A testing delay for the F-35 program will prompt an increase in the per-unit cost of the stealthy single-engine fighter “for a period,” says the U.S. Air Force chief of staff, Gen. Norton Schwartz. Schwartz says the boost will not, however, be enough to breach requirements under the Nunn-McCurdy reporting law, which triggers a mandatory Pentagon review of alternatives and notification of Congress in cases of a significant cost and schedule overrun.
PATUXENT RIVER Md. — A new test bed for advanced rotorcraft technology will soon provide the U.S. Naval Aviation Center for Rotorcraft Advancement (NACRA) the opportunity to perform quick reaction testing — and potentially, faster fielding — of new systems. The so-called T-Rex (shorthand for Test Bed-Rapid Warfighter Response and Experimentation) will arrive at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Md., in April 2010 in the form of a UH-1N Huey helicopter. T-Rex will be operational by the summer.
NATO deployed its alliance-owned C-17s to Haiti this week, marking the first humanitarian assistance flight for the fleet based at Papa air base, Hungary. Sweden used some of its allotment of flight hours for the earthquake relief mission under the pooling mechanism governing the Strategic Airlift Capability consortium. The airlifter carried aid from several Scandinavian countries.
NEW DELHI — India’s unwillingness to sign the long-gestating Logistics Support Agreement and the Communications, Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA) with the U.S. has prompted U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates to remark: “On the U.S. side, we have not done a good job spelling out [the] benefits of signing these agreements.”
On a normal day, the airport at Port-au-Prince, Haiti, would see an average of about 12 to 13 flights a day. As of Jan. 16, it had received 600 flights in four days, and since then has been averaging more than 100 flights a day, with 180 relief-laden planes landing and taking off on Jan. 17 alone.
PARIS — Among the hurdles that will have to be cleared before Europe can mount an effort to build an all-new successor to the Ariane 5 is convincing Germany to join the endeavor.
PARIS — The European Space Agency and NASA have issued joint announcements of opportunity for instruments to be carried on the orbiter planned under their twin ExoMars mission. The orbiter, to be launched in 2016, will be devoted to mapping trace gases present in the Martian atmosphere — in particular methane, a telltale sign of possible life first discovered on Mars in 2003.
PARIS — Thales Alenia Space says a pair of new deals with Gazprom and the European Space Agency (ESA) helped make 2009 one of its most successful years ever.
BEIJING — China has launched a third satellite for its planned Compass navigation and positioning system, aiming for initial operations to begin in 2012. The satellite, launched by a Long March 3C rocket, is one of five that are planned for geostationary orbit. They will work with 30 other satellites in low orbits to create a rival to the U.S. Global Positioning System, the European Union’s Galileo and Russia’s Glonass.
Joining the U.S. Air Force’s Global Hawk UAV in the Haiti relief effort is Elbit’s Skylark, which is being flown by Evergreen International Aviation, a McMinnville, Ore.-based aviation services company. Global Hawk has been flying over Haiti for several days now, running 14- to 16-hour orbits to provide thousands of images of the disaster area to both soldiers and civilians. But the Skylark flights are a sign of the significant role that private contractors will inevitably play in the recovery and reconstruction effort.
AIR FORCE EOSPACE Inc., Redmond, Wash., was awarded a $11,842,411 contract which will provide a program to develop and demonstrate revolutionary advances in photonic links for radio frequency antenna transmit and receive applications. At this time, $567,000 has been obligated. Det 1 AFRL/PKDB, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8650-10-C-7002). ARMY
PARIS — Astrium saw revenues surge 11 percent and new business grow a whopping 149 percent in 2009 as it continued to shine as one of the few bright performers in EADS.
LONDON — While the British Royal Navy’s senior officer goes out of his way to say they are not at “loggerheads,” the fault lines are already being drawn between the two oldest services in the run-up to London’s Strategic Defense Review (SDR).
Searchers on Jan. 15 located an Su-27M that disappeared the day before while doing advanced aerobatic maneuvers at Dzemgi air base, and the next day, the commander of the Russian Federation Air Force, Col. Gen. Alexsander Zelin, grounded all Su-27s until the crash’s cause has been determined.
LONDON — Weak business activity is forcing further job cuts at Saab, with 115 positions being eliminated. Saab last year already announced a series of layoffs and restructured its organization in light of reduced business (Aerospace DAILY, April 30, 2009). The commercial business, in particular, has been hit, but the job cuts also result from diminished military activity. Most of the 30 million Swedish kronor ($4.2 million) in restructuring costs will be booked in 2010.
LEADING WALLOPS: William Wrobel, a former Orbital Sciences Corp. executive who has been managing expendable space launches for NASA, will be the new director of the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. At Orbital, Wrobel was program director for Orbital’s Taurus Launch Vehicle Program, which plans to launch cargo to the International Space Station from Wallops on the Taurus II rocket. “Bill is a natural fit as Wallops’ director,” said Administrator Charles Bolden. Wrobel will replace John Campbell, who retired at the end of 2009.
NEW DELHI – ST Kinetics, the Land Systems arm of Singapore Technologies Engineering, is participating in numerous programs in India and says it is looking at itself as a capability-based company able to integrate all dimensions of lifecycle support. Rated by Moodys as AAA, it has bid for six Indian defense contracts, including a Request for Proposals (RFP) for 34,377 Compact Personal Weapons.
PARIS — Intersputnik has concluded an agreement to lease 16 transponders on Eutelsat’s big W7 satellite. Built by Thales Alenia Space and launched on Nov. 24, W7 carries 74 Ku-band transponders. It is co-located at 36 deg. E. with W4, which carries four Intersputnik channels. The agreement, for the life of the satellite, will permit Eutelsat to double capacity at the 36 deg. slot, where traffic has grown 15 percent over the past 18 months, principally due to demand in Russia and Africa.
PARIS — The European Space Agency is poised to begin talks with NASA toward forging a partnership in Earth science similar to that enjoyed by the agencies in exploration and other domains. These dialogues will be one part of a concerted effort this year to reinforce and expand cooperation not only with NASA but with other international partners and the European Union (EU).
CYBER POSSE: Australia has opened its Cyber Security Operations Center, and officials say they are standing up a U.S.-style computer emergency response team while looking to audit Internet access points to the continent. The center falls under the Defense Signals Directorate and counts 51 personnel now, but will include representatives, up to 130 total, from across the Australian government, Defense Minister John Faulkner said Jan. 15, “Already we have evidence of sophisticated cyber intrusions onto networks in Australia, both government and private.
