Nouvelles

By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — More than a quarter of Air Mobility Command's C-130 Hercules fleet are being temporarily removed from service after “atypical” cracking was found. During scheduled depot maintenance, the U.S. Air Force discovered cracking of the lower center wing joint — also known as the “rainbow fitting” — which led Air Mobility Command head Gen. Maryanne Miller to order an inspection of a portion of the fleet, according to an AMC statement released Wednesday evening. A total of 123 of 450 C-130H and C-130J aircraft will be temporarily grounded while inspections occur. “This temporary removal of service will not impact ongoing C-130 support to overseas contingency operations,” AMC said in its statement. The decision to pause operations and conduct inspections was made after a single C-130 was found with the lower center wing joint cracks, said AMC spokesman Maj. Jonathan Simmons. But the risk posed by the issue — that the wing could become dislodged from the aircraft — was so serious that the Air Force decided to move forward with inspections for all planes that could potentially be impacted. The 123 aircraft chosen to go through inspections have not been equipped with an “extended service life center wing box” and have flown more than 15,000 hours. Maintainers will look for cracking, and, if discovered, will replace the rainbow fitting. That repair takes “approximately one to two months” to do and is “dependent on depot level availability and capacity,” Simmons noted in an email. Currently, AMC believes it has an adequate supply of rainbow fittings and is not concerned about a potential shortfall. If no defects are found, the aircraft will return to service. So far, eight aircraft have gone through inspections and are now able to fly, Simmons said. Each inspection is set to take eight hours, but the command does not know how long it will take to move all 123 aircraft through the inspection and repair process. “The Air Force takes the safety of its airmen and aircraft very seriously and is working diligently to identify and repair affected aircraft as soon as possible,” AMC said in its statement. https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/08/08/air-force-pauses-flight-ops-for-more-than-a-hundred-c-130s-after-atypical-cracking-found/

By: Andrew Chuter WARTON — With a complex weapons integration program squared away, giving Royal Air Force Typhoon jets more punch, key sensors on the jet could see an upgrade. The RAF's test and evaluation squadron is already test flying the Litening 5 targeting pod in order to optimize its operation by Typhoon pilots. Work is also underway to update and improve the reliability of the jets Pirate passive infrared airborne track equipment, said Andy Flynn, BAE System's Typhoon capability director. Known as Project Centurion, the British late last year completed integration of MBDA's Meteor, Brimstone and Storm Shadow missiles on Typhoon in 47 months. At a cost of around £425 million, or $515.83 million, the program allowed the RAF to stand down the entire fleet of Tornado jets that had provided the primary strike capability. Flynn told reporters during a briefing at the company's Warton combat air site in northwest England Aug. 7 that the sensor work was “the next iteration of Centurion.” “Agile spiral development and keeping the aircraft relevant is the phase we are in. We have done the big leap and it's now about keeping it relevant,” he said. The Tornado was a two-seat aircraft, whereas the Typhoon is single seat. Flynn said the work on the Litening 5 was about easing pilot workload. “What we are doing now is getting the feedback from customer and operations teams on how to make that tasking simpler and really increase the cycle time on ops. We've already got Litening 5 pods up in the air as an iteration and we are seeking feedback from 41 Squadron [the test and evaluation squadron], ” he said. The plan is to get the enhanced capability “out to the front line by the end of next year,” said Flynn. Development phase work is also underway on a new iteration of Pirate as well improving the reliability and robustness of the sensor. “That work is in the development phase and we are doing that over the Autumn period. What we are doing on Typhoon overall is really enhancing the sensors capability as well making the workload easier for the pilot,” said Flynn. The sensor changes are a small part of a wider capability update on the Typhoon to keep aircraft relevant until they go out of service, currently set for 2040. On the horizon for the RAF is a new e-scan radar, known as Radar 2, which is being developed for the British by Leonardo; the new BAE Striker II helmet; and networked enabled weapons. But, Eurofighter, the Airbus, BAE, and Leonardo industrial partnership responsible for the development and production of the Typhoon, is also conducting a review of future potential updates to the fighter. Eurofighter announced at the Paris Air Show in June a deal valued at 53.7 million euros with the NATO Eurofighter & Tornado Management Agency, or NETMA, to undertake a long-term evolution review of the fighter and the EJ200 engine over the next 19 months. NETMA represents the British, German, Italian and Spanish governments. Flynn said there were more than 50 separate candidate technologies being considered by the evolution review. Some of those potential upgrades could also find themselves cross decking to the Tempest sixth-generation fighter now being proposed by the British. Clive Marrison, the industrial requirements director for Team Tempest, the industrial/government partnership leading the next-generation fighter work , said both jets could benefit from close development ties. “Typhoon could benefit from some of the technologies that Tempest is looking at and by the same token Tempest could benefit from some of the technologies that Typhoon is investing in,” said Marrison. For example: Some of the cockpit and helmet work BAE is doing might allow industry to offer some of those technologies back into Typhoon, said Marrison. While the BAE executives were looking into the future for British combat air capabilities, the Typhoon approaches a landmark of sorts to be celebrated. Sixteen years after taking delivery of its first Typhoon, the RAF is preparing to receive the final aircraft ordered for its fleet in the next few weeks, said Flynn. The final aircraft in a British order for 160 Typhoons made its test flight recently and is due to be handed over to the RAF in the coming weeks. Completion of the order leaves 24 aircraft destined for Qatar on the order book for BAE, although it is also building parts of the Typhoons sold to Kuwait by Eurofighter partner Leonardo. Three equipment sets have so far been completed at BAE's Samlesbury plant near Warton, destined for the Leonardo assembly site in Italy. Flynn said the Qatar build program was just getting underway. The 24 aircraft order will see deliveries start in 2022 with completion set for 2024. https://www.c4isrnet.com/global/europe/2019/08/08/royal-air-force-typhoon-jets-to-receive-key-sensor-upgrade/

