PARIS — The British government has finalized the purchase of its seventh Boeing C-17 transport. The decision to go forward with the aircraft purchase came last month as part of a wider budget alignment that included £900 million ($1.45 billion) in additional outlays, with a heavy portion going to troop transport, including the purchase of 22 CH-47 Chinooks. The purchase price was not disclosed. The Royal Air Force (RAF) has ambitions for at least one more of the strategic transports.
The U.S. Army’s newest iteration of its modernization plan has cleared a hurdle with the recent approval to begin Low-Rate Initial Production (LRIP) of the program’s first increment. A Milestone C production review by the Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) on Dec. 22 resulted in the LRIP decision. The Increment 1 package will include a network integration kit, small unmanned ground vehicle, Class I unmanned aerial vehicle, unattended ground sensor and the Non-Line-of-Sight Launch System (Aerospace DAILY, Aug. 31, 2009).
The U.S. government is embarking on a comprehensive, 20-year program worth as much as $700 million per year to procure commercial satellite bandwidth and services to support the Defense Dept. and state and local agencies, including law enforcement offices.
EARLY DELIVERY: The U.S. Navy took delivery of its newest attack submarine, PCU New Mexico, from Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding on Dec. 29, four months ahead of schedule. New Mexico is the sixth Virginia-class submarine and the third delivered by Northrop Grumman. The two submarines delivered prior to New Mexico took 82 and 71 months to complete, while construction of the New Mexico was completed in 70 months. The early delivery keeps the submarine on track for a 60-month construction span by the end of the Block II contract, according to the Navy.
U.S. Strategic Command has officially assumed oversight of a program designed to better coordinate space situational awareness data with satellite owners and operators. With the new oversight, Stratcom officials will now “incorporate sharing of these products and services into its daily operations,” according to a command announcement. The Commercial and Foreign Entities (CFE) program began as a pilot project in 2004. It allows for registered users to access space surveillance data provided by the U.S. government on the space-track.org Web site.
PARIS — The first NFH90 maritime helicopter is now in the hands of the Netherlands military, the lead customer for the rotorcraft, but the system is still not ready for operational use. Development of the NFH90 has been plagued by problems with a range of systems, including the maritime search radar and tactical navigation system. Those issues have led to repeated adjustments to the project’s schedule.
BRUISED RELATIONS: Thailand’s forced return of Hmong refugees to Laos is raising criticism on Capitol Hill, with one leading lawmaker threatening to curb long-running U.S.-Thai military relations in return. “We expect better of the Thai government,” says Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of his Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees foreign operations, warning that mistreatment of the Hmong “could badly damage the Thai military’s reputation, and put our military collaboration at risk.” Many Lao Hmong fought alongside the U.S.
The U.S. Air Force has selected a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV to boost the fourth Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) into orbit. The likely launch date for the Boeing-built satellite is between December 2011 and February 2012, according to ULA. The Delta IV is a legacy Boeing design that is now managed by ULA, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
Astronomers expect significant science to emerge from the deluge of data being returned from NASA’s Kepler planet-finder, now that researchers have had time to verify some of the first findings from the orbiting space telescope.
ARMY Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Stratford, Conn., was awarded on Dec. 22, 2009, a $171,055,147 firm-fixed-price contract to produce 14 UH-60M aircraft and convert them to the unique configuration for the United Arab Emirates. The work is to be performed in Stratford, Conn., with an estimated completion date of Dec. 31, 2012. One bid was solicited with one bid received. U.S. Army Contracting Command, AMCOM Contracting Center, CCAM-BH-A, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (W58RGZ-08-C-0003).
GLOBAL OBSERVER: AeroVironment has delivered the first Global Observer hydrogen-fueled long-endurance unmanned aircraft to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., for ground tests. First flight is planned by the end of April. The company is building three GO-1 air vehicles for a DOD joint capability technology demonstration. The aircraft is designed to fly at 65,000 feet for up to a week carrying a 400-pound payload, using an internal-combustion engine burning liquid-hydrogen fuel to power electric motors driving four propellers.
Southern California is losing the headquarters of another major aerospace company to the Washington, D.C., region. Northrop Grumman announced Jan. 4 that it will move its corporate headquarters out of Los Angeles by the summer of 2011.
U.S. Air Force officials are crafting plans for a 2011 demonstration of a Global Positioning System-based tracking system for ascending rockets as part of a slow but comprehensive transformation of the Pentagon’s launch ranges.
PARIS — The French government has exercised an option with Eurocopter to upgrade five more Cougar transport helicopters to keep them in service another 20 years. The deal is part of a 27-helicopter upgrade package the government signed in 2008. With this deal, upgrades for 10 of the total are now financed.
Virginia Sen. Jim Webb (D), a former U.S. Navy secretary and Marine combat veteran, is raising new objections over the Navy’s proposal to home port a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in Mayport, Fla. Webb, a rising member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), has long opposed the move because it would leak prestige and economic power from Norfolk, home of the Navy’s Atlantic operations.
PARIS — The full series of flight trials of the Airbus Military A400M military airlifter is due to begin in earnest in 2010 after a stutter-step kickoff.
Astronaut John M. Grunsfeld, who has visited the Hubble Space Telescope three times in orbit to make upgrades and repairs, will help guide its observations as the new deputy director of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore. An astronomer, Grunsfeld also will help prepare the institute for operations with NASA’s planned James Webb Space Telescope. The STScI manages science operations for the Hubble.
If China’s 15 percent military spending increase from 2009 is sustained in 2010, the officially acknowledged spending for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could surpass $80 billion. China will announce its annual military spending plans in March, but as the country has never published a detailed defense budget, Western estimates of the amount vary. One Pentagon estimate put spending in 2009 at more than $215 billion — second only to the U.S. Whatever the true amount, China is funding a multitude of programs.
The U.S. Defense Department has taken steps to bolster contractor management in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it could be years before those efforts bear fruit, according to a recent report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). Meanwhile, contractor issues remain a concern for Congress, CRS reports, as contractor costs — and alleged abuses of prisoners or other local residents — have raised flags.
