AIR FORCE The Air Force is modifying a firm fixed price contract with Honeywell International Incorporated of Tempe, Ariz., for $87,143,385. The indefinite delivery, indefinite quality requirements contract is for overhaul/repair and spares in support of several weapons systems. At this time, no money has been obligated. 448 SCMG/PKBC, Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., is the contracting activity (F34601-00-D-0371, P00068). NAVY
MOSCOW — The Russian Navy is planning in two years to receive its first multipurpose nuclear-powered submarines with long-range cruise missiles, which might eventually be armed with low-capacity nuclear warheads, a Russian defense ministry source told the official Itar-Tass news agency March 27. The new Severodvinsk attack submarine — Project 855 Yasen, also known as Graney — is expected to be commissioned in 2011. At least six such subs of the class will be built, the ministry said. The Sevmash shipyard could complete deliveries of the entire group by 2017.
NO EARLIER: Launch of the U.S. Air Force’s second Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) spacecraft, which was scrubbed on March 17 due to a upper-stage valve leak and then briefly rescheduled for March 31, will now take place no earlier than April 3, according to the Air Force. The suspect valve was replaced soon after the Atlas V rocket was rolled back to its integration facility (Aerospace DAILY, March 19). The latest rescheduling gives the Air Force more time to analyze the replacement.
An integral aspect of the counterinsurgencies that the United States is waging in Iraq and Afghanistan include “non-kinetic” activities like humanitarian assistance, reconstruction and development operations – things the U.S. armed forces are not trained to do but have increasingly taken on, leaving traditional aid agencies like U.S.A.I.D. and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) wondering where they fit in.
Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) has selected Elbit Systems to supply the helmet-mounted system for the future Korean Utility Helicopter. The helo project is eventually supposed to encompass around 250 rotorcraft, and industry projects an export market for another 300 units. Elbit will supply the ANVIS/HUD system.
Newer national security programs have not shown the same degree of cost and schedule growth as older ones, but the Pentagon is still plagued by worsening trends, congressional auditors say in their latest annual assessment of DOD’s major weapons programs. While the cumulative cost growth for the Defense Department’s programs is higher than it was five years ago, at $296 billion it is less than last year’s estimate ($295 billion then, or $301 billion in current dollars), the Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted March 30.
Early next month NASA will begin conducting seaworthiness tests of a full-size mockup of the Orion capsule in the Atlantic Ocean to give engineers a feel for how difficult it will be to recover the spacecraft, as well as what kind of conditions the crew can expect.
BRADY’S HUNCH: Gen. Roger Brady, chief of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE), says he is “having success” in making sure that the largest number of F-35s eventually operating in Europe belong to USAFE. Currently, several allies are scheduled to receive the new Joint Strike Fighter ahead of USAFE. Those nations have a full plan to transition to the F-35, and USAFE would like to transition at the same time, Brady said. “We have to have them at the same time as the allies,” he told reporters at a Defense Writers Group breakfast last week.
AIR FORCE The Air Force is awarding a cost type contract to International Business Machines Corp. of Yorktown Heights, N.Y., for $16, 246,981. The contract will provide the Millimeter-Wave Automatic Radio program focus on the development of sub-blocks of a millimeter-wave transceiver chip including local sensors, actuators, and control algorithm. At this time, $2,763,895 has been obligated. AFRL PKDA, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8650-09-C-7924).
The space shuttle Discovery landed safely at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) March 28, winding up a 13-day mission to give the International Space Station (ISS) its fourth and final solar array wing and life support equipment needed when the crew doubles to six in May. Discovery commander Lee Archambault and pilot Tony Antonelli flew Discovery over the Yucatan Peninsula, the Gulf of Mexico and Florida before executing a wide left turn to bring Discovery down to a 3:14 p.m. EDT landing on Runway 15 at the KSC shuttle strip.
NASA managers have decided to position the space shuttle Endeavour on Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39B when sister ship Atlantis lifts off from Pad 39A to service the Hubble Space Telescope, a move that will delay the first flight-test of the shuttle follow-on vehicle by three or four weeks.
Qatar expects to double its order for Boeing C-17s to four as part of broader plans to bolster its strategic airlift capability around the Middle East region and beyond. Speaking to Aerospace DAILY at a ceremony at Boeing’s Long Beach, Calif., facility for the nation’s first C-17, Qatar Armed Forces airlift selection committee head Brig. Gen. Ahmad Al-Malki says: “We’re looking for two more, and expect to sign for these around the end of the year.”
Lockheed Martin has begun two weeks of hover pit tests at its Fort Worth, Texas, development center on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The tests, which began March 19, have been delayed by high winds and rain but will consume about two weeks of actual constrained flights up to the full 40,000-pound operational thrust level, according to Bill Gostic, director of F135 engine programs at United Technologies’ Pratt & Whitney.
LONDON The British Defense Ministry may be girding its loins to make a decision on what it plans to do, if anything, about consolidating the basing for some of its helicopters. Under Project Belvedere, the ministry has been considering co-locating air force and army support helicopter units, but progress has been leisurely.
RED DRAGON: The British Defense Ministry’s abortive Red Dragon project to develop a military aircraft maintenance hanger at its St. Athan site is being criticized by government financial watchdog the National Audit Office. The overall development was undercut by a shift in the ministry’s approach to fast-jet support, which meant the hanger was no longer needed for the purpose it was built for in 2004.
NUCLEAR POSTURING: British unilateralists harboring any hope — however remote — that the Conservative Party might revisit the U.K.’s commitment to replacing the country’s present nuclear deterrent if returned to government, are being dashed. Liam Fox, the Conservative Party’s shadow defense secretary, spelled out its position during a debate in the House of Commons last week. “Nuclear weapons simply cannot be un-invented; they will remain part of the international security picture in the future,” Fox says. But while arguing that the U.K.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) Mar. 30 - 31 — 2009 Shephard Search and Rescue (SAR) Conference and Exhibition, “Working Together For Global Solutions,” Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Washington, DC. For more information email [email protected] or go to www.shephard.co.uk
LOS ANGELES Scaled Composites has completed the third, and so far longest, test flight of Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnightTwo (WK2) carrier aircraft being developed to ferry the SpaceShipTwo (SS2) spacecraft to its release altitude. During the flight, which took place from Mojave, Calif., on March 25, the WK2 flew for over 2.5 hours, and reached a maximum speed of 140 knots and an altitude of over 18,000 feet.
