FIBER LASERS: Research to enable high-power weapons based on fiber lasers will be conducted by Northrop Grumman and OFS Laboratories under U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contracts. The Revolution in Fiber Lasers program aims to scale the amplifier technology from today’s 200-watt power level to more than 1 kilowatt, initially, and eventually up to 3 kilowatts, with a high beam quality so they can be coherently combined to enable multikilowatt weapons.
BAD TARGET: The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) aborted plans to test the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system last week due to a malfunction with the target missile. The glitch was detected shortly before launch, and the target did not reach the open ocean area approved for an intercept attempt, according to MDA. This was to be the first attempt to launch a salvo of two THAAD interceptors against a single target; the interceptors were not launched.
The U.S. Air Force has taken a step toward fixing its beleaguered nuclear enterprise, putting forward a number of recommendations at a so-called nuclear summit in Washington, D.C., Sept. 18. Air Force leadership, including Acting Secretary Michael Donley and Gen. Norton Schwartz, the new chief of staff, met to push ahead with addressing concerns outlined in the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Nuclear Weapons Management report unveiled by an OSD-commissioned task force Sept. 16.
The U.S. Air Force has confirmed that it eliminated a key part of the Battle Control System-Mobile (BCS-M), while keeping its plans to acquire major components. The decision, according to sources familiar with the acquisition, essentially guts the planned BCS-M system for now, but leaves the door open for more development later (Aerospace DAILY, Sept. 9).
The Proton Breeze M launch vehicle confirmed its return to service Sept. 20 with the successful launch of Nimiq 4 for Telesat. The 5-metric-ton satellite will be used to transmit television services for Bell TV. The mission followed the launch of Inmarsat 4F3 on Aug. 19, which ended a five-month shutdown following a mid-March mishap that left SES Americom’s AMC-14 stranded in a useless orbit (Aerospace DAILY, Aug. 21).
FIRE SCOUT: Northrop Grumman’s company-owned MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned helicopter, P6, has flown with a Telephonics RDR-1700B maritime surveillance radar installed. The Sept. 19 flight was conducted at Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz., where P6 is being readied for tests with other payloads. The radar detected and tracked multiple targets in the overland demonstration. An overwater search trial is planned later, Northrop says. The U.S. Coast Guard is interested in a radar-equipped Fire Scout, and the U.S.
NASA’s Mars Phoenix lander is using its robotic arm to try to move a rock and allow examination of the soil underneath. Dubbed “Headless,” the rock is on the lander’s north side and is about the size and shape of a videotape, according to NASA. “We don’t know whether we can do this until we try,” said Ashitey Trebi Ollennu, a robotics engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
UAV INTEREST: The successful use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) by Georgia in the recent conflict with Russia could spur Moscow to spend more on unmanned aircraft, according to Forecast International UAV Analyst Larry Dickerson. Georgian UAVs performed well in the early August conflict, while Russian UAVs were practically useless, Dickerson says. The Georgian military operates Israeli-built Hermes 450 and Skylark UAV systems. These UAVs enhanced the performance of Georgian artillery units.
U.S. Navy, Coast Guard and U.S. Customs and Border Protection maritime patrol aircraft are the key to the initial successes the government is having in interdicting self-propelled, semi-submersible craft trying to smuggle tons of cocaine into the U.S. In the past week, Navy P-3 Orions working with Coast Guard teams have spotted two of the self-propelled, semi-submersible (SPSS) craft trying to make their way from Colombia up to the west coast of the U.S. in the Pacific ocean. Intelligence helped them know where to look.
EYES ON PRIZE: Missile defense and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) will be the primary forces driving an almost $33.6 billion “airborne and space-based electro-optical” market, according to consultancy Forecast International (FI). “The value of the market is expected to remain constant during the next decade, with the first [five years] being dominated by combat systems such as night vision goggles, and the next [five] characterized by increased spending on long-term programs such as the YAL-1 Airborne Laser, the U.S.
RATES RISING: Underwriter Aon Space says that five partial in-orbit failures since midyear may be starting to turn around space insurance prices, which have remained low after a first half in which premiums far outstripped claims (Aerospace DAILY, Sept. 18). Aon said the failures, which include AMC 16, Galaxy 26, Eutelsat W5 and Nigeria’s Chinese-built Nigcomsat, have already sparked a rate hike of up to 15 percent for some operators.
WHAT CRISIS?: Lobby group the U.K. National Defense Association, which has the patronage of some former top ranking military officers, is critical of the state of Britain’s defense expenditure in its new report, “Overcoming the Defense Crisis.” The report flags concern over low morale among many service personnel, and what it views as substantially inadequate defense spending. The Defense Ministry contends its budget “is experiencing its longest period of sustained real growth for over 30 years.”
