CENTAUR CUSTOMER: Switzerland has become the first customer for Aurora Flight Sciences’ Centaur optionally piloted aircraft, which is based on a Diamond DA42 certified twin-engine light aircraft. Procurement agency Armasuisse has purchased the aircraft for delivery this year to the Swiss defense department’s flight-test center at Emmen, which will use the Centaur as a testbed for sensors and sense-and-avoid systems to allow unmanned aircraft to operate in civilian airspace.
Rep. Frank Wolf is arguing that recent unrest in Egypt, including raids on nongovernmental groups there, could threaten ample foreign aid to the North African country. The Virginia Republican is circulating with House colleagues a letter he wrote to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that denounces recent raids conducted by Egyptian security and military forces on U.S. non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
TEL AVIV — Israel has taken another step toward fielding a four-layered missile defense with Boeing joining Israel Aerospace Industries in developing the Arrow-3, an upper-tier anti-ballistic missile system.
Boeing says the big news in pulse manufacturing is not limited to production ramp-ups in its 737 factories in Washington. It also is making news in manufacturing satellites on an assembly line in El Segundo, Calif. Boeing Satellite Systems has four identical Global Positioning System IIF satellites pulsing through an assembly line with 13 distinct manufacturing “post” positions as part of a U.S. Air Force contract with a total value of $1.35 billion.
Boeing CEO James McNerney predicts that more of the company’s military sales will originate overseas, as the U.S. defense budget comes under pressure. McNerney told analysts Jan. 25 that with “tough U.S. defense budgets,” the company sees “significant upside in the international defense market” for Boeing Defense, Space and Security (BDS). He forecasts that as much as 25-30% of revenues for the unit could come from international sales “in the next few years.”
GENOA — Even as France’s Safran considers a bid for it, Avio says it is still planning at least a partial initial public offering this year, one it had postponed from the end of 2011 due to Europe’s financial crisis.
Additional autonomy will be key if U.S. unmanned aircraft are to operate in the contested airspace of the future, according to the U.S. Air Force’s first deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
Click here to view the pdf Fiscal 2012 Appropriations: Missiles & Space ($ in thousands) Fiscal 2012 Appropriations: Missiles & Space ($ in thousands) U.S.
NEW DELHI — India has become the sixth country to operate a nuclear submarine with the commissioning of the leased Russian Akula-II class K-152 Nerpa on Jan. 23, contributing to the fledgling third leg of India’s nuclear triad. The 8,140-ton Akula II, capable of remaining underwater for months, was rechristened INS Chakra. It has set sail from a Russian base near Vladivostok and is expected to reach India within a month. The submarine will be based at the southern port of Visakhapatnam. Its 10-year lease is worth $920 million.
PLANE APPEAL: Fourteen former top U.S. Air Force officials are asking the leaders of the House and Senate armed services committees to keep investing in Boeing’s KC-46A tanker program, Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the Next Generation Bomber, despite the nation’s deficit reduction efforts. “Decisions that we make today will govern the national security options available for decades into the future,” the officials write on behalf of the Air Force Association. Signing the letter are former Maj. Gen. Curtis Bedke, Gen. John Corney, Lt. Gen.
The leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) are scheduled to dine with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta Jan. 25 at the Pentagon to discuss the broad outlines of looming defense budget reductions. Their briefing will come one day before the press anticipates a similar readout, as the military considers how to approach a $489 billion reduction to its prior spending plans for the next decade.
STRANGE STOCKS: Citing news reports of program cancellations naming the U.S. Air Force Global Hawk Block 30 and the Army’s Humvee recapitalization program, financial analyst Robert Stallard at RBC Capital Markets thinks it strange that Wall Street has seen fit to return many defense stocks back to levels close to where they were before the August 2011 Budget Control Act — even after the administration indicated major defense cuts were coming.
The U.S. Navy has conducted autonomous aerial refueling tests as a step toward a flight demonstration in 2014 using the Northrop Grumman X-47B unmanned combat air system (UCAS). In tests completed in late January, a Calspan-operated Learjet acting as a surrogate unmanned aircraft was flown autonomously behind an Omega-operated Boeing 707 probe-and-drogue tanker.
The U.S. Navy should do a “thorough analyses of alternatives (AOA) for its future surface combatant program,” the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommended in a report released Jan. 24. GAO also found the Navy analysis used to restart the service’s DDG-51 Arleigh Burke destroyer line and scuttle Navy plans for a larger, more modern DDG-1000 Zumwalt class fleet fails to justify the service’s decision.
THROWBOTS: Qinetiq North America announced Jan. 24 that it had received a $5.3 million order from the Pentagon’s Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (Jieddo) for more than 100 Dragon Runner 10 throwable robots. Weighing in at just more than 10 lb., the 15-in.-long, 13.5-in.-wide and 5.8-in.-tall robot can climb stairs and carry various payloads including sensors, cameras, and robotic arms while maintaining effective wireless communication over long distances. Deliveries will continue into spring 2012.
PARIS — Eurocopter has begun discussions with the German government regarding planned defense spending cuts that likely will see procurement reduced to 55-70 units. Initial discussions are also due to begin this week with Spain’s new government to determine what cuts may loom there. Although more paring is all but inevitable, Eurocopter President and CEO Lutz Bertling says their scale is not clear. In Germany, for instance, the number of Tigers to be acquired is likely to be higher than the 40 units discussed.
PARIS — Eurocopter expects helicopter deliveries to enter a new growth phase in 2012, with order intake anticipated to rise for a second year. “Our assumption is very strong growth in the next years,” CEO Lutz Bertling says. Deliveries are expected to return to their pre-crisis level, or about 600, up from 503 units last year, 527 in 2010 and 558 in 2009. Order intake this year should surpass 500 units, Bertling believes.
A Jan. 24 DAILY story misidentified the EELV engine being offered at a discount to United Launch Alliance. It is the RS-68 engine, which powers the core stage of the Delta IV.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — While U.S. launch officials slowly make headway in their efforts to curb rising launch costs, some are calling for a better compromise between mission assurance and affordability as the Air Force studies a possible rate increase to 10 national security space launches per year.
The U.S. Air Force is embarking on an accelerated analysis of alternatives for a future defense weather satellite constellation after initiating the termination of Northrop Grumman’s Defense Weather Satellite System (DWSS) contract.
The Pentagon’s Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (Jieddo) is looking for industry solutions to the problem of homemade explosives (HME) — specifically those made with ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which has become the deadliest weapon used against NATO troops in Afghanistan. According to a Broad Area Announcement issued Jan. 17, Jieddo is looking for studies that will “define the signatures and available observables” for these explosives, as well as “aid in the development of capabilities to counter these threats.”
President Barack Obama’s budget release will be delayed a week until Feb. 13, an administration official confirms. “The date was determined based on the need to finalize decisions and technical details of the document,” the official said in an email, adding that in keeping with efforts to rein in the federal deficit, the administration will not distribute paper copies of the budget. The administration is supposed to submit its budget to Congress on the first Monday of February. The Obama administration has met that deadline just once — in 2010.
