PARIS – Arianespace says it finished with 13 launch contracts in 2008, including a multi-launch award for one spacecraft plus four options from Intelsat announced on Dec. 30.
COLD LAUNCH: The Kinetic Energy Interceptors (KEI) industry team of Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and Alliant Techsystems (ATK) has begun testing the U.S. Missile Defense Agency program’s cold-launch system. The solid-propellant gas generator was tested Dec. 18 at ATK’s Elkton, Md., facility. KEI’s launch system is designed to eject an interceptor at about 200 feet in the air before the first-stage rocket motor ignites. For KEI, about 70 pounds of propellant is ignited in the generator to eject the approximate 25,000-pound missile.
Modern warfare – where the battlefield is a mix of actors, motivations and weapons – is in part defined by its rapidly changing threat scenarios and multiple layers of high- and low-tech on-the-fly innovations, all of which demand real-time responses.
U.S. intelligence agencies should map the “human terrain” of potential world trouble spots the way the ocean floor was mapped for Navy submarines during the Cold War, the top State Department counter-terrorism official said Jan. 6.
Potential contractors on NASA’s heavy-lift Ares V moon rocket will have until Feb. 9 to submit bids on the first procurement package of the huge launch vehicle, under a request for proposals issued Jan. 5.
AAI has begun flight testing its Aerosonde Mark 5 in preparation for entry in the upcoming competition for the U.S. Navy Small Tactical Unmanned Air System (STUAS) and U.S. Marine Corps Tier II UAS. The new design incorporates features of both the long-endurance Aerosonde and Shadow tactical unmanned air vehicles.
Boeing will upgrade the mission systems in 2,000 F/A-18s operated by eight countries through a $905.3 million system configuration set contract awarded by the U.S. Navy. F/A-18 A/B, C/D, E/F and EA-18G aircraft from the U.S., Canada, Australia, Spain, Kuwait, Switzerland, Finland and Malaysia will receive the enhancements, scheduled to be finished in December 2013. The upgrades are part of an effort to keep the fighters “in front of developing threats over the next three decades,” Boeing spokesman Philip Carder said.
AUTOMATIC IDENTIFICATION: The U.S. Coast Guard has awarded Northrop Grumman a contract potentially worth $68 million to design, integrate, install and test the armed service’s Nationwide Automatic Identification System (Nationwide AIS) core data exchange capability. The capability will serve as the foundation for Nationwide AIS, a two-way maritime digital communication system that will continually transmit and receive voiceless vessel data, including the vessel’s identity, position, speed, course and other vital details.
AVIATION FUEL MANAGEMENT FORUM January 27-28, 2009 Sofitel Miami Miami, FL This in-depth, case study driven management forum will showcase Viable Strategies to Drive Meaningful Cost-Reduction and Improve Operating Efficiencies Learn more at www.aviationweek.com/conferences or call +1.212.904.4483.
THE REPLACEMENTS: The Defense Logistics Agency has awarded Oshkosh Defense a contract with a potential value of $1.12 billion over 10 years for replacement parts for medium and heavy tactical vehicles including the Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacement (MTVR), Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT) and Palletized Load System (PLS). This follows a one-year contract that included seven option years, each of which were exercised, that ended in December 2008. The first contract order, valued at $17.5 million, is for about 2,300 replacement part numbers.
MISSIONIZATION ACCOMPLISHED: The U.S. Coast Guard has exercised contract options valued at $13.25 million with Lockheed Martin to install mission systems aboard two additional HC-130J aircraft. Once delivered, these aircraft will complete the Coast Guard’s planned inventory of six missionized HC-130Js. The aircraft’s new mission equipment and sensor packages aid in search, detection and tracking for maritime search and rescue, law enforcement and homeland security missions.
NASA’s Orion program is drawing on the findings of a special investigation team formed to study the final moments of the space shuttle Columbia crew in an attempt to improve the chances of future crews surviving emergencies.
NEW DELHI – The Indian navy ordered eight Boeing P-8I multimission aircraft on Jan. 2 to replace its eight aging TU-142s, making for the first direct military sales by Boeing to India. “Clearly, we are pleased that the government of India has selected the P-8Is,” said Vivek Lall, vice president and country head for Boeing Integrated Defense Systems. “India has become the first international customer for P-8s. It is significant for us to partner with this market.”
NAVY Rolls-Royce Corp., Indianapolis, Ind., is being awarded a $221,690,616 modification to a previously awarded firm fixed price contract (N00019-07-C-0060) to exercise options to procure 96 MV-22 and CV-22 AE1107C engines, and one-year of support services. The work will be performed in Indianapolis and is expected to be completed in December 2011. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity.
Raytheon’s protest of the U.S. Navy’s decision to award sole-source contracts to Lockheed Martin for its Aegis modernization program has been denied by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). Following the Dec. 22 decision by GAO, Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) is now free to proceed with its plans to procure the ship-based Aegis Combat System Modernization on Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Arleigh-Burke-class destroyers.
Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. will deliver the first CH-148 Cyclone to Canada in November 2010, two years later than planned in 2004 when the company won the C$5 billion ($4 billion) contract to produce and support 28 new maritime helicopters. Deliveries in 2010 will allow testing and training to begin, but fully capable Cyclones will not arrive until 2012, according to Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC). In turn, Canada’s 40-year-old CH-124 Sea King shipborne helicopters will not be completely replaced until 2013.
NEW DELHI – The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully conducted the Flight Acceptance Hot Test of its Cryogenic Engine at the Liquid Propulsion Systems Center’s (LPSC) test facility. The Dec. 18 hot-fire test was carried out for a planned duration of 200 seconds, during which the engine was operated in the nominal and 13 percent uprated thrust regimes. All the propulsion parameters were met and closely matched with predictions, according to ISRO.
Recent U.S. Air Force interim reviews of the candidates vying for the service’s $15 billion combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) helicopter replacement show that the service indeed is much more serious about making sure the winner meets a spectrum of key requirements – including those that help it survive a war-zone mission – according to sources familiar with the effort.
Preliminary findings by the Aerospace Corp. show it would be more expensive to pull NASA’s Orion crew exploration vehicle off its shuttle-derived Ares I vehicle and mount it on an evolved expendable launch vehicle than to follow through on development of the Ares I.
WELCOME HOME: The U.S. Navy announced Jan. 2 it has decided to base five fleet squadrons of the P-8A Multi-Mission Maritime Aircraft (MMA) with a fleet replacement squadron (FRS) at Naval Air Station (NAS) Jacksonville, Fla., four fleet squadrons at NAS Whidbey Island, Wash., and three fleet squadrons at Marine Corps Base Hawaii Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, with periodic squadron detachment operations at NAS North Island. The new P-8A MMA squadrons are scheduled to be introduced to their new headquarters by no later than 2012 and be fully installed by 2019.
Top spaceflight operations and exploration systems managers will gather Jan. 23 to decide whether it will be possible to launch the first flight-test of the Ares I space shuttle follow-on in July. In the complex transition between the retiring shuttle and new Ares I, managers will decide if Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center can be turned over for modifications needed for the Ares I-X flight-test, or must be held by the shuttle program until the final mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope is launched in May.
