LONDON — Amidst increasing interservice rivalry and warnings of military budget cuts, Britain’s main defense and aerospace lobby group is calling for the Labour government to launch a full-blown review.
AIR FORCE The Air Force is awarding a cost-plus-incentive-fee contract to Northrop Grumman Mission Systems, Electromagnetic System Laboratory, of San Jose, Calif., for $71,047,776. This contract action will provide MQ-1 unmanned aerial system communications intelligence airborne signals intelligence Payload-1 C scaled sensors for the Predator UAS. At this time, $69,851,657 has been obligated. Reconnaissance Systems Wing (ASC), Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8620-08-C-3004).
TRY, TRY AGAIN: BAE Systems Australia has secured hull work on the navy’s Air Warfare Destroyer. BAE’s bid was revived following one of the companies initially selected for the work having to restructure its business, according to local press reports. BAE will now build bow and stern sections of the ships, along with the machinery compartments. The navy has three Air Warfare Destroyers on order — the Spanish F100 design. The ships are due to be delivered between 2014 and 2017.
LONDON — Having missed two target dates, BAE Systems is now mum as to when it expects to fly the Mantis medium altitude long endurance unmanned aerial vehicle demonstrator. Mantis was originally due to be flown in the first quarter of 2009, then by the end of the second quarter. The air vehicle remains on the ground and the manufacturer is being circumspect as to a revised flight schedule.
ARMY Rolls-Royce Corp., Indianapolis, Ind., was awarded on June 19, 2009 a $8,986,055 firm-fixed-price contract for the production of 40 gas turbine engines (Model 250-C30/R3) (part No. 23065550) and engine containers (Part Number 23088248). The work is to be performed in Indianapolis, with an estimated completion date of Feb. 28, 2010. One bid was solicited with one bid received. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Aviation and Missile Center, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (W58RGZ-09-C-0049).
Researchers are looking forward to two more close flybys of Saturn’s strange moon Enceladus by NASA’s Cassini Saturn orbiter in November to resolve continuing questions about the source of spectacular water jets emerging from cracks at the moon’s south pole.
TANKER TOUCHDOWN: Australia’s first prototype commercial Airbus A330-200 aircraft marked for conversion into a multirole military tanker transport, MSN747, completed the second subphase of developmental flight-testing, according to officials there. The testing entailed boom-free flight data gathering and validation of the planned KC-30 receiver and tanker flight control laws. The aircraft is being acquired as part of Project Air 5402, under which five such aircraft are being purchased from Europe’s Airbus Military.
PARIS — The Iraqi air force has accepted back into service the first upgraded Mi-17 helicopters after they completed an upgrade program to modernize the missile warning and internal communications subsystems. The Mi-17s currently are the backbone of the Iraqi air force’s rotorcraft force.
About 600 U.S. troops based at Soto Cano Air Base, Honduras are “essentially holding fast,” a Pentagon spokesman says, following a military coup that removed the Central American nation’s president from office.
TO THE MOON: Northrop Grumman recently demonstrated rocket engine technology that the company says may enable the return of American astronauts to the moon. Working with NASA on the TR202 lunar descent engine, Northrop Grumman reported demonstrating stable combustion over a broad throttling range utilizing high-performance pintle injector technology. The Lunar Model Descent Engine, used on each Apollo descent, relied on Northrop Grumman’s heritage pintle injector technology.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has placed a Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite into orbit as a spare that is likely to come into service next year serving the Western Hemisphere. Controllers reported early June 28 from NASA’s Diego Garcia atoll ground station in the Indian Ocean that GOES-O, built by Boeing based on its 601 platform, was sending strong signals after its launch on a United Launch Alliance Delta IV from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on the evening of June 27.
Hispasat has placed a 48 million euro ($68 million) order with OHB System for a new multimedia spacecraft that will be the first application for the European Space Agency’s Small GEO program, intended to help European manufacturers compete with the likes of U.S. small telecom satellite specialist Orbital Sciences Corp. The satellite, Hispasat AG1, will use OHB’s Luxor bus that was designed under the program, along with an advanced communications payload from Thales Alenia Space Spain.
Russian fighter manufacturer Sukhoi plans a decade-long production overlap of its latest Flanker model with its fifth-generation fighter program for the Russian air force, apparently further undermining MiG’s ambitions for a next-generation fighter. Sukhoi management now says production of the Su-35 (Su-27 SM2) will run in parallel with that of the fifth-generation project, known as PAK FA, for around 10 years. This may well see the Su-35 remain in production until the middle of the 2020s, with the type becoming the long-term complement to the PAK FA.
With its star battlefield aircraft — the MV-22 Osprey — under fire in Washington for cost and performance issues, the U.S. Marine Corps counterattacked June 29 with an announcement that highlights the versatility of the tiltrotor. The Marines said they used two MV-22B Ospreys for a ship-to-shore emergency medical evacuation (medevac) of a sailor, marking the first time the aircraft had been used to conduct such a mission from the sea.
POSITIONING: Engineers are debating whether the capability of China’s Beidou (Compass) satellite navigation system will force changes in Europe’s Galileo satellites, which are expected to be contracted by year’s end. Some industry sources say the high power levels of the Beidou spacecraft will require a design change; others argue that compatibility can be reached by tweaking the ground segment or through other means. A compatibility agreement similar to one for Galileo and GPS is expected soon.
HELPING HAND: Relief to the industrial base is expected in the fiscal 2009 omnibus reprogramming now being put together at the Pentagon, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley says. He says he is particularly concerned about the lack of funding for protected communications and low-observable technology integration. He also expressed concern about the solid rocket fuel industrial base, which is suffering from uncertainty over NASA’s future plans and the demise of the Pentagon’s Kinetic Energy Interceptor program.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) July 16 — AVIATION WEEK Management Forums, Demonstrating & Quantifying the Value of Business Aviation. For more information go to http://www.aviationweek.com/events Aug. 5 - 6 — AVIATION WEEK Management Forums, RNP & NextGen, Sheraton Grand Hotel, DFW Airport. For more information go to http://www.aviationweek.com/events
