BUDGET COVERAGE: When the U.S. government’s fiscal 2013 budget proposal is released on Feb. 13, Aviation Week Intelligence Network subscribers should be sure to visit http://www.aviationweek.com/2013budget, which will feature all the latest budgetary and programmatic news, data and analysis grouped together in one place. (See p. 7 of this issue for a budget preview chart.) To allow for all the latest budget news to be included, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report subscribers should expect a delay in the arrival of their issue dated Feb. 14.
After two launch failures with Orbital Sciences Corp.’s Taurus XL solid-fuel rocket, NASA has decided to try to launch its replacement Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2) on another vehicle. The agency and the company signed a bilateral contract modification Feb. 2 that will terminate Orbital’s task order to loft OCO-2 under its NASA Launch Services II (NLS-II) contract. An agency spokesman said the action does not end Orbital’s NLS-II contract, which provides NASA with different launch options under a “catalogue” approach.
Lockheed Martin will unveil a reduced-cost C-130XJ variant of the Hercules airlifter at the Singapore Airshow, one that is aimed at customers requiring only a small fleet of aircraft capable of being equipped to perform special missions in addition to providing tactical transport. With 246 C-130Js delivered and another 71 in backlog, the company believes it has barely scratched the surface of the market to replace the 1,200 Hercules airlifters operated by 72 countries worldwide, many requiring fleets of only 4-8 aircraft.
DELAYED PIT: The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) says the Obama administration will announce a delay to planned construction of a Los Alamos (N.M.) National Laboratory facility that would enable the U.S. to produce more plutonium pits, the core of modern nuclear weapons. The administration will announce its fiscal 2013 budget request Feb. 13, and senior officials from the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management will host a conference call at 4 p.m. EST.
NEW DELHI — India successfully test-fired an interceptor missile Feb. 10 from a base in India’s eastern state of Orissa as part of its two-layer ballistic missile defense program, according to a senior Indian defense official.
NASA will take only an $89 million cut in its topline spending request for fiscal 2013 compared to this year’s operating plan, sources said Feb. 10, but the $17.711 billion NASA budget proposal due out Feb. 13 will axe the joint effort with Europe to return samples from Mars, to pay for development overruns on the James Webb Space Telescope.
The U.S. Army’s Network Integration Evaluation (NIE) effort — the cornerstone of its tactical communications, surveillance and intelligence-sharing modernization — looks like it will emerge from the fiscal 2013 budget rollout in pretty good shape, according to Army officials. The program currently anticipates its next evaluation in May, while working on plans for capability evaluations to continue through 2013 and into fiscal 2014, according to service spokesman Paul Mehney.
The U.S. Air Force plans to commence a service-life extension program (SLEP) for up to 350 of the newest Lockheed Martin F-16s to keep the fleet as combat-ready as possible while the F-35’s in-service date remains uncertain. The $2.8 billion SLEP program is larger in scope than a structural SLEP eyed two years ago. This new program, which is being included in the fiscal 2013 budget proposal, will address requirements for adding an active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radar to the single-engine fighter.
PARIS — A joint European-Russian proposal that assumes no NASA participation in ExoMars has been submitted to the directors of the European Space Agency and the Russian space agency Roscosmos ahead of a Feb. 15 meeting of ESA leaders.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) feb. 14 - 16 — Singapore Airshow, Changi Exhibition Centre, Singapore. For more information go to www.singaporeairshow.com/default.aspx feb. 15 - 16 — Aviation Week Events, Defense Technology & Affordability Requirements Conference, Washington, D.C. For more information go to www.aviationweek.com/events
NEW DELHI — Boeing is in talks with the Indian navy on a follow-on order of four P-8I maritime surveillance and anti-submarine warfare aircraft in addition to the eight ordered in 2009. “We have been in discussion with the Indian navy on advancing the options,” says Dennis Swanson, vice president of international business development for Boeing Defense, Space & Security in India. “We are working with the customer [India] and the customer will decide when the time is appropriate. We stand by ready to engage with them.”
Recent Lockheed Martin Aegis combat system upgrades—the Advanced Capability Build (ACB)-12 and its accompanying multi-mission signal processor (MMSP) for ballistic mission defense (BMD) enhancements—are running behind schedule and over cost projections, a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report says.
NEW DELHI — India has approved new guidelines to enable state-run defense firms to form joint ventures (JVs) with local and overseas companies, as the country engages in modernizing its armed forces. “The objective is to have better risk-management, greater efficiency, shorter timeframes for delivery to meet the increasing demands of the armed forces, and for enhancing self-reliance in the defense sector as a whole,” a government official said Feb. 9.
With looming slowdowns to the development of a new generation of U.S. ballistic missile submarines and a nuclear bomb life-extension program, the House of Representatives is set to become the battlefield for a growing fight over potential reductions to what the Obama administration had pledged to spend on nuclear modernization over the next 10 years.
Global Aviation Holdings, a casualty of the ends of wars and some poor planning, plans to jettison 16 of its 30 aircraft leases as part of its restructuring under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Proponents of civil space exploration are likely to be disappointed by the details of the NASA fiscal 2013 budget plan to be released Feb. 13, particularly when it comes to Mars. It is already known from previous plans that NASA’s overall budget will be flat and tight, with no major new initiates and a lot of backfill from previous spending shortfalls.
The U.S. Air Force is preparing to flight test “alcohol-to-jet” (ATJ) biofuel in a Fairchild A-10 as a prelude to certifying the fuel across its aircraft fleets to help achieve the target of meeting half its domestic fuel needs with alternative sources by 2016. Biofuels startup Gevo is supplying the fuel for the feasibility demonstration, says Jeff Braun, director of the Air Force Alternative Fuels Certification Office. The company won a contract in September to deliver 7,000 gal. of fuel for the tests, with an option for another 4,000 gal.
LONDON — The British parliament’s defense committee plans to start a review of the country’s future maritime surveillance needs following the government’s decision not to field the Nimrod MRA4 maritime patrol aircraft. The decision to cancel future Nimrod MRA4s and dismantle ones already built was made in 2010 as part of the Strategic Defense and Security Review, but has remained controversial. Legislators have repeatedly expressed concern over the capability gap, in part because the government has not said how it will be addressed.
NEW BLOOD: The U.S. State Department is looking for a few new members of a private-sector advisory panel to advise Andrew Shapiro, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, on defense trade regulations and export reforms for the next two years. The panel’s changeover comes as the Obama administration is in the process of overhauling the U.S. munitions list. Forty-five people served on the Defense Trade Advisory Group from 2010 to 2012, and it has been led by George Sevier of MK Technology and Joyce Remington of BAE Systems.
The U.S. Air Force is concerned about cyber-theft and sympathetic to industries that are victimized by digital attack, but the service is not going to pick up the bill by adding cost to its acquisition programs.
