U.S. Navy and industry sources say that the MQ-8 Fire Scout that headed into restricted airspace in St. Mary’s Country, Md., earlier this month did not come close to Washington or threaten any government activities there. Navy officials acknowledged this week that the remotely piloted rotorcraft flew about 1,700 ft. in altitude for 23 mi. north/northwest of where it should have, outside the military airspace surrounding NAS Patuxent River, Md. (Aerospace DAILY, Aug. 26).
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Pratt & Whitney is upping the ante in the ongoing F-35 Joint Strike Fighter engine war by revealing the F135 has achieved combat-rated thrust 20% higher than the specification. The disclosure raises the demonstrated sea-level thrust for the F135 above 50,000 lb., and follows results from the General Electric/Rolls-Royce Fighter Engine Team earlier this month that indicate the F136 alternate engine has in excess of 15% margin against the same specification.
Astronomers evaluating data from NASA’s Kepler spacecraft have discovered two Saturn-sized gas giants orbiting a star in the first application of a technique that may help them find habitable Earthlike planets. Designated Kepler 9b and 9c, the two planets are orbiting the Kepler 9 star at a distance closer than the planet Mercury orbits the Sun. Data suggest there may be a smaller “super Earth” skimming just above the star, which lies about 2,000 light years from Earth, but it remains to be confirmed.
JFCOM REVIEW: Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has scheduled a full committee hearing in September to review the fate of the U.S. Joint Forces Command (Jfcom) in Norfolk, Va. Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) requested the hearing after Defense Secretary Robert Gates recommended Jfcom be shut down as part of a broad effort to streamline defense bureaucracy and control costs (Aerospace DAILY, Aug. 10).
BEIJING — Japan has laid out a proposal to acquire technologies to develop a manned fighter during the next decade for deployment in the 2030s, with an emphasis on counter-stealth capability. As the country prepares to request details of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as a possible near-term solution offering little development work, the defense ministry’s proposed “i3 Fighter” would put the country back on its earlier path toward self-reliance.
In the latest delay to the decade-long effort to field a replacement for the Milstar protected communications constellation, U.S. Air Force officials are still assessing how best to transfer the $2 billion Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellite into geosynchronous orbit after a disappointing problem with its liquid apogee engine.
BENGALURU, India — The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is calling upon industry to participate aggressively in its future programs at the three-day Bengaluru Space Expo 2010. Ninety percent of launch vehicle systems have been built by industry, including materials, fabrication and assembly, says T.K. Alex, director of the ISRO Satellite Center. “We [now] need to build industry to the level of engineering systems to subsystems-level integration,” Alex says.
LIGHT OFF: Sikorsky’s CH-53K Heavy-Lift helicopter has conducted the first test of its Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) engine, signaling the program is ready to begin formal integration testing early next year. The APU provides power to a 45-kilovolt-ampere generator, a 58-horsepower hydraulic pump and hydraulic starter. The engine is now being prepared for safety-of-flight testing and accomplishing on-time delivery of hardware for the ground test article, the company says.
BENGALURU, India — The Kaveri engine for India’s Tejas Light Combat Aircraft will complete a critical flight test in Russia this October. The Defense Research and Development Organization’s Bengaluru-based Gas Turbine Research Establishment is developing the engine. Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony told the upper house of the Indian parliament on Aug. 25 that the Kaveri has been integrated with an Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft at Gromov Flight Research Institute in Moscow for ground and flight tests.
DENVER — The FAA gave approval Aug. 19 for the U.S. Army to conduct flight tests of General Atomics’ MQ-1C unmanned aerial system working with a ground-based sense-and-avoid system, says Col. Greg Gonzales, Army UAS project manager.
