Northrop Grumman’s AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) successfully detected multiple rocket launches during company-funded testing that the firm says demonstrates the radar’s ballistic missile defense (BMD) capability. The G/ATOR system detected multiple rockets launched by NASA from its Wallops Island, Va., test site, including three different rocket types. Data collected from the testing will be used to verify potential future theater ballistic missile algorithms and ballistic missile defense capabilities.
LONDON — State-owned consortium Russian Helicopters sold nearly 300 helicopters during 2012 and increased revenues by 21% to 125 billion rubles ($4 billion). The Moscow-based company delivered 290 aircraft, up from 262 during 2011. Nine models of rotorcraft were sold to operators from 19 nations. The company now has a backlog of 817 helicopters worth nearly 360 billion rubles ($11.5 billion).
GRIPEN DEAL: Saab and Swedish defense procurement agency FMV have signed a SEK 10.7 billion ($1.65 billion) contract for development work on the next-generation Gripen fighter. The contract follows on from a smaller SEK 2.5 billion deal contract in February. The development order, signed on March 22, accounts for operations on the Gripen E program from 2015-2023.
NEW DELHI — India’s Bharat Electronics (BEL) will manufacture sub-assemblies for the Boeing Super Hornet fighter. “Under a follow-on contract of 2011, BEL will deliver components for our F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and P-8I maritime reconnaissance aircraft,” says Dennis Swanson, vice president of international business development for Boeing Defense, Space & Security in India.
The Pentagon’s 2012 portfolio of 86 major defense acquisition programs is estimated to cost a total of $1.6 trillion, reflecting decreases in both size and cost compared to the 2011 portfolio, a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report says.
Manfred Bischoff, who heads Daimler's supervisory board, first told me about 25 years ago that the French government should abandon its stake in Aerospatiale Matra, the predecessor of EADS aerospace/defense group's French arm. Bischoff was then chief financial officer of DaimlerChrysler Aerospace and, like most of his German colleagues, firmly believed the time was right to give the private sector some long-overdue freedom and suppress cumbersome political interference. Although he was convincing, he could not persuade his French counterparts to act accordingly.
Lawmakers came up with a budget penalty bad enough to prompt themselves to deal with taxes and entitlements. Until now, the consequences of the $85 billion budget penalty known as sequestration were largely an academic exercise, but the looming closure of FAA contract towers is already making that tangible (see p. 18).
A new NASA mission to bring an asteroid closer to Earth in time to meet President Obama's goal of landing humans on one by 2025 would do more than bring the mountain to Mohammed. It also would add relevance to some of lawmakers' favorite NASA programs—the Orion crew vehicle, heavy-lift Space Launch System and commercial human spacecraft. NASA's fiscal 2014 budget request will include $100 million for the mission to find a small asteroid, capture it with a robotic spacecraft and bring it into range of human explorers somewhere in the vicinity of the Moon.
No war can be won except by ground forces: Washington buzzes with that mantra, often from terminally degreed employees of academic institutions linked to the Army and Marines.
While most of the prime and top-tier suppliers that head to Mexico export assemblies and finished products back to their home factories or to customers, an increasing number of specialty suppliers are shipping within the country.
An article on page 28 of the print edition of the March 25 issue should have noted that the Pentagon is planning to select a non-deployed AN/TPY-2 radar for use in Japan to monitor North Korean ballistic missile launches, adding to the one already located in Shariki. Those deployed to Qatar, Turkey and Israel are not candidates for deployment in Japan. The article in the digital edition of the magazine was correct.
One of Mexico's smallest states in area and population, Queretaro had a well-established industrial base in food processing, electronics, metals and automotive products in its eponymous capital city when the persistence of state officials caught the attention of Bombardier Aerospace in 2005.
Chihuahua, the capital of Mexico's largest state (also called Chihuahua), is a pioneer in aerospace manufacturing and a locus especially for general and business aviation original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). But in the past few years, growth has come courtesy of larger aircraft.
To counter the mounting number of cyberattacks, a group of senators led by Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) are working on legislation urging the Pentagon to train members of the National Guard to respond to cyberthreats. The bill would establish Cyber Guard units in every state that could be activated by governors or the Defense Secretary and would draw on the private-sector information technology expertise of members of the National Guard. The bill is aimed at offsetting a shortage of cyberexperts across the government.
Open architecture is frequently a misnomer in avionics development, as proprietary elements often sneak in during design and prevent software from being truly reusable and portable between platforms.
