HOUSTON — U.S. and Russian flight control teams maneuvered the International Space Station on Sept. 29 to avoid a 4-in. piece of Russian rocket debris and prepare for future Progress and Soyuz dockings. The nearly 3-min. maneuver was carried out using the station’s Russian segment service module engines at 12:45 p.m. EDT, elevating the altitude of the orbiting science laboratory by 2.9 mi. Tracking indicated a moderate risk of an impact between the debris from a rocket launched in 1991 and the station at about 3 p.m. EDT.
MADRID — A huge drop in funding for maintenance activities in the Spanish air force has the service reassessing how it does business and could help drive platform rationalization. While defense spending has come down 18% since 2008, the budget for the air force’s logistics command has seen an even greater drop, plummeting 44%, says Maj. Gen. Pedro J. Abad Gimeno, the maintenance director for the Spanish air force’s logistics support command. “The trend will be maintained in the coming years,” he says at Aviation Week’s MRO Military Europe conference here.
AVX Aircraft, a small Texas company staffed largely by former Bell engineers, has won a U.S. Army contract to study a potential replacement for the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk utility helicopter. AVX joins Bell Boeing, Boeing and Sikorsky in conducting 18-month configuration analysis and trade studies for the Joint Multi Role (JMR) program, which aims to fly two competing rotorcraft demonstrators in 2017.
A top U.S. Marine Corps general acknowledges that while challenges in crafting the F-35 software are likely not insurmountable, Lockheed Martin’s ability to deliver it as currently planned is in question. Lt. Gen. Terry Robling, aviation commandant for the Marine Corps, is “very confident” of short-takeoff-vertical-landing (Stovl) performance in upcoming flight tests on the amphibious ship Wasp, but he is “not as confident” in Lockheed’s ability to deliver software on time.
BEIJING — China’s Tiangong 1 orbital laboratory, successfully launched Sept. 29, will serve as a docking target for three missions over the coming two years as China continues to take measured, careful steps in its manned space program. For the moment, the biggest goal of the program is a 60-metric-ton space station to be placed in orbit by 2020, although Chinese space scientists also hope to launch lunar missions.
LONG BEACH, Calif. — The U.S. Air Force is looking to the space industry for significant improvements in reducing program complexity, launch costs and development time as it struggles to balance national security space acquisition plans for 2012 through 2016 against a flattening budget. “We must adapt cultural changes, look at risk sharing and incentivize contractor teams for extra performance,” says service acquisition chief David Van Buren. “For that we’re focused on acquisition priorities and space is a big player.”
BACK ON: The Swiss parliament has voted to revive the F-5 partial replacement program, reversing a decision the government had previously made to delay the purchase. The move comes as Swiss legislators also have decided to boost defense spending to around 5 billion Swiss francs ($5.6 billion) per year to fund the fighter purchase and fill a hole in modernization funding. It has decided against a special financing mechanism to buy the fighters. The Swiss government has already evaluated the Dassault Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon and Saab Gripen.
The U.S. Army released the eagerly anticipated program schedule for the HMMWV Modernized Expanded Capacity Vehicle — otherwise known as Humvee Recap — on Sept. 28, and it sets a low rate initial production goal for the first quarter of fiscal 2015. The full schedule calls for a draft request for proposals (RFP) to be released Oct. 6, followed a day later by an industry day. After that, an RFP for the program’s research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) phase is due in November 2011.
If U.S. defense budget cuts stay at $450 billion or less, the U.S. Air Force can maintain all its missions and capabilities but at a reduced capacity, says Lt. Gen. Herbert Carlisle, deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and requirements.
HOUSTON — NASA’s International Space Station program misjudged the cost, schedule and requirements for crew radiation monitoring instruments aboard the six-person orbiting science laboratory, according to a Sept. 29 report issued by the agency’s inspector general, Paul Martin.
HOUSTON — Project Morpheus, a NASA initiative that is developing an autonomous, multi-purpose lander testbed for planetary missions and deep-space technology demonstrations, will be overhauled this fall to prepare for a year-long series of test flights incorporating a hazardous-terrain avoidance system.
L-3 Communications plans to add capability incrementally onto its new company-funded tactical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft in a push to garner customers in the U.S. and abroad.
