HOUSTON — NASA’s inspector general has found the far-flung agency is scrambling to meet aggressive real property reduction goals outlined by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Congress, largely because of uncertainties over its future human exploration missions and budget outlook.
KOUROU, French Guiana — France launched the first of two next-generation Pleiades Earth-imaging satellites atop a Russian Soyuz rocket that lifted off from Europe’s Guiana Space Center here Dec. 16.
Congressional auditors recommend that NASA remain vigilant in the maintenance and re-supply practices it is following to keep the six-person International Space Station on a sound footing. The recommendations are part of a new U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that expresses overall confidence in the way the agency has dealt with significant change.
NEW DELHI — Pratt & Whitney has received a contract to produce the first four F117-PW-100 engines that will power the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III for the Indian air force. “The engines will be delivered in second quarter of 2012,” a Pratt official says. No financial details were given by the company, a unit of United Technologies Corp. India will take delivery of its first C-17s in early 2013. Earlier this year, India’s defense ministry signed a letter of offer and acceptance with the U.S. government to acquire 10 C-17s.
The fourth U.S. Air Force/Boeing Wideband Global Satcom spacecraft (WGS-4) has completed installation of its payload fairings and a key testing milestone at Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Fla. Besides loading WGS-4 into the United Launch Alliance’s Delta IV payload fairing, encapsulation includes completion of the Air Force Satellite Control Network compatibility testing, payload and bus functional testing and the propellant load. Launch on the Delta IV is set for Jan. 19 from Space Launch Complex-37 at Cape Canaveral.
General Dynamics has completed its tender offer to purchase all of the outstanding shares of common stock of Force Protection, Inc., for $5.52 per share in cash, GD announced Dec. 19. The two companies announced back on Nov. 7 that they had reached agreement on the terms of a merger under which Force Protection would become a wholly owned subsidiary of General Dynamics, being slotted in as part of General Dynamics Land Systems.
The Littoral Combat Ship’s (LCS) remote minehunting system recently completed the first phase of reliability testing, U.S. Navy and contractor Lockheed Martin announced. The RMS is a critical component of the ship’s mine countermeasures mission package, providing an off-board mine reconnaissance capability. The system completed more than 500 hr. of offshore, in-water testing, including line-of-sight and over-the-horizon communications checks and full exercise of vehicle control, mobility, maneuvering, and sonar towing capability.
With the final F-22 rolling off Lockheed Martin’s assembly line, the Marietta, Ga., facility is now focusing its efforts on making its C-130J and C‑5M operations more efficient. The Raptor business is not dead, though. A massive program, once estimated to cost as much as $8 billion to modify the twin-engine stealthy fighters, is under way and delivering through the next several years.
On the heels of the announcement of Stratolaunch, which will air-launch a SpaceX falcon rocket from a six-engine, 385-ft.-span mothership, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) is looking at the other end of the scale with its new Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (Alasa) program. Alasa aims to air-launch 100-lb. satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO) from an essentially unmodified aircraft, such as a business jet.
With last month’s keel-laying and the anticipated U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on recent U.S. Navy destroyer fleet decisions expected to be released in January, the DDG-1000 Zumwalt class is receiving greater attention.
AEHF ACTIVATION: U.S. Air Force officials plan to turn the new Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) jam-proof communications satellite over for operational use in early 2012 after a protracted journey into orbit and subsequent testing period. The Lockheed Martin satellite, worth more than $1 billion and launched Aug. 14, 2010, experienced an onboard liquid apogee engine failure, forcing operators to employ other thrusters for a 14-month journey 22,000 mi. into geosynchronous orbit.
GMD AWARD: U.S. Missile Defense Agency officials expect to announce by year-end the winner of a contract worth at least $600 million annually to maintain and upgrade the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) ballistic missile shield. Boeing/Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin/Raytheon are dueling for the work, which initially spans seven years. Boeing is the incumbent, but fell out of favor with MDA off and on owing to problems managing the massive system of sensors and interceptors, based in Alaska and California.
You wouldn’t know it from reading the headlines, but the aerospace and defense industry turned in a strong performance in 2011. A new forecast released Dec. 14 by the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) projects that sales will end the year at $218 billion, up 3.5% from 2010.
After bringing the nation to the brink of another government shutdown—the fourth this year—the House passed a raft of spending bills Dec. 16, including one to provide $518 billion for the Department of Defense that largely protects its largest weapons program, Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
MOSCOW — Russia’s national satellite navigation system, Glonass, finally has regained its full operational capability to provide global coverage. The Glonass operational fleet now includes 24 satellites: eight on each of the three orbital planes. The last, the 24th Glonass-M spacecraft, entered into service on Dec. 8. It is from the last batch of the three satellites orbited on Nov. 4 aboard a Proton-M launch vehicle. Three more satellites—two this year and another early next—will be introduced into operations.
The U.S. Marine Corps has taken a huge step toward attaining an unmanned cargo lift capability in Afghanistan. On Dec. 15 and 16, the Corps flew two unmanned K-MAX helicopter test flights “out to one of the forward operating bases without a load,” Lockheed Martin’s Jeffrey Brown tells Aviation Week. “These flights were test flights in preparation for sustained operations.”
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) JAN. 9 - 12, 2012 — American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics 51th Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit, Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center, Nashville, Tenn. For more information call (703) 264-7622 or go to www.aoaa.org/events
Iranian claims that its electronic warfare specialists were able to hack into a stealthy RQ-170 UAV are still being refuted by those with insight into the world of black and clandestine operations. U.S. analysts say the story has holes in it since it took days for the Iranians to discover the downed UAV. In fact, intelligence officials at one point thought the Iranians might simply never stumble across the crash site because it was in such a remote and uninhabited part of northeastern Iran.
LONDON — Airbus now projects the type certification for the A400M military airlifter will be delayed until the second quarter of 2012. A few weeks ago Airbus Military officials still thought a 2011 certification might be possible, although there were already indications the milestone could be delayed until 2012. One of the issues has been finding the right weather conditions to complete the anti-icing trials. Another was a delay in some flight trials because of problems with the TP400D turboprop.
