HOUSTON — Space shuttle program managers on Jan. 20 formally established June 28 at the target launch date for NASA’s recently designated STS-135 supply mission to the International Space Station using Atlantis and a crew of four astronauts. Congress and the White House have yet to provide the funding for the 11-day mission that would be flown by veteran astronauts Commander Chris Ferguson, pilot Doug Hurley and mission specialists Sandra Magnus and Rex Walheim.
paris — An Airbus Military KC-30A tanker in testing for the Royal Australian Air Force was involved in an incident with a Portuguese air force F-16 during a refueling exercise Jan. 20.More than a dozen refuelings had taken place when the incident occurred. Both aircraft sustained damage. Details of what transpired are still under review, but the incident caused the refueling boom on the Airbus A330-based tanker to break off and fall into the Atlantic. Both aircraft returned safely to their respective bases.
NEW DELHI — The Indian army wants to expand its aviation corps and has asked the government to give it full control over all tactical air assets in the battlefield, including transport, observation and attack flights.
The new chairman of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee (HASC) says his panel will maintain a “war footing,” staying nimble to investigate event-driven issues not subject to prior planning. “The committee’s oversight plan has been crafted to maintain an effective and flexible oversight structure to ensure current operations remain the top priority of the committee,” said Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.). He further promised that the HASC’s focus will fall “heavily” on the fiscal health of the Defense Department and military services.
CAE has received a contract from Boeing to build two full-mission simulators for the Alenia Aermacchi M-346 advanced jet trainer. The customer is not identified, but Boeing is providing the ground-based training system for M-346s ordered by Singapore in September 2010.
LONDON — Meggitt’s $685 million purchase of Pacific Scientific Aerospace (PSA) continues an acquisition spree for European aerospace and defense suppliers as they look to meet Airbus’s and Boeing’s desire for stronger, more diverse partners. Meggitt is buying PSA from Danaher Corp. in a cash transaction, with the money coming from existing debt instruments and a $69.8 million share offering. PSA derived 57% of its revenue from civil markets and 43% from the military sphere, Meggitt says in its announcement.
BOMB SQUAD: Cobham is acquiring Ostfildern, Germany-based Telerob for $105.2 million (€75 million) in cash, the companies announced Jan. 19. The privately owned Telerob manufactures bomb disposal robots and response vehicles for chemical, nuclear and biological threats. Cobham plans to integrate its communications equipment and sensors into Telerob’s robotic systems. The deal includes €75 million in cash and €3 million to be paid to some shareholders in installments on the first, second and third anniversaries of the deal’s completion.
LONDON — Iran is looking to double the range of the Qassed air-to-ground weapon in its latest iteration. Work is due to start on a third-generation version of the electro-optically guided bomb, which Iran has designated at times as the GBU-78/A, a senior Iranian military official tells the Fars News Agency. The current version has a range of 50 km. (31 mi.), which is due to be increased to 100 km. with the addition of a motor.
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LONDON — The Brazilian air force is moving ahead with a small acquisition of Elbit Systems Hermes 450 unmanned aircraft. The decision was made late last year, but the contract has now been finalized. Aeroeletronica (AEL), an Elbit Systems unit in Porto Alegre, is serving as the prime contractor. “We hope this new project will further strengthen the cooperation between AEL and the Brazilian air force, as well as other Brazilian customers, and will be an incentive for future collaborations,” Elbit CEO Joseph Ackerman says.
Contractors submitted revised proposals for the U.S. Air Force’s KC-10 CNS/ATM upgrade work this month after the service discovered it botched the first competitive round last year that resulted in a $216 million award going to Boeing.
HOUSTON — NASA astronaut Tim Kopra, who was injured in a Jan. 15 bicycle accident, will be replaced as one of two spacewalkers assigned to shuttle Discovery’s STS-133 mission, the space agency announced Jan. 19. Veteran astronaut Steve Bowen will take Kopra’s place aboard Discovery, which is tentatively scheduled to lift off on a long-delayed 11-day assembly mission to the International Space Station on Feb. 24 at 4:50 p.m. EST.
Nearly 10% of funding cuts identified by the U.S. Air Force through Fiscal 2016 will be made possible through changes in how the service handles maintenance and support for its weapon systems.
PARIS — The European Commission (EC) says it is happy with progress made in developing Europe’s Galileo satellite navigation system and will commit to seeing the 30-spacecraft constellation through to completion, even though doing so will hike the cost more than 50%.
NEW DELHI — India and Russia have held discussions ranging from the operational philosophies of their two navies to ongoing Indian navy projects and mutual training exchanges, following the visit of the Russian naval chief, Adm. Vladimir Vysotskiy, to New Delhi.
HTV DELAY: The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has postponed the scheduled Jan. 20 launch of the second H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-2) due to unfavorable weather forecasts at Tanegashima Space Center. The new date will be no earlier than Saturday, Jan. 22 (Japan Standard Time). The launch window for the mission remains open until Feb. 28. HTV-2 is an unmanned cargo supply ship designed to dock with the International Space Station. It follows the successful demonstration of the first HTV, which docked with the station in September 2009.
JITTERY: Wall Street analysts are telling defense sector investors to steel themselves against a fateful decision on part of the U.S. Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS). Cowen and Co. analysts say with the Army vice chief of staff’s radio review still ongoing, and July 2010 demonstrations revealing “several shortcomings” with the Ground Mobile Radio (GMR) portion of the effort, there is potential for a “go/no-go” decision on JTRS GMR with the mid-February release of the Fiscal 2012 budget request.
While the U.S. Navy is still basking in the success of last month’s Super Hornet Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (Emals) launch, the Emals system remains a “significant risk” area for the development of the CVN 78 Ford aircraft carrier, according to the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Testing and Evaluation (DOT&E). The CVN 78 program also continues to have challenges with F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) integration, according to the DOT&E report, released earlier this month.
CAPE CANAVERAL — Scientists and engineers working on payloads slated to ride on Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital rocket are preparing to ship hardware, although they have not been told a launch date. “I don’t know when the flight will be. I only know that the flight hardware has to be ready in a few months,” says Rainer Kuhl, physical sciences program manager for German space agency DLR, a partner in a New Shepard project called Microgravity Experiment on Dust Environments in Astrophysics (Medea).
PARIS — Telespazio has purchased Vega Space, a consulting and engineering firm based in the U.K. specializing in space mission design, development and operational support. The company, which employs 400 people in Britain, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Spain, was purchased from Finmeccanica, which owns Telespazio in collaboration with Thales. Finmeccanica acquired Vega in 2008 and shifted it to its Selex Sistemi Integrati affiliate before spinning off space activities into a separate unit.
NAVY Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding Inc., Newport News, Va., is being awarded a $48,934,856 modification for planned supplemental work to previously awarded contract (N00024-09-C-2107) for the refueling complex overhaul of the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71). The work will be performed in Newport News, and is scheduled to be completed by February 2013. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.
LONDON — Airbus Military is targeting 28 deliveries in 2011, including the first six KC-330 tanker transports. The exact timing of the first handover of the KC-30A tanker to the lead customer, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), has still not been set. The program has suffered repeated delays; Airbus Military had committed to handing over the first KC-30As to the RAAF in 2010, but that did not happen. Airbus CEO Tom Enders says the handover is imminent.
