RAPTOR DELIVERY: The Lockheed Martin-led F/A-22 Raptor team has delivered Raptor 4011, the last of five dedicated initial operational test & evaluation (DIOT&E) aircraft, the company said Nov. 27. Government officials signed formal acceptance documents for the aircraft on Nov. 26 in Marietta, Ga. The aircraft will be delivered to California, where DIOT&E pilot training is scheduled to begin at Edwards in February, the company said.
NEW DELHI - France's Snecma Aerospace is negotiating a cooperative venture with India's state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) to build engines in India. A senior executive with Snecma's Indian subsidiary, Snecma Aerospace India Pvt. Ltd. (SAI), told The DAILY that the two companies could agree to split work equally on engine programs for India's defense forces. Snecma already supplies engines for India's Advanced Light Helicopter, the intermediate jet trainer HJT-36 and the Cheetah and Chetak helicopters.
ISRAELI AID: It's possible that some of the additional $4 billion in military aid requested by Israel could be spent on U.S. military hardware, says Joel Johnson, vice president of international affairs for the Aerospace Industries Association. But it remains unclear how much will be spent in the U.S. and on what weapon systems. Israel is likely to ask for substantial offset agreements in return for buying American hardware.
DATA DELIVERY: NASA plans to brief contractors Dec. 18 on the agency's upcoming Space Mission Communications and Data Services (SMCDS) procurement, the agency says. The SMCDS will succeed the aerospace agency's current Consolidated Space Operations Contract (CSOC), which will expire in December 2003. The $3.4 billion CSOC contract, awarded to Lockheed Martin in 1998, includes managing data collection, telemetry and communications across NASA, but agency Administrator Sean O'Keefe said it hasn't led to the savings NASA expected (DAILY, Sept. 19).
TANKER DEAL: If the White House signs off on an Air Force proposal to lease 100 Boeing 767 air refuelers, the Bush Administration may wait to ask lawmakers to approve the deal until Congress reconvenes in early January, Capitol Hill sources say. It would be considered bad form for the Administration to send such a big-ticket item to the Hill when lawmakers are absent, the sources say. Under terms presented to the White House, leasing the aircraft and buying them at the end of the lease would cost a total of about $21 billion.
The launch of the Astra 1K satellite ended in failure when the Block DM upper stage of its Proton K launch vehicle failed to place the spacecraft in its proper orbit. The Proton K lifted off on schedule at 4:04 a.m. local time Nov. 26 from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan (6:04 p.m. Nov. 25 EST), and all three stages of the rocket performed as expected.
The Air Force is looking at all possible ways to get payloads into orbit more efficiently, according to Brig. Gen. John T. "Tom" Sheridan, Air Force Space Command's director of requirements. "We're in the process of conducting an Analysis of Alternatives to rigorously evaluate all of the possibilities ... with the goal of selecting an alternative, developing any necessary technologies, and testing the capability before the end of the decade," Sheridan said.
The Littoral Airborne Sensor Hyperspectral (LASH) airship program will return to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., for further testing Dec. 1, equipped with additional sensors for demonstrating homeland security surveillance applications. Built by Honolulu-based Science and Technology International (STI), the LASH system originally was developed for the Navy as a means of detecting submarines, undersea mines, and ocean mammals. The system was designed to be flown on SH-60 Seahawk helicopters and PC-3 Orion aircraft.
The F/A-22 Raptor successfully completed the last of four flight tests scheduled for this year, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. said Nov. 26. The test, which took place at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., on Nov. 22, involved the launch of a unarmed, heat-seeking AIM-9M Sidewinder missile at a QF-4 target drone flying at 14,000 feet. Supercruising at 24,000 feet, a Lockheed Martin F/A-22 test pilot positioned Raptor 4007 several miles directly behind the drone and launched the Sidewinder, the company said.
The sale of Boeing's Spokane Fabrication Plant to the Triumph Group (DAILY, Nov. 26) will strengthen Triumph's long-term relationship with Boeing and expand its product line, according to two financial analysts. The plant, which employs 400 workers, manufactures thermoplastic and composite aircraft parts, particularly for floor panels, air control system ducts and non-structural composite flight deck components. Terms of the sale included an eight-year single-source supplier agreement with Boeing for the parts currently supplied by the plant.
WOODWARD AIRCRAFT ENGINE SYSTEMS will be the exclusive supplier of augmentor spray bar manifold assemblies to Pratt & Whitney for the Joint Strike Fighter's F135 engine. The company previously was selected to supply fuel and pilot nozzles for the engine. The components will be produced at the company's Zeeland, Mich., facility.
ALLIED RESEARCH, Vienna, Va. Gen. J.H. Binford Peay III (ret.), chairman of the board, president and CEO, will resign effective June 2003, to serve as superintended of the Virginia Military Institute. He will remain as non-executive chairman. THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS, New York Reginald I. Vachon, president of VNA Systems Inc., has been named president.
The Senate has adjourned for the year without voting on dozens of presidential nominations, including Air Force Maj. Gen. John Corley to be the Air Force's No. 2 acquisition official. However, President Bush can resubmit those nominations when the new 108th Congress takes office in January, and Corley is expected to be among those that are resubmitted, an Air Force spokesman said Nov. 26.
The Defense Department continues to be under-equipped for defeating surface-to-air missiles and other enemy air defenses, even though the General Accounting Office called attention to the problem almost two years ago, the GAO said Nov. 26. DOD has made "little progress" since January 2001, when the GAO expressed concern about the military's capabilities for suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD), the GAO wrote in its latest report.
SPACEWALK: The International Space Station's fourth truss segment was attached to the station Nov. 26, and mission specialists Michael Lopez-Alegria and John Herrington, who arrived at the station the day before, conducted the first of three spacewalks to outfit and activate the new segment.
NEW DELHI - The Indian air force plans to buy an advanced centrifuge simulator to improve pilot training. Air Marshal S.K. Dham, the director general of medical services for the air force, told The DAILY the simulator would allow pilots to experience up to nine Gs of acceleration forces, allowing the Institute of Aerospace Medicine to prepare pilots to fly advanced aircraft. India plans to spend about $21 million on the simulator.
Raytheon Co.'s work on a communications system for the Army's Future Combat System (FCS) will help officials decide whether to proceed with further tests. Raytheon's Intelligence and Information Systems business unit, of Falls Church, Va., demonstrated the first low- and high-band directional, networked communication system for FCS (DAILY, Nov. 26), and was selected over competitor TRW to move into the third phase of the effort, slated to run through next April.
(Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from a speech made Nov. 20 by Sen. Robert Smith (R-N.H.), who is leaving Congress. Smith served on the Armed Forces Committee.)
Starting in 2005, NASA plans to begin testing technologies for safely ejecting crewmembers from its upcoming Orbital Space Plane (OSP) in the event of a failure on the launch pad. On Nov. 20, NASA the awarded Lockheed Martin Corp. a contract worth up to $53 million, including options through 2006, to develop a reusable launch pad abort demonstrator to test abort technologies for the OSP and beyond (DAILY, Nov. 22).
Financial analysts have adjusted their earnings estimates for Northrop Grumman Corp. in 2003 and 2004 after a Nov. 21 conference call with senior company officials about the proposed acquisition of TRW Inc. Paul Nisbet, senior aerospace and defense analyst for JSA Research Inc., said he now expects Northrop Grumman's 2003 earnings per share to total $7.10, down from JSA's initial estimate of $7.60. For 2004, JSA predicts earnings per share to reach $8.45, the same as originally predicted, Nisbet says in a new report.
