NEW DELHI - India's cabinet has approved talks aimed at buying 12 Mirage 2000-5 fighters from the government of Qatar, an Indian defense official said. The approval comes before a planned mid-April visit to India by Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani. Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee said the aircraft are used, but have 80-85% of their operational lives remaining. India's air force signed a deal in September 2000 to buy 10 new Mirages.
NEW DELHI - India's government-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) posted sales of $1 billion for the fiscal year ending in March, a 16.4% jump over the previous year, the company said. Highlights included HAL's delivery of domestically produced Sukhoi Su-30 MKI fighters to Indian's air force and supplying upgraded avionics and mission computers for twin-seat Jaguars. HAL also established maintenance facilities for the Indian navy's Sea King helicopters.
MOSCOW - The Federal Space Agency's Scientific and Technical Council approved a proposal for NPO Applied Mechanics' (NPO PM) new Express-2000 satellite bus on March 28. The Express-2000, an unpressurized bus intended for 3-ton satellites, would lay the foundation for the company's new generation of communications satellites. Previously, the only Russian company marketing large unpressurized buses was RSC Energia, which launched four Yamal communications satellites in 1999 and 2003. Wider use of such advanced buses allows more onboard capacity.
MOSCOW - Russia's Federal Space Agency said March 31 that it is planning to use seven mothballed Tsiklon-2 light launch vehicles beginning in 2006, to carry 2-ton satellites to sun-synchronous orbits. The planned Tsiklon-2 launch program includes both original Yuzhnoe design bureau-built Tsiklon-2s, that have been in use since 1969, and Tsiklon-2Ks, which use a third stage built by Russia's Makeyev design bureau.
The XTAR-EUR satellite has completed in-orbit testing and is fully operational, XTAR announced April 4. Built by Space Systems/Loral, the satellite provides X-band coverage from eastern Brazil and the Atlantic Ocean, across all of Europe, Africa and the Middle East to as far east as Singapore. The spacecraft was launched on the requalification flight of Arianespace's Ariane 5 ECA rocket in February.
Engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., are developing a unique shape-shifting lunar rover that they hope will become part of the Goddard-run Robotic Lunar Exploration Program early in the next decade.
Raytheon Co. expects to receive within the next month the first of a two-part production contract for early fielding of its Excalibur long-range projectile, John Halvey, Excalibur program director for Raytheon Missile Systems, said March 31. The two-part contract totals $26 million and will cover the production of 240 rounds to support user testing and operational capability. The company will receive the second part of the contract in 2006. Raytheon's current Excalibur development contract runs through 2007, Halvey told The DAILY.
The U.S. Air Force is expected to start distributing money to major contractors within the next few months so the companies can further explore their ideas to improve the service's long-range strike capabilities, an industry official said April 4.
The aging Russian Elektron oxygen-generation unit onboard the International Space Station (ISS) is once again offline, although the astronauts still have ample supplies of tanked oxygen to draw on. "The current unit onboard is getting old, it's a little cantankerous," Commander Leroy Chiao said during a press conference April 4. "It comes up, works for a while, then needs a little more TLC." A replacement Elektron unit could be brought up to the station as early as June, according to NASA officials (DAILY, March 18).
MARINE AVIATION: U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. John Castellaw, chief of staff at U.S. Central Command, has been nominated to become deputy commandant of Marine aviation. The Marines have not announced the future plans of Lt. Gen. Michael Hough, who currently holds the aviation post.
U.S. Air Force investigators have concluded that an F/A-22 Raptor became temporarily unstable in the air and sustained $3.6 million in damage last fall due to a glitch in its flight control system, the Air Force announced April 4.
NEW DELHI - India's air force has substantially reduced its accident rate following upgrades in technology, training, and maintenance, a study shows. Accidents fell from 3.72 for every 10,000 flying hours in fiscal year 2002-03 to 1.07 per 10,000 flying hours in fiscal years 2004-05, according to the study, which was conducted by the air force. Human error and technical defects were two major accident causes, said Air Marshal P.S. Ahluwalia, director general for inspection and air safety, who unveiled the study.
Lockheed Martin has delivered the Atlas V rocket for NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) mission to Cape Canaveral, Fla., the company announced. Launch is scheduled for Aug. 10. The Atlas launch team now will begin horizontal processing of the Atlas V booster and Centaur upper stage at the Atlas Spaceflight Operations Center at Launch Complex 41.
As of mid-day April 4, about 1,100 companies had responded to a March 2 Defense Department Broad Agency Announcement request for ideas to counter improvised explosive devices (DAILY, March 22). By the BAA deadline at close of business April 4, DOD expects to have a lot more responses, Dick Bridges, public affairs officer for the Joint IED Task Force, told The DAILY.
U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND Northrop Grumman System Corp., is being awarded a Cost Plus Incentive Fee (CPIF) Contract with a potential maximum value of $8,796,544.00 for demonstration of a Terrain Following/Terrain Avoidance (TF/TA) radar in support of the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). The work will be performed out of Linthicum, Md. from April 1, 2005 through 1 March, 2006. (H9222-05-C-0014).
The Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) aircraft appears to be in line for the addition of a reconnaissance camera currently carried by the U-2, as well as installation of new engines.
An article in the March 24 issue of Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, headlined "DARPA OAV and MAV programs flying ahead, official says," misstated Booz Allen Hamilton's role in the OAV program. It is under a DARPA contract to provide systems engineering and technical assistance. The article also misstated the status of the Organic Air Vehicle (OAV) II program. DARPA completed the second phase of its OAV-I program in July 2004. The OAV II program began in December 2004 and is now in its first phase.
LONDON - A committee made up of members of Parliament has recommended the Ministry of Defence (MOD) set up a single organization to decide whether military helicopters are fit for operations, instead of the current practice of leaving that to the individual services.
