A Boeing-Raytheon team and Lockheed Martin each won $20-million contracts from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to continue work on an AESA antenna that would be demonstrated from space. Next year, Darpa will select one contractor to build the system for a demonstration launch in 2010. The system would be as long as three football fields and fold into a container the size of a sport utility vehicle. Upon launch, it would unfold to conduct its mission.
A new but familiar name is surfacing as a leading contender for a top Defense Dept. post, possibly a service secretary. Sources say Michael Wynne, acquisition chief, is in the running for a new job, most likely Air Force secretary at a time when the service is facing mounting acquisition problems and controversies at its academy. One potential wrinkle: an Air Force secretary nomination requires Senate confirmation, and Wynne was knee-deep in behind-the-scenes discussions that produced the disgraced plan to lease and buy 100 Boeing KC-767 refuelers.
The Pentagon's inspector general is putting the final touches on a report that's likely to kick up some dust. Outlining the responsibilities of top people who pushed for the now-failed Boeing 767 tanker lease/buy, the report is said to be blunt and name names of senior uniformed and civilian officials in the Air Force and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
The first F/A-22 active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar for the Air Force's F/A-22 fighter was delivered recently by Northrop Grumman. The AN/APG-11 (v)1 will be integrated onto the aircraft and tested this summer at Edwards AFB, Calif. With additional software under development in a different program, the radar will provide the Raptor with its promised air-to-ground strike capabilities.
On the other hand, bizjet manufacturers are bullish about the near-term prospects for new capabilities such as enhanced vision systems (EVSs), which can greatly expand the usefulness of existing models. Gulfstream says that four years after certification of its first-generation EVS, it has delivered more than 150 units--representing 10% of its total jet fleet--and now sells the equipment as a standard fit on all 450s and 550s. Gulfstream recently established a center of excellence for a second-generation system.
Patrick T. Henry has been named to the board of directors of DefenseWeb Technologies of San Diego. He is vice president-federal marketing for Delta Dental of California and was assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and reserve affairs in the Clinton administration.
I can't help but react to your reporting in Inside Avionics (AW&ST May 9, p. 43): "It costs about $50,000 to scramble a jet every time an intruder (usually a general aviation aircraft under visual flight rules) stumbles into restricted areas." I'd love to see how that figure is computed. It would also be helpful if you would mention your source for it. (The Air Line Pilots Assn. says it cost $50,000 and Norad confirmed this is correct, based on figures cited by U.S. Air Force headquarters at the Pentagon--Ed.)
America West and US Airways, whose proposed merger would launch a long-awaited consolidation among U.S. major airlines, envision a combined low-fare operation that offers powerful domestic and international networks. Consummation of the deal, however, will turn on near-term factors having little to do with the overall plan.
The nuclear-powered Cassini Saturn probe is beginning to take the measure of Titan, using radar and other sensors to probe into and beneath its orange clouds to reveal a world scientists believe may be an analog for Earth before life appeared. Cassini is scheduled to fly near Titan more than 40 times as it tours the Saturn system, and results of the first encounters are beginning to be published. Based on a radar map generated during the first close flyby on Oct.
U.S. Army Gen. (ret.) Paul J. Kern has become Washington-based vice president/senior adviser on homeland security and national defense for Battelle Science and Technology International, Columbus, Ohio. He was commander of the Army Materiel Command.
The British Defense Ministry has finally declared a full operational capability with its WAH-64 Apache attack helicopter, five years after the first unit was delivered and two years after receipt of the last of the 67 on order. At the same time, the ministry announced the WAH-64 would receive a 194-million-pound ($353-million) upgrade to the sighting and targeting system. The intent is to have the whole fleet fitted with the modernized target acquisition designation sight/pilot night vision sensor by the end of 2010.
Germany's Grob Aerospace has signed an order from Canada's Kelowna Flightcraft for nine G-120As. The aircraft will be used at the Canadian Forces Flying Training School in Manitoba. The training service provider also has taken an option for another three G-120As. The first of the aerobatic trainers is set to be delivered later this year.
