China Ocean Helicopter Corp. (COHC) announced recently it will acquire the Southern Zhuhai Helicopter Corp. (SZHC), which will give it 80 percent of the helicopter general aviation market. SZHC, founded in 1980, builds five helicopter models and one fixed-wing aircraft, and owns a helicopter airport in Zhuhai and two flight bases in Danjiang, Guangdong province and Sanya, Hainan province.
A report released last week by Forecast International/DMS Inc. predicts the market for airborne anti-submarine warfare sensors will decline over the next 10 years as the nation shifts resources to the war on terrorism. The report, entitled, "the Market for Airborne ASW Sensors," examines in detail the potential market for dipping sonars, airborne maritime surveillance radars, magnetic abnormality detectors and sonobuoys.
ENGINE APPROVED: China's first domestically developed turbofan engine has been approved for use by the air force. Research on the engine began in 1991 by the No. 608 research institute, South Company, the Hongdu Aviation Industry Group, and the China Flight Test Establishment.
April 1, 2002 Lockheed Martin Corp., Dallas, is being awarded a $1,945,000 increment to a $15,600,000 cumulative total cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for Tactical Missile System Penetrator Demonstration (TPD) Missile System Integration. Work will be performed in Dallas, and is expected to be completed by Nov. 30, 2004. This
NASA should add $122 million to its $15 million New Frontiers program account to revive a mission to Pluto, the NASA Advisory Council's Solar System Exploration Subcommittee (SSES) has recommended. NASA canceled its Pluto-Kuiper Express mission in 2000 due to its rising budget, but solicited input from industry and academia about mounting a cheaper mission.
Russia's air force has said unofficially it will replace its aging Czech L-29 and L-39 jet trainers with Yakovlev Design Bureau's Yak-130 trainer, although the fate of the competing MiG-AT proposal is not clear. Russia's Ministry of Defense placed an order for 10 Yak-130s from the Sokol Aircraft Plant in Nizniy Novgorod, with the first four aircraft to be delivered next year, according to a regional information agency.
An extended-range Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile will be able to fly 2.5 times as far as the baseline version through internal improvements, according to an Air Force Official.
The Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off for the latest station assembly mission at 4:45 p.m. EDT April 8, after workers at Kennedy Space Center spent the weekend fixing a hydrogen vent line leak on the vehicle's mobile launch platform.
MILESTONE REVIEW: Canada's RADARSAT-2 payload passed its critical design review, satellite builder MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA) announced April 5. The imaging satellite's bus passed its critical design review in December, and final manufacture can now begin, the Richmond, B.C.-based company said. The payload includes a synthetic aperture radar active phased array antenna. RADARSAT-2 is slated to launch in 2003, and once launched it will be operated by MDA for the Canadian Space Agency.
EXPLOSIVE PARTNERSHIP: Raytheon and Northrop Grumman are teaming to pursue a contract to train personnel and install explosive detection equipment in all commercial U.S. airports by year's end, in accordance with the Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001. The act mandates that all checked baggage in all 438 commercial airports in the U.S. be screened by Dec. 31. The team expects to install 1,850 to 2,200 explosive detection machines and 5,000 explosive trace detection machines within nine months if it wins the contract.
AEROSPACE AGENDA: After a two-week recess, Congress returns to Washington the week of April 8 with a flurry of aerospace-related activity. Events include Senate Armed Services Committee hearings on Navy equipment, military transformation and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance programs. In addition, the House Appropriations VA-HUD-NASA subcommittee is scheduled to hear testimony from congressional witnesses on the fiscal 2003 budget.
Engine firings to raise the orbit of Boeing's troubled Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) should resume by the third week of April, according to Boeing spokesman George Torres. In the interim, engineers at Boeing Satellite Systems (BSS) are continuing their analysis of a workaround solution for propellant tank problems on TDRS-I that could jeopardize its operational life.
H-1 BREACH: The Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) held an interim meeting April 3 to review the troubled H-1 helicopter upgrade program, which was reported in breach of the Nunn-McCurdy Act last month. Based on the Nunn-McCurdy Act, Pentagon acquisition czar E.C. "Pete" Aldridge, Jr. must certify the program is necessary for national security, that no alternatives exist, and that the program can be restructured to maintain costs. If those conditions are not met, Aldridge must terminate the program.
LAUNCH BUMP: NASA has set April 8 as the new launch date for the shuttle Atlantis' mission to the International Space Station to install part of its truss. A hydrogen leak on the shuttle's mobile launch pad forced NASA to scrub the planned April 4 launch.
NO MORE SANCTIONS: Armenia and Azerbaijan, both former Soviet states, have been removed from the State Department's list of countries prohibited from engaging in defense trade with U.S. companies. The official ruling was added to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations on March 29, and says U.S. companies now can apply for licenses to export and import defense services and items from the two countries. Armenia and Azerbaijan were added to the list in 1993, when they were warring over competing territorial claims in Nagorno-Karabakh.
A successful test last week of the Air Force/Lockheed Martin Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) clears the way for the next phase of testing, according to an Air Force official. Dale Bridges, technical director of the Lethal Strike Program Office at the Air Armament Center, Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., said the April 4 test at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., was the last in a series of development firings and that operational tests are slated to start next month.
The Air Force is studying methods of disposing of spent upper stages from Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELVs), which will remain in orbit around the Earth after the vehicles directly inject satellites into medium Earth orbit (MEO). The first scheduled direct injections by an EELV will be the launch of Block IIF Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites, starting in 2005.
In a new regulation that took effect March 29, the Department of State has exempted universities and other accredited institutions of higher learning from registration and licensing requirements that normally would be imposed on all entities involved in developing commercial satellites.
Engine firings to raise the orbit of Boeing's troubled Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) should resume by the third week of April, according to Boeing spokesman George Torres. In the interim, engineers at Boeing Satellite Systems (BSS) are continuing their analysis of a workaround solution for propellant tank problems on TDRS-I that could jeopardize its operational life.
H-1 BREACH: The Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) held an interim meeting April 3 to review the troubled H-1 helicopter upgrade program, which was reported in breach of the Nunn-McCurdy Act last month. Based on the Nunn-McCurdy Act, Pentagon acquisition czar E.C. "Pete" Aldridge, Jr. must certify the program is necessary for national security, that no alternatives exist, and that the program can be restructured to maintain costs. If those conditions are not met, Aldridge must terminate the program.
AVOIDING ALGORITHMS: As part of their work on collision avoidance systems for unmanned aerial vehicles (DAILY, March 26), researchers with NASA's Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology (ERAST) program are working on software algorithms capable of telling a UAV whether an incoming aircraft is a collision threat. "One of the very difficult things is to ... determine what the flight path of that [other] aircraft is, just based on the tracking information," says ERAST Program Manager Jeff Bauer.
REBOUND: The global aerospace and defense sector has improved steadily since its low point shortly after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, but U.S. companies are attracting most of the investment, according to a report from Deutsche Bank. Christopher Mecray, senior aerospace and defense analyst with Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown, says, "Driven by the combination of U.S. defense budget increases and a growing focus on playing cyclical stocks, the sector has rebounded strongly from its low point following Sept.
ISR MANAGER: Raytheon's command, control, communication and information (C3I) segment plans to focus the majority of its resources on developing a system to coordinate the operations of all platforms with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) systems, says Frank Marchilena, executive vice president of Raytheon's C3I Systems segment. Marchilena says the ISR market represents about $15 billion for Raytheon over the next five years.
