A recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report detailing the V-22 Osprey’s shortcomings in reliability and maintainability “misses the mark,” according to Lt. Gen. George Trautman, U.S. Marine Corps deputy commandant for aviation. “The Osprey’s performance in Iraq over the previous 18 months proved to us, and more importantly, to those 45,000 Marines…who flew in the aircraft that it is safer, faster and can range distances farther than any helicopter,” Trautman says.
The U.S. Air Force is hunting for a new system to do the command-and-control (C2) job that the canceled Battle Control System-Mobile (BCS-M) was supposed to do. At the same time, Congress wants the service to account for the investment made so far in the fixed C2 system (BCS-F) — and to explain why that technology cannot be leveraged to create the right mobile system.
PERFORMANCE REVIEW: The U.S. Marine Corps’ annual Aviation Plan, usually published prior to each fiscal year, may be delayed until the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) is complete, according to Lt. Gen. George Trautman, Marine Corps deputy commandant for aviation. “The issues raised will have no impact on the force we plan to operate in Afghanistan,” Trautman says.
PARIS French space agency CNES and the Russian Space Agency have come to an agreement that will allow CNES to receive soil samples from the Phobos-Grunt mission. Due to lift off in October, the mission will return samples from the Martian moon Phobos, characterize the physical and chemical properties of the moon in-situ, and study ionization and solar wind effects in the Martian atmosphere.
The European Space Agency (ESA) plans to complete its global deep space tracking network with a 35-meter antenna in a radio-quiet desert area about 1,000 kilometers west of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
House and Senate lawmakers have voted to restore the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) alternate engine program over Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ objection and prompting a White House veto threat. However, the fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) was about 90 percent in agreement with Gates’ recommendations, Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said June 25.
LONDON Space and cyberspace are highlighted as two areas of growing interest in the British government’s first update of its National Security Strategy. The update, issued June 25, underscores the increasing importance of space access and utilization. “The U.K. needs to understand where and how it may be vulnerable and what the impacts of this might be — then ensure we protect against them and prepare for them.”
LASER JAMMERS: Israeli airliners are to be equipped with laser anti-missile systems after the Ministry of Transportation awarded Elbit Systems a $76-million contract to provide C-Music directed infrared countermeasures systems (DIRCM). Israeli commercial aircraft were fitted with flare-based countermeasures systems after the attempt to shoot down an Arkia Boeing 757 in Kenya in 2002. A DIRCM laser jammer can counter newer man-portable surface-to-air missiles.
SYNFUEL STEP: A new specification enabling use of synthetic jet fuels has been agreed upon and is on track to be issued in the fall. Initially this will enable use of fuels produced from biomass, natural gas or coal using the Fisher-Tropsch (FT) process in blends up to 50 percent with conventional jet fuel. But the new ASTM specification is structured to enable use of multiple alternative fuels, including sustainable biofuels. Approval for hydrotreated renewable jet blends is anticipated by the end of 2010. The U.S.
HYPERSPECTRAL SATELLITE: The Israeli and Italian space agencies have agreed to study a space-based hyperspectral sensor that could meet growing demand for systems capable of remotely mapping, identifying and classifying minerals, vegetation and other resources or distinguishing between different backgrounds and objects. If the nine-month study is conclusive, the two agencies will embark on a four-year, 170 million euro ($240 million) development program.
As it tries to resell 11 SH-2G Super Seasprites returned by Australia, Kaman is defending the naval helicopter’s safety and effectiveness in the wake of a damning report on the issues that led to the program’s cancellation. When the contract, awarded in June 1997, was canceled in March 2008, the total expenditure related to the Seasprites exceeded A$1.4 billion compared with the original budget of A$746 million, according to the report by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO).
GREENBELT, Md. – NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) soon will leave its home at Goddard Space Flight Center here and travel by truck to Cape Canaveral, Fla., where it is due to be orbited by an Atlas V rocket in November. The first mission in NASA’s Living With A Star program, SDO will study the solar atmosphere from geosynchronous Earth orbit, taking images of the sun in multiple wavelengths at a resolution 10 times higher than high-definition TV.
SPECIAL DELIVERY: Boeing shipped a Global Positioning System (GPS) IIF satellite to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to conduct a series of key tests for the U.S. Air Force’s satellite navigation system. Space Vehicle 2 (SV-2) is undergoing ground testing to prepare for the launch of SV-1, the first of 12 GPS IIF satellites. SV-2 arrived at Cape Canaveral May 7. SV-2 also is being used as a “pathfinder” to validate satellite transportation processes and equipment and to validate the launch site test program, procedures and equipment.
The chairman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee says it is “unacceptable” to scrap the presidential helicopter program after spending $3.2 billion developing it. Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) says he and other lawmakers are trying to convince President Barack Obama to try to salvage some of the VH-71 program, which Defense Secretary Robert Gates halted for cost overruns and schedule delays. The program was six years behind schedule and expected to balloon to $13 billion for 23 helicopters.
As Northrop Grumman rolls out its first Global Hawk Block 40 aircraft, the high-flying unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) program is facing some hurdles. The Office of the Secretary of Defense and U.S. Air Force are ironing out particulars of a delay to the initial operational test and evaluation (IOT&E) period for the Block 20/30 Global Hawk. Industry and government sources suggest it is likely to be nine months; the original plan was to start IOT&E in August and wrap up in November.
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Crews at Kennedy Space Center plan to fill the space shuttle Endeavour’s external tank with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen July 1 to test repairs designed to fix a gaseous hydrogen leak that has forced two launch scrubs of the STS-127 mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Crews have removed the Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate, where gaseous hydrogen boiling off is carried from the external tank into the flame stack at Pad 39A for burnoff, and sent its seals to Marshall Space Flight Center for inspection.
NEW DELHI — India has fast-tracked the field trials for its Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) program, which is aimed at buying 126 new fighters. Vendors have given their preferences for the month they wish to participate. Trials are being held in Leh for altitude testing, Jaisalmer for hot operations and Bengaluru (Bangalore) for humidity. The cost is estimated to average $35 million, which will be paid by the vendors (Aerospace DAILY, June 2).
The decision by U.S. House defense overseers to authorize continued funding for Next Generation Bomber studies has buoyed the hopes of Senate bomber advocates, even though Defense Secretary Robert Gates wants to wait before spending more.
A letter from Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, to Japan’s ambassador in Washington lists an estimated average unit cost of $290 million per aircraft for a theoretical export sale of 40 F-22 Raptors. Both Inouye and Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, and other lawmakers in both chambers are pushing both in public and behind the scenes to allow export of the stealthy, fifth-generation fighter.
CHINOOK TRAINER: L-3 Link Simulation & Training is to build the U.S. Army’s first CH-47F Chinook full-motion simulator, to enter service with the Flight School XXI training center in Fort Rucker, Ala., in November 2011. Link has already delivered CH-47D, OH-58D, UH-60A/L and AH-64D training devices to the school, and is developing the first UH-60M simulators for the center.
Training is a key shortfall in Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA), according to the U.S. Navy’s MDA director, Rear Adm. Stewart O’Bryan, and MDA training will be worked into the upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). O’Bryan said June 24 in a Capitol Hill speech that the Navy was reluctant at first to accept MDA as a concept because of concerns over budget. “I think we’ve turned that corner,” he said during a seminar hosted by the National Defense University Foundation. “We need to articulate our fair share, what our piece is.”
