AEROSPACE REBOUND: The operating profit of the world’s top 100 aerospace and defense companies climbed 19% in 2010 to $58 billion as the industry recovered from the global recession, according to a new study by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Revenues rose 2%, reaching a record $646 billion. The study also found a steep reduction in large-program charges and impairments that had dragged down performance in prior years.
LONDON — Goodrich has acquired aerospace component provider Microtecnica from private equity firm Stirling Square Capital Partners. The value of the deal, which still requires regulatory approval, has not been disclosed. Sterling says it has affected a 27% boost in revenue and tripled operating earnings since acquiring the Italian company, which also has a research and development (R&D) facility in the U.K.
AeroVironment’s GO-1 Global Observer hydrogen-powered high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) unmanned aircraft crashed at Edwards AFB, Calif., on April 1. The aircraft was 18 hr. into its ninth envelope-expansion test flight. The cause is being investigated. A second aircraft is almost complete, but funding for the U.S. Special Operations Command-led Global Observer joint concept technology demonstration (JCTD) is running out.
NASA has negotiated a series of six one-month contract options with United Space Alliance (USA) to support the final space shuttle mission preparations and operations. Effective April 1, the agreement carries a potential value of $436.5 million, the agency says in a March 31 announcement.
Some work continues, albeit on a low level, at Boeing on the company’s potentially defunct win of a $323 million U.S. Army contract to build new intelligence aircraft, according to company officials. Lockheed Martin/Sierra Nevada, Northrop Grumman and L-3 Communications protested Boeing’s win of the Army’s Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance (Emarss) system in December. Per standard procedure, the Army halted Boeing’s work pending the outcome of a contracting audit.
Boeing’s Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) missile shield program is in a financial quandary owing to ongoing anemic Congressional funding from continued resolutions passed this fiscal year and an ongoing review into the program’s last flight-test failure. Though Boeing is continuing to produce the Orbital Ground Based Interceptors (GBIs) made by Orbital Sciences, some suspect components are on hold pending the outcome of an investigation into what caused the failure during a January intercept attempt.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) Apr. 4 - 6 — International Symposium on Asteroid Mitigation and Exploration, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas. For more information go to http://aeweb.tamu.edu/isam/index.php
HOUSTON — Endeavour’s 25th and final mission, a 14-day flight to equip the International Space Station with the $2 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and external spare parts for the orbiting laboratory’s thermal control, electrical and communications systems, cleared a March 31 NASA shuttle program Flight Readiness Review (FRR).
As Boeing leads the close-out of NASA’s space shuttle operations, it is bidding for work under the second phase of the agency’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev 2) program as well as helping craft the future of U.S. heavy-lift rocket capability.
ANOTHER TRY: Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR) says the first chance to rerun the second X-51 hypersonic demonstrator attempt could come this week, and adds the third flight test attempt is targeted for June. PWR also confirms the last-minute mechanical issue that prevented the March 24 attempt was not related to the scramjet engine (Aerospace DAILY, March 31).
LONDON — The European Union has made good on its promise to launch a snap appeal of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) ruling that Boeing has received illegal subsidies for its commercial aircraft programs.
COCOA BEACH, Fla. — Hoping to parlay the U.K.’s 6% share of global aerospace business into a 10% stake, a British trade delegation is courting potential partners in Florida, which for its part is looking to diversify its NASA-dominated space program as the space shuttle nears retirement.
BENGALURU, India — India’s Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) achieved sales of Rs 13,061 crore ($2.9 billion) for the fiscal year 2010-11 — a 14% increase over the previous year. The government-owned company’s profit before taxes stood at Rs 2,718 crore ($604 million), while its order book jumped by Rs 8,524 crore ($1.9 billion).
Defense officials acknowledge that while the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) may be technically correct in reporting a large increase in the total cost of the Navy’s DDG-51 destroyer program, the congressional auditors fail to give enough credit to the greater number of ships the service is buying. It’s the bigger vessel acquisition, the Navy says, that largely accounts for the extra costs.
LONDON — The World Trade Organization (WTO) has determined that Boeing benefited from state aid that violates international trade rules to the tune of several billion dollars. In publishing its findings on the case the European Union (EU) brought against the U.S. (DS353), the WTO did not calculate the entire level of harm done by the illegal state aid, which it will do later, but found that assistance provided by NASA, U.S. federal and state governments and the U.S. Defense Department (DOD) all benefited Boeing in a way that was not acceptable.
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The U.S. Air Force is planning to propose the purchase of the fifth and sixth Space-Based Infrared System (Sbirs) early missile warning spacecraft through a new process that calls for the unusual measure of buying two satellites at once.
Engineers at the European Space Center in French Guiana are evaluating the cause of a last-minute shutdown of the Vulcain main engine on an Ariane 5 launch vehicle March 30. The pad abort delayed the launch of the Yahsat Y1A and Intelsat New Dawn communications satellites. The launch vehicle and payloads will be returned to the final assembly building at the facility near Kourou for checkout and any needed repairs.
These “leaderless revolutions [are] only the beginning” of the Middle East’s transition, says Maj. Gen. (ret.) Amos Yadlin, Israel’s intelligence chief for the last five years. What follows — movement toward a democratic, secular government or a counter-revolution that puts new strongmen in place — is impossible to predict.
FORCE CUT: U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz says the service will be “greater and smaller” in the future. The chief’s comments are just the latest indication that military leaders are either expecting or accepting that the armed services likely will shrink once the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have wound down and federal budget austerity occurs in earnest. “It signals that at some point, possibly in [fiscal 2013 and 2014], force structure reductions are going to emerge more prominently as a way to reduce U.S.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Pratt & Whitney expects a 2-3% fuel burn improvement for the 94-in. PW4062 engines it will build for the U.S. Air Force KC-46A aerial refueling tanker program. The first engine delivery to Boeing is set for 2013, says Pratt & Whitney Military Engines President Warren Boley. The production run is now set through 2027. The PW4062 powers the 767 that Boeing is using as the platform for the tanker.
The aviation industry expects to benefit from plans for at least four commercial-scale, biofuel refineries announced by President Barack Obama March 30 as part of an energy-security strategy to reduce U.S. oil imports by a third by 2025.
NASA has awarded Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne of Canoga Park, Calif., a $36.9 million contract extension for pre-launch and launch support of the space shuttle main engines, the agency announced March 31.
