PARIS — French companies Thales and Safran have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to create an equal joint venture covering technical, commercial and program aspects for optronics systems and equipment.
The U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) recently demonstrated a new suite of information technology tools to improve fleet communications and operations. The centerpiece of the effort is a so-called “universal gateway” system designed to pass data securely and swiftly between a ship’s combat system network of weapons and sensors and the vessel’s command-and-control (C2) network, which connects to warfighting systems located beyond the ship.
Goodrich Corp.’s five-year campaign to get its ACES 5 ejection seat onto the F-35A is likely to meet the same fate as General Electric/Rolls-Royce’s push to keep an alternate engine in the Joint Strike Fighter program — failure. This month, the engine manufacturer finally gave up on its years-long attempts to keep the F136 engine alive after consistent and stiff opposition from the Pentagon leadership.
The program isn’t terminated, but the U.S. Navy’s Small Tactical Unmanned Aerial System effort won’t see any aircraft purchased in 2012 after House-Senate conferees zeroed the funding. The Small Tactical UAS Light (Stuas Light) program isn’t getting its $12.7 million request, the conference report says, because of a “low-rate initial production contract award slip.”
Last time, NASA’s Kepler planet-finding mission found a planet in the right orbital location to support life, but it was the wrong size. This time, Kepler has found two planets of the right size but in the wrong location. The Kepler team reported Dec. 20 that it has located an Earth-like star called Kepler-20 orbited by five planets, including two — Kepler-20E and -20F — that are the closest in size to Earth of any planets yet discovered outside our own Solar System. But they are so close to their own star that they are too hot to support life.
Lockheed Martin officials say the risk of “concurrency cost,” or cost to retrofit aircraft manufactured early in the F-35 production run, is low for Japan and Israel, which are signing on to take delivery of their first fighters in 2016. “We think we will be through most of any of the concurrency mods, especially by deliveries in 2016,” said Steve O’Bryan during a Dec. 19 teleconference with reporters on Japan’s selection of the F-35 to replace its F-4s.
BUYING AMERICAN: Forecast International projects that defense departments throughout the world will spend about $4.25 billion on 13 military airborne communications development and acquisition programs within the U.S. market over the next 10 years. “Modernizing legacy communications equipment with the most current software-operated systems is the primary driver of current investment in the U.S. airborne communications systems market,” says Forecast Senior Analyst Greg Giaquinto.
After nearly 16 years of development and more than $5 billion spent, culminating in a series of ballistic missile target engagements, the Pentagon has finally decided to mothball the Boeing-led 747-400F project known as the Airborne Laser. The U.S. Missile Defense Agency is now looking toward a new generation of lasers that could operate on unmanned vehicles at very high altitudes owing to advancements in laser technology, power generation and beam control work made possible in part by the foundation laid in the ABL years.
Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Ingalls Shipbuilding unit recently delivered the company’s sixth amphibious transport dock, LPD-22 San Diego, to the U.S. Navy. There are four more LPD-17 San Antonio class ships under construction.
NEW DELHI — India has put on hold formation of all joint ventures in defense shipyards until suitable guidelines are formulated by the government. The decision was made after a joint venture between state-run shipbuilder Mazagon Dock Ltd. (MDL) and Pipavav Defense and Offshore Engineering Co. was objected to by other commercial shipyards (Aerospace DAILY, Sept. 27).
Japan’s selection of the F-35 for its F-4 Phantom replacement signals that despite technical problems and cost overruns in developing the single-engine stealthy fighter, there is a customer base willing to take a risk in pursuit of a longtime technological advantage on the battlefield.
HOUSTON — Texas A&M University will restore and operate NASA’s Space Shuttle Motion Simulator (SSMS), the hydraulically activated mock cockpit used to prepare astronauts for the dynamic launch and reentry phases of their spaceflights, for student instruction and public outreach under a Space Act Agreement signed by Johnson Space Center and the school.
LONDON — With today’s first flight of MSN6, the flight-test fleet for the A400M military airlifter is now complete, and despite some slippage in type certification, prime contractor Airbus Military indicates a 2012 delivery may still be possible. The fifth flight-test aircraft (it is MSN6 because one flight test aircraft was taken out of the program early on) is in the final aircraft configuration and will be used for function and reliability testing, an important stage to validate the product before handing over actual transports to customers.
The U.S. Coast Guard needs to do a better job of performing the risk analysis it uses to draft its budget and operational plans, says a recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). The Coast Guard uses its Maritime Security Risk Analysis Model (Msram) as its primary approach for assessing and managing security risks and, in general, meets federal requirements in making that assessment, GAO says in its November report.
LONDON — As part of its long-running funding stream to assure a national unmanned aircraft design and development capacity, the U.K. defense ministry has agreed to keep activities in this field running another four years.
SCIENCE HONCHO: Physicist and former astronaut John Grunsfeld will be NASA’s next associate administrator for science, effective Jan. 4. He currently serves as the deputy director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which manages the science program for the Hubble Space Telescope and is a partner in the forthcoming James Webb Space Telescope. A veteran of five shuttle flights, Grunsfeld visited Hubble three times and performed eight spacewalks servicing the observatory.
LONDON — Airbus Military, for now, is closing the book on the deal that had South Africa buy eight A400M airlifters, only to reverse course when the program hit delays and political dynamics in South Africa shifted. Airbus insists the fixed-price, €837 million deal never changed. After the deal was struck in 2005, Airbus Military received payments from South Africa’s Armscor defense armaments agency, which the company now says have been refunded.
The first 11 Luftwaffe officers have completed their Euro Hawk UAV pilot training at Beale Air Force Base in California. The graduation ceremony for the 21-week course took place last week, with the certificates handed out by Lt. Gen. Peter Schelzig, head of the Luftwaffe command, who in his speech at the ceremony said, “In God we trust, everyone else we monitor.”
U.S. lawmakers are continuing their support for Israel’s missile defense efforts, providing $236 million in fiscal 2012 for continued development of three programs — an increase of 123% over what President Barack Obama had asked for. The plus-up comes despite a reduction of $21 billion in the overall U.S. military budget, and with lawmakers noting that the request represents a $100 million decrease in funding from the previous year.
SMALL STARS: NASA has selected 85 small business proposals to enter into negotiations for Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards. The projects have a total value of about $63 million, and will be spread among 79 small firms in 27 states. The agency says SBIR projects have benefitted NASA efforts including air traffic control modernization, Earth-observing spacecraft, the International Space Station and Mars rovers. NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., manages the SBIR program.
