Key portions of the U.S. Navy's most sophisticated electronic attack weapon are emerging from the laboratories. At least two candidate elements—a reduced-signature pod and an advanced power generating system from Northrop Grumman—are flying. The $2 billion Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) program—that would allow combat aircraft to penetrate sophisticated air defenses—is expected to be awarded to a single contractor almost exactly a year from now.
U.S. Air Force guidance that told anyone connected to F-22 Raptor operations to report any hypoxia-like symptoms likely led to a number of those reports from ground workers for the aircraft, says Maj. Gen. Charlie Lyon, Air Combat Command’s director of operations.
How do you fight off a swarm of small UAVs? Answer: With another swarm. That's the thinking behind the Aerial Battle Bots project masterminded by Timothy Chung, assistant professor of systems engineering at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. Chung is planning to stage an airborne gladiatorial contest between two fleets of 50 UAVs by 2015, to demonstrate how the swarm defense might work.
Frustrated by years of false starts, high-speed-propulsion researchers no longer find humor in the old joke that hypersonics is the future and always will be. Yet, just as shrinking budgets and moribund projects threaten the U.S. hypersonics community with that familiar feeling of deja vu, a newly announced Air Force high-speed-strike weapon offers an unexpected beacon of hope.
The Senate quietly approved two last-minute changes to the defense spending bill for fiscal 2013 aimed at boosting space-launch industries in California and Alabama. The amendments were approved as part of a package and were not publicly debated, but neither involved government funding.
NEW DELHI — India hopes to develop the next version of its joint hypersonic cruise missile project with Russia, the BrahMos II, in the next five years. “Having developed the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile at Mach 2.8, it is logical that we proceed to hypersonic missile with speed of more than Mach 5,” says A. Sivathanu Pillai, missile scientist and chief executive officer at BrahMos Aerospace. “With storable fuel, it is possible to achieve up to Mach 8,” he tells Aviation Week.
The U.S. Navy has established a new program office to manage the planning and procurement of the proposed next-generation aircraft carrier CVN-79 John F. Kennedy, a Gerald R. Ford-class ship. The new program office will also handle the planning and procurement for other future carriers of the Ford-class. Those ships will “move into modified repeat production of CVN-79 and -80 through the new program office,” the Navy says.
NAS PATUXENT RIVER, Md. — Testing of the Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton will relocate to the U.S. Navy’s NAS Patuxent River, Md., test center after the unmanned aircraft completes envelope-expansion flights from Palmdale, Calif. The first Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) derivative of the RQ-4B Global Hawk is being prepared for flight at Palmdale and is planned to relocate to Pax River early next year, after “eight or nine flights,” says Capt. James Hoke, program manager for persistent maritime unmanned aircraft systems.
A classified National Reconnaissance Office mission due for launch from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., just after midnight Aug. 2 has been scrubbed until at least Aug. 4 because of a downrange calibration issue. NROL-36 is to be lifted into orbit by a United Launch Alliance Atlas V flying in its simplest configuration, with a 4-meter payload fairing, a single-motor Centaur upper stage and no boosters. That suggests a relatively small payload. Launch officials said there are no issues with either the rocket or the payload.
JSF HONCHO: The Joint Strike Fighter program will get a new leader. U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Christopher C. Bogdan has been nominated for a third star and will be assigned as director of the Joint Strike Fighter program office, replacing Vice Adm. David Venlet, who has headed the program since 2010. Bogdan, previously in charge of the KC-46A project, stepped into the deputy leader position on JSF in July. He replaced Maj. Gen. John Thompson, who had been with JSF for less than a year, in an unusual job swap announced in May, with Thompson taking over the tanker effort.
GENOA — Finmeccanica’s first-half results confirm that the company is recovering financially, but its growing debt is becoming an issue for management. Giuseppe Orsi, chairman and CEO, says Finmeccanica will dispose of assets worth €1 billion ($1.2 billion) before the close of the year, which should allow the company to reduce its debt. At the end of June that debt stood at €4.6 billion, an 11% increase over the same period of 2011. And the Italian economic crisis casts further doubt on the company’s debt situation.
WEBSTER FIELD, Md. — The U.S. Navy plans to award Northrop Grumman a contract in August to integrate the Telephonics RDR-1700 maritime surveillance radar onto the MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned helicopter to meet an urgent operational requirement.
The Obama administration more clearly told federal contractors on Aug. 1 not to issue their employees notices of potential job losses that would take place if steep across-the-board budget cuts are instituted early next year.
WEBSTER FIELD, Md. — The U.S. Marine Corps wants to extend the deployment of two Lockheed Martin/Kaman K-Max unmanned cargo helicopters in Afghanistan through the second quarter of 2013, based on the success of operations so far. Already extended twice, the military utility assessment begun in December 2011 currently is scheduled to continue through September of this year. “The Marine Corps has indicated a requirement to extend the capability,” says Eric Pratson, cargo UAS team lead at Naval Air Systems Command (Navair).
With a recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report questioning U.S. Navy shipbuilding cost and operational assumptions, the service is defending its plan and estimates. The Navy projects that buying the new ships in the 2013 plan will cost a total of $505 billion over 30 years, or an average of $16.8 billion per year, CBO notes. CBO estimates that the cost for new-ship construction under the 2013 plan will total $599 billion through 2042, or an average of $20 billion per year
Despite the very public alarm bells rung recently over the breathing problems affecting F-22 Raptor pilots, Japanese officials have shown no concern about basing the jet fighters in their country, U.S. Air Force officials say. This is in stark contrast to the consternation displayed by Japanese officials because of recent flight accidents involving the V-22 Osprey as the U.S. Marine Corps deploys the tiltrotors to the region.
CYBER ALTERNATIVE: While Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and his co-sponsors of the controversial Cybersecurity Act of 2012 put their final touches on their bill in hopes of garnering more support for it, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce isn’t budging in its opposition. The Chamber’s main concerns with the legislation include the fact that “owners and operators of critical infrastructure would be evaluated by third-party members,” according to a July 25 document. R.
WEBSTER FIELD, Md. — Insitu has begun flight tests of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps’ RQ-21A small tactical unmanned aircraft (Stuas). Developed from the company’s Integrator commercial UAS, the RQ-21A made the 1-hr. flight on July 28 from an Insitu facility in Boardman, Ore. With six months left to run under its 27-month engineering and manufacturing development contract, the program is on track, says Boeing subsidiary Insitu. Development and operational testing will begin in August at NAS China Lake, Calif.
At the House Armed Services Committee on Aug. 1, the defense industry will be watching for clues about how the Obama administration plans to implement a penalty devised by Congress to force lawmakers to reduce the federal deficit. The penalty, known as sequestration, triggers a $1 trillion across-the-board government cut come January 2013, unless lawmakers reach a larger deal on deficit reduction.
