SAME SAME: The U.S. Air Force’s new top management is coming to some of the same conclusions that got their predecessors fired. For example, on increasing the number of unmanned intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft in two combat theaters — plus the wide expanses of the Western Pacific and East Asia — Gen. Norton Schwartz says Air Force unmanned aircraft units are already on a war footing. Pushing more of them into combat by stripping the training establishment is counter productive, the chief of staff says.
KOREASAT 6: Arianespace will launch Korean Telecom Corp. communications satellite, Koreasat 6, either on an Ariane 5 or Soyuz launcher from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou in the second quarter of 2010. The 2,750-kg. (6,060-lb.) spacecraft will be built by Thales Alenia Space, based on the Star-2 platform from Orbital Sciences Corp. Koreasat 6 will provide telecommunications and broadcasting services throughout Korea from its orbital position at 116 deg. East.
PARIS — Inmarsat is preparing to apply for a European hybrid mobile satellite service license as demand for mobile satellite services (MSS) bandwidth continues to surge worldwide.
SPEED NEED: Sikorsky has just begun flying its X2 Technology coaxial-rotor demonstrator (Aerospace DAILY, Aug. 28), and is a long way from launching development of a product, but is closing in on the most promising markets for a high-speed helicopter. Two emerging requirements where the company sees potential for the X2’s combination of a 250-knot cruise speed with helicopter low-speed agility is a “peer-speed” escort for the U.S. Marine Corps’ MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor and a replacement for the U.S. Army’s special-operations AH/MH-6 Little Bird light helicopter.
The chances of an autumn contract award for the U.S. Air Force’s $15 billion combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) helicopter replacement program are fading fast in light of the service’s decision to slip the final proposal request (FPR) date, according to sources familiar with the acquisition.
Germany is slightly boosting its topline defense spending for the fiscal 2009 budget now before the parliament to 31.1 billion euros from 29.5 billion euros in the current year. Equipment spending also is being boosted marginally, with a 5.14 billion euros spending proposal compared to 4.61 billion euros in the current year. Eurofighter Typhoon procurement remains the single biggest equipment line item, topping 1 billion euros. Funding is roughly flat from last year.
Alternative fuel advocates are increasingly energized by the prospects of year-end certification of a 50-50 blend of petroleum-based fuel and synthetics, as well as the looming U.S. Commerce Department alternative fuels workshop in Washington. Several alternative-fuels issues will be discussed at the invitation-only workshop on Sept. 8-9, which is being co-sponsored by industry (Aerospace DAILY, Aug. 26).
September may determine the fate of an Anglo-American defense industrial trade agreement, at least for the Bush administration, as its legislative window narrows. The Defense Trade Cooperation Treaty has yet to be approved by the Senate, and still faces hearings in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The treaty was signed by President George Bush and previous British Prime Minister Tony Blair in September 2007. Originally it had been hoped it would go before the Senate in January of this year.
ROLLOUT RESCHEDULED: The space shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to roll out to Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 12:01 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, Sept. 2. Atlantis is targeted to lift off Oct. 8 on an 11-day mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope. Originally targeted for as early as Aug. 30, rollout was delayed to allow time to resolve issues with umbilical mating equipment used on the shuttle’s external tank (Aerospace DAILY, Aug. 27).
An experimental laser sensor has been flight-tested at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in California as part of the Autonomous Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology (ALHAT) program aimed at future robotic lunar missions.
LONDON – The British government’s continuing delay in issuing a key defense industrial policy document increasingly risks damaging the sector, industry group the Society of British Aerospace Companies (SBAC) claims. The second version of the government’s Defense Industrial Strategy was originally due to be published in late 2007, but there are worries it may not now emerge until 2009.
The commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, Gen. James Conway, has expressed support for the troubled Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV), saying Aug. 27 that he was encouraged by reports from leadership on the EFV’s future. “[The EFV] was having some issues earlier,” Conway acknowledged, “but we think those issues are substantially resolved.” He said he has been receiving positive reports in recent months from the program manager and senior leadership. The Marine Corps is still “a long way from production at this point,” Conway said. “But we’re encouraged.”
