SCRAMJET READY: Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne is preparing for tests of the newly assembled flight clearance engine SJX61-2 that is destined to power Boeing’s X-51A hypersonic WaveRider demonstrator in 2009. The SJX61-2, also known as the X-2, is a hydrocarbon-fueled scramjet engine designed to power the X-51A to speeds between Mach 4.5 and Mach 6 plus. Four test firings will be attempted in 2009, with each vehicle being dropped from a B-52 mothership before being boosted by a rocket to scramjet operating conditions.
The U.S. Navy must work closely with industry to position shipbuilding to weather future challenges, Navy Secretary Donald Winter said March 20. Winter told a luncheon crowd at the Navy Sea-Air-Space Expo in Washington that there is no “silver bullet, no single point solution, no single change that will solve the efficiency and modernization challenges in the shipbuilding industry.”
GRIM READING: A draft of the British Defense Ministry’s Planning Round 08 may now be on the U.K. Secretary of State for Defense’s desk – following a supposed bust-up between the army and navy over proposed cuts and delays. Speculation is rife as to which programs will be hit, to what extent, when the government will make public its decisions, and when the Defense Ministry will embark on the next planning round – also liable to be ugly. Most expect the government to announce the outcome of PR08 just before the British Parliament ends business for its summer break, July 22.
RETURNING SEASPRITE: Prime contractor Kaman will take back the SH-2G(A) Super Seasprite aircraft, training equipment and spares from the Australian government under an agreement that formally ends the program. Australia will get half of the proceeds, or a minimum of A$39.5 million ($35.5 million), from Kaman’s resale of the equipment. Out of the A$1.3 billion spent on the abandoned project, the government will also retain A$30 million of spares that can be used for its Sikorsky H-60s.
Under a Defense Department Inspector General (IG) investigation and more intense source selection scrutiny, the Air Force’s $15 billion combat, search and rescue replacement helicopter (CSAR-X) program is further delaying its planned contract award. The IG announced its investigation about a month ago into the way the Air Force changed a key performance parameter (KPP) for deployability (Aerospace DAILY, Feb. 25).
STENNIS FIRE: Test engineers at Stennis Space Center shut down a planned 550-second powerpack test of the J-2X rocket engine after 72 seconds March 19 when they noticed a fire on one of the valves on the facility side of the setup. The test article and the test stand both escaped damage, and testing is expected to proceed this week, NASA said.
UNDER SAIL: U.S. Navy strike group commanders “soon” will be able to take full advantage of fast-attack and cruise-missile submarine capabilities now that the Navy has achieved two-way, networked connectivity for subs at speed and depth, according to the Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR).
The Pentagon’s budget planning for the future anticipates that funding for development and procurement of weapons systems will be $177 billion by 2013, or about as much as the Bush administration’s fiscal 2008 request – excluding emergency supplemental funding, a congressional study says.
ISR CRADA: Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Army’s Communications-Electronics Research Development and Engineering Center’s (CERDEC) Intelligence and Information Warfare Directorate (I2WD) will develop tactical ISR capabilities together under a new cooperative research agreement they recently signed. “Together the team will investigate capabilities that enhance persistent ISR in a global networked environment, improve situational awareness and knowledge management across multiple domains and improve decision making abilities at all echelons,” Lockheed says.
The recent missile takedown of an ailing U.S. satellite showed that there’s still a lot the experts don’t know about what happens in space. “We didn’t predict an explosion,” says Rear Adm. Brad Hicks, U.S. Navy manager of the Aegis air and space defense program. “But the hydrazine tank did burn for tens of seconds. [The impact] also created smaller pieces than we had predicted. What’s still up there [is so small that] it is not showing up in the debris field.”
TANK SESSION: On March 26, the Joint Chiefs will meet with President Bush for a so-called “tank session” to discuss the future of U.S. forces in Iraq. The way ahead is “conditions-based,” Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell says, and one of the goals of the session will be to asses the impact of a rapid drawdown in Iraq. This month, the second combat brigade will return to the U.S., with three more returning between now and July.
