COMBAT SYSTEM: A new electronic tracking range managed by Naval Air System Command’s Aviation Training Systems Program Office will help two air carrier wings hone their flying skills prior to their upcoming deployments. The Tactical Combat Training System (TCTS) can be configured into several versions, including a portable system that can be sent nearly anywhere. The TCTS uses electronics to track and score training exercises performed by carrier battle groups and Navy squadrons, obviating the need for large, land-based training ranges.
Responding to combatant commanders’ “urgent need,” Pentagon acquisition czar John Young says the Defense Department will need to recapitalize 68 HC/MC-130 aircraft, and he has instructed the Air Force to pull together an acquisition strategy by December.
The $542.5 billion fiscal 2009 defense authorization bill from the Senate Armed Services Committee includes $497 million in funding authority to buy more F-22 Raptors in the future or to shut the manufacturing line down. Despite the high priority the U.S. Air Force places on cargo lift, the authorization measure doesn’t recommend funding any additional C-17 cargo aircraft.
The United States provided some nonparticipatory support and certainly winked at the Israeli air strike that disabled an alleged Syrian nuclear facility last year, but more interestingly, the strike also appeared to reflect techniques used earlier this decade by U.S. forces in Iraq. “What occurred isn’t inconsistent with what happened in Iraq twice before,” says a senior U.S. Air Force official with long experience in the world of clandestine operations.
The International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 17 crew will leave their Soyuz lifeboat docked where it is while a Russian State Commission investigates why the two previous Soyuz vehicles malfunctioned on re-entry, and other ISS operations could be affected as well. Original plans called for a May 7 relocation of the Soyuz TMA-12 vehicle that transported Expedition 17 commander Sergei Volkov, flight engineer Oleg Kononenko and South Korean spaceflight participant Yi So-Yeon to the station.
FUTURE LYNX: The Light Helicopter Engine Company (LHTEC), a joint-venture between Honeywell and Rolls-Royce, announced the delivery of the first CTS800-4 turboshaft engine to AgustaWestland for its Future Lynx helicopter program. The U.K. Ministry of Defense has ordered 70 Future Lynx tactical and maritime helicopters from AgustaWestland to meet the requirements of the Army Air Corps and the Royal Navy. The helicopter is due to be delivered in 2011, and will replace the current fleet of Lynx helicopters.
Two years after initiating a buy of 16 CH-47 F-model Chinook helicopters, the Canadian military is asking to procure six D-model aircraft from the U.S. Army. At the request of the Canadian government, an independent panel recently studied what resources it would take for Canada to sustain its commitment in Afghanistan until 2011. The six D-model Chinooks will provide what the panel called an “interim medium-lift capability” for Canadian forces.
CLUSTERING SUPPORT: Representatives from more than half of the world’s nations will gather in Dublin, Ireland, on May 19 to hammer out final details of a treaty banning the use and export of all or most cluster bombs – and antiwar activists in the United States are criticizing the Bush administration for not sending anyone. Meanwhile, the Quaker-based Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) is calling on supporters to lobby further to increase the number of co-sponsors of congressional legislation that would effectively ban the weapons from the U.S. arsenal.
ROLE REVERSAL: The Senate Armed Services Committee’s (SASC) fiscal 2009 defense authorization provides an additional $350 million to the U.S. Air Force’s Transformational Satellite (TSAT) program. SASC staff explained May 1 that the plus-up goes to address delays caused by planned Defense Department budget cuts. Pentagon officials this year moved to cut TSAT by about $4 billion through 2013.
Yi So-yeon, South Korea’s first astronaut, has been hospitalized with a minor back injury she suffered during the ballistic re-entry of the Russian Soyuz capsule that brought her home from a visit to the International Space Station (ISS).
After 12 years of service, NASA has decommissioned its Polar spacecraft, launched Feb. 24, 1996 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. to study the solar wind’s interplay with the Earth’s atmosphere. Built by Lockheed Martin and managed by Goddard Space Flight Center, Polar was launched by a Delta II into a highly elliptical orbit (apogee of 9 Earth radii, perigee of 1.8). Its official mission lifespan was just two years.
RUGGED LAPTOP: General Dynamics announced April 30 the successful integration of Cisco software onto its ruggedized laptop, part of a communications suite for soldiers accessing the U.S. Army’s Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T). Cisco’s Unified Communications Manager software was installed on the General Dynamics Itronix GoBook XR-1 computer, allowing soldiers in the field to access services such as telephony, e-mail, voice and text messaging on a small notebook computer. The computer may be stand-alone, mounted in vehicles or stored in transit cases.
