LPD 17: The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps are agreeing and disagreeing over how hard to press for LPD 17 and general amphibious-assault shipbuilding. The chief of naval operations and the commandant apparently have agreed on a 30-ship operational amphib assault force, which requires 33 ships total when accounting for steaming and maintenance downtime. But which ships, what mix and when they should be fielded remain critical details to be resolved, according to recent congressional testimony and comments by the four-star officials.
STUAS RFP: The draft version of the Navy-Marine Corps STUAS/Tier II request for proposals (RFP) is expected to come out in April, says Lt. Col. Christopher Patton of the Marines’ Combat Development Command. An industry day for the replacement unmanned aerial system, called Small Tactical Unmanned Aerial System (STUAS) by the Navy and Tier II by the Marine Corps, is expected in May, Patton told an Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) conference Feb. 29. Patton said the full RFP will be out in July, as previously reported in Aerospace DAILY (Aug.
NOT WORRIED: NASA is not concerned about the shuttle Endeavour hitting any possible debris left over from the Pentagon’s destruction of a failing classified satellite following the orbiter’s planned launch on STS-123 March 11. The U.S. Navy destroyed the satellite Feb. 20 using a Standard Missile-3 interceptor fired from an Aegis cruiser. “It really poses no risk to the shuttle, with where we are,” NASA Associate Administrator for Space Operations Bill Gerstenmaier says.
The U.S. Air Force’s selection of a Northrop Grumman and EADS team for a $35 billion, multiyear program to build up to 179 KC-45A aerial refueling tankers bucks Boeing’s lock on the high-profile work and reflects the Air Force’s drive for multimission capabilities in its strategic fleet.
An in-house NASA design team that is sketching out a rough concept for the planned Altair lunar lander will soon be joined by some early industry partners to help with a “minimum functional” design that will be the starting point for an actual lander. To get to a working vehicle, NASA already knows it needs to trim about three metric tons from its concept, with propulsion systems the biggest opportunity for weight-saving.
TIGHT WADS: NASA is likely to get slammed by another congressional continuing resolution this year, which would keep its budget flat, rather than a formal appropriation that could boost it. Paul Carliner, a former appropriations aide to Sens. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) says time is so tight this election year that the most Congress is likely to send to the White House for signing are a supplemental funding bill for Iraq and Afghanistan operations, funding bills for the Defense and Veterans Affairs Depts., and perhaps a Homeland Security bill.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicated new calendar listing.) March 3 - 7 — 2008 Directed Energy System Symposium, Monterey Marriott Hotel and Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, Calif. For more information go to www.deps.org March 4- 5 — Fulfilling the Warfighters Vision Conference, Grand Hyatt, Tampa, Fla. For more information go to www.afei.org/brochure/8A04/index.cfm
CLASSIFIED SATCOM: Although the Pentagon’s $7 billion Transformational Satellite program, designed to introduce Internet protocols into space-based communications and send massive data files quickly to ground commanders, is going to be delayed until about 2018 (DAILY, Feb. 27), its classified counterpart appears to be on schedule. That program, once referred to as Polar Extremely High Frequency, is moving forward, industry execs say. Payloads for Polar EHF probably would be hosted on a classified satellite with a different primary mission.
The new head of the Pentagon’s unmanned systems acquisition oversight office says there is more than $500 million for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in the fiscal 2008 war supplemental, which Congress has yet to act on.
FT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Partners Northrop Grumman and OshKosh kept their Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) offering under wraps — literally — at the Association of the U.S. Army’s (AUSA) winter show here. Joe Taylor, Northrop’s vice president of ground combat systems invited Aerospace DAILY inside the tent on the show floor Feb. 29 for a glimpse of the new vehicle and a discussion of what makes the company’s proposal so unique.
NASA has approved space shuttle Endeavour to launch March 11 on STS-123, a 16-day mission that will mark the longest International Space Station (ISS) visit by the orbiter to date. The approval, which followed a day-and-a-half long meeting at Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Fla., came just nine days after Atlantis touched down from STS-122, which Shuttle Program Manager John Shannon characterized as a testimonial to how well Atlantis performed.