ALTERNATE ENGINE: Researchers at the U.S. Air Force’s Arnold Engineering Development Center have completed a high-altitude afterburner test program for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s F136 alternative engine. The GE/Rolls-Royce fighter engine team’s test also included common exhaust hardware. The engine configuration included a production-size fan and functional augmentor that allowed several run periods to full afterburner, company officials say.
The space shuttle Endeavour will leave behind the 50-foot-long Orbiter Boom Sensor System (OBSS) it has used twice to inspect its thermal protection system for potentially deadly dings when it undocks from the International Space Station (ISS) on the evening of March 24 for the flight home.
CYBER CHIEF: Rod Beckstrom will serve as the first director of the U.S. Homeland Security Dept.’s National Cyber Security Center (NCSC). The center is tasked with working with other federal agencies to implement cohesive cyber security strategies, consistent with U.S. privacy laws. As director, Beckstrom will coordinate federal cyber security efforts while working to improve situational awareness and information sharing.
INTELSAT RESULTS: Intelsat posted a net loss of $191.9 million last year on revenues of $2.18 billion. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization rose to $1.6 billion, or 73 percent of revenue, compared to 65 percent in 2006. Fleet fill rate improved to 76 percent, from 70 percent twelve months before, and backlog jumped to $8.2 billion, up from $7.9 billion a year earlier.
Difficulties incorporating safety modifications to the big foam-covered external tanks that carry propellants for space shuttle launches could delay by four to six weeks the planned Aug. 28 launch of the shuttle Atlantis on the final mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.
SUBSURFACE OCEAN: NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has discovered evidence that points to the existence of an underground ocean of water and ammonia on Saturn’s moon Titan, using radar data on its rotation. The science team collected synthetic aperture radar data during 19 separate passes between October 2005 and May 2007.
FUEL BLEND: A U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer operated the first supersonic flight fueled by a 50-50 blend of synthetic fuel and petroleum March 19. Pilot Capt. Richard Fournier detected no difference in performance, comparing it to flights using a 100 percent JP-8-fueled, GE F101-powered aircraft, according to an Air Force statement. The crew completed a full complement of maneuvers at low speed and in the supersonic regime over White Sands Missile Range in south central New Mexico. The B-1B took off from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Adm. William “Fox” Fallon said March 19 that he tendered his resignation because he felt that unfounded rumors about policy conflicts between himself and President Bush were diverting attention away from what is truly important – that the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan be resolved as quickly as possible.
Ahead of the NATO summit in Bucharest, Hungary, British lawmakers claim in a new report that political frailty and the growing gulf in defense expenditures among NATO members threatens the future of the trans-Atlantic alliance. The U.K. Parliament’s Defense Committee is cautioning that the alliance needs to quickly address issues that will otherwise gnaw at its well-being – and eventually risk its existence.
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER – Spacewalkers Bob Behnken and Mike Foreman were set March 20 to conduct a deferred on-orbit test of a heat shield repair technique that could come in handy on a future space shuttle mission, and particularly on the upcoming flight to service the Hubble Space Telescope. The pair had a 6:28 p.m. EDT start time for the fourth extravehicular activity (EVA) of the STS-123/1J/A assembly mission to the International Space Station (ISS). It will be the first EVA of the flight that does not involve any station assembly or robotics activity.
SERV AWARD: Lockheed Martin announced March 20 that it received a $23.9 million contract modification from Northrop Grumman to provide hardware for the next phase of full-rate production on the Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Safety Enhanced Re-entry Vehicle (SERV) program. In this phase, Lockheed Martin will deliver 120 more full-rate production SERV hardware kits by December 2010. With options, the total value of the contract over seven years is estimated at $137 million.
Australia seems to be increasingly embracing Boeing’s F-18 fighters, including electronic-attack Growler versions, as the new government there aligns to some degree with decisions made by the leadership it dislodged in last year’s elections.
The U.S. Navy is planning to begin testing a new version of its AIM-9X short-range air-to-air missile that will feature a datalink for in-flight targeting in the spring. Initial flight-testing of the AIM-9X Block 2 will take place onboard the F/A-18C by June, with the Air Force’s F-15C to follow, says Navy Capt. Jeffrey Penfield, AIM-9X program director at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md. If testing goes as planned, the new missile will reach the field in late 2011. Both the Navy and Air Force are expected to procure it.
