Click here to view the pdf U.S. Navy Aircraft Procurement: Outyear Funding Shifts, 2014-2017Compares Outyear Funding Estimates from Fiscal 2013 Request With Fiscal 2014 Request Then-year dollars in millions. Descending sort on Outyear %change U.S.
Sierra Nevada is conducting flight readiness reviews for the first drop test of the Dream Chaser lifting body at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards AFB, Calif., amid wider preparations for the company’s first Commercial Crew critical design review (CDR).
LCS MODULES: The U.S. Navy has awarded Northrop Grumman a $25.2 million contract for three additional Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) mission modules — two for surface warfare missions and one for mine countermeasures. Each mission package comprises a specific set of subsystems such as data processing equipment, vehicles and sensors, and others. Northrop Grumman has delivered two surface warfare mission modules and one mine countermeasures mission module for LCS so far.
While the U.S. Navy brass has been trumpeting the Chinese naval participation in the upcoming 2014 Pacifica Rim (Rimpac) exercises, others question the benefits of working so closely with a potential geopolitical maritime rival such as the People’s Liberation Army Navy (Plan). “The Plan’s potential participation at Rimpac near Hawaii has raised concerns in Congress and elsewhere,” says a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, “U.S.-China Military Contacts: Issues for Congress.”
The U.S. Air Force has been supporting development of the Long Range Strike-Bomber (LRS-B) with risk-reduction contracts in five key areas, the service’s former senior acquisition officer said at the Air Force Association show here Tuesday. Like other details of the program, the contracts have not been disclosed publicly.
The way to ensure the viability of the industrial base that makes U.S. defense procurement possible is to determine now what is most important to preserve for the future and start planning to achieve that objective, a defense scholar argues.
Aviation Week A&D Programs 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
The cost of maintaining the U.S. Air Force’s aging T-38 fast jet trainer increases “steeply” in the outyears, but Air Force Gen. Edward Rice, who leads the training command, says the fleet is safe. The aging T-38 will remain in the fleet for an uncertain amount of time due to repeated delays in launching a replacement program called T-X. Rice says it is not yet known if the T-X effort will get support from the Air Force in its fiscal 2015 budget, which is being refined this fall. Delays have pushed the initial operational capability to around 2023.
Conditions are good for the first flight to the International Space Station of the Orbital Sciences Corp. Antares rocket with a Cygnus commercial cargo carrier, which would give NASA two ways to resupply station crews with food, clothing and hardware.
Boeing and Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), the competitors proposing capsule-based concepts for NASA’s Commercial Crew program, are approaching an intense period of key test and development milestones, made busier by new targets added by the space agency.
Click here to view the pdf U.S. Navy Weapons Procurement: Outyear Funding Shifts, 2014-2017Compares Outyear Funding Estimates from Fiscal 2013 Request With Fiscal 2014 Request Then-year dollars in millions. Descending sort on Outyear %change. U.S.
NASA’s Mission Control Center has successfully carried out a communications software verification test with its first prospective U.S. commercial crew transport, Boeing’s seven-person CST-100 spacecraft. The company’s collaboration with NASA for CST-100 mission planning, training and flight operations under a reimbursable Space Act Agreement began under the second phase of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program in 2011-12.
SYRIAN EXPORTS: President Barack Obama on Sept. 16 authorized export of U.S. chemical weapons-related personal protective equipment and other aid to Syria for use by some opposition rebels, public-service workers and international organizations helping to account for Syria’s stockpile. “Select, vetted” rebels also will be able to receive defensive chemical weapons-related training. Like Iran and North Korea, Syria is one of the most restricted and usually off-limits recipient countries for U.S. exports.
SAN DIEGO — NASA is poised to issue a request for proposals (RFP) for the second phase of development and certification of a U.S.-developed crew transportation system as part of the build-up to awarding Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contracts in mid-2014.
Orbital Sciences Corp. says the planned launch its first Cygnus spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) on a demonstration mission for NASA has been pushed back one day due to weather and the need to replace an inoperative cable.
U.S. NAVY Lockheed Martin Corp., Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Fort Worth, Texas, is being awarded a not-to-exceed $75,726,105 cost-plus-incentive-fee modification to the previously awarded F-35 Lightning II Low Rate Initial Production Lot VI Advance Acquisition contract (N00019-11-C-0083). This modification provides for the diminishing manufacturing sources redesign efforts in support of the Joint Strike Fighter Lot VI effort. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity.
While the U.S. Navy may be considering truncating some Aegis Combat System missile tests, the nation is still sticking to the planned testing schedule, according to officials for Lockheed Martin, the system’s prime contractor.
Sequestration threatens to dilute the power and punch of U.S. Navy forces abroad and even the ability to reprogram funds will not be enough to guarantee the nation’s presence where and when needed abroad, says Rear Adm. John Kirby, chief of Navy information, in a recent blog.
