LONDON — An initially skeptical U.S. Navy is warming to unmanned airplanes, Northrop Grumman says. “We’re getting a grudging and gradual understanding” of the value of an unmanned combat air vehicle [UCAV] for the U.S. Navy, Northrop Grumman deputy program director Tim Beard told IQPC’s UCAV conference in London June 22.
The U.S. Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS) has officially been canceled, according to an acquisition decision memorandum (ADM) released June 23 by the Defense Department’s Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Ashton Carter. The Army’s troubled, $160 billion-plus modernization program — led by Boeing and SAIC — had long been in the sights of critics, and this year their numbers included Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who announced in April the termination of the program’s major Manned Ground Vehicle (MGV) component.
The U.S. Congress is dropping hints about digital combat, resources and training in defense appropriations language, but doesn’t seem to be getting the nation any closer to developing a chain of approval for launching cyber attacks.
Japan’s government is showing patience in pursuing leading U.S. aircraft for its F-X program, which is supposed to produce about 40-50 high-performance, fifth-generation fighters. The F-X is needed to replace legacy F-4J Phantoms. They have already been replaced in Okinawa with F-15s in the last few months because of the high operational tempo in the southwest area of responsibility, which extends to within about 150 miles of China.
PARIS AIR SHOW — Arianespace Chairman/CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall and Astrium Space Transportation head Alain Charmeau say political and risk considerations point to using both the Soyuz booster and the higher-cost Ariane 5 to launch Europe’s Galileo satellite navigation system. Launches of both vehicles would take place from Kourou, French Guiana, home of the Ariane 5 and the location of a newly built Soyuz pad.
LONDON — The Royal Navy’s latest combat ship, the Type 45 destroyer, has provided a painful — if potentially valuable — contracting experience for the U.K. Defense Ministry, according to a parliamentary report. The Public Accounts Committee report on the Type 45, published in the U.K. June 23, is highly critical of elements of the multibillion dollar program, particularly the early stages of the project.
STATION SUPPORT: NASA has awarded a $144 million follow-on contract to ARES Corp. for International Space Station support. The Burlingame, Calif.-based company will provide support for configuration management, data management, information technology, safety and mission assurance, vehicle integrated performance, resource and budget analysis, program schedule development, engineering and technical services, spacecraft integration, international partner integration and strategic analysis planning, according to NASA. The contract runs through Sept.
Raytheon, a vocal opponent of ending the DDG-1000 as recently planned, is touting a company-commissioned study on the U.S. Navy’s modernization plans that concludes, predictably, that the Raytheon/Northrop Grumman DDG-1000 is more survivable than the legacy DDG-51.
NEW DELHI — India recently received a consignment of 155mm light howitzers from Singapore Technologies (ST) Kinetics, despite a temporary ban on procurements from seven companies that include ST, Aviation Week has learned. Other banned companies include Israeli Military Industries, BVT Poland, Media Architects of Singapore and three Indian companies — T.S. Kishan and Co., R.K. Machine Tools and HYT Engineering Co.
IRAQ AIR COVER: With U.S. forces drawing down and repositioning in Iraq and an apparently improved security environment in urban areas, air support — especially by unmanned vehicles — remains a key enabler of continued security, according to U.S. Air Force Col. Michael Fantini, commander of the 332nd Expeditionary Operations Group. Fewer combat operations are taking place, but the sortie pace remains high. “I guess things are not necessarily at a lower operations tempo; they’re at a lower kinetic tempo,” he tells a Pentagon-organized roundtable of bloggers.
Measat 3a, a Malaysian communications satellite that was damaged in a crane accident at Baikonur Cosmodrome last August, reached its geostationary transfer orbit June 21 after launch from Baikonur on a Land Launch Zenit 3SLB rocket. Liftoff came at 5:50 p.m. EDT, sending the 2,366-kilogram (5,216-pound) satellite on the first step of its flight to a final operating position in the geostationary orbital slot at 91.5 deg. E. Long.
CRYO DEMO: The European Space Agency (ESA) has issued a 20 million euro ($28 million) follow-on award to a team led by Snecma, Astrium and Avio for a high-thrust first-stage technology demonstrator to be tested under ESA’s Future Launcher Preparatory Program. The award will permit testing of subsystems intended to prove the reliability and cost-effectiveness of the demonstrator design, which employs cryogenic propulsion. The 33 million euro project is expected to define a reference design by mid-2010 and to test fire a midscale demonstrator in 2014.
The U.S. Air Force general in charge of U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) says he needs multirole aircraft to perform his varied missions, meaning the newest U.S. fighter is not necessarily the answer. Those missions include maritime surveillance and air patrol and interdiction, Gen. Victor Renuart told Aviation Week after a speech last week on Capitol Hill. “Part of this air sovereignty mission is identification and nonkinetic enforcement. It’s diverting airplanes away. It’s identifying unknowns in our system. That doesn’t always require an F-22,” he said.
SENSITIVE PREDATOR: The U.S. Air Force is awarding a $71 million cost-plus-incentive-fee contract to Northrop Grumman Mission Systems’ Electromagnetic System Laboratory of San Jose, Calif., to provide MQ-1 unmanned aerial system (UAS) communications intelligence airborne signals intelligence Payload-1 C scaled sensors for the Predator UAS. The Reconnaissance Systems Wing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity.
PARIS — The Rafale fighter could be one step away from securing its first export order, following submission last week to the French government of final technical requirements for a 6 billion-10 billion euro ($8.3 billion-$13.8 billion) 60-aircraft purchase by the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
