NEW DELHI — India on April 1 launched its third indigenous naval destroyer, INS Chennai – built under the code name Project 15 Alpha — which will be commissioned into the navy in August 2013. The ship will have stealth features, an advanced action information system and a comprehensive auxiliary control system.
Raytheon is moving to a new, more aggressive philosophy in dealing with an increasing number of sophisticated cyber-attacks aimed at obtaining classified and proprietary information from the company, according to Chief Information Officer Rebecca Rhoads.
BLOWING UP: “This is our coming out year, so to speak,” says Bigelow Aerospace founder Robert Bigelow, referring to the company’s plans to begin marketing its inflatable space station concept aggressively in 2010. The company is coming up with a range of pricing options for potential clients, which could include pharmaceutical companies, agribusiness firms and countries without their own space programs. A four-year lease of one of the modules on the space station — which the company plans to begin launching in 2014 — could run between $200 million and $400 million.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) April 12 - 15 — 26th Annual National Logistics Conference & Exhibition, Hyatt Regency, Miami, Fla. For more information go to www.ndia.org/meetings/0730 April 13 - 15 — 11th Annual Science and Engineering Technology Conference/DoD Tech Expo, “Enabling Technologies to Fight Current & Future Conflicts,” For more information go to www.exhibits.ndia.org
Orbital Sciences on April 2 completed the acquisition of General Dynamics’ satellite manufacturing unit, a deal the two companies announced in March. With the acquisition, Orbital is adding 325 employees and a 135,000 sq.-ft. manufacturing facility.
FUEL DEPENDENCE: On Capitol Hill, at least one conservative senator has muted praise for President Obama’s decision to open new tracts of the eastern Gulf of Mexico and off the Atlantic and Alaskan coasts to drilling for oil and gas to reduce U.S. energy dependence on foreign countries (Aerospace DAILY, March 31). But Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), a leading member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, says the president should go further if he wants to help relieve pressure on the Pentagon.
PARIS — The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced an award to Astrium for a second Sentinel-2 for Europe’s Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) network.
LEGAL POINT: A key State Department official says the Obama administration is following established laws of war in its worldwide use of unmanned aircraft against al-Qaeda. Legal Adviser Harold Koh told an audience March 25 at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law in Washington that U.S. rules for UAV-based operations are consistent with legal principles that define distinction of targeting and proportionality of force in their attacks.
CHECKOUT: On April 2 NASA’s Global Hawk unmanned aircraft performed its first flight after being loaded with 11 science instruments for the upcoming Global Hawk Pacific (GloPac) mission. The checkout flight, which took off at 10 a.m. EDT from Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., was to make sure all the instruments are operating properly. Actual GloPac scientific flights are to begin over the Pacific Ocean later this month, when the high-flying UAV will sample the chemical composition of the stratosphere and troposphere.
The Pentagon’s rogues gallery of weapon acquisitions has widened with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Apache Block III helicopter, CVN 78 Ford-class aircraft carriers and several others reporting significant cost increases, schedule slippages or both, according to the Defense Department’s latest data.
ON HOLD: A State Department spokesman in Washington announced April 1 that the U.S. is suspending delivery of several military transport ground vehicles and other so-called excess defense articles (EDA) to Cambodia after that country moved to return 20 Uighur asylum-seekers to China. U.S. diplomats say the move contravenes earlier statements by the Cambodians that they would honor their international obligations by working with the U.N. to properly determine the Uighurs’ status.
NEW DELHI — The Indian Navy and the Republic of Singapore Navy are holding SIMBEX 2010 — the Singapore Indian Maritime Bilateral Exercise — in the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal April 3-16.
The U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) has emerged as the government-wide manager of a new service, providing commercial synthetic aperture radar (SAR) from spacecraft. But despite all of the money, ingenuity and might that the U.S. government and industry have put into space, not a single American company is capable of organically providing this service.
MANAGING EXPECTATIONS: The United States is not approaching the Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference in May as an end in itself, according to U.S. Ambassador Susan Burk, but as a “critical milestone in the broader international effort to strengthen the international nonproliferation regime.” And while the U.S. and others have been considering how treaty parties might address the issue of abuse of the NPT’s withdrawal provision — specifically, how to dissuade a party from withdrawing from the treaty after having violated its NPT obligations — no change is seen.
Space station crewmembers Tracy Caldwell Dyson of NASA and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Kornienko launched on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 12:04 a.m. EDT April 2.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) April 12 - 15 — 26th Annual National Logistics Conference & Exhibition, Hyatt Regency, Miami, Fla. For more information go to www.ndia.org/meetings/0730 April 13 - 15 — 11th Annual Science and Engineering Technology Conference/DoD Tech Expo, “Enabling Technologies to Fight Current & Future Conflicts,” For more information go to www.exhibits.ndia.org
India’s effort to purchase new towed guns for its army is heating up, with trials likely to begin this summer. “We are still pending dates from the [defense ministry] for the trials,” says a spokesman for Singapore Technologies (ST) Kinetics, which is competing with BAE Systems to make the guns. “Our gun will be ready for the summer trials.”
EADS North America spokesman Guy Hicks says that his company “will consider” whether the Pentagon’s offer of an additional 60 days to bid on the KC-X program is enough time for the company to craft a proposal, although he reiterated that the company “firmly indicated that a 90-day extension would be the minimum time necessary to prepare a responsible proposal.”
EAST HARTFORD, Conn. — Pratt & Whitney President David Hess reaffirmed the company’s commitment to its home base manufacturing operations March 31, but says the company needs to decide on closing two underutilized airfoil and component overhaul facilities in six months.
LONDON — The French government is going forward with its plan to bridge A400M-delay-related airlift shortages and on April 1 announced the order of eight EADS Casa CN-235 airlifters. The €225 million ($300 million) commitment should lead to aircraft deliveries starting at the end of 2011 and wrap up by mid-2013, according to the French armaments agency DGA. France announced plans to buy the airlifter as part of the A400M rescue package last month.
The U.S. Coast Guard may release its request for proposals (RFP) for more HC-144A Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA) on April 2, according to aviation acquisition chief Capt. Jim Martin.
The Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) needs to work out some bugs in its Ground Mobile Radio (GMR), Rifleman Radio and Multi-functional Information Distribution System programs, according to a recent report by the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E).
FAST BOAT: The U.S. Navy has awarded Pascagoula, Miss.-based VT Halter Marine Inc. a $65-million contract for a fourth Fast Missile Craft (FMC) for the Egyptian Navy. The most recent contract brings the total value of the FMC project to about $807 million. Work on the fourth FMC will start in mid-2011 and delivery is expected by the end of 2013. The first FMC is currently under construction, with an anticipated delivery date of 2012.
