NEW DELHI – A $2.5 billion plan to prepare and launch a human spaceflight mission is awaiting India’s union cabinet approval before the program can take off. The first step in government clearance of the plan submitted by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has been approved by the Planning Commission, but “we have crossed just one step,” said S. Satish, an ISRO spokesman.
ORLANDO, Fla. – Boeing and Alenia Aeronautica have terminated all discussion about cooperating on the U.S. C-27J Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA). The two companies have been in talks for two and a half years to come to an industrial partnering agreement. They previously parted ways last year, only to return to the bargaining table. But this time the separation is final, according to representatives for both companies.
Boeing has named three men with long experience in the Pentagon, the State Department, and on Capitol Hill to senior positions in its Washington office. David Morrison, 51, a former staff director of the House Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee and most recently a principal at the consultancy Podesta Group, will become vice president for government operations. Sean McCormack, 44, was assistant secretary of state for public affairs under Condoleezza Rice in the George W. Bush administration.
ORLANDO, Fla. – Lockheed Martin is planning a series of three flight-tests next year of its entrant into the U.S. Army’s Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) design competition. These three test vehicles and three spares are being manufactured now, says Frank St. John, director of the company’s JAGM program, which is managed by the company’s Missiles and Fire Control unit here.
NASA has targeted a launch window of May 20-24 for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and piggybacked the LCROSS lunar impacter on an United Launch Alliance Atlas V from Space Launch Complex-41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The mission, originally expected last October and shifted several times since, is now being pushed back from an April liftoff slot to accommodate the launch of the U.S. Air Force’s Wideband Global Satcom-2 on an Atlas V on March 13 from the same pad.
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates – While on-again, off-again efforts to supply U.S. forces with a 2.75-inch (70mm) laser-guided rocket (LGR) have not produced a stable program so far, two fully funded programs have been disclosed at the IDEX defense show here.
MORE JOINT: The U.S. Army and the Australian government are expected to announce a deal for future Joint Light Tactical Vehicle buys, an industry executive says. Lockheed Martin’s JLTV Systems Vice President Lou DeSantis confirmed the deal during a briefing about the new JLTV prototype that his company unveiled at the AUSA winter symposium in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. DeSantis said each contractor still in the running for the final U.S. contract will be required to provide three vehicles with right-hand steering for the Australians.
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) is the new chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s airland subcommittee. The ranking Republican on the panel, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), is also new, according to the SASC staff. Lieberman, who used to be the panel’s ranking member himself when Republicans controlled Congress, is the only non-Republican to take a new subcommittee chairmanship. However, three Republicans are new to their posts as ranking members of various subcommittees.
An International Launch Services Proton will boost AsiaSat 5 into orbit from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan this summer, the companies announced. The satellite is under construction by Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) in Palo Alto, Calif., based on the company’s 1300 series spacecraft bus. It is to replace AsiaSat-2 at 105-deg. East and offer C- and Ku-band footprints over East Asia and South Asia and an in-orbit maneuverable Ku-beam.
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates – The United Arab Emirates is slated to begin to take delivery of the first of 48 Alenia Aermacchi M-346 aircraft in 2012 following the type’s selection to meet the air force’s requirement for an advanced jet trainer.
MIAMI – U.S. officials are crafting a plan to cooperatively help Central American nations and the Dominican Republic network and, eventually, modernize their disparate ground-based air-traffic radars. The effort, called SRVA (Regional Air Service System), is being spearheaded by 12th Air Force, which interacts with air forces in Central and South America.
FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Boeing will put the AH-6S Phoenix through its paces this summer, testing the proposal for the U.S. Army’s Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) for performance at 6,000 feet on a 95-degree day. “There are a couple of things we need to do to improve the aircraft” before offering it to the Army, according to Mike Burke, Boeing’s director of Army rotorcraft business development.
The fiscal 2010 NASA budget outline to be released by the Obama Administration Feb. 26 adds almost $700 million to the out-year figure proposed in the fiscal 2009 budget request submitted by former President Bush, and sticks with the goal of returning humans to the moon by 2020. The $18.7 billion that Obama will request for NASA – up from $18.026 billion for fiscal 2010 in the last Bush budget request – does not include the $1 billion NASA will receive in the $787 billion stimulus package that President Barack Obama signed Feb. 16.
LEAVING MANTA: U.S. officials are preparing to evacuate Manta Air Base, Ecuador, by July, says USAF Lt. Gen. Norman Seip, commander of the 12th Air Force, which interacts with air forces in Central and South America. This will close the chapter on a period since 1999 when the United States boosted operations from the base after losing access to Howard Air Force Base in Panama. Manta had been the site of Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) flights, as well as some Navy P-3s and other air operations supporting the counternarcotics mission that dominates U.S.
Australia still expects to get the full radar performance required under its contract for six Boeing 737 Wedgetail airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft, whose program is more than three years behind schedule. “The system has the potential to continue to grow into a world-class AEW&C capability,” the Defense Department manager for the project, Air Vice Marshal Chris Deeble, has told an Australian parliamentary committee.
SCOUTING A TIME: The U.S. Navy plans to conduct a technical evaluation of the MQ-8B Fire Scout Vertical Takeoff and Landing Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (VTUAV) program soon – “in early 2009,” according to contractor Northrop Grumman. Operational evaluation is scheduled for “later” in the year. The Fire Scout program is supposed to reach initial operating capability “soon” after OpEval in 2009. Northrop on Feb. 23 announced a recent expected Navy contract action for up to $40 million for the last of three planned low-rate initial production VTUAV buys.
LONDON – The United Kingdom needs to consider whether the Airbus Military A400M airlifter is in such a state of disarray that “abandonment would be preferable,” the British Parliament’s Defense Committee has said. The Committee’s “Defense Equipment 2009” report singles out the A400M along with the Future Rapid Effect System (FRES) armored vehicle as procurement programs of particularly concern.
TWO’S COMPANY: The second short takeoff and vertical landing (Stovl) F-35B Joint Strike Fighter, aircraft BF-2, made its first flight from Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth, Texas, plant on Feb. 25. The aircraft will be used for conventional up-and-away flight-testing while the first F-35B, aircraft BF-1, conducts powered-lift testing leading to a first vertical landing, expected in June-July. BF-1 is expected to begin hover pit testing at Fort Worth next week. Aircraft AA-1, the first F-35, made its 70th flight on Feb.
FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla., and ANAHEIM, Calif. – As the rhetoric over the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps VH-71 presidential helicopter escalates, prime contractor Lockheed Martin is girding itself for any possible outcome. Sikorsky says it “stands ready to support” a broader upgrade of the current VH-3D presidential fleet as a possible option to the troubled VH-71, potentially including a newly-certificated cockpit upgrade.
High-profile comments from President Barack Obama and his former Republican rival for the White House over the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps VH-71 presidential helicopter program have thrown prime contractor Lockheed Martin’s industrial team into a new defensive stance.
2008 Pentagon Expenses For Tracked Combat, Assault And Tactical Vehicles 2008 Pentagon Expenses For Tracked Combat, Assault And Tactical Vehicles Contractor Number Of Contracts Or Modifications Total Amount For Contracts Or Modifications Average Amount Per Contract Or Modification BAE Systems Land & Armaments 249 $4,790,920,143 $19,240,64
