BUDGET BITS: Budget plans for fiscal 2011 are to continue trends that began in 2010, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says. “We’ve been leaving a train of bread crumbs over the past several years…in terms of reforming the defense budget,” says Gates’ spokesman Geoff Morrell. “You will see FY ’11 continue [the] reforms and rebalancing. There are things that will be cut. But there will be no surprises.
SEA LASER: Northrop Grumman hopes to prove the capabilities of its Maritime Laser Demonstration (MLD) system with an at-sea demonstration by the end of this year. The MLD system passed two milestone reviews by the Office of Naval Research, the company announced Jan. 29. Representatives from the Navy, Army and the High Energy Laser Joint Technology Office conducted a critical design review and critical safety review of the MLD at the Dahlgren Naval Surface Warfare Center in Virginia. The expected completion date for the program is June 2014.
BIRD DOWN: An aging Eutelsat telecom satellite, W2, has suffered an anomaly, forcing the Parisian-based satcom operator to switch customers to other spacecraft. Eutelsat is launching an investigation, in cooperation with prime contractor Thales Alenia Space, to determine the cause of the incident, which occurred on the night of Jan. 27. The operational effect of the anomaly is expected to be minor because W2, located at 16 deg. E. Long., was launched in 1998 and was already nearing the end of its 15-year design life.
The U.S. is planning a foreign military sale (FMS) of more than $6 billion in military equipment to Taiwan, including $3.1 billion worth of UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) announced Jan. 29 a series of FMS to Taiwan for a range of assets. Two Osprey-class mine hunting ships (valued at $105 million), 35 Multifunctional Information Distribution Systems Low Volume Terminals (MIDS/LVT-1) and 25 MIDS On-Ships terminals (valued at $340 million) and 12 Harpoon Block II missiles ($37 million) are included in the request.
FIGHT BREWING: Expect the future of the U.S. space program — and to a large extent the human-spaceflight programs of NASA’s international partners — to be decided on Capitol Hill this year. As President Barack Obama prepared for his Jan. 27 State of the Union address — which contained no reference to space — top officials at the U.S. space agency hadn’t even seen the NASA figures in the Fiscal 2011 federal budget request. The White House was planning a closed-circuit briefing on budget details for top NASA managers on Jan. 31.
LONDON — Former British leader Tony Blair defended his decision to take the country to war to the Iraq inquiry Jan. 29, asserting it was justified given even the risk that Saddam Hussein might develop weapons of mass destruction. While robust in supporting the choices he made at the time, Blair did tell the inquiry it would “have been better” if the government had corrected claims in the media immediately following the publication of “Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction” dossier in 2002.
The U.S. Air Force is beginning to reclaim government management of sustainment of its large fighter, transport and, eventually, unmanned aircraft fleets after a wholesale review of its maintenance oversight practices. The service announced last week it will restructure the oversight of C-17 sustainment after Boeing’s current contractor logistics support (CLS) contract runs out at the end of Fiscal 2011. The current contract is worth roughly $1 billion annually.
FOLLOWING PROBA: Program mangers are actively preparing two follow-on missions to the European Space Agency’s recently orbited Proba-2 technology demonstration spacecraft (Aerospace DAILY, Jan. 28) — Proba 3, a formation flying experiment to be launched around 2012, and Proba V, a project to show how small satellites can support operational payloads.
MOSCOW — Russia’s fifth generation fighter, Sukhoi’s T-50 prototype, was flown for the first time from Komsomolsk-on-Amur on Russia’s Far East at 11:19 local time Jan. 29. After the 47-minute flight the aircraft landed at the airfield of Sukhoi’s KnAAPO facility, which assembled the PAK FA prototypes.
OCEAN CLASS: The U.S. Navy will award a single detail design and construction contract in 2011 to either Dakota Creek Industries or Marinette Marine Corp. for an Ocean-class auxiliary general oceanographic research (AGOR) vessel. The service awarded both companies $1.5 million for preliminary design of the AGOR ships — monohull research vessels capable of integrated, interdisciplinary, general purpose oceanographic research in coastal and deep ocean areas. The first ship is expected to be delivered in early 2014.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) Feb. 2 - 4 — International MRO Show 2010, Hitex Exhibition Center, Hyderabad, India. For more information go to www.thomex.com/trade-events Feb. 2 - 4 — AUVSI’S Unmanned Systems Program Review, Pan Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Washington, D.C. For more information go to www.auvsi.org
A Raytheon/Boeing team says captive-carry flight tests of a tri-mode seeker “have proved the technical readiness” of their version of the Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) for a U.S. Army competition. The tri-mode seeker is needed to meet the rigorous requirement of replacing current Maverick, TOW and Hellfire missiles for use by Navy and Army fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft. The JAGM will be required to destroy both fixed and mobile targets.
EXPORT BLOCKADE: Defense Secretary Robert Gates considers existing U.S. export control rules “cumbersome, antiquated, outdated, bureaucratic” and a drag on the economy,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell says. Plans to “dramatically reform our nation’s outdated export-control system” were the subjects of recent talks between Gates and House and Senate Armed Services and foreign relations committees, Morrell says. Before lawmakers, Gates held similar discussions with industry leaders. Meanwhile, a coalition of U.S.
HAITI COSTS: The U.S. has 15,000 troops and 24 ships involved in Haitian relief. The airport is handling about 200 flights per day. But what comes next is still a question. Pentagon discussions are ongoing on how many forces are needed, what they should be doing and what expense will be involved, says Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s spokesman, Geoff Morrell. “We’re still wrestling with it. It is a very expensive operation ... probably hundreds of millions of dollars.
Israel is preparing to launch the Ofeq-8 reconnaissance satellite within the next several months in an effort to boost its intelligence-gathering capabilities against Iran. Scheduled for this summer, the launch of Ofeq-8 will give Israel six operational remote sensing satellites in orbit: the military satellites Ofeq-5, 7 and 8; ImageSat’s commercial/military EROS-A and EROS-B1, and Israel Aerospace Industries’ TechSAR day/night all-weather synthetic aperture radar satellite.
RADARS ABROAD: The U.S. National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) will purchase commercial synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data from MDA Geospatial Services, EADS North America and Lockheed Martin under five-year, $85 million indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contracts. Each of the spacecraft providing the data are operated by foreign entities.
The Fiscal 2011 U.S. defense budget, due to be released Feb. 1, will be free of the sort of big, dramatic programmatic cuts that were seen in 2009, independent analysts with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) said Jan. 26.
LONDON — Despite urging by industry for talks on the future of the A400M military transport aircraft to be wrapped up this month, negotiations will continue in February. After a series of talks in recent weeks failed to resolve differences over how to split the 1 billion euros ($1.4 billion) in additional cost required to see the program through, government and industry officials are to convene again in Berlin on Feb. 2 to settle the issue, a German defense ministry official said.
LONDON — The German government is cracking down on potential incursions into civil airspace, including a rule that bars the flight of unmanned aircraft in anything but controlled airspace. New airspace regulations that took effect stipulate the restrictions. Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer argues that UAV operations “still throw up too many questions. Only when it is assured that there is no safety risk for air transport and the civilian population can regulations be liberalized.”
NASA is taking advantage of chance scheduling with its airborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to conduct interferometric ground-deformation studies over the island of Hispaniola following the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti. The studies should help guide recovery efforts in Haiti, and may aid scientists to better understand the forces that triggered the quake.
STRATFORD, Conn. — Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. unveiled its new, $20 million CH-53K Precision Components Technology Center here Jan. 22, ushering in a new era for the company and the U.S. Marine Corps heavy lifter it is building.
