Israel is planning to replace its aging C-130s with new Lockheed C-130J-30s. The C-130J is the newest tactical intertheater transport aircraft in service with the U.S. Air Force. The 130J-30 is the stretched version operated by several foreign air forces. The Israeli Air Force presently flies two squadrons of 16 C-130 E/H and 5 KC-130H refueling tankers in its inventory. Some of these aircraft became famous during the dramatic Entebbe, Uganda, commando-rescue mission in 1976, in which they flew freed hostages to safety.
Despite indications otherwise, including the cancellation of DDG-1000 procurement, the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) says one of its primary goals remains ensuring dominance in littoral waters. “The DDG-1000 decision in and of itself doesn’t in any way communicate a shift in the Navy out of the littorals,” said departing ONR chief Rear Adm. William Landay. “We’re still, from a science perspective, interested in littorals.”
U.S. analysts are beginning to address the question of why the Israeli Air Force was able to penetrate Syria’s Russian-made air defenses, while the Russian Air Force was not able to finesse Georgia’s Russian-made air defenses. That Russian-built and designed air defenses are exploitable was shown in the Israeli Air Force’s total shutdown of Syrian air defenses prior to bombing a suspected nuclear site last year (Aerospace DAILY, May 2). But Russia apparently didn’t have or didn’t use the digital keys to unlock the Georgians’ network.
HAWKING GLOBALLY: Bank of America Equity Research analysts believe that Northrop Grumman’s reconfirmed win of the U.S. Navy’s Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) unmanned aerial system (Aerospace DAILY, Aug. 12) sets up the defense contractor for global predominance in high-flying drones. “We continue to believe that there is significant export interest in large UAVs (e.g. U.K.
TUCSON, Ariz. – The Phoenix Mars lander and its science and operations teams at the University of Arizona and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) will reach key milestones this week, including an official determination by NASA that the mission is a complete success. Most of the Phoenix team also will shift to Earth time, instead of making the daily adjustments to local Mars time at the Phoenix arctic landing site that forces team members to work through the middle of their nights. Daily meetings
Logistics costs are continuing their climb through the ranks of leading Pentagon expenses in 2008, tallying up about $2.6 billion in contracts and modifications at the midyear mark and finishing fifth among the leading Defense Department expenses. So far this year, logistics has accounted for about 10 percent of the top 10 Pentagon expenses, according to an Aerospace DAILY analysis of government contracting data provided by the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting. (See charts pp. 6-8.)
EGYPTIAN HAWKEYE: Northrop Grumman has been awarded a $38 million contract to upgrade the Egyptian Air Force’s E-2C airborne early warning and control aircraft. The aircraft will be refurbished and upgraded to the Hawkeye 2000 (HE2K) configuration to include upgrades to the radar, mission computer, tactical mission system displays and navigation system.
Australia’s Defense Materiel Organization (DMO) has selected Ultra Electronics to provide the sonar for the South Pacific country’s new Air Warfare Destroyer. The decision kicks off a round of subcontracts for the so-called SEA 4000 project, slated to deliver the first of three ships in the Hobart-class in 2014.
MAGIC ISLAND: Thales has demonstrated automatic takeoff and landing of its Watchkeeper unmanned aerial vehicle system now in development for the British Defense Ministry. Trials were performed in late July, with the Defense Ministry present, leading to the validation of the system, known as Magic ATOLS (Auto Takeoff and Landing System). The trials were carried out using the Megido airfield in northern Israel. The basic air vehicle for the Watchkeeper is the Elbit Hermes 450. The in-service date for the Watchkeeper system is 2010.
PREFLIGHT: Boeing’s P-8A Poseidon aircraft has moved from final assembly to preflight work. The aircraft, a military derivative of the 737-800, is destined for U.S. Navy service. The Navy plans to purchase 108 P-8As to replace its fleet of P-3C aircraft. Initial operating capability is slated for 2013. This P-8A will move on to Boeing Field in Seattle early in 2009 for systems integration and additional testing.
ROCKET MOTORS: The Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) team, led by Northrop Grumman, has completed structural integrity and hydro-proof tests of composite cases planned for use on the high-pressure Stage 1 and 2 solid rocket motors. The testing took place over a three-month period that ended in July. The structural and hydro-proof tests intentionally destroy a case to demonstrate it can withstand internal pressures and loads beyond what the cases will experience during operational flight.
NEW DELHI – India may soon be making a follow-on purchase of 28 Hawk 132s trainer jets for the Indian Air Force (IAF) and for one squadron in its navy. This will be in addition to the 66 BAE Systems Hawks ordered by the IAF in 2004.
The U.S. Air Force has been enthusiastically planning for the official “stand-up” of its new Cyber Command Oct. 1, but that date, as well as the shape of the command itself, could well change dramatically, according to acting Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley.
SOFTWARE AWARD: NASA has awarded an enterprise architecture services contract to Information Dynamics of Elyria, Ohio. The company will perform business and data architecture, technical architecture, architecture integration and governance, and compliance reporting services across the agency. The firm fixed-price blanket purchase agreement has a base period of two years, with three one-year options giving it a total potential value of $40 million.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has denied Lockheed Martin’s protest of the U.S. Navy’s award to Northrop Grumman for its Broad Area Maritime Surveillance unmanned aerial system (UAS).
If the land war in Georgia so far seems to be going decidedly in favor of the Russian army and navy, the Georgians seem to be racking up a lopsided score with their air defenses. Over the weekend, the Russians made a successful advance on land through South Ossetia to the outskirts of the Georgian east-west transportation hub of Gori. There also was a one-sided naval battle – that resulted in the sinking of a Georgian gunboat – in the Black Sea off the coast of the second breakaway enclave of Abkhazia.
The U.S. Marine Corps is planning to fly its first KC-130J refueling tanker optimized with a gunship capability by the end of the year, according to service officials.
NASA managers have pushed back the initial operational capability (IOC) of the planned Orion crew exploration vehicle and its Ares I crew launch vehicle by at least a year to accommodate tight funding and a better understanding of the development work that will be needed to get to the first piloted flight of the space shuttle follow-on. The agency is holding the March 2015 IOC “commitment date” for the new vehicles, but it has moved its “aggressive” internal IOC target from September 2013 to September 2014.
IED JAMMERS: ITT Corporation has received a follow-on contract from the U.S. Navy valued at up to $1 billion for its CREW 2.1 Vehicle Receiver Jammers (CVRJs), which are mounted on vehicles to prevent the detonation of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Under the contract, ITT will build and deliver up to 15,000 additional CREW 2.1 devices, plus spares and related equipment.
