Commercial spacecraft developers eager to begin building their vehicles are lobbying Congress to define the difference between an aircraft and a suborbital reusable launch vehicle (RLV), according to Jeff Greason, president of XCOR Aerospace. Congress passed the Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984 to provide a streamlined licensing regime for commercial space launches. Lawmakers amended the act in the 1990s to cover suborbital RLVs as well, but didn't define them, according to Greason.
The Senate Appropriations Committee's defense panel (SAC-D) approved a fiscal 2004 defense appropriations bill July 8 that adds $700 million to the Pentagon's budget request for National Guard and Reserve equipment and provides a slight increase to the missile defense request.
NEW DELHI - The Indian air force lost another MiG-23 fighter in a July 7 crash, prompting new calls to phase out the country's MiG-23 fleet. The pilot safely bailed out of the aircraft, which crashed in the Punjab region. India has lost more than 200 military aircraft in the last decade, most of them MiGs. The latest crash will force the defense ministry to phase out its MiG-23s as soon as possible, an air force source said.
LONDON - The Royal Air Force plans to close its Lyneham base in 2012 and consolidate its tanker and transport fleet at RAF Brize Norton, in Oxfordshire, according to a Ministry of Defence (MOD) strategic review released last week. The move reflects the United Kingdom government's attempts to meet its ambitious military procurement objectives - which include buying two new aircraft carriers for 2.8 billion pounds ($4.65 billion) - within strained budgets, a task made worse by U.K. military spending in Iraq.
L-3 Communications' Link Simulation and Training division will build additional F/A-22 Raptor training devices under a third production contract from the Boeing Co., L-3 said July 8. The $26.2 million contract calls for the company to provide four full-mission trainers, five weapons tactics trainers and an egress procedures trainer to the U.S. Air Force in late 2004. The award brings the total value of the company's F/A-22 trainer work to $180 million, L-3 said.
A report on what went wrong during a June 18 missile intercept test involving the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system is due to be released "very, very shortly," a program official said July 8. The report is expected to detail why a warhead deployed from a Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) failed to strike its intended target, an Aries missile fired from the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Kauai, Hawaii. The SM-3 was fired from the USS Lake Erie, an Aegis cruiser deployed in the Pacific (DAILY, June 20).
NEW DELHI - The Indian air force has upgraded its facilities for maintaining MiG-29 aircraft, according to a service official. The Base Repair Depot at Ojhar, near Mumbai, "has now taken up the indigenous development of highly complex avionics modules and mechanical items," the official said. The upgraded facilities will cut the cost of MiG overhauls, the official said, and will enable the installation of western avionics and armament.
If France's Direction des Construction Navales (DCN) or Thales Group buys a minority or majority interest in German submarine builder Howaldstwerke Deutsche Werft (HDW), they would get revenues from nearly every diesel-electric submarine sale in the world, according to several U.S. naval analysts. The French news agency Agence-France Presse reported July 8 that DCN and Thales are interested in acquiring all or part of HDW. Quoting a German newspaper, the news agency reported that DCN made a bid of 800 million euros (about $905 million) for HDW.
Canadian industry is on pace to reap a 4,116.6 percent return in revenues from joining the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter's (JSF) system development and demonstration (SDD) phase, a recent Pentagon study shows. Canada's government invested $175 million last year to launch the SDD phase and now is expecting to take in supplier contracts worth $3.9 billion over the JSF program's roughly 30-year lifetime.
Congress is reviewing a Foreign Military Sales (FMS) proposal to sell a $600 million maritime-based air defense package to South Korea. The potential contract calls for three Mk 41 Vertical Launch System (VLS) baseline VI shipsets, including 30 modules, worth $410.5 million, and related engineering, training and logistics support valued at $189.5 million, according to a notice posted July 8 in the Federal Register.
