Aerospace & Defense Roundup: Aug. 25

Completion of a 14-year fatigue test program has bolstered a case for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) retaining instead of replacing its BAE Hawk trainers. The work verified the 10,000-hr. design life of the airframe, BAE said, noting that the RAAF’s 33 Hawks have flown for only a third of their allowance.

A British startup has revealed plans to develop a five-seat, turbine-powered helicopter for the general aviation market. Staffordshire-based Hill Helicopters hopes to take first orders for its HX50 single-engine rotorcraft from Q4 2020 with production beginning in 2023.

Shell Oil Co. and drone manufacturer DJI announced a partnership on Aug. 25 to develop new methods for industrial inspections at Shell’s Deer Park Manufacturing Complex in Texas. The companies will work together to develop advanced features such as an “AI Spot-Check” tool that combines visual machine learning capability with real-time kinematics (RTK). An RTK system corrects a drone’s GPS position as it flies with a known secondary position reference on the ground to produce centimeter-level position data.

Manufacturer Ascent AeroSystems announced on Aug. 24 that it has completed delivery of its Spirit cylindrical drones to military contractor Dynetics, the launch customer. Dynetics, a Leidos subsidiary based in Huntsville, Alabama, said it has acquired “tens” of Spirit drones and plans to increase that number significantly in the next six to 12 months.

Lockheed Martin LCAAT concept

The U.S. Army is inching closer in fulfilling its vision of the Future Armed Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) by awarding $29.75 million for 10 air-launched effects (ALE) projects. The 10 projects span three different buckets: air vehicle, mission systems and payloads. The Army leveraged other transaction authority (OTA) to award funding for the projects via the Aviation and Missile Technology Consortium.

Japan has issued what appears to be a request for proposals from British and U.S. companies seeking to act as partners for the planned F-X fighter program. Candidates, not named by the Ministry of Defense in its announcement, should be BAE Systems, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. By referring to overall integration of the F-X, the ministry so far seems not to be seeking a technical partner for propulsion.

As NASA addresses the hurdles of accelerating a return of humans to the Moon’s surface in 2024 and establishing a sustained presence in this decade, it also is studying how to move on to Mars in the mid-2030s using a nuclear electric propulsion (NEP) option. The option would support a “fast” two-year roundtrip mission with 30 days of human surface exploration, known as an opposition-class excursion, because it would take advantage of a favorable alignment between Earth and the red planet that occurs every 26 months.

Russia’s Almaz-Antey has used the Army2020 defense forum that opened near Moscow on Aug. 23 for the public debut of its new anti-ballistic defense capabilities. The Russian manufacturer showed off its fastest surface-to-air missile, the 9M82MDE. The domestic version of this missile was developed for S-300V4, the latest variant of the SA-12 Gladiator long-range air defense system.

The International Space Station (ISS) crewmembers ended their extended weekend isolation in the orbiting lab’s Russian segment on Aug. 25, part of an attempt to track down the source of a persistent pressure leak.