Lockheed Martin is working with General Atomics Aeronautical Systems to fly a version of the F-35’s stealthy electro-optical targeting system (EOTS) on the Avenger unmanned aircraft in the latter part of 2010. Mounted behind faceted sapphire windows, the mid-wave infrared sensor would reduce the swept-wing, jet-powered UAV’s radar signature compared with that of the conventional external EO/IR turret on a Predator or Reaper.
President Barack Obama is making substantial changes to plans started by his predecessor to establish ballistic missile defenses in Europe, and they will have major ramifications for interceptor manufacturers Boeing and Raytheon. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, USMC Gen. James Cartwright, say findings of a congressionally mandated review, as well as adjustments in the intelligence assessment of the missile threat from Iran, underpin the decision.
Letters from lawmakers keep flying on Capitol Hill over the Air Force’s pending KC-X tanker competition (see p. 20). The World Trade Organization’s preliminary decision on U.S. complaints of government subsidies of Airbus spurred Boeing boosters in Congress to urge executive-branch officials to reframe the procurement, although the Air Force and other Pentagon officials have said it does not pertain to KC-X.
Raytheon is developing an X-band ship radar system to guide the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) to its target. The device, called SPY-5, would replace target-illuminating systems with a passive phased-array, continuous wave system theoretically able to guide 12 ESSMs to their target at the same time. The system uses the existing 2-kw. transmitter, with slight modifications. Since the power level is not being increased, the baseline SPY-5 would not improve on ESSM’s ability to engage lower radar cross-section targets.
Bombardier broke ground in Mirabel, near Montreal, for its CSeries aircraft program. The Sept. 15 ceremony was specifically for facilities to produce the first CSeries test aircraft, but plans call for a 860,000-sq.-ft. complex where the CSeries family will be built. The new aircraft’s entry into service is scheduled for 2013.
NASA has exercised the second of two options on its Kennedy Space Center payload-processing contract with Boeing Space Operations Co., bringing the total value of the work to $824.8 million. The latest Checkout Assembly and Payload Processing Services contract option will be worth as much as $156.5 million to the Boeing subsidiary for the next three years. It covers management and technical services for all KSC payload processing.
American Airlines last week rolled out the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) Secure Flight program. Passengers making reservations on the mainline, or on American Eagle and AmericanConnection flights, will be required to supply additional information for the program that is designed to streamline the TSA’s watch-list process. Required information includes full name as it appears on government-issued photo ID, date of birth and gender.
AirTran Airways plans to add nonstop service to Aruba to its list of winter destinations. Pending Aruban government approval, the carrier on Dec. 19 is scheduled to offer one weekly round-trip flight between its Atlanta hub and the island; and starting Feb. 13, 2010, one weekly round trip from Orlando, Fla.
USAF Col. (ret.) Michael R. Gallagher (Hillsboro, Ore.)
We have now experienced two major wing design failures in transport aircraft: C-17 and 787. With the C-17, aircraft were in flight test when the static test wing broke in the mid-120% range, short of the required 150% standard. Flight tests continued with restrictions to stay well below the failure stress load. It would be interesting to know why Boeing did not elect to conduct a first flight on the 787 earlier with limited testing at low stress levels.
ALTA, the Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Assn., last week released its 2009 capacity analysis of 509 airports (in terms of numbers of flights) and 2,252 city-pairs (in terms of available seats). Comparing 2008 with the previous year, Rio de Janeiro-Sao Paulo was the busiest city-pair in the Latin American-Caribbean region, with 86 daily round-trip flights—more than double the capacity of the runner-up, Mexico City-Monterrey, Mexico.
The European Space Agency is mulling procurement of a sixth Sentinel satellite for Europe’s Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) network that could be the first devoted to defense and security applications. The five existing Sentinels, which will form the backbone of GMES, are earmarked for ocean and land imaging and environmental monitoring. The exact nature of the mission for the new satellite, dubbed Sentinel S, is still being defined, says Volker Liebig, ESA’s director of Earth observation.
The U.S. Air Force’s battered acquisition corps—after a failed tanker lease attempt and two failed competitions—is out of the penalty box with Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s decision last week to allow the service to oversee procurement of its own KC-135 replacement aircraft.