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The U.S. Army is just weeks away from awarding the final contracts related to the development of its mobile, ground-launched hypersonic missile. The Army will award a contract within the next three weeks to a company to develop a launching system for the hypersonic missile in co-development across the services, Lt. Gen. L. Neil Thurgood, the service's Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office director, said Aug. 7 at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium. RCCTO's job is to serve as a bridge between the science and technology community and the program executive offices, helping bring technology out of development and into soldiers' hands, first on a small scale and then a larger scale when passed off to program offices. The office is primarily focused on hypersonics and directed energy. While the missile is under joint development, the Army needs a special launcher to make the missile road-mobile. The contract will encompass the design and integration of a vertical launcher onto a trailer, Thurgood said. Additionally, the RCCTO is preparing to award a contract, also in the next three weeks, to a vendor to produce the glide body for the hypersonic missile, Thurgood said. The Navy will own the design of the glide body, but the Army will own its production, he said. “We have a company that we are in the final process of negotiating an [other transaction authority contract],” Thurgood said. An OTA is a contract that allows for rapid prototyping by bypassing the usual red tape associated with acquisition. “What is interesting about the glide body technology is we also have to create an industrial base to do this. There is no industrial base in the United States for glide bodies,” Thurgood said. The technology is owned by the government labs, he noted, “so we are transitioning that out of the labs into the commercial marketplace. That is a really hard thing to do, but there's a lot of energy and a lot of momentum behind that outcome.” Unlike other programs, Thurgood said, there is not a single company that can produce a hypersonic missile and its equipment alone. “It actually takes a collaborative effort amongst the industry partners,” he added. The first contract will be awarded to one company, but there will be follow-on contracts for other vendors to learn how to make the glide body at the federally funded lab where it was developed. The methodology energizes the supply chain from the prime contractors all the way to sub-contractors should the service decide to make a large number of the weapons, Thurgood told Defense News in an interview at the symposium. Thurgood noted that in order to bring industry closer to the RCCTO's endeavors, the office established an industry board in addition to its board of directors to promote “horizontal communication.” The Army plans to field a hypersonic missile and launcher to a unit in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021. The unit will train for an entire year without live rounds, Thurgood said, adding that the canisters the unit will use will be cement-filled to match the weight. The first live-round test will take place in FY22 and will be conducted by a battery led by a captain. Thurgood was tasked Feb. 14 to come up with a plan for hypersonic development, and given 30 days to do so. Now, almost six months later, the RCCTO is about to award all associated contracts to move forward in building prototypes that will be in soldiers' hands in just a couple of years, Thurgood said. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/smd/2019/08/07/final-hypersonic-missile-contract-awards-imminent-as-army-preps-to-shoot-one-in-fy21/

By: Valerie Insinna AMARI AIR BASE, Estonia — As NATO looks to replace its E-3A Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) fleet, it has asked operators for feedback on what technologies to incorporate in its future system. While NATO leaders have not yet decided whether a single platform or a family of systemswill take over the early airborne warning mission, "I think the most essential thing is the capability ... be absolutely interoperable. I think that's the key, that is the most essential thing,” said Lt. Col. Hans Growla, a crew member and public affairs officer for the NATO E-3A component in Geilenkirchen, Germany. But Growla declined to comment on what specific technologies could be integrated into an AWACS replacement to grow its capability, citing sensitivities. In June, the head of the NATO organization that manages the E-3A inventory told Reutersthat the organization was racing against the clock to choose an AWACS replacement. NATO plans to spend $750 million for the final service life extension of the aircraft, which would keep it flying until 2035, said Michael Gschossmann, director of the NATO Airborne Early Warning and Control Programme Management Agency. But if it delays making a decision on a replacement for too long, it could get stuck paying for additional work on the current E-3A aircraft. “We have to get moving on this. We have to ensure that the studies move along quickly. We need a reality check,” he said. One option, Gschossmann said, would be to purchase the E-7 Wedgetail, a Boeing aircraft currently operated by Australia, Turkey and South Korea. The United Kingdom also plans to purchase the aircraft. “That would give us a basic capability that could be expanded in the future,” he said. Like the units that conduct Baltic air policing, the NATO E-3A component has found itself similarly taxed after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, with the number of surveillance missions increasing. “There is a clear shift from training to real world missions/operations,” Growla said, with a growing presence over the skies of Poland, Romania and Bulgaria. “Flying in northeast Poland gives you a great view into the Baltic states. We don't need to be physically flying in the airspace of the Baltics, we can stay a bit more south and see everything.” Despite the high operational tempo, Growla said NATO's E-3A component is making do with its 14 AWACS planes. “The Ukraine crisis was starting when we were still deployed to Afghanistan. ... [For a time] we had more or less two tasking, and then ISIL," he said, using an acronym for the Islamic State group. "We were really busy.” Currently, 17 nations participate in NATO's early-warning-and-control force, which operates 14 E-3As and six E-3Ds: Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. Canada announced in February it would rejoin the NATO E-3A mission, after dropping out in 2014 to cut costs. Earlier this year, NATO wrapped up a two-year-long effort to modernize its E-3A aircraft, replacing the fleet's 1970s-era flight instruments with glass cockpits that include five full-color displays and modern avionics that are easier to maintain. One of those upgraded AWACS planes made the trip to Amari Air Base, Estonia, for an air show commemorating the Estonian Air Force's 100th anniversary. It was the first open display of a NATO E-3A in Estonia, with visitors able to walk inside the aircraft to view the cockpit and crew stations. “We want people to see the NATO asset that is flying more or less daily, touch it, and see the guys who are making their airspace safer,” Growla said. https://www.defensenews.com/smr/a-modern-nato/2019/08/08/operators-of-natos-surveillance-plane-reveal-what-they-want-in-its-replacement/

The Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT)-built AEHF-5 satellite is now responding to the squadron's commands as planned. The squadron began "flying" the satellite shortly after it separated from its United Launch Alliance Atlas V 551 rocket approximately 5 hours and 40 minutes after the rocket's successful 6:13 a.m. ET liftoff. AEHF-5 complete a geostationary ring of five satellites delivering global coverage for survivable, highly secure and protected communications for strategic command and tactical warfighters operating on ground, sea and air platforms. Besides U.S. forces, AEHF also serves international partners including Canada, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. "This fifth satellite adds an additional layer of flexibility for critical strategic and tactical protected communications serving the warfighter. This added resilience to the existing constellation will help ensure warfighters can connect globally to communicate and transmit data at all times," said Mike Cacheiro, vice president for Protected Communications at Lockheed Martin Space. "In the weeks ahead, AEHF-5 will move towards its operational orbit, deploy all of its solar arrays and antennas, and turn on its powerful communications payload for a rigorous testing phase prior to hand over to the Air Force." AEHF-5, with its advanced Extended Data Rate (XDR) waveform technology, adds to the constellation's high-bandwidth network. One AEHF satellite provides greater total capacity than the entire legacy five-satellite Milstar communications constellation. "Individual data rates increase five-fold compared to Milstar, permitting transmission of tactical military communications, such as real-time video, battlefield maps and targeting data," said Cacheiro. "AEHF affords national leaders anti-jam, always-on connectivity during all levels of conflict and enables both strategic and tactical users to communicate globally across a high-speed network that delivers protected communications in any environment." Lockheed Martin designed, processed and manufactured all five on-orbit AEHF satellites at its advanced satellite manufacturing facility in Sunnyvale, California. The next AEHF satellite, AEHF-6, is currently in full production in Silicon Valley and is expected to launch in 2020. The AEHF team includes the U.S. Air Force Military Satellite Communications Systems Directorate at the Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif. Lockheed Martin Space, Sunnyvale, Calif., is the AEHF prime contractor, space and ground segments provider as well as system integrator, with Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, Redondo Beach, Calif., as the payload provider. For additional information, visit our website: http://www.lockheedmartin.com/aehf

Graham Warwick Ubiquitous Drones Precision agriculture, infrastructure inspection, construction, real estate, aerial photography—using small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) is already an everyday reality in many markets and in a regulatory environment that strictly limits how they can be used. As the FAA releases its first regulations for small UAS, or drones—rules years in the making—it is already under pressure to move quickly in allowing their use to expand beyond the initial limits of daylight, visual-line-of-sight operations to flight beyond line of sight and at night. Once permitted to fly beyond the operator's line of sight, small UAS of less than 55 lb. gross weight are expected to meet the bulk of the near-term demand for commercial unmanned aircraft. The market looks set to be dominated by a “drones as a service” business model, with customers wanting data. Next in line could be deliveries by UAS—consumer packages in cities or medical supplies in disaster zones—but this requires a means of enabling safe and efficient access to low-altitude airspace by multiple aircraft, unmanned and manned. NASA is pursuing this under its UAS Traffic Management research project. Ultra-High Bypass Commercial aircraft turbofans are getting bigger. Larger fans and higher bypass ratios mean greater propulsive efficiency and lower fuel consumption. Turbofans entering service in the early 2020s will have bypass ratios of 15-20, compared with 10-12.5 for the latest engines. But their increased size will force changes in wing and landing-gear design and, potentially, aircraft layout and engine location. Research is biased toward future turbofans being geared, for larger fans; but ultimately nacelle drag and weight will set a limit on their diameter. Open-rotor engines remain an option if demand for reductions in fuel consumption and emissions require even higher bypass ratios. Concerns with the airport noise and aircraft safety implications of open rotors remain to be fully allayed, but work continues. Laminar Flow Over the evolution of aircraft design, aerodynamics have improved continuously but seldom dramatically. The search for future increases in fuel efficiency, however, could lead to significant changes in aerodynamic design including more slender, flexible wings; natural laminar flow and active flow control; and unconventional configurations. Laminar flow reduces drag, but requires wings with tight tolerances that are difficult to achieve in manufacturing and smooth surfaces that are hard to keep free of contamination in service. But the potential for significant drag reduction has researchers in Europe and the U.S. developing ways to manufacture and maintain laminar-flow wings on airliners that could enter service by 2030. More slender and flexible wings will reduce drag and weight but require new structural and control technologies to avoid flutter. Techniques under development include passive aeroelastic tailoring of the structure using directionally biased composites or metallic additive manufacturing, and active control of the wing's movable surfaces to alleviate maneuver and gust loads and suppress flutter. High-speed cruise is a focus for aerodynamic improvement; another is high lift at low speed and potential use of compliant or morphing surfaces to adapt wing shape while reducing the noise and drag generated by conventional slats and flaps. Active flow control could also increase takeoff and landing performance, reduce noise and, NASA/Boeing tests show, increase rudder effectiveness for a smaller tail. Space Exploration Where humans are headed next in space may still be up for debate, but the technology steps required are becoming clearer. For the U.S., they begin with NASA's development of the heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion crew vehicle to send astronauts and equipment into deep space. SLS and Orion are scheduled to fly together in 2018 on an unmanned test flight around the Moon and back. A manned flight around the same loop is planned between 2021 and 2023. Both spacecraft are cornerstones of NASA plans to reach Mars with humans in the mid-2030s. As its launch vehicle and crew capsule mature, NASA plans to shift its human space focus from low Earth orbit to cislunar activities. These could include tests of an in-space habitat in orbit around the Moon, or at the Earth-Moon Lagrangian point, where astronauts can practice for the 200-day transit to Mars. With NASA's help, Elon Musk's SpaceX plans a private “Red Dragon” mission in 2018 to land a modified Dragon commercial capsule on Mars. Musk wants to fly to Mars on all subsequent launch windows, which come every 26 months, and land humans on the planet as early as 2025. The U.S. will not