TURIN, Italy — The Neuron combat unmanned aircraft demonstrator is being tested for its stealthy characteristics at a facility in France before restarting flight testing, according to Alenia Aermacchi officials.
HOUSTON — Canada’s first space mission command came to a successful close late May 13, as a Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying Canada’s Chris Hadfield, U.S. astronaut Tom Marshburn and cosmonaut Roman Romanenko departed the International Space Station and descended safely to Earth. Their TMA-07M capsule landed under parachute in southern Kazakhstan at 9:31 p.m. EDT, or May 14 at 8:31 a.m. local time, ending a 146-day mission.
LONDON — Air traffic controllers have guided a UAV through U.K. airspace for the first time as part of the Astraea project. The Autonomous Systems Technology Related Airborne Evaluation & Assessment (Astraea) program was launched in 2006 to look at how unmanned aircraft could be integrated into airspace shared with other air traffic.
SINGAPORE — Top Chinese officials have signaled that they support “an early adoption of a code of conduct for the South China Sea,” Singapore Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen said May 14 during his kickoff speech here at the International Maritime and Defense Exhibition (Imdex) Asia 2013. Local defense ministers, he says, met earlier this month in Brunei to discuss, among other things, “measures to reduce tensions in the South China Sea, including keeping the channels of communication open so as to avoid escalation and miscalculation.”
LONDON — U.K.-based general aviation specialist Patriot Aerospace has purchased British International Helicopters (BIH). The deal, announced May 13, will make Patriot the U.K.'s largest domestically owned helicopter operator. Terms of the agreement were not revealed, although according to Patriot, Newquay-based BIH will become an integrated part of Patriot Group, which also includes Veritair and London Helicopter Centers.
CYBER CRACKDOWN: A bipartisan group of senior defense hawks in the U.S. Senate is pushing a bill to try to fight foreign cyberespionage of U.S. commercial data and knowledge. The Deter Cyber Theft Act of 2013 would require the director of national intelligence to develop watch lists of foreign countries, their state-run entities and individuals who engage in economic or industrial espionage in cyberspace for U.S. trade secrets or proprietary information.
A time-management trick learned by the Skylab 4 crew almost 40 years ago continues to work on the International Space Station today, according to commanders of missions on each orbital laboratory. Gerald Carr, the Skylab 4 commander, told an audience marking the 40th anniversary of the Apollo-era space-station program that his three-man crew held “the first sensitivity group in space” after controllers in Houston overloaded them with work.
ROME — Alenia Aermacchi has lost its second of three pre-production prototypes of the M346 transonic trainer in a crash over the weekend. The lone pilot ejected safely and no one on the ground was hurt. Company officials declined to answer questions, but said in a statement that the cause is a “technical problem” that occurred about 20 min. after takeoff from Turin-Caselle airport. The crash site is in Val Bormida, between the provinces of Cuneo and Savona, company officials say.
Turkish missile manufacturer Roketsan has signed up to cooperate on the development and supply of Diehl Defense’s Interactive Defense and Attack System for Submarines (IDAS) missile system. The two companies, along with ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, signed an agreement at the IDEF defense show in Istanbul on May 9.
ARMY The Boeing Co., Mesa, Ariz., was awarded a $26,067,485 modification (P00007), to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price, foreign military sales (FMS) contract W58RGZ-12-C-0089, for training and support of the Apache Block III helicopter program. This FMS contract is in support of Saudi Arabia. The cumulative total face value of this contract is $216,229,550. Fiscal 2013 procurement funds are being obligated on this award. The Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity.
Raytheon has begun guided flight tests of an interceptor being developed for the U.S. Army under an accelerated effort to field a system to counter rocket, artillery and mortar (RAM) threats. The company has announced completion of two control test vehicle (CTV) flights under the Accelerated Improved Intercept Initiative (AI3) program and has moved into guided tests.
With little incentive for prospective competitors to exceed the baseline requirements, the restaged contest for the VXX presidential helicopter replacement is expected to come down to the same two contenders as the original competition: the AgustaWestland AW101 and Sikorsky S-92. If the aircraft are the same, the teams are slightly different this time around. Northrop Grumman will prime any AW101 bid and Sikorsky has teamed with Lockheed Martin, which won the first VXX competition with a U.S. version of the AW101, the VH-71A, beating out the S-92.
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SINGAPORE — There is little doubt about what is the star of the show at this year’s International Maritime and Defense Exhibition (Imdex) Asia 2013 – the buzz is clearly all about the first Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1), the USS Freedom. From the huge billboard featuring Freedom’s picture on the road heading into the Changi Exhibition Center to the media board plastered with photographs and stories about the vessel’s arrival to the region, LCS is casting a long, large shadow.
ARMY Goodrich Pump and Engine Control Systems, West Hartford, Conn., is being awarded a firm-fixed-price, multiyear contract with a maximum value of $47,957,667 for the procurement of a maximum of 1,500 fuel controls applicable to the CH-47 helicopter. Fiscal 2013 procurement funds in the amount of $2,364,200 are being obligated on this award. One bid was solicited, with one bid received. The Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (W58RGZ-13-D-0126). NAVY
HOUSTON — Two U.S. astronauts were preparing for a possible May 11 spacewalk outside the International Space Station (ISS) in response to a significant ammonia coolant leak in the thermal control system radiator of the orbiting lab’s oldest solar power module. The NASA-led ISS Mission Management Team had scheduled a meeting for late May 10 to consider final approval for a 6-7-hr. extravehicular activity (EVA) to replace the suspected source of the leak, a pump and flow control system (PFCS) electronics box, or to carry out further troubleshooting.
