Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

AEROSPACE CORP., El Segundo, Calif. Heinz L. Butner has been named principal engineer in the Delta IV Program Directorate, Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle Division (EELV), at the company's El Segundo headquarters. Steve Pavlica and Thomas A. Ramberg have been promoted to principal engineer in the Electronic Programs Division in the company's Chantilly, Va., office. HERLEY INDUSTRIES, Lancaster, Pa. Thomas V. Gilboy has been appointed vice president and chief financial officer. HONEYWELL, Morris Township, N.J.

A House-Senate conference on the fiscal year 2005 defense authorization bill got under way a day after the House leadership chose the members who will work to reconcile the two versions of the measure. The conferees gathered for a full committee meeting on Sept. 29. Sources on Capitol Hill told The DAILY that members would try to reach agreement before the presidential election.

MARS DRILL: NASA's Johnson Space Center is testing a drilling rig designed for use on the moon or Mars at the Eureka Weather Station in the Canadian Arctic. Located on Ellesmere Island in Canada, the testing location is about 690 miles from the North Pole and approximates certain attributes of the martian environment. The drill itself is roughly the height of a street sign and consumes only 100 watts of power. For the tests, JSC is collaborating with McGill University in Montreal, the University of Toronto, and Baker Hughes Inc. of Houston. Testing will last through Oct.

TESTING: Ground and flight-tests of the Yak-130 training and light combat aircraft will be completed by the end of 2005, Moscow-based IRKUT Corp. said. First production flight-tests are being completed, a second production aircraft will fly in November and a third will be tested next year, the company said. Two other aircraft are undergoing static ground testing. The tests have checked stability and controllability, power plant operation, aircraft systems, and takeoff and landing performance, the company said.

EADS North America has restructured its defense business into EADS North America Defense Company, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. said Sept. 29. The new company is a wholly owned subsidiary of EADS North America, Inc., operating under a special security agreement to regulate and ease the management of classified information through procedures establishing industrial security and export control measures, the company said. James Mulato will serve as CEO and the company will be located in Arlington, Va.

The overall space tourism market is promising and could generate revenues of more than $1 billion a year by 2021, Futron Corp. said Sept. 28 in its new Space Tourism Market Study. The study, based on a Zogby International poll of affluent Americans commissioned by Futron in 2002, surveyed customer demand for suborbital and orbital space tourism. "Suborbital space tourism will generate the largest demand, with the potential for 15,000 passengers and $700 million in revenues per year by 2021," the report says.

In the latest reaction to U.S. Navy budget plans, Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) and a bipartisan delegation of congressional members urged President Bush to reconsider a proposed reduction in the number of ships slated for construction in fiscal year 2006. In a Sept. 28 letter, the lawmakers argued that the Iraq war has required the highest naval deployment since World War II and underscores the need to expand the sea power fleet.

The U.S. Defense Department's Joint High Power Solid State Laser (JHPSSL) program is on track to demonstrate 25-kilowatt solid-state lasers in December, according to program representatives. Three designs devised by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon will be tested in laboratory settings, according to the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), a key player in the effort to develop electrically driven lasers.

EADS Space and VITROCISET of Rome have signed a memorandum of understanding to study aerospace collaborations and initiatives including telecommunication, navigation, and launches, EADS Space said Sept. 27.

CAPTIVE CARRY: NASA's X-43A "Hyper-X" hypersonic demonstrator conducted its final captive-carry flight at Dryden Flight Research Center Sept. 27 in preparation for a Mach 10 (7,600 miles per hour) flight attempt in early November. The captive-carry flight duplicated all operational functions of the planned Mach 10 flight except for release from the B-52 mothership and engine ignition. Powered by a supersonic combustion ramjet (scramjet) engine, the X-43A set a speed record for an airbreathing aircraft during a successful Mach 7 flight in March (DAILY, March 30).

