Manufacturer BAE Systems is formulating its marketing of the Mantis medium-altitude long-endurance UAV demonstrator air vehicle in the U.S., following the recent kickoff of test flights of the U.K. version. Mark Brown, BAE Systems vice president of unmanned aerial systems, is positioning the Mantis as a next-generation UAV. “When we talk about Mantis specifically, you’re talking about a theater/strategic platform that has the ability to satisfy intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance requirements and also be a weapons carrier,” Brown said.
MUTUAL ASSURANCE: The United States and China have reaffirmed their June 1998 commitment not to target each other with nuclear weapons, according to a “joint statement” Nov. 17 after President Barack Obama’s visit to Beijing. This reverses a George W. Bush administration decision under the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review to target China with nukes, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.
LONDON — A U.S. flight crew has flown the Qinetiq Zephyr high-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle for the first time, during recent trials at the U.S. Army’s Yuma proving ground in Arizona.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The Eurofighter Typhoon consortium is targeting fielding of an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar and the Meteor ramjet-powered air-to-air missile in 2015, according to the consortium’s chief executive, Enzo Casolini.
NEW DELHI — Expecting to reap a windfall from defense offsets and tap tax advantages, QuEST Global has formally launched India’s first aerospace precision engineering and manufacturing facility in Belgaum, Karnataka. The company has signed memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with major players, including SABCA (Societe Anonyme Belge de Constructions Aeronautiques), Magellan Aerospace Ltd. and Farinia SA. According to a statement, the QuEST Global facility offers complete design-to-build services, enabling an end-to-end aerospace supply chain ecosystem.
GOODRICH MOVES: Goodrich Corp. is to buy Atlantic Inertial Systems, only two and a half years after ownership of the company previously changed hands. AIS is being acquired from J.F. Lehman for $375 million. The private equity firm bought the business that now constitutes AIS from BAE Systems in April 2007 at a reported cost of $140 million. AIS provides guidance and navigation subsystems for military aircraft and helicopters as well as for missiles and munitions. Sales for 2009 are anticipated to be in the range of $180 million.
The U.S. and China plan to begin talks on cooperation in human spaceflight soon, with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and an unspecified Chinese counterpart set to exchange visits next year. U.S. President Barack Obama and Hu Jintao, his Chinese counterpart, called for the human spaceflight talks in the joint statement issued at the end of their meeting in Beijing Nov. 17.
Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory are using a supercomputer developed to test the performance of nuclear weapons without actually setting them off to simulate the ignition sequence when a white dwarf star explodes as a supernova.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Eutelsat has formed a strategic agreement with telecom satellite startup Asia Broadcast Satellite that will allow customers of both operators to add bandwidth in Asia, Russia, the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe, where certain capacity, particularly Ku-band, is scarce.
GENOA, Italy — Italy is the second Eurofighter Typhoon partner nation to opt for a multi-year support package with industry. Rome has agreed to a 600 million euro ($891.3 million), five-year deal, with the contract signed between Eurofighter, representing industry, and the NATO Eurofighter and Tornado Management Agency on the behalf of the Italian air force. The British Royal Air Force (RAF) already has a long-term support contract in place.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced a new Pentagon task force last week aimed at combating the threat of improvised explosive devices (IED) in Afghanistan. The group, led by Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter and Marine Corps Lt. Gen. John Paxton, the Joint Staff’s director for operations, will work across government agencies to try to come up with new solutions to the growing threat of roadside bombs in the country.
PARIS — France has concluded an agreement to help Vietnam develop a surveillance satellite system, and EADS Astrium has agreed to support the effort. An intergovernmental accord to build VNREDSat-1 (Vietnam Natural Resources, Environment and Disaster monitoring Satellite system) was inked Nov. 13 in Hanoi by French Prime Minister Francois Fillon. This was followed by the signing of a partnership agreement by Francois Auque, head of EADS Astrium, to define the network. Astrium’s partner will be the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST).
South Korea will decide early in December whether to go ahead with the KF-X program to develop a fighter domestically. The country would save 9 trillion won ($7.8 billion) over a 30-year life cycle if it built the aircraft, according to a long-awaited and widely leaked report from Konkuk University that the Defense Acquisition Program Administration presented to parliament on Nov. 13. The KF-X also would create up to 70,000 jobs, the university’s researchers say.
The U.S. Army has developed an advanced new generation of protective ballistic plates for its soldiers to combat what it calls the “X Threat,” and according to senior Army officials, the plates are waiting in the wings in case they’re needed. The “XSAPI” plates, as opposed to the Enhanced Small Arms Protective Insert (ESAPI) plates currently being used by the U.S. armed forces, have been designed to meet what is commonly considered to be a higher-velocity threat than the current 7.62mm rounds commonly used by insurgents.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Numerous international fighter and test pilots have already flown the AVIC Hongdu L15 Eagle twin-engined trainer, as China’s marketing and flight-test campaigns intensify. In its first appearance outside China, the private venture training aircraft is flying here at the Dubai Airshow daily, with the company working toward orders from Middle East and African nations.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — In a rare move for a Middle East military, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has moved to support NATO operations in Afghanistan. Although not formally part of NATO or the coalition that is operating as part of the International Security Assistance Force, the UAE is providing unmanned aerial vehicle support to allied forces.
Six NASA astronauts are reconfiguring the space shuttle Atlantis for spaceflight after an on-time launch to the International Space Station (ISS) on Nov. 16. Liftoff from Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) came at 2:28 p.m. EST, as the ISS passed over the South Pacific after crossing New Zealand. The on-time launch sets up docking a little before noon EST on Nov. 18.
An unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) called Ranger could one day operate in air-deployed swarms if builder iRobot Corp. has any say in the matter, according to Joe Dyer, president of the company’s Government and Industrial Robotics Division. Dyer, a retired U.S. Navy vice admiral and former chief of Naval Air Systems Command, said iRobot has just started discussions with “technical Navy and acquisitions Navy and operators.” With a “disruptive technology,” Dyer added, “the speed of advance is typically ahead of requirements.”
The U.S. Coast Guard continues its pursuit of a vertical takeoff and landing unmanned aerial vehicle (VTUAV) to satisfy requirements for its National Security Cutter (NSC), most recently performing test flights using a Northrop Grumman company-owned Fire Scout, aircraft P6.
NAVY Bechtel Plant Machinery Inc., Monroeville, Pa., is being awarded a $110,459,702 modification to a previously awarded contract (N00024-07-C-2102) for naval nuclear propulsion components. The work will be performed in Schenectady, N.Y. (86 percent) and Monroeville, Pa. (14 percent). No contract funds will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. No completion date or additional information is provided on contracts supporting the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. The contracting activity is the Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C.
SES will invest in satellite broadband startup O3b, providing further credibility to the Google-backed global high-speed Internet access project. O3b intends to employ satellites to bring broadband backbone and backhaul capacity to Internet service providers serving the hundreds of millions of people around the world who are unserved and underserved by terrestrial networks — hence its name, which stands for “the other 3 billion.”
