EADS North America is gearing up to deliver three UH-72A Lakota light utility helicopters per month to the U.S. Army starting in February 2008 and could be producing four or five per month eventually in the 10-year, $2 billion acquisition program for up to 345 aircraft. The helicopters will provide the Army with utility lift capability, replacing Huey and OH-58 Kiowa helicopters. The program also will free up UH-60 Black Hawks for deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Lockheed Martin conducted a double flight of the F-35A Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter and the Boeing 737-based Cooperative Avionics Test Bed (CATBird) on Dec. 7, marking entry into the next phase of demonstration and development for the fighter and its array of mission systems.
More than two dozen senators, led by Lockheed Martin allies, have written Defense Secretary Robert Gates to promote greater F-22 Raptor production. A bipartisan group of 28 senators led by Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, sent a letter Dec. 12 to Gates urging the Pentagon to continue buying F-22As following completion of the multiyear procurement contract.
NASA's Discovery Program will fund the launch in 2011 of a pair of gravity probes to measure the structure of the moon from lunar orbit. Like the twin Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) spacecraft orbiting Earth, the two Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) orbiters will monitor variations in the gravity field below by measuring the distance between them with great precision.
AMAZONAS-2: Arianespace will launch the Amazonas-2 communications satellite for Spanish operator Hispasat in the summer of 2009 from its launch site in Kourou, French Guiana, under a contract signed Dec. 13. Based on Astrium's Eurostar E3000 spacecraft bus, Amazonas-2 will weigh 5,400 kilograms (11,900 pounds) at launch and features 54 Ku-band transponders and 10 C-band transponders. From its geostationary orbital position at 61 degrees West, it will provide communications services for Brazil, as well as North America and South America in general.
The U.S. does not have enough human intelligence assets in the Middle East region, the senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee says. "We can only get so much information from intercepts, satellite imagery and technical collection means," says Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.).
NASA astronauts on the International Space Station will have two malfunctions associated with the outpost's solar arrays to inspect when they venture outside Dec. 18 in a spacewalk that can't wait until the space shuttle is flying again. In addition to the starboard solar alpha rotary joint (SARJ), a beta gimbal assembly (BGA) that rolls half of the array wing around its own axis is out of commission, possibly from a micrometeroid or debris hit detected when circuit-breaker trips stalled it Dec. 8.
The Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) program has "turned around," a DOD official said Dec. 13, while acknowledging that it has been "troubled since the beginning." JTRS program executive Dennis Bauman offered a list of results to prove the program is "on track." Fifty pre-engineering development model (EDM) ground mobile radios (GMRs) have been delivered to the U.S. Army, he said. Full EDMs are expected to be delivered in January 2009, with low-rate initial production (LRIP) to follow in August 2010.
POSEIDON FUSELAGE: Boeing and its Poseidon industry team started production of the first P-8A fuselage Dec. 12 at Spirit AeroSystems' Wichita, Kan., facility. The first P-8A fuselage components were loaded into a holding fixture on the factory floor. Initial parts and other fuselage assemblies will come together on Spirit's existing Next-Generation 737 production line. In early 2008, Spirit will ship the first P-8A fuselage to Boeing in Renton, Wash., for aircraft assembly. The first of three flight- and two ground-test aircraft will be delivered to the U.S.
The U.S. Navy is working to build a program that would make laser weapons onboard ships a reality, a service official said. Programs are being evaluated in the near-, mid-, and long-term time frames, said Navy Capt. Dave Kiel, program manger for the Navy's directed energy and electric weapons office. "By 2010, I want to have an advanced component development prototype," Kiel said. "By 2012, I want to have a full-fledged acquisition program."
NASA will continue to work with Ad Astra Rocket Company as the Webster, Texas-based firm moves forward with development of an advanced plasma engine for future in-space propulsion. Michael Coats, director of Johnson Space Center, and veteran astronaut Franklin Chang Diaz, the Ad Astra chairman and CEO, signed a Space Act Agreement Dec. 10 setting out a "framework for collaboration" as the company matures its "Vasimr" engine technology (DAILY, Feb. 15).
The top four-star leaders of the U.S. Coast Guard, Marine Corps and Navy heard the first widespread congressional reaction Dec. 13 to their newly unveiled maritime strategy report -- and lawmakers were skeptical across the political aisle.
SPEEDY TRANSISTOR: Northrop Grumman says it set a new world record for transistor speed on Dec. 11. The company said the ultra-fast device, an indium phosphide-based High Electron Mobility Transistor (InP HEMT), will provide higher frequency and bandwidth capabilities for future military communications, radar and intelligence applications. The InP HEMT operated with a maximum frequency of more that 1,000 gigahertz, or one terahertz. The test measuring the record speed was conducted at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
U.S. lawmakers will allow the Pentagon to enter a multilateral memorandum of understanding (MOU) authorizing acquisition of Boeing C-17s with NATO allies under the Strategic Airlift Capability Partnership, but stress that the shared airlifters should support alliance missions over national uses.
The first transcontinental flight powered by synthetic fuel will take place Dec. 17 on a C-17 from McChord Air Force Base, Wash., according to Secretary William Anderson, the U.S. Air Force's senior energy executive. The flight is part of the Air Force's initiative to certify its fleet to fly on a 50-50 combination of synthetic fuel (liquid derived from coal) and petroleum-based fuel by 2011 (DAILY, Oct. 29).
Lawmakers, now led by Democrats, are continuing their reluctance to allow the U.S. Air Force to retire several aircraft - which the service wants to do to help buy new equipment - because of concerns in awaiting replacements. Under the House-Senate compromise over the fiscal 2008 defense authorization, which the Senate is expected to bless soon after the House did as much Dec. 12, conferees also hammered out restrictions to keep the Defense Department from grounding bombers and other military aircraft linked to local jobs, among other reasons.
One of Boeing's biggest fans on Wall Street is having second thoughts. Morgan Stanley research analyst Heidi Wood lowered her rating on the company's stock to "equal-weight" - the equivalent of neutral - a day after a year-end briefing on the 787 aircraft's development status. Mike Shanahan, the new 787 program manager, maintained that a recovery plan is on track to deliver the first 787 by the end of next year. But Wood, in a research note issued Dec. 12, says the hurdles are too risky to tell her clients to keep buying Boeing stock.
Ladish Co. has unveiled plans to open a new investment casting foundry in Mexico, a move the company says will help it meet soaring demand for aircraft titanium components and capitalize on a growing base of aerospace manufacturers in Mexico. The Cudahy, Wis.-based company says it will invest $16 million-$20 million in the project. It is considering several locations in Mexico for the 55,000-60,000-square-foot plant and expects it to be operational in 2009 or 2010.
BAE EXPANDS: BAE Systems announced Dec. 12 the opening of a new, 30,000-square-foot facility in South Nashua, N.H., to support 1,400 of BAE's 4,500 employees working there on the F-22A Raptor and F-35 Lightning II electronic warfare programs. According to company officials, the facility will enable assembly and testing of microwave products and reduce the costs involved in assembly, integration and acceptance testing. The electronic warfare suites BAE provides to the F-22 and F-35 detect, analyze, evaluate and react to possible electronic threats.