Astronomers have determined that a small extra-solar planet found last year by the French-led Corot planet-finding mission and confirmed in February (AW&ST Feb. 9, p. 18) is rocky like Earth. Corot 7-b has a diameter 1.8 times that of Earth and a density about five times greater—the most Earth-like planet discovered outside our solar system. However, its surface temperatures range from 2,000C to -200C.
StandardAero broke ground Sept. 17 on a 27,000-sq-ft. expansion at its aero engine center at Winnipeg, Manitoba, that moves the Tempe, Ariz.-based company into CFM56-7B maintenance, repair and overhaul work for commercial jet engines. The facility is expected to be ready by next spring for start of operations in June or July.
The need for quick relief from delays at key airports and an early return on investments already made by users are shaping thinking on which capabilities need to be implemented first in the U.S. NextGen airspace modernization program. The FAA is promising to act on the recommendations in a report submitted Sept. 9 by the RTCA task force on near-term implementation of NextGen. “The stakeholders have spoken, and given us a clear set of objectives,” FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt told a conference held here last week to unveil the report.
The Pentagon is once again exploring wider participation in infrared countermeasures as the U.S. military steps up efforts to protect helicopters against heat-seeking missiles.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has signed cooperation agreements with three of the U.S. space agency’s international partners, aimed at advancing joint work in human spaceflight and other fields. On Sept. 11, Bolden and Jean-Jacques Dordain, director general of the European Space Agency (ESA), signed a memorandum of understanding at NASA headquarters that will allow the two agencies to work together on new space transportation systems, drawing on data generated in the development and operations of Europe’s Ariane 5 launch vehicle.
With a month’s flying under its belt on the Airborne Multi-intelligence Laboratory (AML), a modified Gulfstream III business jet, Lockheed Martin says it is already talking to customers interested in offshoots from the program. Although the countries have not been named, discussions are under way with two customers for Gulfstream G550-based versions, and for a roll-on/roll-off system that could be used on EADS CASA C‑295-type transport aircraft, says Charles Gulledge, manager for strategic programs with Lockheed Martin’s C4ISR Systems division.
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is in its operational orbit, providing detailed maps of the lunar surface after descending to an altitude of only 50 km. (31 mi.) Sept. 15. Among the early targets of its Mini-RF radar instrument is a hydrogen-rich region (arrow) of Cabeus A (yellow circle), a 40-km.-wide double crater at 80 deg. S. Lat. where the piggyback Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (Lcross) is set to slam the LRO’s Centaur Atlas V upper stage into the crater floor at about 7:30 a.m. EDT Oct. 9.
Bolivian President Evo Morales has enlisted the help of the International Telecommunications Union to find an orbital position for a planned telecommunications satellite his country would like to start developing by the end of next year. The ITU cautions that finding a suitable slot will take time because the orbital arc of interest to Bolivia is already quite crowded. However, the organization says it has identified a number of options. These include a fixed-satellite service slot at 34.8 deg. W. Long. in the 4/6- and 10-11/13-GHz.
Ghana’s potential foreign military sales purchase of C-27Js has moved another step further, with the Pentagon sending the required notification to Congress for the $680-million deal that would cover four aircraft, 10 AE2100 engines and ALE-47 self-protection equipment. Ghana also would receive equipment to use the aircraft for VIP transport, an option first taken by Lithuania and Afghanistan for its C-27s.
Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works has unveiled a stealthy hybrid-propulsion concept to meet the U.S. Air Force’s pending MQ-X requirement for a follow-on to the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aircraft.
Intelsat General, which specializes in government services, has selected EADS Astrium Services’ Paradigm unit as its preferred U.S. distributor for X-band and UHF services. The deal follows a $48-million agreement with DRS Technologies in 2008 to supply X-band capacity to the U.S. military using Paradigm’s Skynet satellites, and a contract later last year to provide Skynet UHF capacity to the Navy.
Honeywell is researching ways to merge the sensor input from an infrared camera with the 3D synthetic vision display on its SmartView system to lower landing minimum visual requirements and possibly even eliminate the need for a head-up display. Evaluations using a development simulator at the company’s Deer Valley airport facility near Phoenix have shown how the pilot can manipulate the IR sensor input transparency level to choose the best mix of 3D terrain and IR imagery.
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