SHANGHAI — Australia is expanding its fast-jet force, following a decision to go ahead with a full purchase of 58 additional Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightnings despite a commitment last year to add 12 Boeing EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft to the fleet. Canberra’s move, announced April 23, means that Lockheed Martin has escaped the danger of losing more F-35 orders from Australia, which has already trimmed its immediate requirement for the fighter.
LOS ANGELES — Boeing’s defense and space units are set for long-term slow growth despite U.S. budgetary pressures, a declining tactical fighter business, greater international competition and the coming closure of the C-17 production line.
Commercial demand, on the rise in most markets, is showing particular strength in China and the Americas, giving United Technologies Corp. (UTC) optimism for both its new equipment and aftermarket lines while helping to offset continuing military market challenges.
The FAA faces another legal challenge to its ban on civil use of unmanned aircraft, with a voluntary search-and-rescue (SAR) organization filing a lawsuit appealing against an agency order to stop using radio-controlled model aircraft in its searches. On Feb. 14, the FAA ordered the company flying missions for the Texas EquuSearch Mounted Search and Recovery Team to stop using the unmanned aircraft as it is “an illegal operation regardless if it is…doing volunteer SAR.”
Lockheed Martin’s chief executive remains bullish on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, despite another round of bruising headlines recently, because the company sees non-U.S. demand increasing and mitigating order cuts from the U.S. military.
LONDON — Fighter pilots have built experience with refueling from a range of tankers during an exercise in the Netherlands. The European Defense Agency (EDA) and European Air Transport Command (EATC)-run European Air-to-Air Refueling Training (EART14) program took place between March 31 and April 11 at Eindhoven air base, Netherlands, alongside a major NATO exercise, Frisian Flag.
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — The U.S. Navy and aircraft carrier builder Huntington Ingalls’ Newport News Shipbuilding are preparing Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (Emals) and redesigned Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) equipment for critical tests of the Ford-class technology. While Emals already has gone through extensive ground-based testing in Lakehurst, N.J., the Navy and contracting team has to get it properly installed and tested on the carrier CVN-78 Gerald R. Ford.
NASA has developed an approach its senior technical managers say can land humans on Mars in 20 years, with only a “modest” increase in its budget. Administrator Charles Bolden told the annual Humans 2 Mars (H2M) conference April 22 that while NASA “will not get 4% of the federal budget,” as it did during the Cold War Moon race, “1% would be a gold mine.”
A potential U.S. sale of 18 standard-configuration Sikorsky UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters to the Mexican army is working its way up the approval system in Washington, officials said April 21. The State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale (FMS) to Mexico, worth roughly $680 million. The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency delivered required congressional notification to lawmakers April 17.
LOS ANGELES — Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) says the first flight of a reused booster could take place as early as 2015 following encouraging results from the controlled landing into the Atlantic of a modified Falcon 9 first stage on April 18.
The U.S. Air Force is expected to choose between Lockheed Martin’s and Raytheon’s designs for the next-generation Space Fence by the end of May, says Steve Bruce, vice president for space surveillance systems at Lockheed Martin. The contract was slated for award a year ago, but was delayed due to concern that given congressionally mandated sequestration cuts, the Air Force might not be able to afford the program. The resulting contract will be fixed-price with an incentive fee, Bruce says.
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HOUSTON — SpaceX’s third commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station promises to keep ground-based engineers and scientists very busy, as astronauts opened the Dragon hatch, entered the cargo capsule and began to unpack its contents on April 21.
NEW DELHI — India will soon conduct a complex interceptor missile test as part of its project to develop an anti-ballistic missile defense (BMD) system. In a fully automated scenario, an interceptor missile at supersonic speed, equipped with an attitude control mechanism, will seek to intercept an incoming target missile at a speed of 1,500 meters per second (3,355 mph.).
