FRIGATE ORDER: The French government has ordered three additional Franco-Italian Fremm multimission frigates, including two for air defense. Originally designed for anti-submarine and anti-ship duty, the mission of the helicopter-carrying Fremm fleet was later broadened to include air defense, allowing orders for more expensive Horizon air defense frigates to be halved. The first vessel is to be delivered in 2012.
NASA scientists have recalculated the trajectory of the asteroid Apophis using updated data, and determined there is a “significantly reduced” likelihood that it will strike Earth when it passes by in 2036.
DRUG BUSTING: The MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned rotorcraft deployed onboard the USS McInerney this week in preparation for counternarcotics missions in and around the Caribbean this year. This operational evaluation period will allow Navy operators to develop tactics, techniques and procedures for using the rotorcraft and its intelligence-collecting payload for the mission. Introduction of the Northrop Grumman Fire Scout into the Navy fleet marks the first time an automated unmanned aerial system has been delivered for shipboard operation by sailors.
SIM CITIES: The French army aviation corps has opened two simulation centers. One, at the Tiger attack helicopter school in Provence, is equipped with two full-mission simulators and two cockpit procedures trainers supplied by Thales and Rheinmetall Defense Electronics. The other, at the army aviation school, houses three IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) trainers, a six-seat tactical trainer and a combined flight/weapon system trainer, all supplied by Thales.
LONDON — Britain’s Conservative Party has expressed its determination to hold a Strategic Defense Review, while fencing off the country’s submarine-based nuclear deterrent. Liam Fox, the shadow defense secretary, told the party conference Oct. 8 that the party would immediately launch a review were it to be elected. National elections in the U.K. need to be held no later than the end of May 2010. The Conservatives are well ahead of the ruling Labour Party in opinion polls.
TANKER COCKPITS: Rockwell Collins has won a $33.5 million contract for the Block 45 upgrade to the U.S. Air Force’s KC-135 refueler cockpits. Contained in the kit are improved global air traffic management systems, including a new autopilot flight director, radar altimeter and electronic engine instrument display systems. During the development phase, two KC-135s will be modified in preparation for modification of up to 415 KC-135s.
The decision to tear down an F136 test engine for closer inspection following discovery of turbine damage has halted development testing on the alternate powerplant for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, at least temporarily. The second development F136, engine number 5, is being torn down and checked after “dings and nicks” were found on turbine blades during inspection following an extended maximum-thrust test run, says the General Electric/Rolls-Royce (GE/RR) Fighter Engine Team.
Equipped with a special underwater shroud, the AIM-9X air-to-air missile can be carried in an unmodified configuration and fired from a submarine’s vertical launch tube, according to Michael Sharp, Raytheon’s director of advanced maritime technology and a former submarine commander. In littoral warfare, tactical options for submarines have become limited, given the requirement to operate in shallow water where evasion is difficult.
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Boeing’s Space Exploration Division and Russia’s RSC-Energia will collaborate on a common docking system for future human-spaceflight missions, drawing on technology originally developed for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project by the late Russian engineer Vladimir Syromyatnikov. The companies, which are both major hardware providers for the International Space Station (ISS), will build on that experience and Syromyatnikov’s Androgynous Peripheral Attach System (APAS) to “produce an international standard for docking mechanisms,” according to the U.S. company.
Missed opportunities, misjudged budgets, ignored technology and operational imperatives that whipsaw from the big war to the insurgent war to the pursuit of individuals on foot continue to prolong the sad upgrade saga for the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS).
Elbit Systems is introducing its SWORD (Surveillance and Warning Obstacle Ranging and Display) helicopter obstacle avoidance system to the U.S. military market. The company unveiled the system, developed by its El-Op division, at the Association of the U.S. Army symposium in Washington this week.
GREAT AND SMALL: Defense Secretary Robert Gates described the tension between having to prepare for both insurgencies and more conventional force-on-force wars during recent remarks in Washington. “There has been a concern that our force is too focused on counterinsurgency, and has lost its edge for complex, conventional operations involving multiple brigades or divisions,” he said earlier this week. “We have to recognize that the black-and-white distinction between conventional war and irregular war is an outdated model...
The U.S. Army will not rule out any option for its new ground combat vehicle (GCV) program, including wheeled and tracked variants, which could possibly lead to the service examining the Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV). The Marines have been an integral part of the Army task force on ground vehicles since the beginning, said Lt. Gen. Michael Vane, director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center, or ARCIC. “We are very close in talking about capabilities and [which of those] are necessary for the GCV,” he said.
Congress looks increasingly set to take up a compromise over continuing the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s (JSF) F136 alternate engine subtly offered in the careful wording of a White House veto threat this summer.
Final preparations continue for the Oct. 18 launch of the third of five latest-generation Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) spacecraft on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V booster from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.
STRETCHING PACOM: The U.S. Pacific Command is straining a bit in response to a slew of recent natural disasters and storms throughout the Asia-Pacific realm, U.S. officials acknowledge in public comments. Allies like Australia and New Zealand also have responded by providing airlifted and shipborne relief to Indonesia and elsewhere. Humanitarian operations have been promoted by the departing commander, Navy Adm. Timothy Keating, as vital to maintaining security in the vast domain and one reason the combatant command would like even more assets (Aerospace DAILY, July 1).
NEW DELHI — The Indian government has not yet decided on a venue for the biannual Defexpo scheduled to be held Feb. 15-18, 2010. There is a great deal of frustration being expressed by foreign exhibitors, who tell Aerospace DAILY they are unable to decide whether to book hotels, plan delegations and schedule meetings.
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) is preparing to conduct static fire testing of the first and second stages of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle, following the completion of acceptance testing of the stages themselves.
Commercial applications of the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) engine under development by Ad Astra Rocket Company may be possible as early as 2014, following the first full-power prototype test of the advanced space-propulsion system. Engineers at the company’s Houston facility reported a peak power output of 201 kw for the VX-200 test bed in a thermal vacuum chamber, which was 1 kw higher than the target. The Sept. 30 test marked the first time the two-stage plasma engine’s second stage achieved its full planned power rating.
Northrop Grumman announced Oct. 6 that its company-owned MQ-8B Fire Scout flew under the command and control of a new company-developed STANAG 4586-compatible ground control station (GCS). STANAG 4586 is the NATO interoperability standard for unmanned aircraft.
Boeing has flown the wideband networking waveform (WNW) on the AH-64D Apache for the first time in a large-scale exercise, using the IP-based network to exchange images and messages directly with soldiers.
