BALLISTIC UPGRADE: Lockheed Martin announced June 23 that it has installed the latest upgrade to the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system aboard the cruiser USS Lake Erie. The latest generation of Aegis includes a new ballistic missile defense signal processor, which will be tested aboard the Erie over the next year, leading up to full certification of the upgrade in early 2011. According to Lockheed, the new processor improves the system’s ability to detect, track and target ballistic missiles and associated countermeasures.
The Pentagon’s apparently willful omission of certain company names from last year’s contracting information was apparently a marked departure for the Defense Department, according to an analysis of contracting data.
PARIS Sea Launch has been forced to enter Chapter 11 after failing to resolve mounting losses and cash problems. In particular, the company apparently was unsuccessful June 22 in an attempt to secure $250 million in refinancing to restructure debt. In the court filing, the company listed assets of $100 million — $500 million and liabilities of $500 million to $1 billion.
After three deployments in Iraq, the V-22 Osprey is facing heat from lawmakers again for reliability, maintainability and operational limitations, with the chairman of a House committee calling for a halt to production. House Committee on Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), issued a statement after a June 23 hearing on the tiltrotor aircraft, saying “It’s time to put the Osprey out of its misery.”
Lockheed Martin is hustling to prepare the U.S. Navy’s first Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), USS Freedom, for a possible early deployment. The chief of naval operations, Adm. Gary Roughead, ordered studies on early deployment after the Freedom returned from its latest acceptance trials in May. “We’re talking to [the Navy] about sustainment,” Fred Moosally, president of Lockheed Martin MS2, told reporters at a roundtable June 23. “Getting a ship out and deployed will bring good lessons for this program.”
Lockheed Martin hopes to offer Saudi Arabia the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) equipped with its Aegis ballistic missile defense system, a program that could net the company upward of $1 billion.
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) entered orbit around the moon the morning of June 23 after a four-and-a-half day journey from Earth, marking the agency’s first trip back to Earth’s natural satellite in more than a decade. Controllers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., confirmed a successful lunar orbit insertion at 6:27 a.m. EDT. Launch took place on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on June 18.
The top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) say they oppose procuring more F-22 Raptors, throwing into doubt attempts by the stealth fighter’s advocates to increase its numbers beyond 187. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has asked Congress to fund just four more F-22s, bringing the total fleet size to 187, which Gates said will be sufficient — when combined with F-15s, F-16s and F-18s now, and F-35s and unmanned aircraft in the future — to maintain air superiority.
Deferral of an order for a second batch of Saab Gripens is forcing the Thai air force to extend the life of some of its Northrop F-5E and F-5F light fighters. Seven of the 12 aircraft will continue in operation, the air force tells the Bangkok Post. The air force has ordered six Gripens but has been unable to order a second batch of six, because of a budget cut. It expects to take delivery of the Swedish fighters in 2011. When and whether the air force will be able to order the second batch is unclear.
LONDON — An initially skeptical U.S. Navy is warming to unmanned airplanes, Northrop Grumman says. “We’re getting a grudging and gradual understanding” of the value of an unmanned combat air vehicle [UCAV] for the U.S. Navy, Northrop Grumman deputy program director Tim Beard told IQPC’s UCAV conference in London June 22.
The U.S. Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS) has officially been canceled, according to an acquisition decision memorandum (ADM) released June 23 by the Defense Department’s Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Ashton Carter. The Army’s troubled, $160 billion-plus modernization program — led by Boeing and SAIC — had long been in the sights of critics, and this year their numbers included Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who announced in April the termination of the program’s major Manned Ground Vehicle (MGV) component.
The U.S. Congress is dropping hints about digital combat, resources and training in defense appropriations language, but doesn’t seem to be getting the nation any closer to developing a chain of approval for launching cyber attacks.
Japan’s government is showing patience in pursuing leading U.S. aircraft for its F-X program, which is supposed to produce about 40-50 high-performance, fifth-generation fighters. The F-X is needed to replace legacy F-4J Phantoms. They have already been replaced in Okinawa with F-15s in the last few months because of the high operational tempo in the southwest area of responsibility, which extends to within about 150 miles of China.
PARIS AIR SHOW — Arianespace Chairman/CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall and Astrium Space Transportation head Alain Charmeau say political and risk considerations point to using both the Soyuz booster and the higher-cost Ariane 5 to launch Europe’s Galileo satellite navigation system. Launches of both vehicles would take place from Kourou, French Guiana, home of the Ariane 5 and the location of a newly built Soyuz pad.
LONDON — The Royal Navy’s latest combat ship, the Type 45 destroyer, has provided a painful — if potentially valuable — contracting experience for the U.K. Defense Ministry, according to a parliamentary report. The Public Accounts Committee report on the Type 45, published in the U.K. June 23, is highly critical of elements of the multibillion dollar program, particularly the early stages of the project.
STATION SUPPORT: NASA has awarded a $144 million follow-on contract to ARES Corp. for International Space Station support. The Burlingame, Calif.-based company will provide support for configuration management, data management, information technology, safety and mission assurance, vehicle integrated performance, resource and budget analysis, program schedule development, engineering and technical services, spacecraft integration, international partner integration and strategic analysis planning, according to NASA. The contract runs through Sept.
Raytheon, a vocal opponent of ending the DDG-1000 as recently planned, is touting a company-commissioned study on the U.S. Navy’s modernization plans that concludes, predictably, that the Raytheon/Northrop Grumman DDG-1000 is more survivable than the legacy DDG-51.
NEW DELHI — India recently received a consignment of 155mm light howitzers from Singapore Technologies (ST) Kinetics, despite a temporary ban on procurements from seven companies that include ST, Aviation Week has learned. Other banned companies include Israeli Military Industries, BVT Poland, Media Architects of Singapore and three Indian companies — T.S. Kishan and Co., R.K. Machine Tools and HYT Engineering Co.
IRAQ AIR COVER: With U.S. forces drawing down and repositioning in Iraq and an apparently improved security environment in urban areas, air support — especially by unmanned vehicles — remains a key enabler of continued security, according to U.S. Air Force Col. Michael Fantini, commander of the 332nd Expeditionary Operations Group. Fewer combat operations are taking place, but the sortie pace remains high. “I guess things are not necessarily at a lower operations tempo; they’re at a lower kinetic tempo,” he tells a Pentagon-organized roundtable of bloggers.
Measat 3a, a Malaysian communications satellite that was damaged in a crane accident at Baikonur Cosmodrome last August, reached its geostationary transfer orbit June 21 after launch from Baikonur on a Land Launch Zenit 3SLB rocket. Liftoff came at 5:50 p.m. EDT, sending the 2,366-kilogram (5,216-pound) satellite on the first step of its flight to a final operating position in the geostationary orbital slot at 91.5 deg. E. Long.
