CANADIAN STORAGE: Curtiss-Wright Corporation received a $1.17 million contract from Canadian company MDA to provide High Altitude Rugged Storage Systems for the Canadian Forces Air Command’s (RCAF) CP-140 maritime patrol aircraft. The system is called SANbric SAN (storage area network). The RCAF CP-140 (P-3 Orion) Aurora maritime patrol and surveillance aircraft is undergoing a Structural Life Extension program to maintain the Canadian fleet through 2020.
A pair of upgraded Athena launch vehicles for small satellites should be ready for service in 2012 under a new teaming arrangement between Lockheed Martin and Alliant Techsystems (ATK). Designated the Athena Ic and Athena IIc, the new vehicles will incorporate the ATK Castor 30 solid fuel upper-stage to compete with the Pegasus XL, Minotaur I, IV and V, Taurus XL and planned Falcon 1e. The first and second stages will continue to be the Castor 120 solid-fuel motors.
LONDON and WASHINGTON — While Washington and Moscow are on the brink of a successor to the expired Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start), Russia continues to exercise elements of its nuclear triad. The follow-on treaty will reduce both warheads and delivery platforms, though given the comparatively small size of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet, whether it will be affected remains to be seen.
LONDON — U.K. plans for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) efforts must not be delayed by the pending Strategic Defense Review, and to do so would be “misguided,” according to the Parliament’s defense committee. The committee is concerned that ongoing ISR work could be adversely affected as a result of the defense review, due to get fully underway immediately following a general election.
LONDON — While BAE Systems has lost out on recent U.K. land and air systems programs, its naval business March 25 secured the assessment phase for the Royal Navy’s Type 26 frigate to replace the Type 22 and Type 23 designs. The first of class will enter service “early in the next decade,” according to the defense ministry. The Type 26 is one of two classes of ships that will be bought to meet the Royal Navy’s Future Surface Combatant (FSC) program. The four-year, £127 million ($189 million) contract will refine the basic design options.
STAGNANT C4ISR: The global command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) market is “stagnant” for now, according to U.S. consultancy Forecast International. The firm’s senior defense analyst, Richard Sterk, projects a market worth at least $53.8 billion over the next 10 years, but the value of the programs covered by his study will fall from $8.8 billion total this year to $3.6 billion in 2019, a 59.12 percent drop.
NEW DELHI — As field trials for India’s 126-aircraft Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) draw to a close, vendors vying for the program could get the opportunity to revise their pricing. The Saab Gripen is completing its final field trials in Leh, while the Eurofighter is due to start weapons and other equipment tests as part of the third phase of trials in the U.K. and Germany next month. Those trials are scheduled to be completed on April 29.
A National Academies report on monitoring compliance with climate change treaties formally endorses NASA’s plan to build and launch a replacement for its Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) spacecraft, although it suggests the agency consider changing its planned orbit to allow better monitoring of human sources of greenhouse gases.
LIMA PACT: L-3 Communications has teamed with New Zealand’s Pacific Aerospace to offer a variant of its single-turboprop short-takeoff-and-landing P-740 XSTOL for the U.S. Air Force’s Light Mobility Aircraft (LiMA) requirement for a light transport/trainer to be operated by the Afghanistan air force. L-3 Platform Integration, based in Waco, Texas, and prime contractor for the Air Force C-27J light cargo aircraft, will lead the bid. Companies that responded to a July 2009 request for information on the LiMA requirement also included Cessna with the Caravan.
The U.S. Air Force needs to pay greater heed to the testing schedule and results of its Global Hawk development program, according to a recent report by the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E).
Congress should weigh in on the use of unmanned vehicles in national security, and the federal government should do a better job of delineating its thinking on their nonmilitary application, such as CIA Predator strikes in Pakistan, a panel of experts told a House oversight panel March 23.
WOODFORD, U.K. — BAE Systems expects development testing of the MRA4 maritime patrol aircraft to wrap up in the coming weeks as the company commences operational trials of the system.
U.S. House defense authorizers and key Pentagon officials clashed March 24 over the Joint Strike Fighter, particularly whether to continue the General Electric/Rolls-Royce F136 alternate engine. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.), a leading minority member on the House Armed Services Committee, honed in on JSF cost growth that was recently acknowledged by the Defense Department. The congressman says he is “frankly concerned that cost growth will render it unaffordable in the long term.
NEW DELHI — Indian engineering and construction firm Larsen & Toubro has won an order worth $215 million for the design and construction of 36 high-speed interceptor boats for the Indian coast guard, and is in the running for more orders, including the Indian navy’s second line of conventional submarines.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told House defense appropriators March 24 that they were not yet aware of specific concerns within the Pentagon over ramifications stemming from proposed changes at NASA.
Denmark has delayed its decision on a new fighter, expected this year, after preliminary results of an analysis of the life remaining on its F-16s indicated the aircraft can be flown for two to four years longer than originally scheduled. The decision to delay a purchase by at least two years is a blow for Boeing with its F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, and Saab with the Gripen NG, as they had hoped that delays and cost increases for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter would prompt Denmark to leave the program.
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) plans to launch India’s first cryogenic rocket engine next month, marking the end of a long effort to develop an indigenous upper stage for its Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV).
MOVE SOUTH: Sikorsky is to establish a UH-60/S-70 Black Hawk helicopter training center in Colombia, at Melgar air force base, to provide pilot training for the country’s armed forces as well as other military customers in Latin America. To be equipped with a full-motion simulator, the center is structured as an offset program and intended as the launching point for development of maintenance, repair and overhaul services and a training center for fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, Sikorsky Aerospace Services says.
REALITY CHECK: Romania’s government has approved a defense ministry plan to buy 24 former U.S. Air Force Lockheed Martin F-16s, citing the lack of financial resources to buy new aircraft, and will forward the proposal to parliament for approval. The U.S. had offered 24 new Block 50/52 F-16C/Ds or refurbished and upgraded Block 25 F-16C/Ds under a government-to-government foreign military sales deal. If approved by parliament, the aircraft will replace the air force’s MiG-21 Lancers and make Romania the 26th operator of the F-16.
LOS ANGELES — The U.S. Navy has issued a formal request for information (RFI) for a carrier-based, stealthy, unmanned strike and surveillance system that could be capable of integrating with manned aircraft as part of a carrier air wing by the end of 2018.
Plans to accelerate availability of biojet fuel are behind two new agreements involving leading feedstock candidates camelina and algae. Accelergy has agreed with Montana-based camelina provider Great Plains Oil & Exploration to blend the plant oil with liquefied coal to produce biojet fuel via gasification and liquefaction processes. Separately, Los Angeles-based OriginOil has formed an industry consortium to develop jet fuel from algae grown in bioreactors fed with wastewater.
PARIS — The European Space Agency (ESA) has set an April 8 launch date for its CryoSat-2 ice monitoring mission. The third of ESA’s Earth Explorer missions, CryoSat-2 is intended to provide precise measurements of variations in marine and land ice sheets that can contribute to scientists’ understanding of global warming. It was built by EADS Astrium and includes a radar altimeter supplied by Thales Alenia Space.
LONDON — The U.K. is bolstering its space focus, establishing the U.K. Space Agency (UKSA) to replace the British National Space Center, yet the government has kept additional funding limited. London will back the new organization, to be formally established April 1, with some additional funding for a new innovation center, but not much more.
