HYBRID MSS: Astra/Eutelsat joint venture Solaris Mobile has signed on Europcar to demonstrate hybrid mobile satellite service offerings for automobile applications. The demonstration will concern a small selection of rental cars in the Paris area, where Solar recently began operating trials. Cars will be equipped with TV and radio receivers, either purpose-mounted or embedded in car multimedia systems. The trials use an S-band payload on Eutelsat’s W2A, launched last year, and a terrestrial network provided by TowerCast and AlcatelLucent.
UP IN THE AIR: With the flurry of budget requests and major federal reviews getting unveiled last week, it was easy to miss the fact that a few significant documents have yet to be published. Washington awaits both nuclear and space posture reviews from the Pentagon, and national space and security strategies from the White House, which is racing to finalize a new follow-on treaty with Russia after the demise of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in December.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) Feb. 2 - 7 — Singapore Airshow 2010, “The Biggest Aerospace and Defense Exhibition in Asia,” Changi Exhibition Centre, Singapore
SPANISH FLIGHT: The Spanish interior ministry has agreed to acquire 12 Eurocopter EC135 P2i light-twin helicopters for law-enforcement and search-and-rescue missions. Six will be operated by the Guardia Civil and six by the National Police, which already fly 14 EC135s between them. Deliveries are planned for 2010-12.
TSAT LEGACY: Some of the technologies being developed for the U.S. Air Force’s Transformational Satellite (TSAT) project, which was shelved last year, are likely to find their way into other efforts. TSAT was to provide the fastest-ever nuclear-hardened, low-probability of intercept/low probability of detection, jam-proof satellite comms to commanders around the globe using laser links in space and Internet Protocol routing.
BREACH BERTH: The U.S. Navy’s DDG-1000 destroyer, which was limited to a three-ship program in 2009, will breach the Nunn-McCurdy cost threshold. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Congress of the cost overrun during hearings Feb. 3. Two days earlier, the Navy informed Congress of an 86.4 percent increase in unit costs on the program. The overrun is blamed on the truncation of the effort. The cost of building the DDG-1000 now rests on the three Northrop Grumman hulls being built by General Dynamics instead of the seven originally in the program.
Avanti Communications says it improved profitability and maintained revenues for the six months that ended Dec. 31 and is in good shape as it heads towards the launch of its first satellite in mid-year. The U.K. broadband provider reported an operating loss of 450,000 British pounds ($704,000) in the first half of the fiscal year, down from a 1 million pound loss a year earlier. Revenues inched up to 3.3 million pounds, from 3.2 million pounds in 2009.
FLY WITH ME: U.S.-China relations are on the rocks over Taiwan, Google and other issues, but human-spaceflight officials in Beijing are still eager to open a dialogue with NASA over possible cooperation. Worried that there has been no official follow-up from the U.S. side after Presidents Barack Obama and Hu Jintao agreed to a Beijing visit by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, the Chinese ambassador to Israel approached Bolden at a reception there earlier this month to see what was up. “I said, ‘Are you sure that the invitation still stands?’” Bolden says.
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured an image of debris and dust in the asteroid belt that astronomers believe may be the result of a hypervelocity smashup between two of the rocky bodies. The discovery comes as NASA’s new Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft has found its first near-Earth asteroid by detecting its infrared reflection from the sun.
Alliant Techsystems (ATK) has chosen a longtime company veteran as its new president and CEO, elevating him as the armaments and propulsion contractor and others fight the Obama administration’s move to kill NASA’s Ares I crew launch vehicle.
WAGE RULE: Five Republican senators are expressing alarm over an alleged move by the Obama administration to favor federal contractors that pay their employees better. The moderate and conservative lawmakers argued in a Feb. 2 letter to the White House that it could squeeze out small businesses, empower large primes and raise the cost of government acquisition. The signers — members of the minority on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee — are Maine Sens.
U.S. forces in Afghanistan are using State Department and Department of Justice (DOJ) civilian contractors in detention operations at the Parwan detention facility north of Kabul, a senior American military official said Jan. 27.
SINGAPORE — Aermacchi CEO Carmelo Cosentino is bullish on M-346 Master sales beyond his two headline competitions in Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. As noted in Aviation Week’s Show News, Cosentino is adamant that the M-346 will conclude two successful orders with the Republic of Singapore and UAE Air Forces, but beyond that he says there are several other good prospects. Work is also progressing on the first aircraft for the Italian Air Force.
The U.S. Navy and Air Force are beginning to work out the details of a joint battle concept given high priority in the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). “We felt the two services ought to get together and pool our capabilities against anti-access threats across a range of operations,” Rear Adm. William Burke, director of the Naval Integration Group for the QDR, told reporters Feb. 4 at the Pentagon. “We want to see if we can do things better, more efficiently and effectively.”
Lockheed Martin and Kaman have demonstrated cargo resupply using an unmanned version of the K-Max helicopter, with the U.S. Marine Corps hoping to deploy the capability to Afghanistan. Over four days in late January at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, and despite interruptions from freezing weather, the unmanned K-Max demonstrated six resupply scenarios involving both remote control and autonomous operation, within and beyond line of sight.
PARIS and LONDON — European plans for medium-range long-endurance UAV cooperation could be recast should the key recommendations of a French parliamentary report be pursued.
The Defense Department’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) and the U.S. Army used poor judgment in using Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to test and evaluate the U.S. Army’s canceled Future Combat Systems (FCS) program because the company had helped develop the program and one of its lead systems integrators, the Pentagon Inspector General (IG) says in a recent report.
Europe and the U.S. will proceed with development of the Jason-3 ocean altimetry satellite following approval of a Eumetsat plan to increase its contribution to the vital trans-Atlantic mission. The Eumetsat Council had accepted the move in December, but the decision was dependent on approval of funding by its member states. More than 80% of Eumetsat members –19 nations, including the five biggest – agreed to support the Eumetsat contribution, which amounts to 63.6 million euros ($87 million).
FRENCH NUKE: France has completed the fourth test firing of the new M51 nuclear missile, intended to replace the aging M45 on its missile-carrying submarines. The firing, on Jan. 27 from the submarine Le Terrible, was the second undersea test for the missile, which is due to enter service in 2010. The missile, fired from the Bay of Audierne in Brittany, was tracked throughout its trajectory by sensors in Quimper, the missile test range in Biscarosse in southwestern France and the Monge tracking vessel. As in previous firings, it carried a dummy warhead.
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) is seeking funding in Fiscal 2011 for ArcLight, a program to flight-test a long-range, high-speed strike weapon based on the Raytheon SM-3 ballistic-missile interceptor. ArcLight will be based on an SM-3 Block II booster stack and a hypersonic glider, and designed to carry a 100-200 pound payload more than 2,000 nautical miles. The weapon will be compatible with the Mark 41 vertical launch system and capable of launch from U.S. Navy warships and submarines as well as Air Force assets.
LONDON — Britain’s military faces “radical change” with “tough decisions” required, according to the government’s Green Paper on defense policy, published Feb. 3. The paper is the first step in London’s planned Strategic Defense Review (SDR), which will be implemented starting midyear, regardless of which party is placed in power following the national elections that are likely to be held in early May.
The latest unmanned Russian Progress cargo ship full of supplies for the International Space Station lifted off atop a Soyuz-U rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Feb. 3 Moscow time, setting up a rendezvous with the orbital outpost Feb. 5.
