SIT-DOWN: Defense Secretary Robert Gates is planning to meet with some defense industry executives during a trip to Chicago July 16, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell says. The secretary expects to emphasize his desire to overhaul the Pentagon acquisition system. “Business as usual simply will not do,” Morrell said during a July 15 press briefing. The meeting comes amid growing concerns in industry that dialogue between the senior levels of the Pentagon and its contractors has been lacking.
The U.S. Navy has awarded Raytheon a $12.8 million contract to provide engineering, material and test support for the Joint Multi Effects Warhead System (JMeWS) Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD). The JCTD, one of 17 announced in July 2008 as part of the Joint Requirements Oversight Council’s selection for fiscal 2009, was deferred until further evaluation of “potential parallel efforts.”
United Space Alliance (USA) plans to cut its work force by 5 percent in October as part of a planned reduction in force as the space shuttle approaches retirement next year. “This should not affect our ability to safely fly the shuttle,” a spokeswoman said. The layoffs will occur across the company, in all locations, and will trim about 400 people, she said. USA’s employees were notified of the move earlier this week. “We’re trying to communicate the changes to staff as transparently as possible,” the spokeswoman said.
Business jet builder Cessna Aircraft Co. has jettisoned nearly half of its work force since last November, Boeing Co. and Airbus plan to slow down production of 777 and A320 jets, and defense companies face a leveling off of Pentagon spending after eight years of robust growth. These are difficult times for aerospace and defense (A&D) — until you consider the long list of other industries being pulverized by the global economic downturn. Measured against banking, automotive, construction, hospitality or retail, A&D is the picture of good health.
HICKAM AIR FORCE BASE, Hawaii — New studies offer evidence that the 2008 conflict between Russia and Georgia is a template for the next generation of aerial combat between advanced aircraft and air defense weapons. Still missing from the new formula is how to defeat the new generation of air defenses. U.S. combatants think they see the answer, even if it is not yet on the ramp.
A parliamentary dispute in the U.S. Senate sidelined a measure that would cap the number of F-22 Raptors the Air Force is authorized to buy at 187. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) on July 15 pulled his amendment to the fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill that would strip out authorization for seven more Raptors that the Obama administration says it does not need or want.
Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems (BSIS) will formally introduce its first new satellite in a decade on July 16, the Boeing 702B, although initial details of the deal that is launching the system were revealed last spring by Intelsat.
NEW DELHI — The long-awaited request for proposals (RFP) to provide 99-125 engines for the Indian Air Force’s Tejas Light Combat Aircraft is expected to be released this week. Proposals for the two candidate engines — GE’s F414 and Eurojet’s EJ200 — will be due by Oct. 12 if the RFP is released on July 17.
MOON SHOT: Forty years ago, on July 16, 1969, Mission Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin lifted off in a Saturn V rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on NASA’s Apollo 11 mission to the moon. Launch took place at 9:32 a.m. local time and the astronauts reached Earth orbit 12 minutes later. Apollo 11 was the fifth human spaceflight in the Apollo program, the third human trip to the moon, and the first to land astronauts on its surface.
AT LAST: Space shuttle Endeavour is on its way to the International Space Station, after finally making it off the pad at 6:03 p.m. EDT July 15. The STS-127 assembly and resupply mission had been scrubbed five times since June 13, twice for a gaseous hydrogen leak and then for repeated launch-rule violations from summer thunderstorms near Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
COAST GUARDING: MBDA has demonstrated the ability of its new vertical launch MICA to protect coastal areas against enemy attacks launched from the sea. The test firing, carried out July 8 at France’s missile launch test range at Biscarosse in southwestern France, registered a direct hit against a low-signature missile flying 10 meters above the sea at a distance of 15 kilometers (9 miles). Sponsored by the French air force, armaments agency DGA and MBDA, the test — the 15th for VL MICA — was intended to show the weapon’s capabilities in a coastal defense role.
A draft request for proposals (RFP) that will kick off the U.S. Air Force’s next attempt to procure a KC-135 aerial refueling tanker replacement could come out later than expected. “This may go into the fall because we want to make certain we get this right,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said at a press briefing there July 15. Defense Department officials had hoped earlier to release the draft RFP this month and award a contract early next year.
NASA will try again July 15 to launch the space shuttle Endeavour to the International Space Station, rearranging its assembly mission to avoid an end-of-mission conflict with an upcoming Russian resupply mission by undocking early. Space station planners believe they can still accomplish all mission objectives by moving some cleanup and crew time off until after the orbiter undocks from the station. If a July 15 launch attempt doesn’t succeed, they may remove some mission objectives to undock early enough at the end of the mission to allow a July 16 launch.
SENTRY SUSTAIN: The U.K. is replacing the planned midlife update of its Boeing E-3D Sentry aircraft, Project Eagle, with a less ambitions program to address areas of obsolescence, known as Sentry Sustain. Eagle funding didn’t make the cut in Planning Round (PR) 09, with the midlife upgrade to the E-3D not deemed to be an immediate operational need. Sentry Sustain is aimed at dealing with issues on some of the mission systems kits, and also on the communications.
A July 10 story on testing of the GE38 turboshaft engine misstated the number of engines on the CH-53K. The heavy-lift helicopter features three engines.
HOLLOMAN UNMANNED: Holloman Air Force Base, N.M. has been confirmed as the location for the U.S. Air Force’s second formal training unit for MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aircraft. Announcing the decision, the New Mexico congressional delegation says the base will receive 10 MQ-1s and five MQ-9s this year, with another 12 Predators and 11 Reapers following in 2010. MQ-1/9 training is now conducted at Creech Air Force Base, Ariz., but is planned eventually to be consolidated at Holloman.
INDIA MOVE: Canadian simulator manufacturer CAE has renamed its Indian subsidiary — formerly Macmet Technologies, acquired in July 2007 — as it steps up investment in the country. Now named CAE India, the Bangalore-based company is building Do 228 and MiG-21M training devices for the Indian air force and developing tank and missile simulators.
The Obama administration is making its mark with a desire to reduce nuclear weaponry, but it is running up against more help than it wants on Capitol Hill, with the White House now trying to defend its fiscal 2010 request for a major legacy U.S. nuclear bomb.
MISSILE DEFENSE: The U.S. Navy recently awarded contracts to Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon to perform concept studies for the Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR), a scalable solid-state radar suite for future surface combatants. AMDR is composed of an S-band radar, an X-band radar and a Radar Suite Controller (RSC). Naval Sea Systems Command recently awarded $10 million to Northrop and $9.9 million to Lockheed Martin for the studies. AMDR will provide volume search, tracking and missile communications.
Australian researchers are beginning a second series of flight trials of a system to automatically manage the separation of unmanned and manned aircraft. The Smart Skies project includes researchers from Boeing, Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO).
Australia expects to take delivery in November of the first two of six Boeing Wedgetails it has ordered, but the 737-based airborne warning and control aircraft will not yet, by then, deliver full operational capability. In fact, the Wedgetails may never fully meet the contract specification. The Royal Australian Air Force says it hopes to achieve 95 percent of that performance, although it does not say how that will be measured.
LONDON — Britain is planning to decide on its next-generation electronic intelligence aircraft by the end of the year, with BAE Systems management considering a revised proposal for the program. The successor to the R1 — a program a senior defense ministry official says Britain remains committed to — potentially pits the RC-135 Rivet Joint against most likely a BAE Systems Nimrod MRA4-based platform. The official maintains there will be no gap in capability, and suggests the plan is that the R1 will remain in service until its replacement enters operation.
