The biggest challenge facing the aerospace industry in the next 10 years is the government's failure to develop a national security strategy, the head of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) said June 4. "We don't have a long-term strategy," AIA President and CEO John Douglass told a defense suppliers forum sponsored by Aviation Week. "And without a long-term strategy," the defense department "tends to be victimized by politics," Douglass said.
The U.S. Air Force has awarded Northrop Grumman $12.2 million for work related to the E-10A, which was believed to be an otherwise defunct program come fiscal 2008.
ARMY Longbow L.L.C., Orlando, Fla., was awarded on May 24, 2007, a $28,880,672 firm-fixed-price contract to support the Saudi Arabia AH-64D Apache Longbow Fire Control Radar Programs. The work will be performed in Orlando, Fla., and is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2011. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This was a sole source contract initiated on April 17, 2007. The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (W58RGZ-07-C-0129).
HELLFIRE: Lockheed Martin has been awarded a direct commercial sale contract by Eurocopter to support integration of the Hellfire II missile and all-digital M299 missile launcher on the Tiger attack helicopter. The 54-month effort includes training missiles, inert missiles, 80 M299 missile launchers and test equipment. Integration will occur at the Eurocopter facility in Marignane, France, with ground tests beginning this October and flight tests in March 2008. The financial terms of the contract were not disclosed.
Boeing expects to be field testing tactical lasers in the 5-25 kilowatt range within the next six to 12 months, said Lee Gutheinz, company director for high energy laser/electro-optical (HEL/EO) systems. One of the more promising systems is a laser that could hit a Stinger or other portable shoulder-fired (MANPAD) missile in flight to keep it from hitting an aircraft, Gutheinz said June 1. Such a laser could be deployed to a forward operating base in current conflicts, he said.
LAKOTA: The U.S. Army's Light Utility Helicopter, the UH-72A Lakota, has achieved its first unit equipped milestone with the May 22 delivery of six aircraft to the National Training Center Air Ambulance Detachment at Ft. Irwin, Calif., the Army announced June 4. The service intends to procure and field a total of 322 Lakotas, which are built by EADS North America Defense. The estimated ten-year contract value of the program is approximately $2.6 billion.
A threatened strike by aerospace union workers against United Space Alliance (USA) has the potential of affecting the planned June 8 launch of Atlantis on STS-117, especially if weather or technical issues force a launch postponement to the evening of June 9 or later. Local 2061 of the International Association of Machinist and Aerospace Workers voted June 2 to reject a contract offer by USA at Kennedy Space Center, calling the company's offer substandard. The company said it is surprised and disappointed at the union's action.
As industry observers await the expected announcement of the winner of the Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA) for the U.S. Army and Air Force this month, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) is looking to redistribute lead acquisition duties from the Army to the Air Force.
CHAMELEON SENSORS: The U.S. Defense Microelectronics Activity (DMA) awarded Signal Technology Corp. a $5.5 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract on May 25 for the Chameleon Phase VI Program. Signal Technology, doing business as Advanced Integrated Systems Division, has been the sole-source contractor for the first five phases of the sensor technology effort, according to a U.S. government FedBizOpps announcement. There were four bids solicited on April 4, 2007, for Phase VI but only one bid was received.
MORE LETHAL: Don't expect to see non-lethal directed energy (DE) weapons like the microwave-transmitting Active Denial System in Iraq soon, says Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute. The weapons simply are too benign for U.S. soldiers battling with lethal-weapon-toting insurgents, Thompson says. A Pentagon consultant for DE programs earlier in this decade, Thompson says there's still interest in developing and deploying such systems. Just not in Iraq and not now.
NEW SHOWTIME: The German TerraSAR-X satellite is slated to be launched on June 15 from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The launch had to be pushed back as technical personnel fixed problems with the Dnepr launcher. The 1.3-metric ton spacecraft is already in Kazakhstan undergoing pre-launch preparations. TerraSAR-X is the first German spacecraft financed through a public-private partnership. Astrium is the industrial partner. The satellite will be placed in a polar orbit at an altitude of 514 kilometers (319 miles). Service life is pegged at five years.
