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. and launched in December 2005, Giove A performed far beyond its two-year design life, securing international frequency filings, collecting data to characterize Galileo’s medium Earth orbit and demonstrating atomic clocks and other key system technologies.
The chances of Iridium Holdings remaining competitive in an increasingly challenging mobile satellite service (MSS) market should get a big boost following its successful sale to an affiliate of investment banking firm Greenhill & Co. and the close of an offering to take the company public.
MISSILE MARKET: Global production of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) is still expected to reach about $28 billion over the next 10 years, even though they have seldom been used in active combat in recent years, according to consultancy Forecast International. “MBDA, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon will dominate this market,” says Larry Dickerson, senior missile analyst at Forecast. The three companies will earn a combined $11.4 billion in SAM sales through 2018 and will build more than 23,000 of the 80,000-plus total missiles forecast for production by then.
A leading Australian defense official reiterated his nation’s interest in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) after touring prime contractor Lockheed Martin’s production line in Fort Worth, Texas, Sept. 29.
NEW DIGS: Satellite test specialist Intespace plans to inaugurate a €3 million ($4.38 million) facility at Elincourt, near Paris, dedicated to subsystem and equipment testing. Set to open in November, the 1,000-square-meter (10,000-square-foot) test center will allow Intespace to shift work from its heavily taxed main facility in Toulouse and diversify its activities into defense and aerospace, helping compensate for satellite down cycles. It will be equipped for mechanical, thermal-vacuum and electromagnetic testing.
PARTS TO IRAN: Federal prosecutors in Washington said last week that a Dutch aviation services company, Aviation Services International, and its director and sales manager pleaded guilty to federal charges related to a conspiracy to illegally export aircraft components and other items from the United States to entities in Iran via the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates and Cyprus. Equipment involved had potential applications in unmanned aircraft and was ostensibly being sent to the Polish Border Control Agency when, in reality, the equipment was being sent to Iran.
INDUSTRIAL CONSOLIDATION: Defending an amendment he offered to strike congressional earmarking for more Boeing C-17s, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), ranking Republican of the Senate Armed Services Committee, pointed toward the adjoining hallways and ripped into special interests for the defense sector for the second day in a row. “You can’t walk through these hallways without bumping into a lobbyist from Boeing,” McCain exclaimed with his characteristic fervor Sept. 30.
LIMA, Ohio — In a whirlwind two-hour stopover here Sept. 30, U.S. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway did a walkthrough of General Dynamics’ plant where the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) is built.
A force of 80,000 North Korean soldiers trained in special operations and recently schooled in the employment of enhanced, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) — whose use was refined during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan — is now among the top threats to the South Korean government in Seoul.
A Soyuz TMA rocket carrying two new crewmembers for the International Space Station (ISS) and Canada’s first private space tourist lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, at 3:14 a.m. EDT Sept. 30, setting up a rendezvous with the ISS Oct. 2.
LONDON — Eurofighter nations are expected to soon conclude a key radar and defensive aids support package aimed at cutting maintenance costs by a target of 50 percent. Partner-state air forces and export customers attended an availability conference Sept. 30 at RAF Coningsby, the United Kingdom’s designated main operating base for the Eurofighter Typhoon.
WITHDRAWAL PROBLEMS: U.S. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) is concerned about the U.S.’s ability to withdraw forces from Iraq as planned before 2012. At a Sept. 30 hearing, Skelton noted that “simply moving so many troops and so much equipment out of Iraq will be a significant logistical challenge. We have not conducted such a large movement over so much distance since Vietnam, and that did not go well.” At the first benchmark in August 2010, the U.S. force presence will still comprise up to six advise-and-assist brigades, with about 50,000 U.S.
