FT. WALTON BEACH, Fla. — The developmental Raytheon AIM-120D executed a successful flight test last week, destroying a QF-4 drone target, according to Maj. Gen. David Eidsaune, commander of the U.S. Air Force Air Armaments Center.
UNMANNED OVERHAUL: Ogden Air Logistics Center at Hill Air Force Base in Utah has been selected as the overhaul depot for the U.S. Air Force’s growing fleet of General Atomics MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Ogden is already the depot for F-16s, A-10s and C-130s. Announcing the decision, Utah Senator Bob Bennet said the proximity of the Utah Test & Training Range “is a big factor” as it will allow the UAVs to be checked out after maintenance.
WARNING SHOT: North Korea has notified some international agencies that it plans on conducting its contentious rocket launch in early April. A State Department representative told reporters March 12 that North Korea informed the International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Maritime Organization that it is eyeing the first week of April to launch an experimental communication satellite. “Our view remains the same,” the State Dept. spokesman continued.
STOVL TESTS: The Joint Strike Fighter’s development program manager, U.S. Navy Capt. Wade Knudson, says the first vertical landing test for the F-35B will take place in “late summer or early fall.” Knudson won’t go into detail about the reasons for the timing, but says that discussions are continuing about what engineering changes will be incorporated into the first STOVL aircraft, BF-1, before the first STOVL tests. However, he says the plan is still to complete operational testing by mid-2014.
One Wall Street analyst is advising her clients not to buy defense stocks, cautioning that the Obama administration could move to cut military spending next year as it turns its attention to domestic priorities such as jobs, energy and transportation. The cautionary note comes as general anxiety in the aerospace and defense sector is increasing over rumored cuts or cancellations to major Pentagon programs, as well as moves by the White House and Capitol Hill to instill greater acquisition process reforms.
HANG ON: Embraer President and CEO Frederico Fleury Curado is dampening expectations that the Brazilian Air Force is weeks from ordering the manufacturer’s proposed C-390 transport. Instead, the company’s top executive tells Aerospace DAILY “intense dialogue” continues with the Brazilian government on technical specifications and contractual requirements, and he expects a launch order by year-end, although nothing firm has been agreed upon yet.
FIXED UP: Measat Satellite Systems of Malaysia says its new Measat-3a satellite has been rescheduled for a June launch. Initially planned for launch last August atop a Land Launch booster, Measat-3a was damaged in a crane accident at the launch pad in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, requiring it to be returned to the Orbital Sciences Corp. Dulles, Va. plant for repairs (Aerospace DAILY, Nov. 11, 2008).
PARIS Government officials are looking for “significant” lifecycle cost reductions for the Eurofighter Typhoon and have delayed further talks on Tranche 3 production to give industry a chance to respond. The German defense ministry says talks about the procurement of the next batch of 236 Typhoons have been postponed until the end of the month. That decision was made March 12 during a meeting of state secretaries for defense from Germany, the U.K., Italy and Spain.
RESCUE REMEDIES: Eurocopter EC225 and Sikorsky S-92 helicopters will be pitted against each other for the U.K. Defense Ministry and Maritime Coastguard Agency’s Search and Rescue Helicopter program. AirKnight — comprising Lockheed Martin UK, VT Group and British International Helicopters — is proposing the EC225. Soteria — made up of CHC Helicopter Corp., Thales UK and the Royal Bank of Scotland — is offering the S-92. The aircraft is due to debut in 2012.
U.S. Army officials and congressional auditors have reignited a lively debate over the status of the land service’s Future Combat Systems modernization program. The Army gathered four generals for Pentagon reporters March 13 to dispute claims in a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report issued the day before that said FCS is facing a potential $19 billion in cost increases — $17 billion for procurement and $2 billion for development — over the $159 billion it already officially costs.
