CIVIL CHALLENGES: Simulator manufacturer CAE, which emerged in the black for the quarter ending Dec. 31, says its role in the civil marketplace this year will be challenging due to decreased aircraft deliveries. Its outlook for its role in the defense market remains positive, says President and CEO Robert Brown. In the quarter, Montreal-based CAE reported a 23 percent increase in revenue to C$424.6 million ($339.7 million) and a 33 percent increase in revenues from continuing operations to C$53.3 million, compared with same period last year.
SUBMARINE BUY: Indonesia plans to buy a Russian submarine, the first of three that a senior official says the western Pacific country needs. Yusron Ihza, deputy chief of an Indonesian House of Representatives commission, says he has inspected several “submarine factories” in Moscow. It isn’t clear exactly what plants these were. The Russian capital is well inland. The Indonesian purchase will be made in stages, Yusron says.
CHINA SATS: Nigeria has contracted with China Great Wall Industry Corp. to build three more telecom spacecraft. The first, due for launch in the last quarter of 2010, will replace NigComSat-1, lost last year as the result of a power failure on China’s new DFH-4 high-powered bus. The other two, NigComSat 2 and 3, will be orbited six months and 12 months later, respectively.
The Defense Department’s Property and Equipment Policy Office (P&EPO) and U.S. Marine Corps racked up about $2.1 billion in unsupported acquisition costs because of procurement management problems, the Pentagon Inspector General (IG) says. “P&EPO and USMC did not have adequate controls in place over the USMC military equipment baseline,” the IG said it its Feb. 9 report. As a result of those management problems, the Pentagon says: • USMC valuation, rights and obligations, and completeness assertions were unsupported;
SPACE WORKFORCE: NASA managers are sharpening their pencils to come up with a plan for spending the $1 billion in new fiscal 2009 money the agency will get under the compromise economic stimulus package President Obama is expected to sign this week. While lower than the $1.3 billion in the Senate-passed version of the bill, officials believe they can secure roughly 7,000 “new or preserved” jobs with the aeronautics, Earth science and cross-agency spending contained in the bill.
GOSAT A GO: Japan’s GOSAT, renamed Ibuki now that it’s in orbit, has passed its initial imaging tests as the Japanese space agency JAXA marches through a three-month checkout period following the spacecraft’s launch Jan. 23. Initially named the Greenhouse gases Observing Satellite, Ibuki is measuring methane and sources of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to support climate change studies (Aerospace DAILY, Jan. 26).
FOREVER YOUNG: Pentagon acquisition chief John Young has dubbed the U.S. Navy’s expected next guided missile destroyer the Future Surface Combatant (FSC). In a recent memo, Young says that until a decision is made on which hull will be the baseline for future DDGs (the now-truncated DDG-1000 or the DDG-51), the ship will be referred to as the FSC. Funding for the FSC appears under the DDG-51 program procurement line, but will be moved to the DDG-1000 funding line. The decision on FSC is expected in fiscal 2009.
SERVICE RESTORED: Eumetsat says the Advanced High Resolution Picture Transmission subsystem on its first polar-orbiting satellite, Metop-A, is operational again following a two-month trial to correct an anomaly on a power transistor that shut down the system in July 2007. The system will not be activated over the polar regions and the South Atlantic, because of the heavy ion radiation that caused the outage.
CAE TAPPED: The Canadian government has awarded a C$329.5 million ($266.5 million) contract to CAE to provide aircrew training equipment and services for Canada’s fleet of 17C-130J transports. The contract’s industry team includes Xwave of St. Johns, Newfoundland: Bombardier, Saint-Laurent, Quebec; Atlantis Systems International, Brampton, Ontario; and Cascade Aerospace, Abbotsford, British Columbia.
EXPRESS DELIVERY: An Office of Naval Research request for information (RFI) on cargo unmanned aircraft systems will draw at least one response. Sikorsky confirms it will offer up a concept based on its X2 Technology high-speed coaxial-rotor helicopter. The X2 is designed to cruise at 250 knots, the speed specified in the RFI, while retaining the low-speed agility of a helicopter. Other ideas likely to be proposed include compound helicopters and tiltrotors.
YOUNG GETS OLD: John Young, the Pentagon’s increasingly unpopular acquisition chief, is becoming a big liability for Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Critics say the recruitment machinery is churning to find a replacement before even more enmity is created between the Pentagon’s top military and civilian managers. With debate over the Quadrennial Defense Review beginning this month, the Obama administration needs to move quickly.
The first short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) F-35 Joint Strike Fighter could begin powered-lift testing on the hover pit at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth, Texas, plant as early as this week. This will begin perhaps the most critical phase of testing for the F-35 program. About a month of hover-pit testing is planned before the first F-35B, aircraft BF-1, returns to the air to begin STOVL flight testing, says J.D. McFarlan, F-35 air vehicle development team lead.
NEW BIRD: SES has selected Space Systems/Loral to build QuetzSat-1, a telecom satellite intended for the joint venture, QuetzSat, it has established in Mexico with local investors. The Ku-band satellite, which is precontracted entirely to EchoStar for use by its Dish Mexico affiliate, will be launched in 2011 to 77 deg. W. Long.
ON TRACKS: The U.S. Army is researching a lighter weight linked track for its tracked vehicles. The Marine Corps has been donating investment dollars to the effort, hoping to save a potential 800 pounds on its Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV). “We’ve been giving money to the Army to answer concerns particular to our design process,” says Col. Keith Moore, EFV program manager. A prototype track should be ready in the next year to 18 months, Moore says, at which point the Marines will begin durability tests on the new design.
LAUNCH READINESS: The European Space Agency (ESA) says the Herschel and Planck orbital telescopes have completed testing and are ready to be integrated at the Arianespace payload facility in Kourou, French Guiana, for a scheduled twin launch on April 16. Separately, ESA said it will fund continued operation of its Mars Express, Venus Express and Cluster solar missions until Dec. 31.
The Pentagon continues to struggle with poor weapon systems acquisition at both strategic and program levels, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) testified to the House Appropriations defense subcommittee Feb. 11.
BANGALORE, India – AgustaWestland, a Finmeccanica company, and Tata Sons have signed a memorandum of understanding at the Aero India air show to form an Indian joint venture company to establish a final assembly line for the AW119 helicopter in India. The joint venture company will be responsible for AW119 final assembly, completion and delivery to customers worldwide while AgustaWestland will retain responsibility for worldwide marketing and sales. The agreement was signed by AgustaWestland CEO Giuseppe Orsi and Tata Sons Chairman Ratan Tata.
In observance of the U.S. President’s Day holiday, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report will not publish an issue on Monday, Feb. 16. The next issue will be dated Feb. 17.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – The U.S. Air Force is hunting for a sophisticated Russian-made S-300PMU2 (SA-20) air defense missile system to beef up the simulated threat training environment in the Nevada test ranges, but cannot find a seller.
The days of a single U.S. aircraft “kicking down the door” in a military attack appear to be history and not even the largest defense acquisition ever planned is looking to take on the responsibility, according to the top two generals in charge of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).
The field of debris from the recent collision of a defunct Russian government satellite with an Iridium spacecraft should stabilize within about a month, at which point its behavior should be fairly predictable, according to U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Without concrete numbers from the Defense Department, predictions regarding the Pentagon budget are merely informed speculation at this point, according to analyst Andrew Krepinevich of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA). “Even before the financial crisis, the defense budget was running out of gas,” Krepinevich said Feb. 12. “In the near term, [defense] spending in general will be protected, but further out, things really do become grim.”
