U.S. Air Force ground crews will check out the Commercially Hosted Infrared Payload (Chirp) riding on the SES-2 communications satellite launched Sept. 21 by an Ariane 5 from the European space center near Kourou, French Guiana. Also launched was Arabsat-5C, a multimission spacecraft owned by the Arab Satellite Communications Organization. Arianespace said its fifth Ariane 5 flight of the year added to its string of 46 successful launches with the big European rocket.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — A program to develop advanced autonomy for unmanned cargo aircraft is one of several new naval aviation science and technology initiatives being launched by the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR). The autonomous aerial cargo/utility program will begin Oct. 1, says Michael Deitchman, deputy chief of naval research, speaking Sept. 21 at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ Centennial of Naval Aviation Forum here.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Aurora Flight Sciences is completing automated-takeoff-and-landing flight tests of its Centaur OPV, an optionally piloted vehicle based on the Diamond DA42 twin-engine light aircraft aimed at the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance market. The FAA-certified, four-seat DA42, powered by two turbo-diesel engines, has been equipped with Aurora-developed avionics and systems to enable unmanned missions of up to 24 hr. while retaining the ability to operate manned in civil airspace.
DIGITAL DISCONNECT: Aerospace and defense (A&D) industry leaders know they have to act like their information technology already may have been compromised, but many of them still believe they are more cybersecured than the next company, according to recent reports. A PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) study released Sept.
HOUSTON — NASA’s nearly 12,600-lb. Upper Atmospheric Research Satellite (UARS) is descending toward an uncontrolled atmospheric re-entry at midday on Sept. 23, according to the latest estimates from the space agency and the Joint Space Operations Center of U.S. Strategic Command at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.
HOUSTON — The three Russian, U.S. and European crewmembers headed for the International Space Station in late December anticipate few adjustments other than scheduling as they return the orbiting science lab to sustained six-person operations in the aftermath of the Aug. 24 Soyuz failure. Oleg Kononenko, Don Pettit and Andre Kuipers — all veterans of previous station expeditions — are tentatively scheduled to lift off aboard Soyuz 29 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Dec. 26, though the launch could be advanced to as early as Dec. 21.
Lessons learned from the combined operations among the U.S., NATO members, partner nations and rebel forces in Libya are still being sorted out but some trends are apparent. “Collectively, Operation Unified Protector is doing more [intelligence] collecting, monitoring and surveillance than strikes,” says U.S. Army Gen. Carter Ham, chief of U.S. Africa Command (Africom).
DEFENSE ENERGY: The Pentagon’s clean energy investments increased 300% between 2006 and 2009, from $400 million to $1.2 billion, and are projected to go above $10 billion annually by 2030, according to a Sept. 21 report by the Pew Charitable Trusts. U.S. Defense Department investments will focus on vehicle efficiency, advanced biofuels and energy efficiency, and renewable energy at military bases. The department has 450 ongoing renewable energy projects producing or procuring 9.6% of its energy from “clean” sources in fiscal 2010.
For winning U.S. Navy contracts, the key strategy is to diversify and conquer. That is one of the revelations of an exclusive Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN) analysis of defense contracting data going back to 1999. The leading Navy contractor during that time is Lockheed Martin, which tallied about $49.9 billion in about 19,789 Navy contracts and contract modifications between 1999 and 2008, according to the AWIN analysis of Defense Department data aggregated by the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Airbus Military is wrapping up aerodynamic test flights to determine the feasibility of modifying its C295 tactical transport into an airborne early warning (AEW) platform, equipped with an active, electronically scanned array radar in a rotating rotodome. Results of flights with a dummy rotodome above the fuselage have been “extremely positive,” says Fernando Gomez, project lead at Airbus Military in Madrid, speaking at an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics conference here.
The use of U.S. military might in the recent Libyan conflict is again pitting Congress against the president over who controls those forces and when, notes the Congressional Research Service (CRS). “Controversy continues over the appropriate role that Congress should play in regulating U.S. military operations against foreign entities,” the CRS says in its report, “Congressional Authority to Limit Military Operations,” released earlier this month.
