Bush administration officials declared an "increase of $788.1 million" for the U.S. Coast Guard's Deepwater recapitalization program in President Bush's budget request for fiscal 2008. The funds would help complete acquisition of four National Security Cutters, fund engineering and design costs for the Replacement Patrol Boat and purchase four additional Maritime Patrol Aircraft, according to a Homeland Security Department statement Feb. 5.
The Missile Defense Agency's (MDA) fiscal 2008 budget includes shifts in several major programs, including a rescoping of kill-vehicle plans and cuts to the space-based Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS), the Kinetic Energy Interceptor and the High Altitude Airship. The reductions are largely based on cuts handed down by the Pentagon because of pressures to fund ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
ALTERNATIVE AGAIN: The Defense Department again is proposing to drop the Joint Strike Fighter's alternative engine effort. While acknowledging that Congress rejected the same idea last year, defense officials reiterate that their business case does not support paying for two separate engines, unveiled Feb. 5. Once again, the Bush administration is omitting the alternative engine in its budget request.
SPACE INSTITUTE: German aerospace center DLR has founded a new Space Transportation System Institute, to be located in Bremen. The government of Bremen, where much of Europe's orbital infrastructure industry is based, will fund 10 percent of the institute, and the federal government will pay for the remainder.
In the wake of recent revelations concerning China's anti-satellite efforts, the U.S. Air Force is looking at ways to protect its spacecraft or warn against attacks on the satellites, a senior service official said Feb. 5. One of the possible satellite-attack warning systems would involve putting sensors on each of the Air Force's spacecraft, the official said.
The Air Force supplemental budget requests for fiscal years 2007-08 include about $567 million for accelerated purchases of three Joint Strike Fighters to replace recently lost F-16s. That comes to about $189 million a fighter - nearly three times the amount the average production costs are scheduled to be, and about 25 percent more than JSF program officials predicted in mid-2005 that the initial start-up costs for the F-35 would be. The three JSFs would be above the 1,763 aircraft being planned for the F-35 buy.
Space Shuttle Atlantis may make its final flight next year as NASA continues its shift to the Orion crew exploration vehicle, but the agency's $17.3 billion FY '08 budget request doesn't take into account expected congressional action limiting FY '07 spending to FY '06 levels.
Keeping to its "incremental development" approach, the Air Force space budget includes funding for its major imaging, communications and data transmission satellite programs. But many of those programs still face launch slippages and other hurdles, a senior Air Force official said Feb. 5. Major programs have been restructured to cut costs and develop along an evolutionary - not revolutionary - scale, and those programs are proceeding as the changed plans call for, the official said.
AUV PROTEST: The Government Accountability Office has upheld Hydroid LLC's bid protest over a small-business set-aside order to Brooke Ocean Technology USA Inc. for an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Hydroid asserted that Brooke was ineligible for the order as a small business. Brooke, a small business, submitted a quotation offering an AUV manufactured by Bluefin Robotics Corp., a large business. Hydroid, also a small business, submitted a quotation to provide its own AUV, the GAO decided Jan. 31.
Several U.S. Navy aviation programs are being scaled back in coming years to help underpin shipbuilding and increased Marine Corps ground forces, service officials said Feb. 5 as the Defense Department unveiled a second fiscal 2007 supplemental spending request and two fiscal 2008 budget submissions.
The proposed topline fiscal year 2008 Air Force budget of $153.9 billion represents a 5 percent increase over the $146 billion appropriated in fiscal 2007 and includes a $2.3 billion jump in modernization and capitalization funding. That topline budget request includes $25 billion in funding for programs included in the Air Force line items, but are not controlled by the service, such as intelligence gathering missions, Air Force Maj. Gen. Frank Faykes, deputy assistant secretary for budget, said during the Feb. 5 budget briefing.
AIR FORCE ENGINES: Rolls-Royce said Feb. 2 that it has signed two contracts with the U.S. Air Force for aftermarket services and spares for C-130J military transport aircraft worth up to $235 million over five years. Under the contracts, Rolls-Royce will provide comprehensive propulsion system services for its AE 2100D3 engines, Dowty R-391 propellers and other propulsion system items on C-130J aircraft. Rolls-Royce also will supply 17 AE 2100D3 engines and additional spare parts required to ensure full propulsion system availability.
F/A-18C TRAINERS: The Swiss government has chosen Link Simulation and Training to build four networked F/A-18C Tactical Operational Flight Trainers (TOFT) as part of the Swiss Air Force's F/A-18 flight simulator upgrade program. The TOFTs will allow pilots to train as a tactical team. Plans call for deliveries to begin late in 2008 to Payerne Air Force Base. Link Simulation and Training is a division of L-3 Communications.
The U.S. Air Force is awarding Lockheed Martin Corp. a $9.7 million contract for a Non-Traditional Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (NT-ISR) capability and concepts on tactical platforms, such as fifth-generation aircraft and the need to transmit NT-ISR products in a timely manner. The proposed Radar Common Data Link (R-CDL) program will accomplish this, the Pentagon announced Feb. 1, via development, laboratory test and demonstration, followed by flight-test and demonstration.
LATER PUBLICATION: The Feb. 6 edition of Aerospace Daily & Defense report will be sent to readers a few hours later than normal to allow for full coverage of the Bush administration's fiscal 2008 defense budget proposal, which will be unveiled on Feb. 5.
Feb. 6 - 7 -- 10th Annual FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference: "Commercial Space, Competing in a Global Market," Sheraton Crystal City Hotel, Arlington, Va. For more information call (202) 267-7982 or go to www.faa.gov/news/conferences_events/ commercial_space/10/. Feb. 7 - 9 -- Assn. for Unmanned Vehicles System International's Unmanned Systems Program Review 2007, Omni Shoreham Hotel, Washington, D.C. For more information call (703) 845-9671 or go to www.auvsi.org/ events.
Esterline Technologies Corp.'s deal to acquire Canadian avionics concern CMC Electronics Inc. is another sign of supplier-level consolidation in aerospace, not to mention the growing role of private equity firms in industry mergers and acquisitions.
HELO SPARES: The U.S. Department of Defense has announced two large helicopter spare parts orders placed by the Naval Inventory Control Point. One went to Bell Helicopter Textron, which received an $18.3 million order under a previously awarded contract for spare components for the V-22 aircraft. Bell will perform the work in Fort Worth, Texas, and should finish the job by next January. In addition, Boeing Helicopter won an $8 million order under a previously awarded contract for spare components for the V-22 aircraft.
CSAR BUZZ: Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael "Buzz" Moseley apparently isn't enthusiastic about his service's $15 billion decision to buy a variant of the CH-47 for its future combat search and rescue helicopter. "Buzz ...doesn't want his special operations guys having to fly the Chinook design," says a senior Air Force official, who adds that it's an older-generation aircraft than its CSAR competitors, Lockheed Martin/AgustaWestland's US101 variant and Sikorsky's S-92 derivative.
President Bush's "surge" strategy for Iraq could cost up to $27 billion and entail sending as many as 28,000 additional support personnel to back up the projected 21,500 combat troops in the plan, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates.
JOINT MISSILE: Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace and Lockheed Martin have signed a joint marketing agreement for an air-launched version of the Norwegian company's Naval Strike Missile (NSM). Called the Joint Strike Missile (JSM), it will be adapted for Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), including for inside the F-35's internal weapons bay. In a statement, Kongsberg said that it will take "three years to reach the technological maturity required for the missile to be an option for deployment on the JSF." Lockheed Martin on Feb.
