Northrop Grumman Corp. is getting closer to first flight of its X-47A Pegasus unmanned aerial vehicle, a company-funded project. The flight was to have taken place last year, but the first flight is now slated for later this year. "It will fly when it's ready," a company spokeswoman said.
ALCOA BUY: Alcoa Inc. has completed its acquisition of the aluminum extrusion assets of Dooray Air Metal Co. Ltd. of Changwon, Korea, the company announced March 28. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The Changwon facility produces hard alloy extrusions for defense, aerospace, industrial and transportation markets.
ASTRIUM has signed an agreement with ESA and 10 European companies to promote commercial use of the International Space Station in the fields of life and materials sciences, technology development, communications, earth observation, advertising and entertainment. "Under contract to ESA, we are responsible for the construction of the European space laboratory Columbus and numerous experiment facilities for use on the [ISS]," Stefan Graul, Astrium Space Infrastructure's director of orbital infrastructure and operations, said in a statement.
The Air Force Research Laboratory hopes to resume demonstrations of space-based relay mirror technology that have been on hold since the era of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Orbiting relay mirrors could one day be used to redirect and refocus the beams from airborne or ground-based laser systems, greatly extending their range and power.
V-22 Osprey program officials say they are confident that a comprehensive test program set to begin next month will remove any doubts about tiltrotor technology and safety. E.C. "Pete" Aldridge Jr., the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, has allowed the V-22 to return to flight testing, but he testified earlier this month before Congress that the Pentagon is considering alternatives should the test program fail.
Boeing and Dassault are the last competitors in what had been a four-way competition for South Korea's multi-billion dollar fighter modernization competition. South Korea announced earlier this week its fighter modernization program has entered its second phase, indicating that at least two of the offers received were scored within three percentage points of each other based on technical and cost estimates.
RADIOSHACK CORP. provided backing to allow singer Lance Bass of the group *NSYNC to begin medical screening in Russia for a possible trip to the International Space Station later this year, the company announced. If he passes the screening and completes six months of cosmonaut training, he could fly to the station on a Russian rocket, according to RadioShack.
JSF PARTNERS: BAE Systems and GKN Aerospace Services announced they will form a partnership for the design and production of high-technology airframe components for Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Components will include those built at GKN's Resin Transfer Molding facility in St. Louis, which it bought from Boeing last year.
Recent helicopter accidents during Operation Enduring Freedom could have been prevented had the aircraft been equipped with the Tactile Situational Awareness System (TSAS), according to its creator, Navy Capt. Angus Rupert. TSAS (DAILY, Apr. 17, 2001) uses the pilot's sense of touch to provide spatial orientation and situational awareness. After a successful operational assessment last year, Rupert hopes TSAS soon will be installed on operational helicopters.
Aerospace and defense professionals can reduce the time they spend surfing the Internet for accurate, timely and authoritative information by using a new web portal, Aviation Week's Intelligence Network (AWIN), the Aviation Week Group says. Full-text articles from Aviation Week&Space Technology magazine, Aerospace Daily, Aviation Daily, Homeland Security&Defense, and other group publications will be available on the new network.
Hungary will begin sending new pilots to the Canadian Forces base at Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, for basic and advanced flight training late next year with the Canadian-managed NATO Flying Training in Canada program, Aerospace Daily affiliate AviationNow.com reported. The deal makes Hungary the sixth nation to use NFTC for pilot training.
NASA should reconsider its plan to cut the space shuttle's safety and supportability upgrades program by more than $500 million over the next few years, according to a new report by the House Science Committee.
A Navy plan to integrate its land and sea networks and link them to those of other services soon will be evident in Navy planning and in its budgets, a Navy official said March 27. Doing that will require the development of a common information architecture, called FORCEnet, which will link all of the Navy's land and sea forces as well as link the Navy with other services, said Vice Adm. Richard Mayo, director of space, information warfare, and command-and-control for N6.
Chris Hernandez, formerly vice president for the multi-platform technology insertion program (MP-RTIP), will lead the company's new air force surveillance and battle management mission area IPT.
Japan's Self-Defense Agency discloses FY 2002 aircraft buys Japan's Self-Defense Agency plans to buy 46 aircraft in fiscal 2002, which begins April 1. The agency requested 49 aircraft (DAILY, Sept. 19, 2001), which was reduced by three. The service has disclosed the costs of the aircraft, as shown in this chart:
With its cash reserves nearly gone, troubled regional aircraft-maker Fairchild Dornier might be forced to file for insolvency as early as April 2, industry sources told Aerospace Daily affiliate Aviation Daily. If that happens, the company would be run by an administrator, who would keep operations going - possibly through bridge financing - and find investors to take up all or part of the company.
John Young, the assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, said March 26 that the DD(X) program will spawn a new class of ships, not just serve as a testbed for new technologies. "Make no mistake about it, we are building the first ship in its class," Young said of funds requested for the first DD(X). The Navy has made it clear to Pentagon acquisition chief E.C. "Pete" Aldridge Jr. that the Navy "cannot spend $2 billion on a prototypical vehicle," he said at the Navy's Sea-Air-Space Exposition in Washington.
BOEING TEAM: Boeing has formed an industry team made up of ViaSat, Hughes Network Systems, TRW Inc., Harris Corp. and Science Applications International Corp. to compete for the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) contract. MUOS will provide global communications to all U.S. forces, including those deployed in jungles, mountainous terrain or at sea.
The Navy plans to test the two Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle systems it requested in the fiscal 2003 budget in a broad area maritime surveillance (BAMS) role, according to Global Hawk manufacturer Northrop Grumman. BAMS began as a subset of the Navy's Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft (MMA), according to Ernest Snowden, director of system requirements for Northrop Grumman's Airborne Early Warning and Electronic Warfare Division.
Talks on the Boeing Co.'s potential role in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program have not produced an agreement, and time is running out for Boeing to become a major participant, according to an official for Lockheed Martin Corp., the aircraft's lead developer.
