Problems in the nation’s weather and environmental satellite programs were highlighted in recent separate U.S. Government Accountability Office reports.
SAR ENDS: The U.S. Navy halted search and rescue (SAR) efforts Sept. 23 for the remaining two crewmembers involved in the service’s MH-60S Knighthawk helicopter crash. Navy officials have concluded that given the time elapsed since the incident, aircrew survivability was extremely unlikely. The crash site’s location is known, and an extensive area has been searched multiple times by various ships and aircraft. The Knighthawk, attached to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 6, crashed in the central Red Sea on Sept.
ARMY New World Solutions Inc., Herndon, Va., was awarded a $35,748,885 cost-plus-fixed-fee, non-option-eligible, non-multi-year contract to provide the National Guard Intelligence Center with applied remote sensing image science support. Performance location and funding will be determined with each order. This contract was a competitive acquisition via the web with five bids received. The U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (Charlottesville), Charlottesville, Va., is the contracting activity (W911W5-13-D-0001).
After a long string of delays, India will soon receive its second aircraft carrier, INS Vikramaditya, as Russia completed all its sea trials earlier this month. The 45,000-ton, 284-meter (932-ft.) long INS Vikramaditya, formerly the Russian Kiev-class Admiral Gorshkov, served in the Russian navy from 1987 to 1995. India agreed to buy it for $2.3 billion. The ship underwent a series of aviation trials over the last two months in the Barents Sea and the White Sea in Russia.
Orbital Science Corp.’s Cygnus resupply capsule will loiter in orbit until at least Sept. 28, permitting Russia to proceed with an upcoming three-man Soyuz crew transport mission to the International Space Station, before making a second attempt at a NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems (COTS) program rendezvous and grapple demonstration, NASA and the Dulles, Va., based company announced Sept. 23.
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Electric propulsion is already here, albeit on a small scale, and now NASA is looking ahead to the technology that would be required to power a regional aircraft in 10-20 years or a narrowbody airliner in 30-40 years. But the agency plans to start small, with tests to first understand, then model the behavior and efficiency of electric propulsion system components. These will feed into ground, and potentially flight, tests of a distributed propulsion system that would be closely integrated with the airframe.
The Royal Air Force (RAF) will provide the majority of the manning for the U.K.’s future carrier strike capability. As the U.K. gears up to buy its first squadron of F-35B Lightning IIs later this year and with the first of the two new Queen Elizabeth-class carriers nearing completion, the U.K. defense ministry has put the RAF in command of the new Joint Lightning Force, with squadrons manned by both air force and navy personnel.
An Australian research team hoping to conduct a free flight Mach 8 test of a novel inlet-fueled scramjet is investigating what prevented the hypersonic flight experiment from reaching the correct test conditions.
While NASA’s engineers plot the next steps in human spaceflight and Congress struggles with the cost, the 100 Year Starship nonprofit is focused on an aggressive interstellar journey with the best humanity has to offer. Launched with a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency in early 2012, the group, led by former NASA astronaut and physician Mae Jemison, is now reaching out on its own with a cultural and socially inclusive vision of human daring that echoes the themes that Star Trek and Star Wars sounded generations ago.
A replacement for the E-8C Joint Stars and the aging T-38 trainer are the next priorities under the sacred top three – the F-35 fighter, KC-46 tanker and next-generation bomber – for the U.S. Air Force, according to its top officer. Gen. Mark Welsh, chief of staff of the service, said a next-generation ground moving target indicator (GMTI) fleet and T-X would fall just under the top three – in that order – if funding is available in the forthcoming fiscal 2015 budget.
France has taken delivery of the first copy in the fourth tranche of Rafale production aircraft, French defense procurement agency DGA has announced. All 60 of the Dassault-built fighters are equipped with updated sensors, including RBE2 active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, next-generation missile launch detector capability and an identification and telemetry optronics suite. Rafale is the first European combat aircraft in service to incorporate the Thales-built AESA radar technology, offering considerably improved detection range.
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) plans to seek industry interest next month in an Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1) which will be capable of delivering a payload up to 5,000 lb. to space for less than $5 million per launch.
Aerospace & Defense Programs November 13-14, 2013 Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa, Phoenix, Ariz. Strategic Priorities in a Sequestration Era. Learn which programs are being affected and where government is likely to place its bets. Register Today www.aviationweek.com/events/adp Click here to view the pdf
India is likely to sign a deal to purchase six additional C-130J air lifters from the U.S. in the current financial year, which ends March 31, 2014. The Defense Acquisition Council, under the Ministry of Defense, has cleared the purchase of the Lockheed Martin-built medium transport aircraft under a government-to-government foreign military sale agreement worth more than $1 billion.
