BATTLE LINES: Key House defense authorizers are undeterred by a threat from Defense Secretary Robert Gates to recommend that President Obama veto their Fiscal 2011 defense legislation if they opt to fund the General Electric/Rolls Royce F136 engine for the stealthy F-35 fighter. In their markup May 13, the airland and seapower subcommittees set aside $485 million for the alternate engine; Pratt & Whitney is building the F135 as the primary propulsion system.
U.S. space policy remains the object of heated debate as the federal funding cycle grinds on, but powerful members of Congress are softening their outright opposition to the plan advanced by the White House in the Fiscal 2011 NASA budget request.
The U.S. military needs to do a better job of accounting for equipment and materiel as it draws down forces in Iraq, a recent Pentagon Inspector General (IG) report says. The report acknowledges that overall planning and ongoing adjustments appear to be sufficient to accommodate the drawdown from Iraq. But there were still “logistical challenges,” says the report, released this week.
GENOA, Italy — The saga of the Romanian air force’s selection of a “new” fighter to replace its MiG-21bis Lancer is becoming a heated political, industrial and economic battle that is not likely to be solved anytime soon. A buy of 24 secondhand U.S. Air Force Lockheed Martin F-16C/D fighters was originally announced in March by Defense Minister Gabriel Opera, without a formal competition.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India — BrahMos Aerospace Thiruvananthapuram Ltd. (BATL) is expected to roll out its first fully-integrated supersonic BrahMos cruise missile by 2011. The Indian air force’s Southern Air Command (SAC) is on the verge of agreeing to hand over 7.15 acres of land to BATL for its Phase-II expansion, which would ensure that the missile’s production rate will increase and maintain a pace of 20-25 annually. The missile is currently being integrated at the BrahMos Integration Complex (BIC) in Hyderabad.
Concerns about the long-term effects of weightlessness on astronauts’ health have taken many forms. A common one is their need to exercise while in orbit to counteract losses of bone density and muscle mass. Now a science team headed by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and NASA Ames Research Center is posing a different question, but one untidy housekeepers will understand: what about scum? That is, what effect might microbes in a biofilm — or, colloquially, scum — play over time?
BIPARTISAN TRACKING: Sens. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), otherwise polar opposites in U.S. political life, are promoting legislation “for integrating and consolidating existing contracting information databases … into a single searchable and linked network.” The proposed bill, if enacted, could codify elements of an Obama administration push already underway at the General Services Administration to unite disparate databases, as well as make them more available to all lawmakers while further enshrining use by contracting officers.
The nascent Future Vertical Lift (FVL) industry consortium is hoping to carve out some funding from the Fiscal 2012 Pentagon budget to help jump-start the U.S. rotorcraft industry. The Vertical Lift Consortium recently signed an “other transactions agreement” after formally convening in January, according to Mike Welsh of the Pentagon’s office for land warfare and munitions, who calls himself the point man for FVL initiatives.
NEW DELHI — The transformation of India’s major military research body, the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), is underway with a series of initiatives including the establishment of a Defense Technology Commission with the defense minister as chairman.
The U.S.-Taiwan Business Council, a Washington group that promotes business and bilateral interests, has issued its own analysis of Taiwan’s major air defense requirements in part to support forwarding a stalled U.S. foreign military sale (FMS) of Lockheed Martin F-16s to the island nation.
PARIS — Troubled Satelites Mexicanos (Satmex) has a new lease on life following an agreement by bondholders to provide funding for a new spacecraft. Named Satmex 8, the 64-transponder C-/Ku-band satellite was ordered on May 10 from Space Systems/Loral (SS/L). It is needed to replace Satmex 5, which suffered a failure of its primary xenon ion propulsion system in January. An authorization to proceed (ATP) for Satmex 8 was issued on April 1, subject to conclusion of a definitive satellite construction agreement with SS/L.
Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) is expected to propose legislation that would require the Pentagon to penalize competitors for contracts that have been found by the World Trade Organization (WTO) to have received illegal subsidies, according to industry officials. The legislation is squarely aimed at influencing the pricing duel between EADS North America and Boeing as they compete for $35 billion worth of work building 179 U.S. Air Force refuelers.
Procurement officials in government should continue to adopt plans for distributed architectures for space capabilities and “broadly, appropriately” use fixed-price contracting in their efforts to improve performance in acquiring and operating sophisticated space systems, according to David Taylor, CEO of Ball Aerospace.
Two Europeans will join three Russians and a Chinese astronaut in a long-term Martian mission simulation planned to begin in Moscow in early June. The European crewmembers are Diego Urbina, an Italian-Colombian with wide experience in the space field, and Romain Charles, a French quality manager at Sotira, a composite panel producer. The 520-day simulation, known as Mars 500, will take place in a sealed environment that will include mock-ups of an interplanetary spaceship and a lander and an ersatz view of the Martian landscape.
The U.S. Army is one step closer to deploying a system that will allow soldiers to drive manned vehicles remotely — or even make it possible for the vehicle to drive itself. The service’s Autonomous Navigation System (ANS) recently completed its Critical Design Review and is moving toward prototype fabrication, Army officials said May 12. ANS was designed to help drive and navigate with certain manned vehicles as well as other parts of the former Future Combat Systems unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) family.
ARMORED OVERSIGHT: House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Edolphus “Ed” Towns (D-N.Y.) is ramping up calls on the Pentagon for explanations about management of troop armor procurement and testing programs. The chairman’s “inquiry” follows a Defense Department inspector general report identifying problems with the U.S. Army’s body and vehicle armor testing process, and a review by nonpartisan congressional auditors that was critical of the testing methods used in 2008 to evaluate new ballistic vests (Aerospace DAILY, Oct. 20, 2009).
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — Space shuttle Atlantis and its six-man, all-veteran crew remained on track for launch at 2:20 p.m. EDT May 14 to begin the STS-132 mission to the International Space Station, currently expected to be the final flight for OV-104. “We’re ready to launch Atlantis and get this mission underway,” said Mike Moses, launch integration manager at Kennedy Space Center and chair of the Mission Management Team, which formally convened May 12.
PARIS — A government-backed plan to merge uneconomical electronics business units at Thales and Safran is off, throwing a new wrinkle into the aerospace consolidation picture.
The growing overlap of electronic warfare, information operations and cyber-invasion is creating an aura of mystery and some excitement around the U.S. Navy’s current competition for the Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) and the U.S. Air Force’s re-entry into the world of airborne electronic attack (AEA). ITT and Boeing are teamed for the NGJ contest. Other competitors include Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems. A downselect to two or three teams is expected before the prototype demonstration phase starts in January 2011.
CARRYING ON: Northrop Grumman’s shipbuilding division has as expected received a $186.6 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract from the U.S. Navy to continue engineering and design for the newest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78). “Now that the design is in the three-dimensional product model our effort is focused on the production of instructions for the shops and ship assembly,” Mike Shawcross, vice president of aircraft carrier construction programs, said in the May 12 announcement.
AKATSUKI LAUNCH: The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Venus Climate Orbiter, or Akatsuki, is due for launch at 6:44 a.m. (local time) May 18 aboard a Mitsubishi H-IIA from Tanegashima Space Center. Previously called Planet-C, the 500-kg. (1,100-lb.) spacecraft will study Venus’ atmosphere, with an emphasis on its unusual winds, sulfuric acid clouds and lightning storms. After a six-month transition, it will be placed in a highly elliptical 300 km. x 80,000 km. (185 mi. x 50,000 mi.) orbit inclined 172 deg. The orbit will take 30 hr. to complete.
NEW DELHI — The Data Link II communications system has been delivered by Bharat Electronics Ltd. (BEL) to Boeing for installation in the Indian navy’s P-8Is. The system — the first Indian-manufactured item delivered to Boeing as part of the P-8I program — will enable exchange of tactical data and messages between Indian navy aircraft, ships and shore establishments.