Drinkers of Diet 7UP can enjoy almost-instant, but temporary, weight loss if the commercial space tourism industry sparked by the Ansari X Prize takes off. As top prize in a nationwide U.S. sweepstakes, the Texas-based soda-maker is offering one of the first 10 tickets to space sold by Virgin Galaxy. The Virgin Companies spinoff is developing a commercial suborbital rocket for space tourists based on technology in the X-Prize-winning SpaceShipOne, built by Scaled Composites of Mojave, Calif.
Russia will develop and build new aircraft carriers in the next decade, according to Russian Navy Commander-in-Chief Adm. Vladimir Kuroyedov. Preliminary design discussions will begin later this year, he indicated. Full-scale development would be possible after 2010 under a new government weapon procurement plan. The existing arrangement does not cover aircraft carriers. Kuroyedov says the vessels would accommodate new-generation aircraft, and he projects entry into service in 2016-17.
The International Air Transport Assn. (IATA) is seeking the holy grail of air traffic management--a single sky with one global ATM system that allows airlines to operate aircraft the same way anywhere in the world.
Julia Phillips, director of the Physical, Chemical and Nano Science Center at Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, N.M., has been elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is also the director of the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, an Energy Dept. Office of Basic Energy Sciences nanoscience research center at Sandia and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Neil Goudie of Cambridge, England, has received the Tiger Moth Trophy today for winning the U.K. Civil Aviation Authority General Aviation Safety Awards 2004. Goudie was taking part in a gliding competition in August when he saw a competitor's wreckage in a field. The pilot was seriously injured. Goudie was cited for arranging for an emergency call and then landing in the field to give first aid, using his telephone to obtain guidance from a doctor friend until an air ambulance arrived.
Frank Morring, Jr. (Goddard Space Flight Center, MD.)
Engineers and interns at this NASA field center are building the prototype of a robotic rover that could go where no wheeled rover has gone before--into the dark cold craters at the lunar poles and across the Moon's rugged highlands--like a walking tetrahedron. With NASA pushing to meet President Bush's new exploration objectives, the robots taking shape here today could be on the Moon in a decade. In the longer term, the concept could lead to shape-shifting robot swarms designed to explore distant planetary surfaces in advance of humans.
An ATR 42 flew across the widest part of Africa--from Dakar, Senegal, to Mombasa, Kenya--in the most ambitious test to date using the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (Egnos). Conducted by the European Space Agency and Agence Pour la Securite de la Navigation Aerienne en Afrique et a Madagascar, the 20-hr. flight used a Thales Avionics Egnos receiver to gather upgraded GPS data through a roof-mounted antenna. The flight demonstrated the Egnos extension over Africa, relying on the Egnos testbed signal broadcast through Inmarsat IOR-E.
The technological walls separating radar, electronic warfare and missile defense are coming down. This fundamental shift has resulted in development, not yet publicly acknowledged, of multifunction, active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars that can locate stealthy airborne targets and then jam their computers and guidance systems with at least enough effect to drive them off course by using a focused beam of X-band radar energy.
June will be a busy time for the aerospace industry, not just because of the Paris air show at Le Bourget. For European aerospace giant EADS, it will be a critical month as the company aims to end its leadership succession battle. Moreover, Airbus, in which EADS is the largest shareholder, must resolve uncertainty that its new A350 is competitive with Boeing's 787.
The House Armed Services Committee is taking issue with the U.S. Navy's plan to concurrently develop and produce its VXX Marine One replacement helicopter, the US101 being built by a Lockheed Martin/ AgustaWestland/Bell team. Accord- ingly, lawmakers limited the use of research and development funds until the Navy can certify that the test results for VXX test articles demonstrate that the "mission configuration can be produced without significant further design modification," the committee's report says.
The Air Force is spending $6.2 billion to upgrade its Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile force, but one of the program's unfunded needs is--ironically--a new helicopter. Air Force Space Command operates 25 Bell 1970s-era UH-1N Hueys to support missile operations at three bases. The helicopters are used to ferry personnel, launch codes and equipment and--perhaps more importantly in the post-Sept. 11, 2001, climate--provide airborne security for nuclear warhead transfer convoys.
The European Union has approved the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security network as its second flagship space program, and agreed to fund "significant" long-term research in satellite communications technologies, as part of the initial road map for a new space policy. Financing and other details of the policy, to be conducted with the European Space Agency and member states, are to be approved by year-end.
