US aerospace and defense exports expected to increase by 3.2 percent in 2016

Gross exports in the U.S. aerospace and defense sector increased by $5 billion in 2015, a 58.9 percent increase in the last five years, according to Deloitte's "U.S.Aerospace & Defense Export Competitiveness Study."

Looking forward, the U.S. aerospace and defense sector's gross exports are expected to increase by 3.2 percent in 2016. This is largely due to an increased pipeline of defense platform products announced and expected for foreign military sales by U.S. defense contractors

"The U.S. aerospace and defense sector was the largest contributor to America's net exports during the 2010 to 2015 period," said Tom Captain, vice chairman, Deloitte LLP. “The sector is also a top employer, taxpayer and contributor to the nation's gross domestic product, making it key to U.S. manufacturing competitiveness."

During the 2010 to 2015 period analyzed in the survey, the U.S. aerospace and defense sector was responsible for the following:

• Sector accounted for 9.5 percent of total U.S. exports in 2015, with the sector's contribution increasing from 7.1 percent of total exports in 2010.
• U.S. accounted for 33 percent of global defense exports in 2015.
• Total aerospace and defense gross exports in 2015 were $143.3 billion, a significant increase of 58.9 percent over the last five years.
• China was the largest aerospace and defense export market for the U.S. in 2015, followed by the U.K. and France.

The top five exporting states - Washington, California, Connecticut, Texas and Georgia - accounted for about 61 percent of the total aerospace and defense sector exports in 2015. Washington state also showed a strong 109.4 percent increase in exports in 2015 compared to 2010 as the state that continues to have the largest presence in the commercial aircraft manufacturing subsector.

Battery charger failure caused weather satellite to rupture in space

Officials from the U.S. Air Force 50th Space Wing have completed their operations review of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Flight 13 that was permanently shut down Feb. 3, 2015, precipitating a debris-causing event. The review determined there were no actions that could have been taken to prevent the incident. The mission is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on behalf of the U.S. Air Force.

The review into the unexpected loss of this satellite determined a failure of the battery charger as the likely cause. Analysis indicates one of the wiring harnesses lost functionality due to compression over a long period of time in the battery charge assembly. Once the harness was compromised, the exposed wires potentially caused a short in the battery power, leading to an overcharge situation with eventual rupture of the batteries.

Currently, the Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., is tracking 147 pieces of debris from this incident ranging from baseball to basketball-sized objects, where the original satellite was about the size of a one-car garage. There are approximately 110 payloads in the same orbital regime as DMSP Flight 13. The JSpOC has had no reportable conjunctions between the DMSP Flight 13 debris and any of these objects.

"In accordance with our ongoing efforts to protect the space domain, the JSpOC will continue to monitor this debris along with all of the items in the space catalog in order to enhance the long-term sustainability, safety and security of the space environment," said Col. John Giles, JSpOC director.

DMSP Flight 13 was originally launched on March 24, 1995. Despite its original four-year design life, Flight 13 provided service for almost two decades and on Aug. 6, 2014 became the first operational DMSP satellite to reach 100,000 revolutions around the Earth.

Military helicopter market worth $33 billion in 2023

Repeated budget cuts and frozen orders have blurred promises of market recovery in the global military market, especially across Western regions. The adoption of remotely piloted aircraft systems seems to make manned helicopters further irrelevant. Nevertheless, unrivalled vertical take-off and landing capabilities as well as strong mission efficiency rates will sustain interest in military rotorcraft.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, Global Military Helicopters Market Assessment, finds that the market earned revenues of $25.43 billion in 2013 and estimates this to reach $33.37 billion in 2023. New platform procurements will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 2.8 percent globally.

"Territorial disputes in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East are underlining the importance of upgraded attack and naval capabilities, thereby boosting military helicopter sales," said Frost & Sullivan Aerospace & Defense Industry Analyst Alix Leboulanger. "While budget cuts and stretched fleets will impact the platform segment in the short and medium terms, the need to bridge crucial capability gaps will revive market growth in the long term."

As armed forces renew legacy helicopters, the new generation of platforms will face certain challenges:

• Meeting budget requirements will eventually imply less procurement.
• Conducting assignments ranging from asymmetric warfare to naval operations with significantly low financial support will affect performance.
• The fast-changing geopolitical environment will hold back export opportunities.

To conduct more missions at a lesser cost, armed forces are embracing multi-role platforms. However, the demand for multi-role platforms capable of fulfilling each mission as efficiently as mission-specific helicopters increases costs.