COLLABORATION: Twenty-eight major companies have combined to form the Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium to recommend a unified approach to "enable sensors, communications and information systems to interact within a global network centric environment," the consortium said Sept. 28. "Today marks the beginning of an unprecedented collaboration," Carl O'Berry, chairman of the consortium's executive council, said in a statement. Founding members include BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon.

FLEET SUPPORT: The U.S. Navy has awarded the fleet maintenance division of Alexandria, Va.-based VSE Corp. a five-year contract to provide technical and engineering services that could be worth more than $1 billion, the company said Sept. 27. VSE will support the Naval Sea Systems Command's repair, overhaul, alteration and maintenance of ship systems under the indefinite quantity, indefinite delivery, multiple award contract, the company said.

MEADS International, the industry joint venture developing the tri-national Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS), announced Sept. 28 that it has been awarded a $3 billion contract for the next phase of the program. Under the design and development (D&D) contract, MEADS International will finish designing and integrating the system, whose major pieces include a battle management system, a launcher, the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missile and fire control and surveillance radars.

AEHF TEST: Northrop Grumman has completed electrical testing of the uplink phased array antenna for the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) military communications satellite program, the company said Sept. 28. The antenna directs radio frequency beams electronically rather than by moving reflectors mechanically. AEHF is expected to deliver 10 times greater total capacity and channel data rates six times higher than that of Milstar II communications satellites.

A Lockheed Martin team has been awarded a $45 million contract by the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center at Robins Air Force Base, Ga., to repair C-130 Hercules transport aircraft, the company said Sept. 28. The indefinite quantity, indefinite delivery contract includes the repair of wing spar caps on the C-130s. The work will be done under the Unprogrammed Depot Level Maintenance program, the company said.

The U.S. Department of Defense plans to hold a fleet induction ceremony of the Tomahawk Block IV Cruise Missile on Sept. 29 at the Pentagon. The assistant secretary of the Navy and Raytheon officials will be on hand for the rollout of the missiles. The Tomahawk Block IVs were approved for initial operating capability in May and a full-rate production contract was awarded to Raytheon Missile Systems in August. The contract provides for the production of up to 2,200 block IV missiles over five years.

General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products' (GDATP) Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) 70mm guided rocket successfully completed its fifth flight test earlier this month, the company said Sept. 28. The Sept. 10 test was the latest in a series that began in 2002 during an advanced technology demonstration (ATD) project to demonstrate the basic design's effectiveness over the operational range.

The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command intends to issue a draft request for proposals for the Army's Light Utility Helicopter (LUH) by about Oct. 15. The LUH program office will host an industry day on or about Oct. 22, and the response date is Nov. 26.

The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) is preparing to take over the job of providing Landsat-type remote sensing imagery starting with the first NPOESS launch in 2009. NASA manages the Landsat spacecraft, with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) processing and distributing the data. Last year, NASA tried to partner with industry to develop a follow-on to the current Landsat spacecraft, Landsat 7, by 2007.

COMPLETED: Sikorsky Aircraft Corp.'s acquisition of Schweizer Aircraft Corp. is complete, the company said Sept. 27. Schweizer, based in Elmira, N.Y., specializes in the light helicopter, reconnaissance aircraft, and unmanned aerial vehicle markets. Schweizer will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Sikorsky. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

An estimated $9.5 billion will be spent on key land- and sea-based electro-optical (EO) systems over the next 10 years, according to a new report from Forecast International (FI). Systems will be produced rapidly over the next few years to meet the demands of deployed military forces, FI said Sept. 27. Night-vision technology for surveillance and targeting missions have been placed on a fast track for production and procurement, according to FI research analyst Andrew Dardine.

SpaceDev's "Dream Chaser" suborbital spacecraft could serve as a hypersonic testbed for NASA, according to company founder and CEO Jim Benson. The piloted Dream Chaser is derived from an existing X-Plane concept and has an altitude goal of about 100 miles (DAILY, Sept. 21). It would be launched vertically by a single hybrid rocket motor the company is developing for the SpaceDev Streaker, a family of small launch vehicles intended to deliver small satellites to orbit.