After conducting an in-depth integrated baseline review (IBR) of Boeing’s plans to develop the KC-46A refueler, U.S. Air Force officials say the program is on schedule and cost.
HOUSTON — Researchers report success with a forward osmosis demonstration on NASA’s final shuttle flight that could become an effective means of reclaiming drinkable water from urine and perspiration in spacesuits.
Boeing will build two advanced composite cryotanks and test them with liquid hydrogen to see if they can improve the capability and cost of future launch vehicles. Under a $24 million NASA contract, the company will continue an earlier design effort by building a 10-meter-dia. cryotank and testing it at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. NASA’s goals, according to Space Technology Program Director Michael Gazarik, are savings of 30% on weight and 25% on cost compared to aluminum tanks.
September 28, 2011 IFEMA Madrid, Spain Mark your calendar! MRO Military Europe returns to address continued military sustainment in a market that is constantly in flux. Europe represents 23% of the $85 billion global military sustainment market. How will military and defense agencies cope with the current challenges and changes facing maintenance and sustainment, including:
The U.S. Air Force’s top officer is calling upon his service and industry to be more disciplined in crafting requirements for future weapon systems and developing the platforms. “We require straight talk from everybody,” Gen. Norton Schwartz tells an audience gathered outside Washington during a Sept. 20 speech to the annual Air Force Association conference.
NASA’s technology office plans flight tests of two approaches to slowing spacecraft entering a planetary atmosphere, with potential applications in Mars landings and returning payloads from the International Space Station (ISS). Mike Gazarik, space technology program director in the Office of the Chief Technologist, says tests are planned next year with hypersonic and supersonic inflatable decelerators, using a sounding rocket flown from Wallops Flight Facility, Va., and a high-altitude balloon managed by the NASA facility.
MOJAVE, Calif. — Virgin Galactic says the first suborbital test flights of the rocket-powered SpaceShipTwo (SS2) will take place in 2012. George Whitesides, president and CEO of Virgin Galactic and The Spaceship Company (TSC), says recent full-duration firing tests of the Sierra Nevada RM2 rocket motor are encouraging and point the way to integration with the SS2 early next year. Powered flight tests will begin with short-duration 15-sec. burns before building up to a full-duration suborbital flight before the end of 2012.
BEIJING — Avicopter is looking at outsourcing production to low-cost countries, even though most of its rivals would regard the Chinese rotorcraft company as already well placed to avoid high manufacturing outlays.
AIR SUPPLY: Pilot hypoxia was not the cause of an F-22 crash last November in Alaska, and though a root cause has not been identified, the U.S. Air Force is returning the twin-engine stealthy jets to flight, says Gen. Norton Schwartz, the chief of staff. “We do not have a smoking gun here,” Schwartz told a Sept. 20 roundtable with reporters at the Air Force Association conference (Aerospace DAILY, Sept. 20). Though flight operations resume Sept. 20, the Lockheed Martin jets will be methodically phased back into flight, Schwartz says.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) hopes to force the White House to sell F-16 C/D aircraft to Taiwan, even if the Obama administration would rather upgrade the island nation’s existing fleet. Cornyn says his bill that would require the sale of 66 aircraft could come up Tuesday or Wednesday for debate on the Senate floor. It has been filed as an amendment to a larger trade bill. The administration has indicated it will not back the sale, but Cornyn and his staff maintain that it would be a boon to the U.S. economy and the nation’s security.
LAUNCH STRIKE: A strike at Arianespace’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, forced the postponement of the scheduled Sept. 20 launch of the SES-2 and Arabsat 5C communication satellites aboard an Ariane 5 rocket. The strike by Telespazio employees represented by the Trade Union of French Guiana workers has made unavailable “certain means of measurement in the Space Center which are absolutely necessary” for the launch, Arianespace says in a statement.