have space to itself as it pushes beyond low Earth orbit. China plans to launch its second orbiting laboratory in 2016, in preparation for a permanent space station to be completed in 2022, and wants to put astronauts on the Moon by 2036. India also has ambitions to fly humans there, but its first manned spaceflight is not expected before 2021. Teams and Swarms Many current military unmanned aircraft are costly and complex to operate, requiring significant manpower and mission preplanning. But advances in autonomy could unlock the power of lower-cost vehicles operating collaboratively in swarms or in teams with other aircraft, both unmanned and manned. The Pentagon's Strategic Capabilities Office is planning near-term fielding of 3-D-printed micro-UAS that are launched from flare dispensers on fighters to form swarms and conduct surveillance in contested airspace or overwhelm an adversary's defenses. Using more than 30 tube-launched Raytheon Coyotes, the Office of Naval Research is testing swarms of cooperating autonomous small UAS to measure their effectiveness in gathering intelligence, drawing enemy fire or jamming their defenses. As it looks for ways to penetrate and survive in heavily defended airspace, the Air Force Research Laboratory is pursuing demonstrations of both affordable, limited-life unmanned strike aircraft and autonomous air vehicles that act as “loyal wingmen” to manned fighters, carrying additional sensors and weapons. DARPA is developing methods of airborne launch and recovery of swarming UAS, and software to enable unmanned aircraft to collaborate with minimal human supervision. As a result of research programs such as these, the next generation of combat aircraft, planned to enter service in the U.S. and Europe in 2030-40, is expected to be a system of systems—a manned fighter controlling a fleet of cooperating UAS with different mission capabilities. Remaking Manufacturing The potential of additive manufacturing, better known as 3-D printing, has almost every industry in its grip, from food to chemicals. Aerospace is embracing additive cautiously because of the safety and reliability implications, but even so, applications are expanding at a rate unheard of for aviation. As a manufacturing technology, 3-D printing established its foothold with polymers, which the aircraft industry has been able to use for rapid prototyping and some flyable low-strength parts. But the real growth in adoption is coming with the maturing of metal additive-manufacturing processes. Aerospace manufacturing involves removing a lot of metal from formed pieces, and additive promises dramatic reductions in the “buy-to-fly” ratios—the weight of the raw material versus that of the finished part—for expensive materials such as lightweight, high-strength titanium and nickel alloys. First, industry must convince itself and airworthiness authorities that 3-D-printed parts are as good as those manufactured by conventional means, preferably better. This is happening, with GE Aviation additively manufacturing fuel nozzles, and Avio Aero making titanium-aluminide turbine blades for turbofans. These initial production parts are made using lasers or electron beams to melt metal powder. Aircraft structures involve larger parts and that means breaking “out of the box” created by the working volumes of powder-bed machines. Laser wire deposition enables larger components and is entering production. Additive manufacturing already allows part designs to be optimized to use less material, for lower cost and weight. With time, it will permit the microstructure of the material to be controlled throughout a part to maximize its performance. Eventually it will allow entirely new materials to be tailored. Spacecraft with additively manufactured parts are already operational, and Silicon Valley startup Made in Space is pursuing the potential for 3-D printing in space itself—to manufacture spacecraft structures such as reflectors, trusses or optical fibers for terrestrial communications. Controls and Displays From “steam” gauges developed by watchmakers to cathode ray tubes used in televisions to liquid crystal displays used in laptops, flight decks have taken advantage of technologies developed for wider commercial markets, adapting and ruggedizing them for use in aircraft. That is happening again as the consumer world embraces wearable technology. The first step is the development of head-mounted, near-to-eye displays that could ultimately replace head-up displays (HUD)—as the helmet-mounted display already has done onLockheed Martin's F-35 fighter. Elbit Systems and Thales are developing head-mounted displays for commercial aircraft as a lower-cost alternative to HUDs, particularly in smaller cockpits. Elbit's SkyLens wearable display is targeted for certification in 2017 on ATR regional turboprops. NASA and European researchers are experimenting with augmented reality using head-worn displays and sensors to detect and avoid hazards. Introduced in business aircraft, touch screens are moving to airliners with the Rockwell Collins displays for the Boeing 777-X, and avionics manufacturers are looking at speech recognition as a next step to reduce cockpit workload. Honeywell is experimenting with brain-activity monitoring to sense when a pilot is overloaded or his/her attention is wandering—with the potential to control flight-deck functions. Fly-by-wire is making its way into smaller aircraft, bringing flight-envelope protection, and this will accelerate with future electric light aircraft. The FAA believes advanced flight controls will emerge with automated takeoff and landing, “refuse-to-crash” hazard avoidance, 4-D flightpath management and “iPad-intuitive” displays that require fewer pilot-specific skills. Commercial Space With cargo deliveries moving forward and crew flights to begin by 2018, NASA is well on its way to establishing a commercial transportation infrastructure to low Earth orbit. For now, the only destination on this railroad to space is the International Space Station (ISS), but more will come. Assembled in orbit over 16 years and operated by a partnership of the U.S., Canada, Japan, Russia and 11 member states of the European Space Agency, the ISS is planned to remain operational to 2024. But entrepreneurs are looking at using the space outpost as a starting point for commercial stations. Fledgling private-sector activity is already underway on the ISS, notably NanoRacks using it as a launch platform for commercial cubesats delivered to orbit in bulk via cargo vehicle. In a next step, a prototype of Bigelow Aerospace's inflatable habitat has been berthed to the station for two years of testing. Bigelow is in negotiations with NASA to add a full-scale expandable habitat to the ISS, offering 330 m³ (12,000 ft.