Luna Innovations will receive almost $2 million to try out its shape-sensing technology in surveillance sensor arrays being developed under the U.S. Navy’s new Deployable Autonomous Distributed System (DADS). The company’s distributed fiber optic shape- and position-sensing cable is supposed to boost detection and assessment of underwater threats.
MONTREAL – The first U.S. Marine Corps squadron to operate Bell Boeing MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft in Iraq has returned to the United States, leaving their aircraft behind. VMM-263 has ended its deployment and been replaced by VMM-162, which is expected to remain in Anbar province until September or October, when they will be replaced by VMM-266, according to V-22 program manager Col. Matt Mulhern.
STAR LITE: The U.S. Army Communication-electronics Life Cycle Management Command has selected Northrop Grumman to produce the new multifunction radar for the Extended Range/Multi-Purpose Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) radar program. The initial $42 million contract with the Command’s Robotics and Unmanned Systems Program Management Office requires Northrop to deliver 10 STARLite Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)/Ground Moving Target Indication radars to the Army.
LONDON – British Defense Secretary Des Browne told the British Parliament on April 29 that the ministry would deploy troops to Kosovo as part of the NATO/European Union Operational Reserve Force (ORF). The deployment, in response to a NATO request, comes at a difficult time for the British army, which already has to cope with the effects of long-term troop deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq.
CONTROL SEGMENT: Northrop Grumman has brought Lockheed Martin on-board to compete for the U.S. Air Force’s Global Positioning System (GPS) Next Generation Control Segment (OCX) Phase B contract. The OCX modernization effort will provide mission enterprise control support for the nation’s existing GPS Block II and future Block III satellites. The current OCX contract for Phase A of the program is valued at $160 million. According to Northrop Grumman, if the team is selected for Phase B, it will use a block development approach to sustain and develop OCX.
Northrop Grumman is promoting the apparent successful test pairing of the lone Advanced SEAL Delivery System (ASDS) mini-submarine with the Ohio-class cruise missile submarine USS Michigan (SSGN 727) ahead of an expected go-or-no-go ASDS decision this year. The March test, which Northrop announced April 30, comes after the 14-year-old program was halted at its first troubled article in April 2006 and the military and industry were excoriated for development problems (Aerospace DAILY, Dec. 21, 2007).
Boeing has decided it will not bid the Super Hornet for the Swiss fighter program to replace the F-5, even although the country is already an F-18C/D operator. The company says the decision not to bid was based on a “thorough review of Switzerland’s requirements for partial replacement of its Tiger fighter aircraft.” Boeing concluded that the “disparity between the requirements for an F-5 replacement aircraft and the next-generation capabilities of the F/A-18E/F Block II Super Hornet,” did not favor a successful outcome.
An impressive roster of cabinet and congressional members warned an audience in Washington April 29 that challenges facing science and technology education in the U.S. will have ripple effects throughout society. Without a commitment to advancing math and science in grades K-12, “America’s kids today might enjoy a lower standard of life than their parents,” Norm Augustine said in his opening comments at a summit organized by the National Academies.
MONTREAL – The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps plan to fund a fatigue test article VH-71 starting next year to determine the life available on the initial fleet of presidential replacement helicopters, according to Navy Capt. Donald Gaddis, VH-71 program manager. The move is spurred by delays now expected to the fully capable Increment 2 version of the Lockheed Martin-led VH-71A that will require the interim Increment 1 aircraft to stay in service longer than planned.
FAA Acting Administrator Robert Sturgell named George C. Nield associate administrator for commercial space transportation. Nield was deputy to former Associate Administrator Patricia Grace Smith, who retired in February.
MISSION STATEMENT: Raytheon asserts that a recent industry-led review has confirmed that the mission system design for the planned DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer “is mature and meets U.S. Navy requirements.” Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems and the Zumwalt National Team have completed more than 2.7 million lines of software code and 10,127 drawings, conducted detailed design reviews of 92 percent of the program’s detail design and integration elements, and transitioned 56 percent of those elements to production.
The U.S. Navy’s two, very different Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) are in the water, with LCS 1 testing its propulsion systems and LCS 2 launching for the first time. LCS 1, the Freedom, is Lockheed Martin’s competitive bid: a 378-foot survivable, semi-planing steel monohull structure. On April 30, Freedom tested its main propulsion diesel engines. According to Lockheed, the two Fairbanks Morse engines can provide 17,000 brake horsepower, and will power the ship at cruise speeds to ranges of more than 3,500 nautical miles.