SEATTLE – Managing compliance with government regulations, particularly in the U.S., is the biggest growth area for German business software developer SAP.
U.S. military forces have to rely on intelligence operations more than ever when fighting insurgencies, but the days of using satellites, spy planes and other pricey high-tech devices are giving way to software and human analysis, a recent Rand Corp. report says. “Because the enemy in an insurgency is elusive, unknown, and most likely indistinguishable from the general population, intelligence operations are crucial,” says the Rand report, “Analytic Support to Intelligence in Counterinsurgencies,” released publicly earlier this summer.
A Russian Dnepr-1 rocket is poised to blast off Aug. 29 from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, carrying Germany’s RapidEye optical imaging constellation. The five-satellite system, built by MacDonald Dettwiler & Associates using a bus from Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. and a payload supplied by Jena-Optronik, is intended to provide multispectral 6.5-meter resolution wide-swath imagery tailored to agricultural, forestry, energy and other Earth-monitoring requirements.
An Aug. 27 Aerospace DAILY story on NASA’s Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope misidentified the rocket on which the observatory was launched. It was a Delta II Heavy.
The U.S. Air Force’s A-10 Thunderbolt II is being significantly affected by a dramatic rule change in contracting established by the 2008 Defense Authorization Act. The legislation, signed in January 2008, stipulates that DOD contracts exceeding $100 million be awarded to multiple contractors. Lockheed Martin may be the first large contractor to deal with the changes when it is forced to give up its role as prime contractor on the A-10 modification package and compete for the work.
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and his presumed vice presidential running mate are calling for $1 billion in reconstruction assistance for the war-wracked Republic of Georgia. “Georgia’s economic recovery is an urgent strategic priority that demands the focused attention of the U.S. and our allies,” the presumed Democratic presidential nominee said in an Aug. 26 statement, noting that he and Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) – his choice for a running mate – are calling for the aid to Georgia.
PARIS – The German state government of Bavaria is placing an order for eight Eurocopter EC135 P2i helicopters. The rotorcraft are to be fielded between September 2009 and April 2010. The state has previously operated EC135s at the Bavarian Police Helicopter Squadron, first fielding them in 1998, but needed to modernize its helicopters. The letter of intent also calls for a 10-year power-by-the-hour service package to be provided by Eurocopter.
DEFENSIVE MOVE: Serco Inc., the U.S.-based division of U.K. service company Serco Group, will buy Washington-area federal services company SI International for about $423 million in cash. Serco also will assume SI International’s debt, which was $87.3 million as of June 28. The per-share purchase price, $32, is a premium of 40 percent over SI International’s closing stock price on Aug. 26. The proposed deal will boost Serco’s expansion into the Defense Department and U.S. intelligence and security agencies, as well as federal civilian agencies.
Sikorsky’s futuristic X2 high-speed helicopter technology demonstrator made its first flight Aug. 27 in Horseheads, N.Y., in the hands of chief test pilot Kevin Bredenbeck. The single-engine fly-by-wire aircraft features coaxial rotors and a pusher propeller that Sikorsky believes will revolutionize the helicopter world with cruise speeds of up to 250 knots – some 100 knots faster than current production helicopters.
NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is making its way back up after spending nearly a year inside Victoria Crater studying exposed layers of ancient martian rock. The rover entered the 800-meter (2,624-foot) wide crater on Sept. 11, 2007, after a year of scouting from its rim. “We’ve done everything we entered Victoria Crater to do and more,” says Bruce Banerdt, project scientist for Opportunity and its twin rover, Spirit, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.
Trade representatives for the U.S. aerospace and defense industry in Washington believe they are registering their concerns with U.S. presidential candidates over potential reductions in defense research and procurement under the next administration.