INTELLIGENCE PAYS: Even during a budget crunch, some Defense Dept. programs can expect to see continued strong funding — especially if they provide support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Keith Sanders, deputy director of air warfare for the Pentagon’s acquisition office, says one area like that is intelligence sensors. Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) support has been given a virtual blank check and there’s no sign of that ending, Sanders says.
COMSAT COORDINATION: The European Defense Agency (EDA) has decided to establish a procurement unit to coordinate the purchase of commercial satellite communications services by European Union (EU) member states for the EU’s growing crisis management operations. The three-year pilot project, which is expected to have a business volume of at least 30 million euros ($37.5 million), is intended to facilitate the purchase of satcom services and pave the way for creation of a permanent EU body to handle such buys.
HELO EXERCISE: Five European countries are conducting a helicopter exercise near Gap, in the French Alps, to improve interoperability and training levels for helicopters deployed in overseas theaters. The exercise, being run under the auspices of the European Defense Agency at the urging of France and the U.K., involves ten helicopters from Belgium, France, Hungary, Spain and the Czech Republic. Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Sweden also are involved. The exercise began March 9 and is slated to end March 20.
BUILD, LAUNCH: Russia’s Reshetnev ISS and Thales Alenia Space have contracted to build a 1.6 metric ton Ku-/C-band satellite for Telekomunikasi Indonesia. The award followed supplier selection early this year. To be launched in 2011, Telkom-3 is the second non-Russian spacecraft to be built by the ISS/Thales Alenia team. Meanwhile, International Launch Services announced another 2011 launch — ViaSat-1, a high capacity Ka-band spot beam satellite for North America. Launch is planned for the first half of the year.
As long as there is no recurrence of the hydrogen leak that scuttled the March 11 attempt to launch shuttle Discovery, NASA plans to proceed with its countdown to a March 15 liftoff, even if the cause of the leak hasn’t been determined.
The U.S. Air Force’s decision to delay launch of the first Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellite to summer or fall of 2010 will provide more time to replace some potentially troublesome hardware on the spacecraft, says Lt. Gen. John “Tom” Sheridan, program executive officer for space. Some units on the spacecraft have experienced complications on other satellites, and they require replacement. For example, engineers are switching out the amplifiers on a digital telemetry unit on AEHF 1 due to a failure, he says.
BAE Systems is bolstering its presence in the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) market by agreeing to acquire Advanced Ceramics Research (ACR), a privately held U.S. manufacturer of small UAVs. Based in Tucson, Ariz., ACR has so far developed three small UAVs with funding support from the U.S. Navy. The Silver Fox is a gasoline/electric UAV with 8-10 hour endurance and a 5-8 pound payload that has been deployed operationally.
Surrey Satellite Technology has delivered two of three suites of satellite avionics and software for Russia’s new family of Kanopus Earth observation satellites, the first two of which are to be launched in late 2009 or early 2010. The third set is to be handed over later this year. The scope of delivery for the project – SSTL’s first major undertaking in Russia – includes power management and batteries, onboard computers, data handling for subsystems and operation and system design support.
With airline testing of biofuels making headlines, a small U.S. engineering consultancy is aiming to prove that biodiesel could be a renewable and safer alternative to kerosene rocket fuel. U.S. firm Flometrics has tested commercial B100 biodiesel as a replacement for RP-1 kerosene in a Rocketdyne LR-101 rocket engine. In the one ground test completed “we found the Isp [specific impulse] was about 4 percent less than RP-1, but the difference may be less once we figure out the best mixture ratio,” CEO Steve Harrington says.
The Obama administration should lead a “reformulation” of U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) programs to focus on combating international terrorism and other current threats, according to a new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council. “A bold vision is again required,” says Ronald Lehman, director of the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and co-chair of the committee that wrote the report.
The Pentagon has included the U.S. Air Force’s $15 billion combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) helicopter replacement acquisition among the programs meant for the chopping block in upcoming budget deliberations, say industry and government sources familiar with the program procurement.