³) of internal space for commercial operations, and plans to have the first of two modules ready for launch in 2020. The company sees in-orbit satellite manufacturing as a promising application. Startup Axiom Space plans a small commercial station that, like Bigelow's B330, would start out as a module attached to the ISS. It would stay berthed to the station until a second module with solar arrays and propulsion arrives to take it to a lower-inclination orbit better suited to commercial launches. Axiom's aluminum habitat would be based on the ISS's existing modules, but the company has a long-term vision of building, within a generation, a free-flying “space city” reminiscent of the wheeled space station in the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey,” slowly rotating to generate artificial gravity at the rim. Autonomy Unleashed Progress with driverless-car technology has rekindled long-held hopes that flying can be made simpler, opening access to personal air travel as a viable alternative to road transport, particularly in gridlocked urban areas. Unmanned aviation is expected to lead the way in developing the required automated flight control and airspace management technologies, along with the sensors and algorithms needed to autonomously avoid hazards and collisions with other aircraft. Several startups in Silicon Valley and elsewhere have begun developing vehicles targeting the “on-demand mobility” market that NASA and others see emerging from the convergence of electric propulsion, autonomy, communication and perception technologies. Air taxis with simplified controls that nonpilots can use, or fully autonomous passenger-carrying aircraft, have significant acceptance and certification hurdles to overcome, along with issues such as energy efficiency or community noise, and remain years away. Assembly Unchained Carbon-fiber composites have reduced the weight and increased the performance of aircraft but have made them harder to produce, as the material is made simultaneously with the part. As manufacturers look ahead to future aircraft that can be built at higher rates with lower cost, a focus is on taking labor and time out of composites production. Automation is a major drive, and automated fiber placement is already displacing manual layup and automated tape laying where economically feasible. A next step, taken on the carbon-fiber wing of Bombardier's C Series, is to lay up easier-to-handle dry fiber, then inject it with resin during curing. Unlike resin-impregnated, or prepreg, carbon fiber, dry fiber does not require temperature-controlled storage and can be used to make complex preforms that are then resin transfer-molded. Skins can be integrated and cocured with ribs, stringers and other features to simplify assembly. Manufacturers want to get rid of expensive “monument” tooling that can act as bottlenecks in production, and that includes the autoclaves now used for curing. Out-of-autoclave composites that can be cured on the production line in vacuum bags and mobile ovens are gaining ground. But design and process advances are required to minimize the dimensional variability inherent in composite laminates, which is essential if the labor-intensive assembly of complex structures is to be automated and intermediate steps such as machining and shimming of joints eliminated. New design tools, manufacturing simulation software, process controls, tooling concepts and robotic manufacturing technologies are coming together—in research programs such as Europe's Locomachs—that promise significant reductions in cost and time for producing composite structures. Adaptive Engines Aviation propulsion has been through two transformations: from propellers to jets and from turbojets to turbofans. A third is underway, in the form of adaptive or variable-cycle engines. Where a turbofan has two streams of air—one flowing through and one bypassing the core—an adaptive-cycle engine has three. The fan can adapt to pump more air through the core for higher thrust or through the bypass ducts for higher efficiency and lower fuel burn, while providing more air to cool aircraft systems. General Electric and Pratt & Whitney have each been awarded $1 billion contracts to develop 45,000-lb.-thrust-class adaptive engines to power the next generation of U.S. fighters. Ground tests are to begin in 2019, and both engines could fly competitively in Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in the early 2020s. Three-stream turbofans could also power future supersonic commercial transports, providing the combination of thrust, fuel economy and low airport noise required to meet environmental targets. New Shapes The conventional tube-and-wing aircraft has served aviation well, but researchers looking 20-40 years into the future see limits to the configuration's ability to continue delivering efficiency improvements. One is where to put the engines as bypass ratios and nacelle diameters increase. Another is how to keep driving down noise so that it can be entirely contained within the boundaries of the airport. Researchers are studying alternative locations allowing larger engine diameters—above the wing and on the tail—and where the airframe can provide some shielding of fan and/or jet noise. Aft-mounted engines would also permit a clean wing for drag-reducing laminar flow. Another variation on today's layout is the truss-braced wing, allowing a much longer span and higher aspect ratio for lower drag. Moving farther from the conventional are designs with turbofans, or electric propulsors, embedded in the tail where they ingest the fuselage boundary layer and reenergize the aircraft wake to reduce drag. Examples are the Aurora Flight Sciences/Massachusetts Institute of Technology “double-bubble” D8 being studied for NASA and the Propulsive Fuselage concept developed by Germany's Bauhaus Luftfahrt. More unconventional yet are the blended or hybrid wing body (BWB/HWB), a flying wing with increased aerodynamic and structural efficiency. Some remain skeptical of the design's suitability for passengers, but the HWB is a promising freighter/airlifter configuration. Turbofans, open rotors or distributed propulsors can be mounted above the fuselage, where the broad airframe provides significant shielding. High Speed After decades of on-again, off-again development, air-breathing hypersonic propulsion is tantalizingly close to being fielded in the form of high-speed cruise missiles. But much research remains before aircraft can accelerate from runways to beyond Mach 5 on air-breathing engines, for surveillance or strike missions or to lift payloads or passengers into low Earth orbit on reusable first stages. Recent Chinese and Russian hypersonic weapon tests have added urgency to DARPA and U.S. Air Force plans to fly the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept demonstrator by 2020. This is a follow-on to the Boeing X-51 WaveRider scramjet engine demonstrator flown in 2010-13 and the precursor to an operational Mach 5-plus long-range cruise missile. As a next step, DARPA has resurrected plans to ground-test a turbine-based combined-cycle engine coupling a turbojet to a dual-mode ramjet/scramjet, all sharing the same inlet and nozzle, enabling air-breathing operation from standstill to hypersonic cruise. Such a propulsion system is required for the unmanned “SR-72” Lockheed Martin proposes flying in the 2020s. Space access vehicles could use a powerplant such as Reaction Engines' SABRE, which operates in both air-breathing and rocket modes. Inside the atmosphere, incoming air is precooled by a heat exchanger and burned with liquid hydrogen in the rocket. Outside the atmosphere, SABRE operates as a conventional rocket. Reaction Engines plans a full-scale ground demo in 2020. In-Space Propulsion As deep space beckons human exploration, the limitations of chemical propulsion are pushing other technologies to the fore. One of these is solar electric propulsion (SEP), long seen as key to taking humans to Mars. Because of the long flight times, Mars exploration strategies involve prepositioning infrastructure on the planet's surface for use by astronauts when they arrive. SEP-powered vehicles would slowly but efficiently accelerate large payloads into Martian orbit for eventual landing. With high-power solar arrays driving electric thrusters, SEP systems are much weaker than chemical thrusters but up to 10 times more efficient. This dramatically reduces the propellant required and therefore the launch mass, making it practical to send large payloads to Mars. NASA plans to demonstrate SEP on a robotic asteroid sampling mission in 2021, but the first flight could propel a large Mars orbiter scheduled for launch in 2022. Once in orbit, the solar arrays used for propulsion would power a ground-penetrating radar to search for water below the surface. Astronauts need faster transit times, but a return mission will still take more than three years with the best chemical propulsion. With the ability to generate high thrust with double the efficiency of chemical propulsion, a nuclear thermal rocket (NTR) could cut that time significantly. An NTR heats liquid hydrogen to high temperature in a nuclear reactor and expands it through a rocket nozzle to create thrust. Funding permitting, NASA hopes to ground-test a small NTR in 2022-24 and flight-test an engine on a lunar flyby demonstration within 10 years. Cockpit Visions Synthetic and enhanced vision systems (SVS/EVS) that enable pilots to land in poor visibility are common on larger business jets. Now they are coming together in combined vision systems (CVS) that are being targeted at airlines to improve pilot situational awareness and schedule reliability. EVS uses a forward-looking infrared (IR) sensor to augment the pilot's view of the outside world, usually projected in a head-up display (HUD). SVS uses a digital database to create a virtual representation of the outside world, usually presented on a head-down display, but it can be combined with EVS on the HUD. EVS has evolved, with the development of lower-cost uncooled and multispectral sensors that range from long-wave IR to optical wavelength. Elbit Systems' ClearVision system has six sensors including short-wave IR and visible light and is being expanded to detect other hazards, such as volcanic ash. Longer-term, sensors and systems developed to enable unmanned aircraft to autonomously detect and avoid other traffic are expected to find their way onto the flight decks of manned aircraft, fixed- and rotary-wing, to help pilots operate in the increasingly complex and diverse airspace of the future. Supersonics Civil aircraft development continues to focus on increasing fuel efficiency at subsonic speed, but there is a resurgence of interest in flying faster. NASA research into minimizing sonic boom looks set to remove one of the major barriers to economically and environmentally viable supersonic transports, but work on reducing airport noise and improving cruise efficiency is still needed. NASA plans to fly an X-plane, the Quiet Supersonic Transport (QueSST), in 2019 to demonstrate that a publicly acceptable level of sonic boom can be achieved through careful shaping of the aircraft. Community response data collected during QueSST flights should pave the way for regulators to remove the ban on civil supersonic flights over land. Some manufacturers are not waiting—Aerion Corp., for example, seeing a near-term market for a supersonic business jet. But Gulfstream, Boeing and others view quietening the sonic boom to a “soft thump” of 75 PLdB versus Concorde's 105 PLdB “double bang”—a 20-fold reduction—as a prerequisite for the economic viability of a business jet or small supersonic airliner. Studies continue into hypersonic airliners able to fly from London to Sydney in 2 hr. but are paced by the need to develop propulsion systems that can operate with the safety, reliability and efficiency required for commercial viability. The military, and potentially the suborbital and reusable launch industry, will lead in developing the technology, but it will take decades. Electric Dreams Still in its infancy, electric propulsion attracts interest and skepticism in equal amounts. All-electric power is already feasible for light aircraft, with today's lithium-ion batteries, but anything larger will likely have hybrid propulsion—ranging from using diesel engines or small turbines as range extenders to turboelectric generators driving distributed fans via cryogenically cooled superconducting systems. All-electric two-seater trainers are on the market. Hybrid-electric four seaters are on the horizon. NASA sees the next step, by the early 2020s, as a nine-passenger “thin-haul” commuter aircraft to restore air service to small communities. Researchers in both Europe and the U.S. believe a hybrid-electric airliner smaller than 100 seats is possible by 2030. But significant improvements in energy storage will be required. While electric power provides a path to zero emissions using renewable energy sources, it also enables novel aircraft configurations in which distributed propulsion synergistically couples with aerodynamics. These range from multirotor, vertical-takeoff-and-landing air taxis to large transports in which embedded electric propulsors ingest the boundary layer and reenergize the aircraft's wake to reduce drag. Altitude Advantage Anticipated improvements in platform and payload capabilities will enable small unmanned aircraft to enter many of the emerging low-altitude markets, from infrastructure inspection to package delivery, but commercial requirements for larger, more capable platforms are expected to materialize. One of these is for high-altitude, long-endurance aircraft able to stay aloft in the stratosphere for days or weeks to provide internet access in remote regions, restore communications and navigation after disasters or perform remote sensing more affordably and responsively than satellites. Facebook and Google are developing solar-powered stratospheric UAS, and Europe is pursuing two approaches to such high-altitude“pseudo-satellites”: Airbus Defense and Space's Zephyr S UAV is able to stay aloft for more than two weeks, and Thales Alenia Space's StratoBus autonomous airship for a year. Zephyr will enter service in 2017, and the heavier-payload StratoBus could follow by 2020. https://aviationweek.com/technology-milestones/technologies-will-shape-future?NL=AW-05&Issue=AW-05_20190808_AW-05_755&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_5#slide-0-field_images-1491461

