PARIS AIR SHOW — Despite the Obama administration’s official desire to cancel the General Electric/Rolls-Royce (GE/RR) F136 alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the program and its customers are privately telling the manufacturers that the engine is needed. Behind this apparent contradiction, GE and RR people at the show here believe, is the fact that the F136 has more inherent power potential than the current Pratt & Whitney F135 configuration.
NASA’s Cassini Saturn probe has detected vertical structure in the rings of Saturn from a carefully timed imaging angle as the sun approaches a direct pass over the planet’s equator. With Saturn’s equinox due later this summer, shadows cast by ripples in the edges of the Keeler Gap — located in the outer A ring — stretch across the rings. The waves are generated by Daphnis, a tiny moon only five miles across that perturbs the particles of ring material in the edges from its inclined orbit within the 26-mile-wide gap.
STUAS HOPEFUL: Elbit debuted its Hermes 90 unmanned aerial system (UAS) at the Paris Air Show this week. Elbit is trying to expand its reach in the U.S. market with a recent joint venture called UAS Dynamics, with General Dynamics. UAS Dynamics has initially set its sights on the U.S. Marine Corps Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (STUAS) Tier II program. A large version of the Skylark, called Hermes 90, and the Hermes 450 would be covered by the agreement. The purpose of the joint venture is not just to give both programs a U.S.
PARIS AIR SHOW — During his first Paris Air Show as secretary of the U.S. Air Force, Michael Donley emphasized international cooperation as a way to accomplish global security requirements with fewer resources available during the economic crisis. However, he notes that export control policy lies mostly in the hands of the U.S. Congress, which is likely to work for local interests. This is similar for European parliaments, which may be hesitant to buy some U.S. technologies when they reside in the European industrial base.
PARIS AIR SHOW — Northrop Grumman is studying a vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) unmanned cargo aircraft concept called Wild Thing. The fan-in-wing vehicle is designed to operate from any aviation-capable U.S. Navy ship, carrying payloads up to 10,000 pounds. The concept has been tested in wind tunnels and briefed to the Navy, but there is no formal requirement yet for such an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), according to Gene Fraser, Northrop vice president and deputy for strike and surveillance systems.
PARIS AIR SHOW — Arianespace has two new commercial space launch contracts, although the company is not yet revealing details. In an interview here with Aviation Week’s Show News June 15, Jean-Yves Le Gall, chairman of the board and CEO of Arianespace, declined to elaborate on the awards, but did say that the European commercial space launch company has signed a record number of contracts in the past six months.
Much rides on the Pentagon’s pending ballistic missile defense review, but a few core principles are emerging to guide the massive spending effort over the next several years, according to congressional testimony June 16 by top Defense Department officials. DOD wants to redirect future efforts on early interception of missile threats because it forces potential adversaries to invest in costly responses, and the Department wants to make sure theater-based forces and allies are protected, even over legacy efforts to defend the homeland.
PARIS AIR SHOW — Top management from MBDA is sounding out the Pentagon over proposed changes to its strategy in the United States, as the European missile house again tries to boost its presence in the world’s largest single market.
PROBABLE CAUSE: The U.S. Air Force has pinpointed the likely cause of the distorted signals coming from the latest Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite to reach orbit. The problem appears to be related to the interface for the L5 payload, which is demonstrating a new signal for civil GPS users. Launched on March 24, the Lockheed Martin-built GPS IIR-20(M) spacecraft was still in its checkout phase when the distortion was discovered, so there has been no affect on GPS users.
The Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) had little to do with the Pentagon’s decision to terminate the C-130J program, and had no inappropriate influence over a later contract-change decision, a recent Defense Department Inspector General (IG) report says. “We found no evidence that DCMA personnel were either requested to provide or did provide any written analysis of the termination costs,” the IG says in its report, released earlier this month.
The House Armed Services Committee took up the Obama administration’s fiscal 2010 defense budget request June 16 and quickly authorized $8.9 billion for Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and $603 million for the Joint Strike Fighter alternate engine program. As the 62-member committee worked its way through the individual subcommittee portions of the $550.4 billion authorization bill, it passed the terrorism subcommittee’s recommendation of $8.9 billion for SOCOM and $308.4 million to fully fund SOCOM’s unfunded priorities.
A key to the problems of cyber defense is not to construct a “Maginot Line of firewalls” that someone will finally penetrate, according to the Pentagon’s No. 2 civilian, but rather to use the models of irregular conflict and the “fluid battlefield” to conduct “maneuver warfare” using cyber combat tools and tactics to ensure online freedom of movement.
PARIS AIR SHOW — Raytheon is considering whether and how to proceed with work on key technologies that were part of the dying Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV) and Kinetic Energy Interceptor efforts, which have been funded by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency. The Pentagon proposed terminating MKV and KEI in the fiscal 2010 budget; Congress hasn’t yet approved the plan.
A system that helps satellite navigation signals burn through jamming is to be fielded later this year for U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), according to Boeing, which is developing the capability. Called high-integrity GPS, the system uses existing signals from the Iridium low-Earth orbit (LEO) communications satellite constellation to increase the accuracy and anti-jam capability of GPS receivers, particularly in urban areas like Iraq and mountainous areas like Afghanistan.
PARIS AIR SHOW — Study work has been carried out examining the benefits of fitting a low-observable electronic warfare pod to the Lockheed Martin F-35 to further boost the aircraft’s electronic combat capability, according to a U.S. Marine Corps officer. The F-35 is a candidate platform for the next-generation jammer (NGJ), though a conventional pod design would affect the aircraft’s radar cross-section. Using a stealthy pod configuration would provide additional capability while minimizing the affect on the aircraft’s low-observable characteristics.
ARMY Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Stratford, Conn., was awarded on June 8, 2009, a $60,434,958 firm-fixed-price contract for the procurement of four UH-60L aircraft uniquely configured of the Brazilian Air Force (FMS Case BR-B-UTZ). The work is to be performed in Stratford, Conn., with an estimated completion date of Nov. 30, 2012. One bid was solicited with one bid received. Aviation & Missile Command Contracting Center, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (DAAH23-02-C-0006). NAVY
HYPER ACTIVE: Boeing is studying the potential for mating its X-51 WaveRider hypersonic vehicle technology with small satellites to provide an operationally responsive space launch capability, Phantom Works president Darryl Davis says. Four X-51As are being built for flight tests beginning late this year to demonstrate flight to beyond Mach 6 using a hydrocarbon-fuelled scramjet. The X-51 will be rocket-boosted from under the wing of a U.S. Air Force B-52.
Missile defense advocates on the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) will attempt to restore funding for ground-based interceptors when the panel takes up the fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill June 16.
