COST BENEFIT?: Eyebrow-raising figures included in background material for last week’s House Science subcommittee hearing maintain that NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program to deliver cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) after the space shuttle retires will cost more per pound of payload sent to orbit than either the shuttle or Russia’s unmanned Progress spacecraft. NASA and the CRS contractors — Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Orbital Sciences Corp.
COMMERCIAL OPPORTUNITY: NASA says it is seeking commercial suborbital flight service providers and payload integrators to support the agency’s Flight Opportunities Program. NASA’s Office of the Chief Technologist wants to help “mature crosscutting technologies” to flight-readiness status, as part of the 2010 NASA authorization act and subsequent appropriations.
MOSCOW — Development of the improved Mil Mi-34C1 light helicopter has received a significant boost with Russia’s largest rotorcraft operator, UTair, placing a launch order for 10 units during the HeliRussia 2011 exhibition in Moscow last week. Deliveries are scheduled to begin in 2012; the contract value was not disclosed.
NO WAY: Lawmakers across Capitol Hill — backed by aerospace and defense industry representatives — are moving to ward off an Obama administration proposal to make federal contractors publish more information about their campaign and political contributions. Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), Tom Cole (R-Okla.), Sam Graves (R-Mo.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other Republican senators all introduced similar legislation in their respective chambers May 26 that, if enacted, would prohibit federal collection of such data.
LUNAR PROCESSING: Workers at Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Fla., are beginning four months of testing and launch preparation with the twin Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (Grail) spacecraft, which reached the Florida launch site May 20 from Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co. in Denver on a U.S. Air Force Boeing C-17. Weighing 200 kg (440 lb.) each, the two spacecraft will be launched into tandem lunar orbits on a United Launch Alliance Delta II early in September.
NEW DELHI — France has stopped selling certain military hardware to Pakistan until Islamabad explains its role in the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks and in providing a safe haven for Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, who was killed in a U.S. strike on May 2.
HOUSTON — Space shuttle Endeavour astronauts Mike Fincke and Greg Chamitoff pushed the time dedicated to the spacewalking assembly and maintenance of the International Space Station (ISS) past the 1,000-hr. mark on May 27, as they equipped the orbiting science lab with far-reaching aides to future external repair tasks. Also, NASA’s Mission Management Team cleared Endeavour’s heat shielding for a pre-dawn descent to Earth on June 1, based on May 26 inspections of the wings and nose cap using the camera and laser-tipped Orbiter Boom Sensor System (OBSS).
A system enabling solders to use handheld computers to request live and archived video from a wide range of unmanned and manned aircraft is being prepared for operational deployment to Afghanistan by the U.S. Army. Developed by Northrop Grumman for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Heterogeneous Airborne Reconnaissance Team (HART) system allows users to request stored imagery or task aircraft sensors to collect new, real-time video.
NEW DELHI — Singapore’s first locally-built microsatellite, X-SAT, which was placed in orbit by India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, has started transmitting images back to a dedicated facility in the Southeast Asian city-state. The imagery data is being sent to the 13-meter X-band antenna at the Center for Remote Imaging, Sensing and Processing at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), which initiated the X-SAT project.
HOUSTON — The Endeavour astronauts completed a final damage survey of the heat shielding on the orbiter’s wings and nose cap early May 26, setting the stage for the fourth mission spacewalk outside the International Space Station (ISS).
A second attempt at a boost/glide flight to demonstrate sustained hypersonic cruise in the atmosphere has been scheduled for Aug. 10-17 after changes following the loss of the first test vehicle in April 2010 just 9 min. into its flight across the Pacific. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (Darpa) first HTV-2 was lost because an adverse roll-yaw coupling on re-entry at Mach 20 exceeded the autopilot’s authority and led to the autonomous flight termination system destroying the vehicle (Aerospace DAILY, April 28, 2010).
JSF MRO: A 14-member government-industry team is visiting six U.S. military depots — three Air Force and three Navy — to review their capabilities ahead of solidifying MRO plans for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The JSF Depot Activation Team includes representatives from prime contractor Lockheed Martin and major subcontractors Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems and F135 engine provider Pratt & Whitney, in addition to the armed service depot personnel. The group started with the Navy’s Fleet Readiness Center-Southeast in Jacksonville, Fla., a month ago.
NO ISSUE: The ejection of Boeing and Lockheed Martin from India’s competition for its Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) is “a great disappointment,” says the U.S. assistant secretary for south and central Asian affairs, but Washington is focusing on the $35 billion in additional Indian military acquisitions to come. The official, Robert Blake, told defense writers in the capital this week that U.S.
WARTON, England — U.K. Royal Air Force (RAF) student pilots are due to start fully utilizing the Hawk T Mk. 2 trainer beginning in November. BAE Systems recently delivered a new operational capability standard for the aircraft (OC2) that provides embedded simulation on the advanced jet trainer. Instructor conversion and system familiarization is now taking place at XIX Squadron in advance of regular student training starting by year’s end, says Paul Dawkins, a business development director at BAE Systems Training Solutions & Services.
PARIS — The French military this year plans to launch an upgrade of the Rafale fighter’s targeting pod to introduce video capability to the system. The effort is one of a series of Rafale enhancements in the works and on the drawing board, but will be the next to go on contract, says Stephane Reb, the Rafale program manager at French defense armaments agency DGA.
MOSCOW — Development of the new Kamov Ka-60/62 medium twin helicopter — the first Kamov non-coaxial rotor aircraft — is gaining momentum through military orders and government subsidies. Russian Helicopters, the holding company for the country’s rotorcraft industry and Kamov’s parent company, is simultaneously preparing both the Ka-60 military transport and the Ka-62 civil version. The latter has a maximum takeoff weight of 6,500 kg (14,300 lb.) and can carry 12-15 passengers at 290 kph (180 mph) speed over a range of 750 km (460 mi.).
SEOUL — Korea Aerospace Industries will deliver 16 T-50 Golden Eagle supersonic trainers to Indonesia in 2013 under a $400 million contract. The deal further deepens defense technology ties between the two countries. It is a breakthrough for Korea Aerospace, whose previous attempts at exporting the T-50 have all failed. In this case, it prevailed over two other shortlisted candidates, the Yakovlev Yak-130 and the Czech Aero L-159B.
In observance of the U.S. Memorial Day holiday, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report will not publish an issue dated May 30. Our next issue will be dated May 31.
The defense budget season kicks into high gear next week, doubling down on existing fights over U.S. Army vehicles and missile defenses. The House Appropriations defense subcommittee takes up its version of the defense spending bill June 1. Though members remain mum about the details, it will cut $9 billion from President Obama’s $553 billion request. “It will be somewhat difficult,” says Rep. C.W. “Bill” Young (R-Fla.), the subcommittee chairman. “But we will not affect the soldier. We will not affect readiness.”
MERIGNAC, France — Snecma plans to complete testing of a major upgrade of the Rafale fighter’s M88 engine next month, with first deliveries to the French military planned for October/November.
Astronomers using observatories in orbit and on four continents have imaged the particle jets erupting from a supermassive black hole in the galaxy Centaurus A with unprecedented resolution, demonstrating how merging data from multiple sensors is helping science gain new views of complex phenomena. A close-up of the area around the galaxy core was collected by the Tracking Active Galactic Nuclei with Austral Milliarcsecond Interferometry (Tanami) project, which uses Southern-Hemisphere radio telescopes in Australia, Antarctica, Chile and South Africa.
Wary members of the House Science Committee pressed NASA and its two Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) industry partners at a May 26 hearing to provide reassurances that their efforts to supply the International Space Station (ISS) after the space shuttle retires will bear fruit.