AIR FORCE United Launch Services, Centennial, Colorado, has been awarded a $156,752,771 firm-fixed-price modification (P00003) to previously awarded contract FA8811-19-C-0002 for National Security Space Launch Delta IV Heavy Launch services. This modification provides for launch vehicle production services for National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) Launch Mission Three, the last of three planned NRO launch missions under this contract. This modification brings the total cumulative face value of the contract from $310,784,574 to $467,537,345. Work will be performed in Centennial, Colorado; Decatur, Alabama; and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, and is expected to be completed by January 2024. Fiscal 2019 missile procurement funds in the amount of $144,637,202 are being obligated at the time of award. The Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, California, is the contracting activity. (CORRECTION: The May 9, 2019, announcement of this contract's modification for Launch Mission Two incorrectly stated the total cumulative face value of the contract at the time as $449,813,010. The actual total cumulative value was $310,784,574.) Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, Redondo Beach, California, has been awarded a $22,500,000 cost-plus incentive-fee modification (P00017) to previously awarded contract FA8808-18-C-0002 for changes to the payload driven by selection of a host space vehicle. The contract provides for the delivery of two Enhanced Polar System Recapitalization (EPS-R) payloads. Work will be performed at Redondo Beach, California, and is expected to be completed by December 2023. Fiscal 2019 research and development funds in the amount of $5,900,000 are being obligated at the time of award. The Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, California, is the contracting activity. TFAB Defense Systems LLC,* Warner Robins, Georgia, was awarded an $8,918,791 firm-fixed-price contract for engineering services. This contract provides for develop the software, test hardware and related documentation for test program sets for use with the Air Force's Versatile Depot Automatic Test Station family of testers to isolate failures within line replaceable units and shop replaceable units. Work will be performed at Warner Robins, Georgia, and is expected to be completed by Aug. 6, 2022. This award is the result of a Small Business Set Aside sole-source acquisition. No funds are being obligated at time of award. The Air Force Sustainment Center, Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, is the contracting activity for contract (FA8571-19-D-A003). ARMY Southwest Valley Constructors Co., Albuquerque, New Mexico, was awarded an $80,869,000 contract for design-build horizontal construction in support of the Department of Homeland Security in McAllen, Texas. Three bids were solicited with three bids received. Work will be performed in McAllen, Texas, with an estimated completion date of April 28, 2021. Fiscal 2019 Department of Homeland Security funds in the amount of $80,869,000 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth, Texas, is the contracting activity (W9126G-19-C-0118). Oshkosh Defense LLC, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, was awarded an $11,812,335 modification (P00240) to contract W56HZV-15-C-0095 for Authorized Stockage List. Work will be performed in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, with an estimated completion date of April 30, 2021. Fiscal 2018 and 2019 other procurement, Army and procurement Marine Corps funds in the combined amount of $11,812,335 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Warren, Michigan, is the contracting activity. Stantec Consulting Services Inc., Louisville, Kentucky, was awarded a $9,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract for geotechnical services. Bids were solicited via the internet with six received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 7, 2024. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Louisville, Kentucky, is the contracting activity (W912QR-19-D-0046). NAVY Data Link Solutions LLC, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is awarded a maximum potential value $75,000,000 modification to a previously awarded indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity multiple award contract (N00039-15-D-0042) for the Block Upgrade II retrofit of Multifunctional Information Distribution System (MIDS) low volume terminals. The terminals provide secure, high-capacity, jam-resistant, digital data and voice communications capability for Navy, Air Force and Army platforms, and for Foreign Military Sales customers. Work will be performed in Wayne, New Jersey (50%); and Cedar Rapids, Iowa (50%), and is expected to be completed by December 2026. No funding is being obligated at the time of award. Funds will be obligated as individual delivery orders are issued. This contract modification was not competitively procured because it is a sole-source acquisition pursuant to the authority of 10 U.S. Code 2304(c)(1) - only one responsible source (Federal Acquisition Regulation subpart 6.302-1). The Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity and awarded the contract on behalf of the MIDS Program Office. Oceaneering International Inc., Chesapeake, Virginia, is awarded a maximum value $34,316,273 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for the Virginia class submarine sail racetracks, payload tube loading platforms and multiple all-up-round canister special support equipment ladder kits with shipping crates. Work will be performed in Chesapeake, Virginia, and is expected to be complete in August 2024. Fiscal 2019 other procurement (Navy) funding in the amount of $3,368,978 will be obligated at time of award, and not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured in accordance with 10 U.S. Code 2304 (a) via the Federal Business Opportunities website, with two offers received. The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Philadelphia Division, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the contracting activity (N64498-19-D-4031). Stantec Consulting Services Inc., Burlington, Massachusetts, is awarded $17,695,256 for firm-fixed-price modification to task order N40085-18-F-5881 under previously awarded contract N40085-17-D-5004 for design of a multi-mission dry dock at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. This modification will provide for all architectural and engineering services necessary for the final design, including developing the design-bid-build solicitation documents. Work will be performed in Massachusetts (90%); and Maine (10%), and is expected to be completed by March 2021. Fiscal 2021 military construction (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $17,695,256 are obligated on this award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Mid-Atlantic, Norfolk, Virginia, is the contracting activity. RTL Networks Inc.,* Denver, Colorado, is awarded a $14,399,532 cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract to provide services in the areas of cooperative cyber risk assessments and cyber table tops of fighter/attack (fixed and rotary wing) and surveillance aircraft or similarly complex aircraft, tactical unmanned aerial vehicles, GPS guided weapons or similarly complex weapons, training simulators, Portable Electronic Maintenance Aids equipment, software and development environments, and associated communications and networks. Work will be performed in China Lake, California (50%); Placentia, California (48%); and Denver, Colorado (2%), and is expected to be completed in August 2024. No funds will be obligated at the time of award. Funds will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. This contract was competitively procured via an electronic request for proposal as a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business set-aside; two offers were received. The Naval Air Warfare Center, Weapons Division, China Lake, California, is the contracting activity (N68936-19-D-0040). The Lockheed Martin