GOING VERTICAL: XCOR Aerospace is refining the aerodynamic design of its Lynx suborbital launch vehicle and preparing for another round of wind tunnel tests following completion of initial subsonic testing at the U.S. Air Force Air Vehicle Directorate’s vertical wind tunnel at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
LONDON The British Defense Ministry is dumping a project examining sweeping consolidation of helicopter basing as a result of the potential costs of the program. Program Belvedere has been considering options such as the possible co-location of the Joint Helicopter Command’s support helicopters, with Royal Air Force Lyneham as a candidate site
STATION RESUPPLY: NASA can proceed with its effort to develop and fly commercial vehicles to resupply the International Space Station, now that an industry protest has been dismissed by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). In January, Chicago-based PlanetSpace — which includes Lockheed Martin, ATK and Boeing — protested its loss of $3.5 billion in contracts under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program to rivals Orbital Sciences Corp (OSC) and SpaceX.
Hawker Beechcraft expects to fly the AT-6B counterinsurgency (COIN) aircraft in late June, but is shifting focus to emerging U.S. irregular-warfare requirements because of delays to an Iraqi order for the armed turboprop trainer. Congress was notified in December of the proposed $520 million sale of 36 AT-6B Texan IIs to the Iraqi air force, but falling oil prices have hit Baghdad’s defense budget and an order has been delayed.
MOSCOW The Russian government has approved the consolidation of more than 20 aerospace radar and avionics companies to create a single entity responsible for producing land, air and space surveillance, reconnaissance and C2 systems.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) is concerned about the Obama administration’s plans to cut Missile Defense Agency spending by $1.4 billion, but he doesn’t see trimming the planned increase in Army and Marine Corps end strength as a tradeoff.
WARRIOR OVERHAUL: Bell Helicopter and the U.S. Army soon will begin to work through the many elements of Life Support 2020, a program that will extend the service life of the Kiowa Warrior OH-58D with sensor, safety and platform upgrades. The first task is to place a Forward Looking Infrared Radar (FLIR) ball on the nose of the aircraft and remove the sensor ball from the mast, which may require some rebalancing of the aircraft’s center of gravity and a skid extension so the FLIR ball doesn’t scrape the ground.
LORAL TAPPED: Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co. has picked Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) to build AsiaSat 5C, a new satellite that will serve as a backup for AsiaSat 5, currently under construction at SS/L for launch in the third quarter. The move will ensure service continuity for customers using AsiaSat 2, which AsiaSat 5 is intended to replace, in the event of a launch failure. The application the new spacecraft will serve if the launch is successful was not specified.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) May 12 - 14 — EBACE, Geneva PALEXPO, Geneva, Switzerland For more information go to http://www.ebace.aero/2009/ May 12 - 14 — Joint Warfighting Conference 2009, “Building A Balanced Joint Force: How Best To Meet Demands of the Future Security Environment?” Virginia Beach, Va. Convention Center, Virginia Beach, Va. For more information go to www.jointwarfighting.org
SURGE AND RESCUE: Boeing will have to reconfigure its Chinook helicopter production line in Ridley Park, Penn., to reflect Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ recommendation that a combat search and rescue helicopter replacement be postponed until a more multi-service platform can be competed. “The fact that CSAR isn’t a program that will continue in the near-term threw a monkey wrench into building planning,” says director of Chinook programs Jack Daugherty. “We’re figuring out what capacity we need.” The company is currently building 3 CH-47s a month.
The expert panel set up to review human spaceflight options for the Obama administration is likely to produce at least one alternative to the present space shuttle follow-on, according to the panel’s chairman. Former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine said May 8 the panel will start with an examination of the Ares I/Orion crew vehicles now in development to replace the shuttle after it is retired in 2010, and probably won’t generate many different options (Aerospace DAILY, May 8).
NICE RECOVERY: Utah’s congressional delegation has announced the U.S. Army is to consolidate all system-integration and production-acceptance testing for its Hunter, Shadow and Sky Warrior unmanned aircraft systems at Dugway Proving Ground in the state’s western desert. This will somewhat offset the embarrassment that followed the delegation’s March announcement the U.S.
VERTICALLY CHALLENGED: The first vertical landing by the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter is now expected in September. Aircraft BF-1 is to begin short takeoff and vertical landing mode transitions in flight “in the next few weeks,” Lockheed Martin says, then it will be ferried to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., to continuing “building down” to lower airspeed until it is in hover. The company says the delay in the first vertical landing will not have a “meaningful impact” on the program.
TURBULENCE AHEAD: If contractors find the fiscal 2010 budget process to have been painful at the Pentagon, they should brace for FY ‘11, according to military and industry sources. Initial phases of the FY ‘11 budget are now underway, with the service major commands forming initial funding proposals. Those will eventually be collated in the Pentagon late this year in advance of a February delivery to Congress. But FY ‘11 will be the first year where funding is expected to level off, according to these sources.
TANKER TINKERING: Northrop Grumman/EADS is re-evaluating its original plan to link its A330-based U.S. Air Force tanker offering with the plum of assembling A330-200F freighters at its tanker assembly site in Mobile, Ala., in light of the current economic climate. The recession has depressed demand for the aircraft, affecting the economics of such a plan, says Domingo Urena, managing director of the newly formed Airbus military unit.
SEVILLE, Spain Sorting out the future for the A400M military airlifter may take most of the year, even if customers commit this summer to continuing with the program. A critical milestone is fast approaching for the TP400D turboprop’s full-authority digital engine control (Fadec) software: Its initial flight-test is scheduled for this month. The Fadec software has become the pacing item for the airlifter’s first flight, owing to problems with attaining the needed civil certification with the European Aviation Safety Agency.
The U.S. Navy unrolled its budget request for fiscal 2010 on May 7, featuring a topline of $156.4 billion, including $4.18 billion for a new Virginia-class submarine. “There is an initiative within the department to get the cost of the Virginia-class down to $2 billion per boat,” said briefer Rear Adm. J.T. Blake, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for budget. “There is tremendous pressure on the system to drive the cost down.” The change in price could occur by FY ’12, Blake said.
NASA is running out of plutonium-238, the nuclear-weapons byproduct it uses to generate electricity for spacecraft that venture beyond the range of solar energy, and a National Research Council (NRC) panel recommends the U.S. government restart production to enable deep-space exploration to continue. “The day of reckoning has arrived,” states the report by the Radioisotope Power Systems Committee of the NRC’s Space Studies Board. “NASA is already making mission-limiting decisions based on the short supply of [Pu-238].”
PROCEED: Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co. will build the first two spacecraft in the next series of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES-R), after its $1.09 billion contract with NOAA and NASA was modified. Boeing protested the award on Dec. 2, 2008, and the two government agencies said May 7 the contract was re-awarded after “a series of corrective actions were implemented” and the contract reevaluated. Launch of the first satellite is scheduled for 2015.
U.S. Army aviation will head to Capitol Hill to ask for $5.3 billion in fiscal 2010 procurement money for its aircraft programs. The uptick in operations in Afghanistan is driving demand for helicopter pilots and platforms. The Army is asking for $1.26 billion for 79 UH-60 Black Hawks under the multiyear program and another $99 million for advance procurement. Another four Black Hawks are requested under Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding (previously referred to as the supplemental) for $74.3 million.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) fiscal 2010 budget request shows a shift away from midcourse engagement alternatives and toward a new “ascent phase” capability. This underpins a strategy toward defending against ballistic missiles from rogue threats or nation states such as Iran and North Korea.