NEW DELHI — India successfully test-fired its indigenously developed nuclear-capable Prithvi-II ballistic missile on Sept. 26. The medium-range missile, with a flight duration of 483 sec. and reaching a peak altitude of 43.5 km (27 mi.), has the capability to carry a 500-kg (1,100-lb.) warhead. The test of the missile, which has a maximum range of 350 km, was part of a user trial by the Indian armed forces, defense ministry officials said.
HOUSTON — U.S. and Russian experts prepared Sept. 28 for a possible maneuver of the International Space Station to avoid orbital debris from an aging Russian rocket body.
MADRID — The severity of the current defense budget environment in the U.S. and Europe suggests spending on military maintenance, repair and overhaul is likely to contract in the next few years. In its latest market forecast, Michael Howard, a principal at ICF SH&E, suggests the size of the global market will shrink by $23 billion, or a 1.2% annual decline. That is a reversal from the 1.7% growth projected just a year ago.
FIRE SALE: The global recession may have dampened worldwide weapons sales in 2010, according to a new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, but competition is only getting fiercer. “As new arms sales have become more difficult to conclude since the global recession began, competition among sellers has become increasingly intense,” the Sept. 22 report says. The 2010 total of $40.4 billion was a “significant” decline from $65.2 billion in 2009, falling 38.1%. U.S. marketshare nonetheless grew from 34.7% in 2009 to 52.7% in 2010.
LONG BEACH, Calif. — Growing budget pressure is driving the U.S. space industry to seek greater cost savings from commercial-like block buy contracts for military programs, increase the use of hosted payloads for U.S. government requirements and focus on better risk management and production efficiency.
LONG BEACH, Calif. — Scientists are expressing disbelief at inaction by the U.S. government over accepting more than $1 billion of funding on offer from Europe to collaborate on a Mars sample-return mission. Speaking at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Space 2011 meeting here, Stanford University professor and NASA adviser Scott Hubbard says the funding issue threatens the start of the project, which is aimed at a Mars landing in 2018.
Parliamentary approval for Norway’s purchase of Lockheed Martin F-35s could be jeopardized if the U.S. does not agree to share the cost of integrating Norway’s Joint Strike Missile (JSM) on the F-35, warns the weapon’s developer. The JSM is a derivative of the anti-ship Naval Strike Missile (NSM) developed by Kongsberg for the Norwegian navy and sold to Poland. The air-launched version is designed to be carried internally by the stealthy F-35.
INDIAN MRO: Pipavav Defense and Offshore Ltd., India’s largest shipbuilder by market value, has signed an agreement with Airbus SAS and SKIL Infrastructure to develop aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul facilities for both civilian and military applications in India. “The first phase [of] MRO facilities and associated infrastructure are likely to cost $100 million,” a Pipavav Defense official says. Initially, Airbus parent company EADS will have a 26% stake in the project and may raise it to 49%. Pipavav Defense will hold 51%, the official says.
Responding to reports about missing shoulder-fired missiles, or Manpads, in Libya, a California senator is asking the U.S. government to start a program in fiscal 2013 that would protect commercial aircraft from potential attacks. The program would follow a Homeland Security initiative started in 2003 under which BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman created systems that completed more than “16,000 flight hours aboard cargo and passenger aircraft,” according to a letter sent Sept. 27 by Sen.
MADRID — The French government will see a real-term drop in defense spending, although the top line will increase slightly in 2012 from 2011 levels. Excluding pensions, French defense spending in 2012 is slated to reach €31.7 billion ($43 billion), about €500 million above the current year’s level. Equipment expenditures are planned to grow around 3% to €16.5 billion.
OWN UP: Top House science appropriator Frank Wolf (R-Va.) wants the White House to suggest budget offsets to continue NASA’s beleaguered James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) program, or else the congressman is suggesting he may not be able to help the Hubble successor or other NASA science efforts in House-Senate budget negotiations. “For us to make a truly informed decision ... we must have the offset information,” Wolf wrote President Barack Obama’s budget director Sept. 28.
NATO missile defense officials are awaiting approval of a plan to lay out guidance for unified alliance missile defense in advance of a key interim operational capability declaration for the system slated for May.