Corp., Rotary and Mission Systems, Mitchel Field, New York, is awarded $11,498,789 for cost-plus-incentive-fee modification P00018 for new scope under previously awarded contract N00030-18-C-0045 to provide U.S. Trident II (D5) Strategic Weapon System efforts for the navigation subsystem. Work will be performed in Mitchel Field, New York, with an expected completion date of Dec. 31, 2021. Fiscal 2018 research, development, tests and evaluation (Navy) funds in the amount of $11,498,789 are being obligated on this award. This contract was a sole-source acquisition pursuant to 10 U.S. Code 2304(c)(1). Strategic Systems Programs, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity. Treadwell Corp., Thomaston, Connecticut, is awarded a not-to-exceed $7,330,400 ceiling-priced delivery order N00104-19-F-J80J under previously awarded basic ordering agreement N00104-15-G-A408 for repair of 98 items in support of the Navy's Electrolytic Oxygen Generator System. The contract is a four-year contract with no option periods. Work will be performed in Thomaston, Connecticut, and is expected to be completed by September 2023. Working capital funds (Navy) in the amount of $3,591,896 will be obligated at the time of award and funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. One firm was solicited for this sole-sourced requirement under authority 10 U.S. Code 2304 (c)(1), with one offer received. Naval Supply Systems Command, Weapon Systems Support, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, is the contracting activity. *Small Business https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/1928698/source/GovDelivery/

By: Nathan Strout The Army is interested in a new commercial satellite service with a focus on small, mobile terminals. According to a July 2 request for information, the Army wants to expand beyond line-of-sight communications capabilities for tactical users with a new commercial satellite service. The proposed network would put small terminals, slightly bigger than the larger iPad Pro, in the hands of soldiers in the field, allowing them to communicate via a low earth orbit or medium earth orbit constellation. John Swart, the director of the Army's Technology Applications Office, said that the Army was simply interested in learning more from industry. He declined to provide further comment. The Army currently relies on a combination of military and commercial satellites for beyond line-of-sight communications, but satellite coverage and the size of terminals can limit their availability. The suggested satellite service would provide the Army with global coverage, excluding the polar regions. Part of the benefit of using LEO or even MEO satellites is that they reduce the need for larger, bulkier terminals. Since they are closer to Earth, users need less powerful terminals to communicate with the satellites. That means the terminals can be physically smaller, and that's a key focus of the request. The Army wants the commercial satellite service provider to supply troops with so-called “ultra sat terminals” ― basically small terminals 12 inches by 12 inches. Ideally, the Army wants terminals for aircraft, vehicles and dismounts that are small enough to fit in a rucksack, although airborne terminals can be larger. These terminals would preferably be able to switch between satellites as they move from coverage area to coverage area, allowing for uninterrupted service. Broadly, Department of Defense leaders have said that as they develop new satellite architectures they will have face a significant expense in replacing legacy terminals that are not compatible with modern satellites. While the service said it is willing to obtain the satellite services and terminals from different suppliers, they would prefer to go with one provider. It's not clear from the request how many terminals the Army would be interested in acquiring. Responses to the request were due July 31. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/c2-comms/2019/08/07/army-interested-in-ipad-sized-satellite-terminals/

L'armée suisse va démarrer prochainement les essais des systèmes radar destinés à renouveler sa défense sol-air de longue portée. Deux systèmes sont dans la course: le Patriot de la société américaine Raytheon et le SAMP/T du consortium français Eurosam. L'achat de ces systèmes est lié au programme d'acquisition des nouveaux avions de combat. Les essais auront lieu sur l'ancienne place d'exercice de Menzingen dans le canton de Zoug, a indiqué mercredi le Département fédéral de la défense (DDPS). Les détecteurs du Patriot seront testés du 19 au 30 août et ceux du SAMP/T du 16 au 27 septembre. Au total, dix missions spécifiques seront réalisées pour évaluer les aspects techniques et opérationnels de ces appareils. Il s'agira d'effectuer des mesures au sol et de sonder l'espace aérien à la recherche d'avions des Forces aériennes. Pas d'essais de tir Les deux candidats accompliront le même programme d'essai afin d'assurer l'égalité de traitement, a expliqué Marc Dürr, de l'Office fédéral de l'armement armasuisse, responsable des essais. Aucun essai n'aura lieu les jours fériés ou le week-end. Et il n'y aura pas de tir. Les tests ont lieu en Suisse car la topographie a une influence sur les détecteurs, a ajouté M. Dürr. La situation n'est pas la même dans le massif alpin ou dans une zone côtière. Le choix se portera sur un modèle qui sera utilisé tel quel et qui ne nécessitera pas d'adaptations pour la Suisse. Les résultats de chaque candidat seront ensuite comparés. Suivra alors un deuxième appel d'offres comme pour le nouvel avion de combat. Le Conseil fédéral tranchera à fin 2020 ou début 2021 sur la base des évaluations et des rapports des experts de l'armée. Huit milliards au total La surface à couvrir par la défense sol-air doit être de 15'000 km2 au moins. Le système doit atteindre une altitude d'engagement de plus de 12'000 m et une portée supérieure à 50 km. Il n'est pas nécessaire de disposer d'une capacité de défense contre des missiles balistiques. L'achat d'un système de défense sol-air se fera dans le cadre des programmes d'armement ordinaires. L'acquisition des avions de combat sera en revanche soumise au vote, probablement en septembre ou novembre 2020. La facture totale ne devait pas dépasser 8 milliards de francs. L'arrêté de planification doit comporter un volume de financement maximal pour les avions de 6 milliards, le reste étant dévolu à la défense sol-air. L'achat des avions et du système de défense sol-air sera coordonné sur le plan technique et du point de vue du calendrier. Quatre avions en lice Quatre jets ont été évalués entre avril et juin à Payerne pour remplacer les Tiger et les F/A-18 de l'armée. Le français Rafale (Dassault), l'européen Eurofighter (Airbus) et les deux avions américains: le successeur du FA-18, le Super Hornet de Boeing, et le F-35A de Lockheed-Martin. Le suédois Saab a retiré le Gripen E de l'évaluation. Les deux derniers projets d'achats de jets avaient été marqués par un scrutin populaire. L'acquisition de F/A-18 avait été rendue possible après l'échec en 1993 de l'initiative populaire s'y opposant. L'achat de Gripen a été rejeté en 2014 après un référendum contre le fonds qui aurait dû être mis sur pied pour le financer. https://www.rtn.ch/rtn/Actualite/economie/Les-nouveaux-systemes-de-defense-sol-air-de-l-armee-bientot-testes.html