David A. Fulghum (Washington), John M. Doyle (Washington), Michael Bruno (Washington)
Washington is headed for a heated showdown on Capitol Hill over the Lockheed Martin-led F-22 Raptor after the House and a Senate defense committee tossed aside a veto threat from President Barack Obama last week over prolonging the program.
Deferral of an order for a second batch of six Saab Gripens is forcing the Thai air force to extend the life of some of its Northrop F-5E and F-5F light fighters. Seven of the 12 aircraft will continue in operation, the air force says. It has ordered six Gripens but has been unable to order more, because of a budget cut.
David L. Ryan (see photo) has been named vice president-business development of the Northrop Grumman Corp. ’s Information Systems Sector, Reston, Va. He was vice president-programs for the company’s Mission Systems Sector.
John Burke, vice president/program manager for EADS North America’s UH-72A Lakota Light Utility Helicopter, has received the 2009 Leadership Excellence Award from the National Defense Industrial Assn. ’s Huntsville, Ala.-based Tennessee Valley Chapter. The award recognizes Burke’s service to industry, his 28-year career in the U.S. Army and contributions to national defense.
The British government is to set up an Office of Cyber Security “to provide strategic leadership for and coherence across . . . departments and agencies.” A cybersecurity operations center is also to be established. The plans were part of the government’s first update of its National Security Strategy.
Kennedy Space Center crews plan to fill the space shuttle Endeavour’s external tank with liquid hydrogen July 1 to test repairs designed to fix a gaseous hydrogen leak that has forced two launch scrubs of the STS-127 mission to the International Space Station. Crews removed the Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate, where gaseous hydrogen boiling off is carried from the external tank into the flame stack at Pad 39A for burnoff, and sent its seals to Marshall Space Flight Center for inspection.
NASA has named two candidate $105-million missions for its Small Explorer Mission series that have a launch window of 2012-15. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is to build the payload and NASA Ames Research Center to conduct systems engineering and mission operations for the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph satellite, which will study the flow of energy and plasma between the solar surface and solar corona.
Airlines face a challenging future of higher, more volatile jet fuel prices. They can improve competitiveness and viability through optimizing fuel consumption. Doing so can save the industry billions of dollars annually, and usher in a sustainable, lower-emissions future.
The Obama administration has taken the position in Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty follow-on negotiations with Russia that the issues of missile defense and nuclear weapon reductions should be dealt with independently, according to the State Dept. “We’ve made no final decisions regarding basing missile defense in Europe, which will be based on an assessment of the threat to the United States and its allies,” a spokesman told reporters at headquarters June 22. “If that threat disappears, that will affect our decision on the need to move forward with missile defense.”
London is in trouble with Brussels over its legislation regarding whether an aircraft is exempt from value-added tax. Last week, the European Commission announced it has “formally requested the United Kingdom to amend its legislation governing the VAT exemption for transactions related to aircraft, since it is based on criteria different from, and inconsistent with, those employed in the VAT Directive.” The U.K. now has two months to put its legislative house in order with regard to VAT, or the EC may refer the matter to the European Court of Justice.
Bigelow Aerospace’s planned Sundancer orbital habitat will use a green thruster system powered by hydrogen and oxygen generated by the spacecraft’s environmental control and life support system from its occupants’ sweat, urine and waste water. Orion Propulsion Inc. of Huntsville, Ala., completed the qualification test program for Sundancer’s Forward Propulsion System, which will provide attitude control for the inflatable habitat. When fully inflated, Sundancer will measure 28 ft. long, with a 21-ft. diameter and encompass more than 6,000 cu. ft.
Will heads roll at Boeing Co.? Speculation is rife after the sixth delay to the 787 jet’s first flight embarrassed company leaders and called into question whether the program’s dysfunctional management has really been fixed (see p. 24). Airlines and investors are seething about the slip after being assured throughout the Paris air show that the wide-body jet was expected to fly by June 30. Morgan Stanley now estimates first deliveries of the 787, originally set for May 2008, could slip into 2011.
Republic Airways Holdings is on the verge of transforming itself into an airline company that suddenly must become concerned with selling its own seats and paying for its own fuel.