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board's (CAIB) final scheduled foam strike test produced a gaping hole in reinforced carbon-carbon (RCC) panel number 8, providing investigators with their best evidence yet that a similar foam strike led to the destruction of Columbia. During the July 8 test at Southwest Research Institute (SWRI) in San Antonio, Texas, a 1.67-pound piece of insulating foam was fired at an RCC panel 8 that flew 27 times on the shuttle Atlantis. Panel 8 is the largest panel on the leading edge of the shuttle's wing.
The F/A-22 Raptor program enters a Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) review July 8 showing "significant" progress on a nagging software instability problem, a Lockheed Martin spokesman said. Software updates installed since February have dramatically improved the cockpit system's reliability. The system would shut down every two hours in January because of software bugs but now can run 21 hours or more, Lockheed Martin spokesman Jeff Rhodes told The DAILY.
NASA launched "Opportunity," the second of the agency's twin Mars Exploration Rovers (MER), from Cape Canaveral Fla., July 7 atop a Delta II rocket. Liftoff took place at 11:18 p.m. EDT, with spacecraft separation occurring 83 minutes later. Opportunity's launch had been delayed several times from its original schedule of June 25 because of various technical issues with the launch vehicle (DAILY, July 2).
Lockheed Martin has selected Brazil's Embraer ERJ 145/EMB 145 regional jet platform for its bid in the U.S. Army's Aerial Common Sensor (ACS) program, the company announced July 7. Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are competing for the ACS contract to design and build a replacement for the Army's existing RC-12 Guardrail and RC-7 Airborne Reconnaissance Low systems. A request for proposals is expected to be released later this fall and a final downselect for the system development and demonstration contract is expected in March 2004.
WARNING SYSTEMS: Alliant Techsystems (ATK) has received a $15.4 million contract from the Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., for full-rate production of AN/AAR-47 Missile Warning System sensor upgrade kits and systems. The electro-optical systems will be delivered to U.S. Navy and Air Force aircraft, the company said July 7.
MOSCOW -- Russian aircraft will resume appearances at international air shows after a French court rejected the claims of a company that tried to seize two of the country's military aircraft in a debt dispute, a Russian official said last week. The Russian Aviation and Space Agency's director of aviation issues, Valery Voskoboinikov, said a French court has rejected an attempt by the Swiss firm Noga to impound two Russian aircraft, a Sukhoi Su-30MK fighter and a MiG-AT trainer.
NEW OFFICE: Information technology company NCI Information Systems (NCI) of McLean, Va., has opened a regional office in Colorado Springs to continue its work with the U.S. Department of Defense create "new business opportunities in the military and aerospace industries that call Colorado Springs home," the company said July 7. The company will target the area's military complex that includes Peterson Air Force Base, the U.S. Air Force Academy, the North American Aerospace Defense Command and others, NCI said.
General Electric and Pratt & Whitney will continue work on more powerful engines for the F-16 no matter who wins Singapore's competition for a new fighter, representatives of both companies said. Singapore is evaluating six fighters and has been expected to narrow the field to three by September. A winner would be chosen next year.
A key U.S. ally is expressing opposition to a House-passed proposal aimed at shoring up the American defense industrial base, saying the provisions in the fiscal 2004 defense authorization bill could hinder international cooperation on weapon systems. Geoff Hoon, Britain's defense minister, has released a statement saying the so-called Buy American provisions are "protectionist" and would "severely limit the scope" for closer transatlantic cooperation on defense equipment.
PRAGUE -- Organizers of the 10th Czech International Air Fest have confirmed that this year's show will take place at a civilian airport in Brno instead of its traditional home at the Hradec Kralove air base. The Czech Air Force Benevolent Fund's Agency (CAFBF), a co-organizer of the show, said in a statement last week that the Czech air force had decided not to help organize the show at the Hradec Kralove base because of an ongoing army reform process, which has reduced the number of air force personnel.
Organizers are confident that key players in the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) industry will vote to begin developing consensus standards at an upcoming meeting in Baltimore, according to Pat Picariello, director of developmental operations at The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) International.
The U.S. Defense Department lacks a focused strategy to reduce an annual loss of billions of dollars caused by corrosive damage to military weapons, equipment and facilities, says a General Accounting Office (GAO) report posted July 7.
