To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) May 12 - 14 — EBACE, Geneva PALEXPO, Geneva, Switzerland For more information go to http://www.ebace.aero/2009/ May 12 - 14 — Joint Warfighting Conference 2009, “Building A Balanced Joint Force: How Best To Meet Demands of the Future Security Environment?” Virginia Beach, Va. Convention Center, Virginia Beach, Va. For more information go to www.jointwarfighting.org
SURGE AND RESCUE: Boeing will have to reconfigure its Chinook helicopter production line in Ridley Park, Penn., to reflect Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ recommendation that a combat search and rescue helicopter replacement be postponed until a more multi-service platform can be competed. “The fact that CSAR isn’t a program that will continue in the near-term threw a monkey wrench into building planning,” says director of Chinook programs Jack Daugherty. “We’re figuring out what capacity we need.” The company is currently building 3 CH-47s a month.
The expert panel set up to review human spaceflight options for the Obama administration is likely to produce at least one alternative to the present space shuttle follow-on, according to the panel’s chairman. Former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine said May 8 the panel will start with an examination of the Ares I/Orion crew vehicles now in development to replace the shuttle after it is retired in 2010, and probably won’t generate many different options (Aerospace DAILY, May 8).
NICE RECOVERY: Utah’s congressional delegation has announced the U.S. Army is to consolidate all system-integration and production-acceptance testing for its Hunter, Shadow and Sky Warrior unmanned aircraft systems at Dugway Proving Ground in the state’s western desert. This will somewhat offset the embarrassment that followed the delegation’s March announcement the U.S.
VERTICALLY CHALLENGED: The first vertical landing by the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter is now expected in September. Aircraft BF-1 is to begin short takeoff and vertical landing mode transitions in flight “in the next few weeks,” Lockheed Martin says, then it will be ferried to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., to continuing “building down” to lower airspeed until it is in hover. The company says the delay in the first vertical landing will not have a “meaningful impact” on the program.
TURBULENCE AHEAD: If contractors find the fiscal 2010 budget process to have been painful at the Pentagon, they should brace for FY ‘11, according to military and industry sources. Initial phases of the FY ‘11 budget are now underway, with the service major commands forming initial funding proposals. Those will eventually be collated in the Pentagon late this year in advance of a February delivery to Congress. But FY ‘11 will be the first year where funding is expected to level off, according to these sources.
TANKER TINKERING: Northrop Grumman/EADS is re-evaluating its original plan to link its A330-based U.S. Air Force tanker offering with the plum of assembling A330-200F freighters at its tanker assembly site in Mobile, Ala., in light of the current economic climate. The recession has depressed demand for the aircraft, affecting the economics of such a plan, says Domingo Urena, managing director of the newly formed Airbus military unit.
SEVILLE, Spain Sorting out the future for the A400M military airlifter may take most of the year, even if customers commit this summer to continuing with the program. A critical milestone is fast approaching for the TP400D turboprop’s full-authority digital engine control (Fadec) software: Its initial flight-test is scheduled for this month. The Fadec software has become the pacing item for the airlifter’s first flight, owing to problems with attaining the needed civil certification with the European Aviation Safety Agency.
The U.S. Navy unrolled its budget request for fiscal 2010 on May 7, featuring a topline of $156.4 billion, including $4.18 billion for a new Virginia-class submarine. “There is an initiative within the department to get the cost of the Virginia-class down to $2 billion per boat,” said briefer Rear Adm. J.T. Blake, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for budget. “There is tremendous pressure on the system to drive the cost down.” The change in price could occur by FY ’12, Blake said.
NASA is running out of plutonium-238, the nuclear-weapons byproduct it uses to generate electricity for spacecraft that venture beyond the range of solar energy, and a National Research Council (NRC) panel recommends the U.S. government restart production to enable deep-space exploration to continue. “The day of reckoning has arrived,” states the report by the Radioisotope Power Systems Committee of the NRC’s Space Studies Board. “NASA is already making mission-limiting decisions based on the short supply of [Pu-238].”
PROCEED: Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co. will build the first two spacecraft in the next series of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES-R), after its $1.09 billion contract with NOAA and NASA was modified. Boeing protested the award on Dec. 2, 2008, and the two government agencies said May 7 the contract was re-awarded after “a series of corrective actions were implemented” and the contract reevaluated. Launch of the first satellite is scheduled for 2015.
U.S. Army aviation will head to Capitol Hill to ask for $5.3 billion in fiscal 2010 procurement money for its aircraft programs. The uptick in operations in Afghanistan is driving demand for helicopter pilots and platforms. The Army is asking for $1.26 billion for 79 UH-60 Black Hawks under the multiyear program and another $99 million for advance procurement. Another four Black Hawks are requested under Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding (previously referred to as the supplemental) for $74.3 million.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) fiscal 2010 budget request shows a shift away from midcourse engagement alternatives and toward a new “ascent phase” capability. This underpins a strategy toward defending against ballistic missiles from rogue threats or nation states such as Iran and North Korea.
PROGRESS FLIES: The latest unmanned Russian supply vehicle for the International Space Station, ISS Progress 33, launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 2:37 p.m. EDT, reaching its preliminary orbit and deploying its solar arrays and antennas nine minutes later. The spacecraft is due to dock at the station’s Pirs compartment at 3:23 p.m. May 12, at which point the Expedition 19 crew will begin unloading its 2.5 tons of food, fuel and supplies. ISS Progress 32 undocked from the station May 6 at 11:18 a.m. filled with trash and other discarded items.
The Obama administration is asking for $9.95 billion for the U.S. Coast Guard for fiscal 2010, including funding for two HC-144A medium range Maritime Patrol Aircraft, according to the Homeland Security Department’s budget request.
For all the statements about the importance of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) ahead of the U.S. defense budget’s release, details of where the almost $2 billion in additional fiscal 2010 ISR funding will be spent remain scarce. One of the biggest pieces is the U.S. Army’s General Atomics MQ-1C Sky Warrior unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The 2010 request includes $651 million for three full systems — $401 million for 24 aircraft in the base budget and $250 million for another 12 in the “overseas contingency operations” supplemental budget.
Kongsberg has begun development of the Joint Strike Missile (JSM) under a NOK166 million ($25.6 million) contract from the Norwegian Defense Procurement Division. JSM is proposed as an anti-ship and land-attack missile for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The contract covers the 18-month first phase of the program, under which the Norwegian company will develop and test changes to its in-production Naval Strike Missile (NSM) required to produce the air-launched JSM.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was not in the room when the Pentagon unveiled its first budget request under the Obama administration on May 7, but he did not need to be, as his fingerprints are all over its themes of reform and unconventional warfare, as well as its omissions.
The U.S. Army is requesting a fiscal 2010 base budget of $142 billion — $2 billion more than the service’s FY ’09 request — even though there are some big cuts on the ground vehicle side of the ledger. The biggest cut, of course, comes in the form of the eight variants of the Future Combat Systems (FCS) Manned Ground Vehicle fleet that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has already revealed would be dropped (Aerospace DAILY, April 7).
TACTICAL TERMINAL: Sagem says the French army has field-tested a new tactical terminal intended to allow ground troops and forward observers to directly receive and transmit images acquired by sensors on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The unit, known as ERS-RVT (for End Reception Station-Remote Video Terminal), comprises a terminal and man-portable transmitter/receiver designed to supply real-time high-resolution displays of geo-referenced images and digital maps. It also provides feedback from previous missions along with threat assessments.
