Video of astronauts conducting underwater training for China’s first extravehicular activity (EVA) – planned for the Shenzhou VII mission this fall – shows spacesuits that appear identical to Russian Orlan EVA suits. However, top Shenzhou managers say emphatically that the Chinese EVA suits have been designed and manufactured in China, not Russia.
Space shuttle astronauts assigned to the STS-124/1J International Space Station (ISS) assembly mission are scheduled to arrive at Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Fla., on May 6 to practice for the upcoming launch of the shuttle Discovery with Japan’s big Kibo pressurized laboratory module in its payload bay.
U.S. military officials are eyeing depot support for the Joint Strike Fighter’s (JSF) F135 main engine at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center, Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., by 2012, and at the Navy’s Fleet Readiness Center Southeast, Jacksonville, Fla., around 2014.
ELECTRONIC ATTACK: The U.S. Navy, via a $101.9 million contract, will acquire a third lot of Northrop Grumman Improved Capability (ICAP) III airborne electronic attack systems for its EA-6B Prowler fleet. Deliveries are scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2010 and will include seven complete systems plus associated piece parts and spares. The first two lots of modified aircraft have deployed several times to support combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The U.S. Navy expects to award the Block III contract for the next eight Virginia-class attack submarines in December, according to a May 2 statement. But the Navy still is preparing to negotiate the terms of the Block III deal with Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding and General Dynamics Electric Boat, which split the program (Aerospace DAILY, March 25).
The fiscal 2009 defense authorization bill cleared last week by the Senate Armed Services Committee includes $160 million for U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft depot maintenance. The bill, approved unanimously by the committee, authorizes $96.9 million for Air Force B-52 flying hours and depot maintenance. The committee noted that the Defense Department failed to include adequate funding in its $612.5 billion FY ’09 budget request to meet the requirements set in the FY ’08 authorization act.
RADAR LOVE: Boeing has selected General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products to supply the new wideband radomes for the U.S. Air Force F-15 Radar Modernization Program. The award covers design, development and production. The program will upgrade F-15Es with an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar system. The anticipated program start date is no later than the end of the third quarter of this year (Aerospace DAILY, Feb. 13, 2006).
SBX TESTING: Boeing asserts that by the end of this year, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) should get to test full involvement of the Sea-based X-Band (SBX) radar in the ground-based midcourse missile defense system. Scott Fancher, vice president and general manager of Boeing Missile Defense Systems, says in the next test – slated for summer – the radar “will be playing off-line in a more complex way.” Then, “MDA will then make a final decision and in the last test it will be more involved,” he says.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has rejected an Alabama Aircraft Industries (AAI) protest that the competition for the U.S. Air Force’s $1.1 billion KC-135 programmed depot maintenance (PDM) contract should be reopened because the Air Force has made significant, material changes to its original PDM requirements. In a decision issued May 2, GAO dismissed AAI’s claims concerning changed requirements, but said it still is considering AAI’s overall protest of the service’s Feb. 29 decision to award the PDM contract to Boeing.
An “independent, unbiased” analysis of alternatives (AOA) will determine whether one aircraft can meet both U.S. Army and Air Force requirements for a heavy-lift tactical transport, a senior U.S. Army officer says. Planned to begin later this year and to be completed by the end of fiscal 2009, the AOA will examine options for meeting the newly merged Joint Future Theater Lift (JFTL) requirement.
EXPLOSIVE DETECTION: The U.S. military’s Robotics System Joint Program Office has awarded a $4.8 million contract to ICx Technologies of Arlington, Va. to deliver Fido XT handheld explosives detection systems for use in Iraq and Afghanistan and train service personnel. Fido is an ultra-sensitive explosives sensor that is also being used by the Transportation Security Administration to screen air passengers’ carry-on baggage for liquid explosives.
Russian defense spending is expected to increase, but Moscow’s “strategic bandwidth” may be constrained by several defense-related economic factors, consultancy Forecast International said May 5. “Three major trends will define Russian defense spending between 2008 and 2012,” according to Matt Ritchie, an Eurasian defense economics analyst. They are “increased procurement, increased funding for strategic arms, and a relative decline in research and development.”
Lockheed Martin is protesting the U.S. Navy decision to award a $1.16 billion contract to Northrop Grumman to design and build its new Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) unmanned aerial vehicles. The company filed its protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) May 5. GAO has 100 days to rule on the protest.
HELO DEFENSE: ITT Corp. said May 5 it received an expected $57 million award for 25 AN/ALQ-211(v)6 sensor-and-self-protection systems for U.S. Army special operations MH-47 and MH-60 helicopters. The fixed-price contract, which also extends authority for full-rate production, is the first part of a $312 million indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity award made recently to ITT by the U.S. Special Operations Technology Applications Program Office.
HOT AWARD: Raytheon said April 30 it received a $3.3 million contract to tackle thermal challenges in semiconductors designed for new high-power radars and other electronic systems for the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The award is for the first phase of DARPA’s three-phase Radio Frequency Thermal Ground Plane program, which could be worth $8 million if all options are fully exercised. The full program could run 45 months, ending in the fourth quarter of 2011.
NAVY BAE Systems Land & Armaments, LP, Ground Systems Division, York, Pa., is being awarded a $53,190,513 firm-fixed-priced delivery order #0008 under previously awarded contract (M67854-07-D-5025) for the purchase of 40 Category I U.S. Special Operations Command armored utility variant vehicles. The work will be performed in York, Pa., and is expected to be completed by February 2009. Contract funds will not expire by the end of the current fiscal year. The Marine Corps Systems Command, Quantico, Va., is the contracting activity.
NASA and its partners on the International Space Station (ISS) are in final preparations for the shift from a full-time crew of three to a crew of six on the orbiting laboratory, beginning with the STS-124 space shuttle mission upcoming in June. While the main objective of that flight of the space shuttle Discovery will be to deliver Japan’s big Kibo pressurized laboratory module, other work in the 13-day mission is directly targeted at sustaining a six-person crew to begin making full use of Kibo and the other laboratories.
COUNTERMEASURES: U.S. Army Boeing CH-47F Chinook cargo helicopters are to be equipped with BAE Systems’ Advanced Threat Infrared Countermeasures (ATIRCM) laser-based missile jammer. The Chinook will be outfitted with two laser turrets, or “jam heads”, integrated with the Common Missile Warning System. “A-kit design is beginning in the summer of 2008,” says Ray Teller, Army deputy program manager for cargo helicopters. Chinooks are already being equipped with an engine exhaust infrared suppression system produced by Ottawa-based Davis Engineering.
BOOSTER TEST: Engineers at NASA and Alliant Techsystems (ATK) will use acoustic data from the latest test of a four-segment space shuttle reusable solid rocket motor (RSRM) to design the five-segment first stage of the Ares I crew launch vehicle, after the seven-year-old RSRM apparently met all objectives in the May 1 static firing at ATK’s test site in Utah. Also included in the 32 objectives of the two-minute test was evaluation of how well aging boosters perform. At seven years, the test motor was the oldest ever fired.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicated new calendar listing.) May 5 — The 20th Annual Greater Washington Aviation Open (GWAO), “The Largest Aviation Charity Event in Washington, D.C.,” Lansdowne Golf Resort, Leesburgh, Va. For more information go to www.gwao.org
