The U.S. Air Force is expected to offer half of the 14 launches it had anticipated would be suitable for competition from 2015-2017, limiting the near-term opportunities for Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) to duel with rival United Launch Alliance. The service inked a deal in January with ULA for 36-50 Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) cores over the next five years; 36 of them are guaranteed, and 14 were considered potentially open for bids.
The British army has been cleared to begin flying the Watchkeeper unmanned aerial system (UAS). The long-delayed system received its initial release to service (RTS) documentation from the U.K. Military Aviation Authority (MAA) on March 5. The document allows British army pilots to begin training flights with the system in segregated airspace over the Salisbury Plain Training Area in Southern England. The U.K. is purchasing 54 Watchkeeper air vehicles and 15 ground control stations.
THE PENTAGON — The U.S. Army would reduce the number of combat aviation brigades, eliminate the Kiowa scout helicopter program and buy more Lakota Light Utility helicopters as part of a broad transformation of its aviation strategy over the next five years, officials explained on March 5. Army plans also call for pairing MQ-1 Gray Eagle and RQ-7 Shadow UAVs with AH-64 Apache attack helicopters to perform the Kiowa’s scouting mission.
BUDGET DROP: With the release of the Obama administration’s fiscal 2015 budget request this week, the Aviation Week Intelligence Network’s budget digest page is your one-stop source for news, data and analysis of programs and priorities as the request makes its way through Congress. AWIN subscribers can access the page at www.aviationweek.com/awin/USBudget2015.aspx
THE PENTAGON — The Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) program may be on its way out, but the U.S. Army is still building, buying and developing replacements for a variety of ground vehicles. The Army’s $121 billion base budget request for fiscal 2015 announced on March 4 includes $1.83 billion for ground mobility vehicles, down slightly from the $1.85 billion approved by Congress in December, when it passed a budget deal that capped defense spending at $496 billion for fiscal 2015.
GREENBELT, Md. — The discovery of water geysers over the south pole of Jupiter’s moon Europa has spurred NASA managers to begin working in earnest toward a New Frontiers-class flyby mission there in the 2020s.
THE PENTAGON — In its fiscal 2015 budget request, the U.S. Air Force is cutting $2.1 billion in funding through 2019 for the seventh and eighth Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellites, considering mothballing a weather satellite before it even gets to orbit and is slipping GPS III deliveries. These are some of the changes in the Air Force’s $5.26 billion request for space research and development and procurement for 2015-19, a budget with little wiggle room due to congressionally mandated spending limits.
BEIJING — Japan’s proposed H-X rocket program is moving ahead, with country’s space agency calling for a private company to develop, build and operate the family of space launchers. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, prime contractor and operator of the current H-IIA and H-IIB launchers, is the only conceivable supplier for the H-X, which will presumably be given the permanent name H-III when full-scale development begins.
THE PENTAGON — The Pentagon is planning yet another upgrade to address shortcomings in the Raytheon Exo-atmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV), the hit-to-kill mechanism required for the Defense Department to shoot down incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles. Problems with the EKV are at the root of at least two of three failed intercept attempts in the past five years. The kill vehicles were designed as prototypes and pressed into service by the George W. Bush administration as a response to a perceived threat from North Korea.
Sikorsky and the Turkish government have finally sealed a long-awaited helicopter production deal that will see Turkish industry building 300 Black Hawk helicopters for domestic and international use. Signing of the $3.5 billion Turkish Utility Helicopter Program (TUHP) was announced by Turkey’s Undersecretary for Defense Industries, Murad Bayar, on Feb. 21 during a ceremony at Konya air base. However, his department, the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM), did not announce details of the deal until this week.
LOS ANGELES — Boeing’s Maritime Surveillance Aircraft (MSA) demonstrator, a modified Bombardier Challenger 604 business jet, has been flown to Boeing’s Yuma, Ariz., facility for initial certification flight tests following extensive conversion work by Ontario, Canada-based Field Aviation.
HOUSTON — NASA’s $886 million portion of President Obama’s $56 billion, government-wide Opportunity, Growth and Security (OGS) initiative would be spread across seven areas — most notably the agency’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) to restore domestic human launch capability to the International Space Station (ISS). Split equally between defense and non-defense programs, OGS could raise NASA’s proposed $17.5 billion stay-the-course budget for 2015 by 5%, or to a level the agency would not otherwise approach until 2019.
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The U.S. Coast Guard is continuing to fund acquisition and improvement programs for its aircraft and ships despite an overall cut in its proposed fiscal 2015 spending plan. The fiscal 2015 plan of about $9.8 billion is about $418 million, or 4.1%, less than the enacted fiscal 2014 spending plan of about $10.2 billion.
BUDGET DROP: With the release of the Obama administration’s fiscal 2015 budget request on March 4, the Aviation Week Intelligence Network’s budget digest page is your one-stop source for news, data and analysis of programs and priorities as the request makes its way through Congress. AWIN subscribers can access the page at www.aviationweek.com/awin/USBudget2015.aspx
THE PENTAGON — The fiscal 2015 baseline budget request for the U.S. Navy, announced March 4, is $148 billion, compared to the $156 billion 2014 request, which was whittled down to $150 billion by the Budget Control Act and its mandatory sequestration spending cuts.
THE PENTAGON — Spending constraints imposed on the defense budget, capped by Congress at $496 billion for fiscal 2015, have forced the U.S. Army to re-examine its aviation structures, officials told a Pentagon budget briefing on March 4. The Army is asking Congress for $5.10 billion for aircraft and aviation equipment, compared to the $5.02 billion sought in fiscal 2014 and the $4.76 billion approved by Congress in December.
ARLINGTON, Va. — Two of the recent intercept failures by the U.S. Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system were due to “fairly simple” issues, says U.S. Navy Vice Adm. James Syring, director of the Missile Defense Agency. Syring is “disappointed” with Boeing’s performance in flight testing the GMD system; the last successful GMD intercept took place in December 2008. The next was expected this spring, but is now set for June. He spoke March 4 at Aviation Week’s Defense Technologies and Requirements conference in Arlington, Va.
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THE PENTAGON — Thanks to the U.S. Navy’s continued focus on ballistic missile defense (BMD), as well as its need to develop a stronger coastal presence, investments in its DDG destroyers and Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) are driving the service’s surface-ship funding in its fiscal 2015 budget proposal. Anchoring the BMD missions is the development of Aegis combat system improvement on DDG-51 Arleigh Burke class destroyers. The fiscal 2015 plan requests $2.8 billion for two Burkes as part of the fiscal 2013-17 multi-year procurement (MYP) for the ships.
THE PENTAGON — The U.S. Navy wants to buy more F-35B short-takeoff-vertical-landing (Stovl) Joint Strike Fighters (JSFs) for the Marine Corps across the future years defense plan (FYDP), ending in fiscal 2019, while cutting the number of F-35C carrier variants of the aircraft, according to the service’s fiscal 2015 budget proposal. The Lockheed Martin F-35B is the linchpin of the Marines’ future aviation plans, and service officials note the first operational aircraft will operate off amphibious ships supporting Corps operations within three years.