WEBB SERVICING: While NASA is doing everything it can to ensure that its upcoming James Webb Space Telescope won't need to be serviced by astronauts like the Hubble telescope following its 2013 launch, the agency may leave the door open to the possibility. When orbiting at the second Lagrange point roughly 1,000,000 miles from Earth, Webb will be too far out for any current manned spacecraft to reach.
SATCOM NETWORK: Yah Satellite Communications, an affiliate of Abu Dhabi government-owned Mubadala Development, says it has selected EADS Astrium and Thales Alenia Space to supply a 5 billion dirham ($1.4 billion) dual-use satcom network to serve the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Southeast Asia. Neither manufacturer would comment on the deal, but based on past collaborations by the two firms, Astrium could be expected to supply the two spacecraft and Thales the payload and ground segment.
NOSTRADAMUS: Onera, the French aerospace laboratory, says it plans to begin work on an advanced derivative of the Nostradamus over-the-horizon ionospheric radar brought into service in late 2005 with the French air force. The new version, which is expected to receive a green light later this year or in early 2008, probably would employ the same star-shaped network architecture as Nostradamus. But it has not yet been decided whether to upgrade the existing facility or build an all-new installation.
EATC: France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium have signed an agreement to prepare the way for a European Air Transport Command (EATC), intended to plan and deploy tactical and strategic airlift capacity for the European Union and ensure the standardization, safety and interoperability of airlift fleets. The agreement aims to have an initial EATC operating capability - one of the European Union's primary capability shortfalls - by 2009.
SOFIA ARRIVES: NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) soon will begin its multi-phase three-year test flight program, having arrived at its new home at Dryden Flight Research Center in California May 31. The heavily modified Boeing 747SP was ferried to Dryden from Waco, Texas, where L-3 Communications Integrated Systems installed a German-built 2.5-meter infrared telescope and made other major modifications over the past several years.
The U.S. military has rolled out $635 million more for production of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, with $623.1 million to a unit of Navistar International for 1,200 Category I MRAPs and an additional $12 million for 14 Category IIIs from high-profile provider Force Protection, according to the Pentagon and the contractors.
The U.S. Air Force and National Security Space Office (NSSO) have launched a study into the feasibility and practicality of developing a solar energy harvesting system that uses satellites to collect sun power and beam it to Earth-bound collector systems via laser, microwave or similar transmissions.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected] June 4 - 6 -- AVIATION WEEK's Defense Suppliers Forum, "Mitigating Supply Chain Risk Through Improved Compliance and Contracting Programs," Washington Marriott, Washington, D.C. For more information call Rachelle Young at (212) 904-2779, email: rachelle_ young@ aviationweek.com or go to http://www.aviationweek.com/ forums.
COUNTDOWN: NASA will start the launch countdown for STS-117 at 9 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, June 5, at the T-43 hour point. The countdown includes 27 hours, 32 minutes of built-in hold time leading to a preferred liftoff time at approximately 7:38 p.m. Friday, June 8. During the 11-day assembly mission to the International Space Station, shuttle Atlantis' crew will help install the S3/S4 truss segment, unfold a new set of solar arrays and retract one array on the station's starboard side.
ON DEMAND: A concerted effort by the U.S. Air Force and National Security Space Office (NSSO) to use satellites to collect solar power and transmit it to the planet's surface (see story p. 4) could provide the Army with its oft-stated need for "energy on demand," says the co-chairman of the study to do the task, Air Force Lt. Col. Michael Hornitschek. Another benefit of the space solar-satellite energy effort could be the development of cheaper access to space, he says.
WITHHOLDING: Aerospace and defense lobbyists in Washington are making limited but significant progress in their effort to undo a looming requirement to withhold 3 percent from certain federal contract payments starting in 2011. They are trying to spotlight the alleged cost of establishing the bureaucracy to enact it, the potential impact on contractors' performance and supposed costs returned to taxpayers.
NEXT-GEN SUPPORT AIRCRAFT: The U.S. Navy has chosen L-3 Communications Integrated Systems for a $42.2 million contract to develop a Next Generation Range Support Aircraft, a modified P-3. Contracted work includes designing, developing, documenting, installing, integrating and testing modifications and range instrumentation. The work will be performed in Waco, Texas, and is expected to be completed in April 2011, the Defense Department announced May 30.