The United Arab Emirates has submitted final technical requirements for a 60-airplane purchase of the Rafale fighter. Dassault Aviation officials say the document signifies basic agreement on the specifications with the objective of closing the deal by year-end. The UAE is seeking improvements already ordered for the most advanced version of the standard Rafale, including active electronically scanned array radar, Damocles targeting pod and enhanced OHF forward infrared search-and-track system and missile warning receiver.
British Airways will go forward with its all-premium Airbus A318 service connecting London’s financial center with New York, despite a sharp drop in premium traffic. The service is scheduled to begin Sept. 29, and ticket sales started June 23. The airline has purchased two A318s for the London City-John F. Kennedy International Airport service and is configuring the cabins with 32 business-class seats and Internet connectivity.
A specification for alternative jet fuel produced using the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process has been approved by the fuels subcommittee of standards organization ASTM International. Once approved by ASTM and accepted by the FAA, synthetic paraffinic kerosene (SPK) derived from biomass, coal or natural gas via the FT process will be able to be mixed with oil-derived Jet-A fuel in blends up to 50%. Approval of sustainable biofuels, called bio-SPKs, is expected to follow in 2010.
For the third year in a row, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) has failed to persuade colleagues on the Senate Armed Services Committee to work on this year’s defense bill in public. The committee has traditionally closed its mark-up of the annual defense policy bill to the public and press, it says, to enable free discussion of classified information.
Thales Alenia Space has been contracted by Orbital Sciences Corp. to build nine pressurized cargo modules for NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program, intended to resupply the International Space Station using private services through 2015, when the Ares I/Orion shuttle follow-on is planned to be ready. The modules will be carried on board OSC’s Cygnus spacecraft.
Bell Helicopter expects certification of its Model 429 light turbine twin by the end of June. Aviation Week & Space Technology pilot Douglas Nelms visited Bell’s commercial helicopter plant at Mirabel airport, near Montreal, to fly the 429, which is aimed primarily at the emergency medical service market and features a cabin large enough to accommodate two stretchers and four technicians (see p. 42). The 429 is powered by a pair of Pratt & Whitney Canada PW207s. Yves Beaulieu photo.
France has awarded DCNS and Thales a second-phase contract to study automated deck landings using vertical-takeoff-and-landing unmanned aircraft. The 24-month program will test a Boeing AH-6U Unmanned Little Bird UAV on both a fixed and moving ground demonstrator, following a six-month feasibility study. Sea trials would follow in 2011 using French naval vessels in preparation for operational use aboard the new Franco-Italian Horizon and Fremm frigates.
China’s Dragon Aviation is studying whether to expand its fleet. The leasing company—which began three years ago as a joint venture involving China Aviation Supplies Holding, AerCap and Calyon Airfinance—already has 10 Airbus A320s on order but is considering its future needs, says Chairman Li Hai. The carrier, which is holding discussions with Airbus and Boeing, has focused on narrow-body airplanes and is scheduled to receive 4-5 more A320s this year.
Following three days of negotiations behind closed doors, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted to give Defense Secretary Robert Gates 90% of what he and President Barack Obama requested in the Fiscal 2010 defense budget. Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and the ranking Republican, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), say that includes spending cuts and program terminations. The panel approved a $1.2-billion reduction in Missile Defense Agency funding, and terminating the Multiple Kill Vehicle program and the Kinetic Energy Interceptor.
Michael A. Taverna (Le Bourget), Frank Morring, Jr. (Washington)
European Space Agency planners are close to agreement on a new approach for the ExoMars lander that would shift a significant part of the mission to NASA under a new long-range cooperative road map for Mars exploration.
French space agency CNES and the Russian Space Agency have come to an agreement that will allow CNES to receive soil samples from the Phobos-Grunt mission. The mission, which is to return samples from the Martian moon Phobos, is due for liftoff in October.It also will characterize the physical and chemical properties of the moon in-situ, and study ionization and solar wind effects in the Martian atmosphere. The French agency is supplying several subsystems for the Phobos-Grunt gas analytic package, which was developed by the Moscow Institute for Space Research IKI.
In his letter “Watch for Distractions” (AW&ST June 15, p. 12), Paul Nash suggests sexual tension might have contributed to the Colgan Air Flight 3407 crash, and claims mixed-gender cockpits are a safety hazard that have been overlooked for the sake of political correctness. Yet none of the accumulated data points to sexual tension in the cockpit.