Exostar believes it has improved the ability of original equipment manufacturers to do Web-based design collaboration with suppliers without compromising security, particularly when multiple domains and organizations are involved. The improvement comes with the launch of ForumPass4 as a successor to Exostar’s SharePoint design collaboration tool across the aerospace industry. Beta testing was conducted with 5,700 users in more than 170 companies, including Rolls-Royce, which applied it to design development of the Trent 1000 for the Boeing 787.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicated new calendar listing.) Sept. 22 - 24 — 3rd Annual Joint Search & Rescue, “The Roadmap to Today’s SAR Requirements at Home and Abroad,” Sheraton Premiere at Tysons Corner, Vienna, Va. For more information go to www.idga.org/us/jsar Sept. 22 - 26 — 24th International Symposium On Ballistics, Sheraton New Orleans, New Orleans, La. For more information go to www.ndia.org/meetings/8210
LONDON — A fundamentally important review of the U.K.’s armored fighting vehicle procurement strategy should be completed within the next 1-2 months. Industry is awaiting the outcome with considerable interest, not least of all with regard to the review’s effect on the Future Rapid Effects System (FRES).
The U.S. Navy rolled out its first Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) mission module for the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) on Sept. 19, with testing on the actual sea frame anticipated in fiscal 2010. After a ceremony at Naval Base Point Loma, San Diego, Calif., the ASW module was packed into six trucks and prepared for shipment across country to Newport, R.I., for additional testing. In late March, early April 2009, the package will go to the Operational Test and Evaluation Center (OTEC) in the Bahamas.
Lockheed Martin and a Raytheon/Boeing team have each received 27-month contracts for the competitive risk-reduction phase of the U.S. Army-led Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) program. JAGM will be a single weapon to replace Hellfire, Maverick and TOW missiles carried by U.S. Army, Navy and Marine Corps fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft and unmanned air vehicles. The missile is expected to enter service in 2016, and the three services plan to buy some 35,000 units.
IT SUPPORT: Trade representatives from the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) are offering conceptual support for legislation being drafted in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to boost the role of government chief information officers (CIOs) and require agencies to notify Congress when information technology programs go over budget. The proposed Information Technology Investment Oversight Enhancement and Waste Prevention bill (S.
NEW DELHI — The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) plans to launch the country’s first unmanned lunar spacecraft, Chandrayaan-1, on Oct 22. The Chandrayaan-1 mission will perform high-resolution remote sensing of the moon in the visible, near-infrared (NIR), low-energy X-ray and high-energy X-ray regions. The spacecraft will orbit the moon for a planned two-year mission carrying a payload of six Indian and five international scientific instruments.
DISTANT THUNDER: NASA’s Swift satellite has found the most distant gamma-ray burst ever detected, the agency announced Sept. 19. The blast came from an exploding star 12.8 billion light-years away, “near the edge of the visible universe,” according to Lead Scientist Neil Gehrels at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Because the energy came from such a distance, the burst occurred less than 825 million years after the birth of the universe. It was detected Sept. 13, and Swift quickly cued ground telescopes to observe it as well.
By next month, NASA’s Fermi Space Telescope will have the ability to quickly re-point itself to more closely study the unpredictable cosmic explosions known as gamma-ray bursts. Formerly known as the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), Fermi was launched in June and released its “first light” image of the ever-changing gamma-ray sky last month (Aerospace DAILY, Aug. 27). The observatory features two primary instruments – the Large Area Telescope (LAT), which can survey the entire heavens in three hours, and the GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM).
ASV ASSEMBLY: Textron Marine & Land Systems said Sept. 15 that it was awarded $313 million in contract modifications from the U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command for 424 more M1117 Armored Security Vehicles (ASV) and 10 ASV variants for the M1200 Armored Knight program. Textron’s total number of ASVs produced or under contract with the Army stands at 2,579. Production and deliveries of the ASV continue at the “normal” production rate of 48 vehicles a month with firm contracts through April 2010, the company said.
The U.S. Army has placed approximately $39 million in orders with Navistar Defense, LLC for vehicles to be used in Iraq and Afghanistan. One award, a $25 million contract, is for 199 vehicles and parts, while the other, for 52 vehicles and parts, is valued at about $13 million. The award for 199 vehicles includes water tankers and fuel trucks, and the second award is for 52 Petroleum, Oil and Lubricant (POL) vehicles and recovery trucks. Deliveries are currently scheduled to begin in February 2009 and be completed by January 2010.
UPLIFTING FORECAST: Lockheed Martin is promoting a positive forecast for its C-130J and C-5 programs. “As we enter a ‘pull’ market where demand for C-130Js is growing rapidly, our production rate will increase substantially over the next several years,” says Jim Grant, Lockheed Martin’s business development vice president for air mobility and special operations programs.