MISSILE BID: Lockheed Martin has announced its intention to bid on the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s next-generation ship-based interceptor, dubbed the SM-3 IIB. Raytheon manufactures the current SM-3, and Lockheed Martin leadership acknowledged at a Washington luncheon Aug. 25 that SM-3 IIB is not meant to supplant the current inventory. The next-generation missile will fill a gap at MDA for a post-boost, pre-apogee missile, Lockheed officials say. “There isn’t a missile that does that in the inventory today.”
The $450-million fixed-price contract won this month by Raytheon to develop and build the Small-Diameter Bomb (SDB) II for the U.S. Air Force could be a model for future deals in a fiscally constrained Pentagon.
The Pentagon’s efforts to rein in program spending and development has claimed another victim — the Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV). For months, the contractor teams vying for the Bradley replacements had been touting their enhancements and advancements to make the GCV more relevant in current and future conflicts (Aerospace DAILY, June 3, July 28). But military officials said they want a more tried-and-true program — keeping in line with other recent Pentagon decisions in a similar vein.
A National Research Council panel preparing the first-ever decadal survey of priorities for microgravity research finds “no clear institutional home” at NASA for research on the International Space Station (ISS), and urges the agency to provide such a dedicated organization. The situation is even more critical now that there appears to be clear consensus in Congress and the White House to continue U.S. funding for the ISS to at least 2020, as proposed in the Fiscal 2011 NASA budget request.
LOS ANGELES — The chief of the NATO AWACS fleet is pushing for a joint operational demonstration of the E-3A and ScanEagle UAV in a Mediterranean counterterrorism operation as part of efforts to broaden the force’s capabilities. The trial use of the Insitu-Boeing UAV in the mission, called Operation Active Endeavour, could potentially help to extend the use of AWACS into a wider role as an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platform, according to the unit’s commander, USAF Maj. Gen. Stephen Schmidt.
DENVER — U.S. Army officials say their interest in procuring a small number of Boeing A160T unmanned rotorcraft has not waned as a result of a recent crash. “There is nothing with A160 that makes us think we can’t have the same success we’ve had with other platforms,” says Tim Owings, deputy Army unmanned aerial system (UAS) project manager. The aircraft that crashed in July during envelope expansion tests was owned by the Army Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (Aerospace DAILY, July 30).
Fire Scout flight operations have been suspended pending an investigation of a lost communications link incident when the remotely piloted aircraft flew into restricted airspace around Washington, according to Capt. Tim Dunigan, program manager for multi-mission unmanned aerial systems (UAS).
DENVER — Fiscal constraints will be a major driving factor in the capabilities that the U.S. Navy will seek in unmanned vehicles in the coming years, says the chief of naval operations, Adm. Gary Roughead. However, unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV) will be called upon to fill what he calls a “capability gap” in the Navy’s ability to collect intelligence in the maritime domain.
BENGALURU, India — Indian scientists are developing a micro air vehicle (MAV) to frighten birds away from civil and military airports. Part of the national program for MAVs, the project is taking shape under CEO K. Ramachandra, former director of the Gas Turbine Research Establishment, a laboratory of the Defense Research and Development Organization.
A modular air revitalization system for future human spacecraft bound for the International Space Station and other low-Earth-orbit (LEO) destinations has completed preliminary design review, clearing the way for work to begin on a ground-test unit. Working with federal economic stimulus funds under NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) project, Paragon Space Development Corp. of Tucson, Ariz., passed the milestone with its Commercial Crew Transport Air Revitalization System.
BENGALURU, India — The Indian army has launched a massive green campaign, and its effects are even being seen on firing ranges. During a visit to the army’s Madras Engineering Group (MEG) and Center, situated near Bangalore’s famous Ulsoor Lake, AVIATION WEEK saw a slew of green initiatives being implemented right from the entry point.
DENVER — Raytheon will continue developing the Killer Bee unmanned aerial system and — possibly — selling it to international customers, despite the company’s loss of a $43.7-million contract to the Boeing/Insitu Integrator in the U.S. Navy Small Tactical UAS (Stuas) competition late last month.
