The way U.S. export controls work for space technologies could prevent commercial space operators from taking non-U.S. citizens on spaceflights, and the industry is urging reform of the system to prevent U.S. companies from being overtaken by foreign competitors.
SUPER GALAXY: Lockheed Martin has delivered the 50th C-5 Galaxy strategic airlifter upgraded with Avionics Modernization Program (AMP) improvements. The aircraft was delivered to Air Force Reserve Command’s 433rd Airlift Wing at Lackland Air Force Base, Tex. The AMP modifications are scheduled to be completed in the second quarter of 2014. A total of 111 C-5s are scheduled to be modified. Phase 2 modernization will be under the Reliability Enhancement and Re-Engining Program (RERP), which includes installation of GE CF6-80C2 commercial engines.
BEE LINE: In case there’s any confusion following Northrop Grumman’s acquisition and renaming of Swift Engineering’s KillerBee (now Bat) line of blended wing-body unmanned aircraft (Aerospace DAILY, April 29), Raytheon says it has purchased rights to the technology — and the name — and will still offer the KillerBee 4 for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (STUAS)/Tier 2 competition now under way. The company says it has the rights to produce, sell and improve the KB-4 for STUAS and other programs.
AIR DEFENSE: Finland plans to purchase the Nasams II ground-based air defense system to meet its medium-range air defense missile system program. The Nasams system is built by Raytheon in partnership with Kongsberg, and uses the former company’s ground launched variant of is AIM-120 AMRAAM radar-guided missile. The contract is worth 3 billion Norwegian Kronor ($458 million). MBDA and Denel also had been pursuing the Finnish deal.
Australia plans to spend A$100 billion ($70 billion) on military equipment over the next 20 years, including new submarines, warships, helicopters and cruise missiles, according to leaked details of its new defense white paper reported by local media. Defense minister Joel Fitzgibbon will unveil the white paper, “Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century: Force 2030,” on May 2. It is Australia’s first defense review in nine years and the first by prime minister Kevin Rudd’s Labor government.
C-17 TUSSLE: Efforts in Congress to block Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ plan to end production of the F-22 stealth fighter and the C-17 cargo lifter appear to have stalled, in part because of White House intervention, according to an industry source. The White House called several lawmakers, including Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), to the West Wing last week, encouraging them to abandon efforts to save the C-17.
EUROFIGHTER GAP?: After nearly a year of some Eurofighter Typhoon partners crying wolf over a production gap if a Tranche 3 decision was not forthcoming, now it really is a possibility. As of last week a British funding decision still appeared stuck in the Treasury, the government’s finance ministry, while the German political process requires a decision likely in the first two weeks of May. A gap opening up between Tranche 2 and Tranche 3 — assuming the latter proceeds — would increase industrial costs.
COMMON UNMANNED: The U.S. Navy awarded Raytheon a $16.5 million contract to migrate the current Tactical Control System (TCS) to a Linux-based operating system and add upgrades to the system software. The contract extension will add other key capabilities as well, including upgrading software to control the radar and adding a universal hand control. The contract also will provide support to TCS integration and testing that will lead to operational evaluation on the MQ-8B Fire Scout program, which the Navy intends to conduct with Northrop Grumman this summer.
Finmeccanica is confirming guidance on revenues and operating results for both 2009-2010, notwithstanding the economic environment and benefits from DRS Technologies contributions, while financial debt increases and research and development (R&D) investment remain at double-digit levels.
On the job for only four days, new Defense Department acquisition chief Ashton Carter laid out his priorities at a roundtable with select reporters at the Pentagon April 30, starting with a fresh look at DOD’s portfolio. A program-by-program review is “job one,” Carter said. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on April 6 made his budget recommendations known. Now it is time for “spinning out the implications of those decisions,” Carter said.
The cancellation of the Transformational Satellite (TSAT) program tees up a crucial test for the national security space community as it tries to move on from its traditional emphasis on monolithic, “one-size-fits-all” space systems, according to a DOD space and intelligence official.
DESTRUCTION RECONSTRUCTION: The U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency (CMA) says it will destroy its two-millionth munition in coming months. CMA also announced April 28 the destruction of 60 percent of the declared U.S. stockpile under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which means CMA has cut the overall continued storage risk from the nation’s stockpiled chemical weapons by 94 percent.
NO SMALL DELIVERY: Ducommun said April 28 that it has delivered flight-ready nanosatellites to the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command-Army Forces Strategic Command in Huntsville, Ala. The company said the delivery marks the completion of the first Army satellite development program since the Courier 1B communications satellite in 1960. The Miltec subsidiary responsible for the delivery worked with the Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center for flight qualification and subsystem testing.
MOVED UP: Senior NASA managers formally set a May 11 launch date for the space shuttle Atlantis on the final mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope, advancing the target date by a day to gain as much time as possible for launch attempts before a range conflict on May 13. Liftoff on May 11 would come at 2:01 p.m. EDT.
If there is a cyberattack on the United States, network specialists would not know where it came from, if it were really an attack or even how to contain it, according to a group of blue-ribbon business, legal, scientific and military specialists who authored a new National Research Council (NRC) paper. And right now, if the U.S. wanted to launch a cyberattack there would be no policy to shape it, no laws to control it and very little idea of its second- and third-order effects.
MAY DAY: The Pentagon’s latest budget request could be unveiled next week, possibly May 6 or 7. One indication: the National Defense Industrial Association has re-scheduled its popular “Annual Budget Directors Briefing” for May 14. The no-press event had to be moved from February after DOD briefers were forbidden from speaking while Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the Obama administration worked out their own rough draft. The long-awaited fiscal 2010 budget — once thought to be a pro forma extension of the George W.
Stung by criticism in Washington over the VH-71 presidential helicopter program that U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates wants to scrap and reassess, AgustaWestland is firing back and arguing, essentially, that there is no reason to start all over.
LOS ANGELES — A U.S. Air Force Space Command-led team is close to completing definition of the requirements for Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) systems and expects to publish its initial findings in June. The capabilities-based assessment for Rapidly Deployable Space is expected to set firm requirements for capabilities in space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, as well as space situational awareness and satellite communications. Work on the project began last October, and has involved 15 different studies.
CANNES, France — French space agency CNES is refining a concept for a new multifunction satellite bus that could serve a wide variety of low-Earth orbit missions. The bus, suitable for spacecraft in the 350-900 kilogram (770-1,980-pound) class, would replace the Proteus platform, developed in the late 1990s. Thales Alenia Space, which supplies Proteus, has built six of the spacecraft. Four of them — the Jason 1 and 2 altimetry missions, the Calipso A-Train spacecraft and the Corot planet-finding mission — are in orbit.
LONDON — BAE Systems is axing more than a quarter of its remaining U.K. land systems staff as the company reacts to delays in a key U.K. program, as well as a slowdown in other business. Up to 500 jobs are being cut and three British sites closed within the company’s Global Combat Systems (GCS) Vehicles and Weapons business. Plants at Guildford, Leeds, and Telford are to close, and there will be some job losses at other sites. The company cut 200 jobs from its U.K. GCS staff in late 2008.
