To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) Nov. 16 - 17 — Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Crowne Plaza Hotel - St. James, London, London, U.K. For more information go to www.smi-online.co.uk
ROTARY REQUIREMENTS: The U.K. looks to be about to yet again revisit its military helicopter program with some form of announcement likely from Bob Ainsworth, the secretary of state for defense, on changes to its future rotary wing strategy. The ministry was last week keeping its head down on national press reports that London was going to purchase additional Boeing CH-47 Chinooks. A ministry official confirmed that helicopter plans are once again being re-examined. Alongside the additional rotary lift, the U.K.
SOYUZ SOJOURN: Arianespace says the first two Soyuz launchers to operate from a new Soyuz launch pad at its Kourou, French Guiana, spaceport have left Russia aboard the MN Colibri, one of the vessels the launch provider uses to transport launch vehicles from European manufacturing sites to Kourou. The vehicles are due to arrive in the final week of November. Soyuz operations from French Guiana are due to start in April 2010.
SUB SYSTEMS: Lockheed Martin Australia is pairing with Acacia Research to pursue the combat system integrator role for the Royal Australian Navy’s Future Submarine project, SEA 1000. The 12 next-generation submarines will replace Australia’s existing Collins-class boats. SEA is expected to be the Australian government’s largest-ever single defense project. Under the teaming agreement, Lockheed Martin Australia will lead overall management of the program pursuit.
Contrary to predictions by the People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s deputy chief, Gen. He Weirong, China is unlikely to field a new fighter with F-22-like capabilities within 10 years, according to U.S. aerospace industry and U.S. Air Force officials.
AASM DROP: For the first time, the French air force has dropped the AASM air-to-ground guided weapon equipped with an imaging infrared (IIR) seeker from the Rafale fighter. The Sagem-developed weapon is the second in the family of standoff bombs, augmenting the GPS-guided AASM that’s been in operational use since last year. The IIR version uses its seeker for terminal guidance to increase the weapon’s precision using scene-matching algorithms. The Oct. 27 test was performed by the CEAM air flight-test center based at Mont-de-Marsan.
NASA will attempt to reverse the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit out of the patch of soft soil where it has been trapped for almost six months, but acknowledges that if this fails the rover will probably be stuck there for good. The attempt is planned for Nov. 16, when the rover will be sent a command for about 5 meters of wheeldrive, with results expected back at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) the following day.
HYLAS INTEGRATION: The communications payload for Hylas-1, a flexible payload Ka-/Ku-band satellite intended to provide broadband service in Europe, has been shipped from the Astrium payload plant in England to Bangalore, India, where it will be integrated with a bus supplied by the Indian Space Research Organization’s commercial arm, Antrix. To be launched in 2010 by Arianespace and operated by Avanti Communications, a U.K. startup, Hylas-1 will be the second spacecraft to be built jointly by Astrium and Antrix.
PARIS — In the run-up for its planned first flight early next month, the A400M prototype has been handed by Airbus Military to the flight-test organization to initiate the required ground trials. The milestone sets off a series of test events to ensure flight instruments are working correctly, the TP400 turboprops are ready, and the engine/aircraft interface poses no concerns. The next few weeks will see engine run-ups, then taxi tests, beginning with low-speed tests reaching a maximum 60 knots, and rejected takeoff brake tests at 120 knots.
An engineer fired by Lockheed Martin a decade ago and who filed a whistleblower suit claiming that the company had troubles with its F-22 Raptor stealth coatings and resorted to adding hundreds of pounds of additional material to reach the U.S. Air Force’s signature standards has seen his court case moved across country. The suit asks for Lockheed to reimburse the government $50 million for each of the 187 aircraft contracted for.
Iridium reported growth in subscribers and commercial revenue for the third quarter of 2009, offsetting continued weak subscriber equipment sales and a drop in net income due to the company’s recent acquisition. The announced results are for Iridium’s “operational predecessor,” Iridium Holdings LLC, and cover the period July 1 to Sept. 29. On Sept. 29, 2009, GHL Acquisition Corp. completed its acquisition of Iridium, forming a publicly traded company called Iridium Communications Inc. (Aerospace DAILY, Oct. 1).
Date: November 18, 2009 Time: 2:00 P.M. – 3:15 P.M. EDT Fee: Free As we stand at the threshold to a network-enabled future, how do we prevent exposure and vulnerability to cyber intrusions by unknown foreign entities? Find out at this free webinar and learn how to: • Protect net-centric frameworks from cyber attacks • Define and understand the rapidly changing nature of cyber warfare
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Capitol Hill’s nonpartisan green eyeshaded experts, believe Washington will continue to boost funding for purchases, loans and other activities under the Defense Production Act, from $150 million in 2010 to $300 million by 2014. While government authority to make loans and loan guarantees has been moribund since the 1980s, those authorities are revised in the latest reauthorization of the law, which occurred Sept. 30.
GENOA, Italy — AgustaWestland’s AW159 Lynx Wildcat multirole helicopter carried out its first flight at Yeovil, U.K., Nov. 12, conducting initial general handling checks. The flight took place “on time and on budget,” according to company CEO Giuseppe Orsi. Two other prototypes are to join the flight-test program next year, leading to initial deliveries to the U.K. defense ministry in 2011.
PARIS — France has approved the purchase of a further batch of 60 Rafale fighters for its air force and navy. The purchase brings the number of Rafales on order to 180. The aircraft will include items from the so-called Post-F3 standard, notably an active electronically steered array (AESA) antenna and an improved self-protection suite. The aircraft is currently entering air force and navy inventory in the multirole F3 standard, which features a passive array. Rafale will be the first European fighter equipped with an AESA.
LONDON — Britain’s military will be limited to handling only additional small-scale contingency operations in the near term as a result of the effect of prolonged operations in Afghanistan. The Defense Ministry is currently circulating internal guidance — some of which is classified — intended to provide planning and procurement support through the period until a Strategic Defense Review is completed in around 12-18 months.
The Defense Department is kicking off a program to design, build and demonstrate prototypes of the Joint and Allied Threat Awareness System (JATAS) to protect U.S. Navy and Marine Corps helicopters and tiltrotor aircraft from dumb and smart weapons. The two current competitors are Lockheed Martin and the team of Alliant Techsystems (ATK), BAE Systems and Goodrich. The teams were awarded two 16-month Navy contracts.
The RecceLite reconnaissance pod is now operational on German Tornados in Afghanistan. The German government bought two of the systems to improve airborne intelligence gathering and augment the film-based pods the Mazar-e-Sharif-based Luftwaffe Tornados had been using. Luftwaffe officials say that after a work-up period, the system is now operational and that the first night missions are also pending.
AVIATION WEEK Webinars, A&D Cybersecurity Webinar: Protecting Our Critical Infrastructures Date: November 18, 2009 Time: 2:00 P.M. – 3:15 P.M. EDT Fee: Free With today’s technology advancements, reliable and immediate information access has become an expectation. Yet, major federal agencies, including the DoD, NASA and TSA, have all suffered major cyber-attacks.
