The Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN) includes data on more than 4,000 systems and subsystems. A March 12 DAILY item listed an incorrect estimate.
FALCON DEAL: SpaceX has concluded an agreement to launch an undetermined satellite for Space Systems/Loral aboard its new Falcon 9 booster. The agreement, similar to one inked earlier with Israel’s Spacecom, provides for a launch opportunity as early as 2012 and brings the total number of missions on the Falcon 9’s roster to 24. The Falcon 9 moved closer to a scheduled April maiden launch March 13 with the first firing of its nine Merlin engines (See story p. 5).
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) performed an engine test of its first Falcon 9 launch vehicle on its pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., March 13, successfully igniting all nine Merlin first-stage engines for 3.5 seconds. The test also validated the pad water deluge system at Space Launch Complex 40, launch pad propellant and pneumatic systems as well as the ground and flight control software that controls pad and launch vehicle configurations, according to SpaceX.
Fresh redesigns of active electronically scanned array (AESA) antennas are expected to play a key role in tying together the U.S. Navy’s advanced radar and Next Generation Jammer. Northrop Grumman is the latest company to offer a look into its planning for the service’s NGJ competition. The first phase will be completed this June with a downselect from among the competing teams, which also include ITT/Boeing, Raytheon and BAE Systems, which discussed NGJ earlier.
Boeing has begun company-funded production of a batch of A160T Hummingbirds, anticipating demand for the unmanned helicopter for cargo resupply and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. “We loaded the first part into the jig today,” Program Manager Ernie Wattam said March 15. An initial batch of five A160Ts is being produced, the first to be delivered by year’s end, and Boeing plans to fund production of another 16 over the next 18 months.
Gen. Walter Natynczyk, Canada’s Chief of the Defense Staff, told an audience in Ottawa earlier this month that he wants his country to be able to put to sea a fleet of 50 ships over the next 30 years – Canada currently has 33 warships – and that building new ships is his “number one equipment priority.” Canada hasn’t built a major warship since 1996, and the country’s three destroyers were all launched in 1972. Vice Adm. Dean McFadden, chief of the Maritime Staff, followed his boss with a pitch for a national shipbuilding program.
AIR FORCE Boeing Co., St. Louis, Mo., was awarded a $148,668,470 contract which will provide for 6,565 Lot 14 guided vehicle kits procured for Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) purposes. At this time, the entire amount has been obligated. 678 ARSS/PK, Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., is the contracting activity (FA8681-10-C-0072, P00003).
MOVE ALONG: Once expected to conclude in a newly signed treaty by December, Russian and U.S. talks over another Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) continue and now Obama administration officials are sounding even more patient. “They are ongoing in Geneva and we are committed to concluding negotiations,” State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said March 12. “What is important is we arrive at a quality agreement.” That echoed comments from White House spokesman Robert Gibbs days earlier.
ASIAN ACQUISITION: A new forecast from consultancy Frost & Sullivan on the Asian-Pacific land defense systems market predicts the market will reach revenues of $9.4 billion in 2016. Aging equipment and increased awareness of smuggling, piracy and terrorism will drive growth, and cyber-era capabilities will lead acquisitions, analysts predict. “Network-centric warfare is one of the factors triggering military modernization and a more network-oriented military defense structure,” says research analyst Chern Wai Cheong.
The U.S. Air Force has yet to iron out some of the development problems for the C-130J program, according to the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E). The Block Upgrade 6.0 did not correct the Station Keeping Equipment (SKE) anomalies previously observed during a prior phase of operational testing, the DOT&E said in its recently released annual report.
NASA plans to test a pair of helium system regulators for space shuttle Discovery late this week, following an anomaly that occurred over the weekend during preparation for next month’s launch of STS-131.
OPTICAL MAINTENANCE: Lockheed Martin will support the U.S. Army’s Target Acquisition Designation Sight/Pilot Night Vision Sensor (TADS/PNVS) and Modernized TADS/PNVS systems on the AH-64 Apache helicopter under a new, three-year, $36.8 million contract. The M-TADS/PNVS work will be performed at Lockheed Martin’s Arizona Support Center in the town of Gilbert. Fielding activities will include sending a team of Orlando-based product support technicians to Army Apache locations worldwide to install and test newly modified M-TADS/PNVS systems on the aircraft.
COMPACT 3D: Directed Energy Systems, a subsidiary of Boeing’s Spectrolab business unit, is producing a 3D camera that is one-third the size and uses one-tenth the power of comparable systems for military and commercial applications. A company-funded research effort, the camera has been tested on a Boeing AH-6 Little Bird helicopter and trailers. Cube-shaped, it includes advanced sensors from the federally funded Lincoln Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Boeing says the camera is suitable for mapping, tracking targets and seeing through foliage.
ROTOR TRAINER: The Japan Ground Self-Defense Force is set to receive 30 Enstrom 480B training helicopters by 2014, with the first aircraft to be provided this year for evaluation tests. Michigan-based Enstrom Helicopter also is in final negotiations on a contract to supply 16 of the single-turbine 480Bs to the Royal Thai Army for rotary-wing training.
LETHAL FOCUS: The U.S. Air Force has upped its buy of Focused Lethality Munitions (FLMs) to 250 from 150. The FLM is a variant of the Small Diameter Bomb, designed with a composite casing and dense explosive fill for low collateral damage. It is a 250-pound-class weapon made by Boeing.
COMING DOWN: Expect a first vertical landing by the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter this week. The first short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing F-35, aircraft BF-1, has been flown at speeds down to 40 knots with the lift system engaged, and landed at 60 knots, but weather at the test center at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., scuttled plans for the first hover flight to take place by this past weekend. A successful hover will clear the way for the first vertical landing of the STOVL flight-test program.
HORNET GROUNDED: Earlier than predicted cracking in 104 F/A-18A-D Hornet airframes has prompted the U.S. Navy to ground the aircraft. The cracks were found in the aft wing shear attach fittings during inspections as part of the F/A-18A-D Service Life Assessment Program, according to Navy Lt. Nate Christensen, a service spokesman. Of the 104 aircraft, 27 are in maintenance and 77 are in flight status. Of those 77, five are currently deployed to the U.S.
There was a brief show of bipartisan unity earlier this year on Capitol Hill, but it was hardly uplifting. Democrats and Republicans joined forces in the Senate to shoot down a bill that would have created a task force to draw up options for reducing the federal budget deficit.