AEHF TESTING: Lockheed Martin has completed acoustic testing of the first Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) military communications satellite, the company announced Feb. 28. The spacecraft was subjected to the sound and vibration levels expected at launch during the test, which was conducted at company facilities in Sunnyvale, Calif.
While acknowledging that a recent Pentagon report raises legitimate concerns about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program, officials for prime contractor Lockheed Martin say improved technology is allowing them to address those concerns while maintaining the JSF’s schedule, costs and quality.
HORNET STUNG: Under current plans, the U.S. Navy will fall short of its strike fighter requirement by 69 F-18s by around 2016, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead told senators Feb. 28. The revised shortfall - which has been known although the number has been updated – comes amid interest by Boeing F-18 proponents to upgrade and further produce the fighter in light of planned Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) development under Lockheed Martin.
FT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Lockheed Martin announced Feb. 28 the completion of three successful tests of the Direct Attack Guided Rocket (DAGR) semi-active laser guidance kit for 2.75-inch rockets. Two guided flight-tests were conducted at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., Jan. 23 and 24, and a multipurpose sled test was run in December 2007. According to Lockheed officials, the tests demonstrated the system’s precision-strike accuracy, off-axis capability and delayed fuzing mode.
In a preview of the events to immediately follow the KC-X tanker selection, U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley says that his first question to the winning contractor will be, “When can I get my hands on the first airplane?” This is because the service plans to begin integrating it “nearly immediately,” he said. The first aircraft will immediately be sent to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., for checkout, Moseley said during a breakfast with reporters in Washington Feb. 28.
Controllers fear the Ulysses solar probe will soon reach the end of its useful service life, more than 17 years after its launch on the space shuttle Discovery in October 1990. Designed to give scientists their first good look at the sun’s poles, Ulysses is succumbing to the cold of its 6.2-year heliocentric orbit inclined 80 degrees from the ecliptic plane.
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told Senate lawmakers Feb. 27 that he will “personally” spend time taking another look at the possibility of remanifesting the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) experiment on a future space shuttle flight to the International Space Station (ISS).
RAPTOR RATIONALE: Criticism of the F-22’s applicability to the war against terrorism was batted aside by U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley. “We’ve got the F-22 in the AEF [Air Expeditionary Force] rotation,” he says. “We’ve flown the airplane against Russian bomber pentrations. We deployed it in Alaska and Japan. And we have scheduled, again, deployments in the Middle East and the Gulf Air Warfare Center [at Al-Dhafra, UAE]. So the notion that the F-22 is not participating overall is just not right.
BOMBER PREVIEW: The technologies already exist for the new bomber the U.S. Air Force has planned as the B-2 follow-on, the service’s chief says. “We’re integrating existing systems, not inventing new technologies,” says Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley. “We’ve told industry to use existing engines, sensors, offensive and defensive systems, weapons and weapons bays and then integrate them into something that gives us [greater] range, payload and persistence.
Damage to some ducting in the Stennis Space Center’s A1 test stand will delay the first full-duration hot-fire test of the powerpack for NASA’s new J-2X rocket engine until at least March 9 while repairs are completed.
Sea Launch confirms that it will inaugurate its new Land Launch derivative this spring, giving it an entrée in the fast-growing small geostationary telecom satellite market. Speaking Feb. 26 at the Satellite 2008 conference in Washington, Sea Launch President/General Manager Rob Peckham said he is “99.99 percent sure” that the Land Launch version will lift off from its Baikonur, Kazakhstan, launch pad this spring – probably in early April. He acknowledged that the Amos 3 payload had not yet arrived at Baikonur, but is expected shortly.
The U.S. Navy’s “deficit” in its P-3 maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft community has risen to a “significant” level after at least 39 P-3s, roughly a fourth of the service’s family, have been grounded, according to Navy officials.