Manufacturers must highlight benefits such as the rationalization of existing logistics and maintenance repair operations supply-chains, reduction in training costs, and interoperability to move forward the uptake of expensive multi-role platforms. Consequently, the use of smarter mission systems and open systems architecture for joint missions with other aircraft types, in particular remotely piloted aircraft systems, will increase.

"The rise of optionally piloted helicopters is a future trend that needs to be closely monitored as it will actually empower multi-role helicopters and their mission spectrum," observed Leboulanger. "It also has the potential to bridge the gap in manned and unmanned aircraft integration, complementing – not replacing – helicopter surveillance, reconnaissance, and utility roles in the global military helicopter space."

Military C-130 'hard landing' reported, no injuries

A Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System (MAFFS) aircraft under the control of U.S. Northern Command experienced a hard landing at 4:53 p.m. EDT on Sunday at Hill Air Force Base in Utah.

The aircraft was on a fire-fighting mission when the aircrew became aware of a potential malfunction of the nose landing gear. The crew executed an emergency landing at Hill AFB and the aircraft sustained damage upon landing which included a small fire. No one was injured.

The aircraft belongs to the Wyoming Air National Guard’s 153^rd Airlift Wing located in Cheyenne, Wyo.

Since July 20, Department of Defense aircraft have conducted 131 air drops and discharged more than 244,000 gallons of retardant.

Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard C-130 aircraft assigned to units in California, Colorado, North Carolina and Wyoming are capable of dropping fire retardant using C-130 aircraft and U.S. Forest Service supplied MAFFS units. Aircrews, maintenance crews and support personnel undergo special training and certification to perform these missions each year.

Three rockets scheduled for launch from Virginia coast

Three Terrier-Orion suborbital rockets are scheduled for launch between 1 and 5 a.m. EST Tuesday for the Department of Defense from NASA's launch range on Wallops Island, Va.

At the request of Department of Defense project managers, no real-time status updates will be available when the rockets liftoff. “The launch will not be shown live on the Internet nor will launch status updates be provided on social media once the countdown begins,” NASA said in a statement on Friday. “The NASA Visitor Center at Wallops will not be open for viewing the launch.”

The three rockets, which will be launched within a 20-second period, may be visible to residents in the mid-Atlantic region.

The backup launch days are Wednesday through Saturday.

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Pentagon ends sweetheart fuel deal for Google executive aircraft

The Department of Defense (DOD) has ended a sweetheart fuel deal that allowed a company owned by top Google executives to buy discounted jet fuel for a fleet of aircraft based at Moffett Federal Airfield (MFA) in California. The public interest group Consumer Watchdog said Friday the aircraft should be evicted from the facility and an investigation opened to see if laws were broken.

H211, a company owned by Google CEO Larry Page, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin, apparently bought fuel to which it wasn't entitled under the agreement with the Defense Department, Consumer Watchdog said in press statement Friday. “The fuel was purchased below commercial market prices. Consumer Watchdog first raised concerns about the Google executives' sweetheart deal in a 2011 report. New details of about the arrangement emerged in a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report Thursday.

The Google executives' aircraft, a Boeing 767, a Boeing 757 and four Gulfstream V's, were allowed to be based at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Federal Airfield, ostensibly because they were to be used to do research flights for NASA, but the WSJ documented that few of the flights originating from Moffett were NASA related. Some were flights to Tahiti, Hawaii and Croatia.

"What's truly outrageous is their company appears to have bought $6 million worth of fuel subsidized by taxpayers that they weren't entitled to at all,” said John Simpson, Consumer Watchdog's Privacy Project Direct. “Why should they get to fill up their fuel tanks to fly on personal junkets around the world, when we're all struggling to fill our gas tanks?"

H211 was only entitled to buy fuel from the Department of Defense when the planes were used for NASA missions. However, as The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, only 155 scientific missions had been flown for NASA as of last year, while more than 710 flights had departed Moffett since 2007.

The contract between H211 and the Pentagon specifies that the fuel was supposed to be used only "for performance of a U.S. government contract, charter or other approved use."
The Wall Street Journal reported that 2.3 million gallons of fuel were purchased from the DOD since 2009 for the Google jets at an average cost of $3.19, while the average price at commercial airports for the same period was $4.35, a savings totaling $2.67 million.
NASA's relation with the Google executives is under investigation by NASA's Inspector General (IG).

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Idaho) has also raised questions about the arrangement. The sweetheart deal that allowed the fuel purchases was terminated Aug. 31, probably because of the IG's investigation, Consumer Watchdog said. However, the aircraft are still based at Moffett, about three miles away from Google's headquarters.

Up for lease

In May, the General Services Administration (GSA) on behalf of NASA issued a Request for Proposals to solicit lease proposals for the rehabilitation and adaptive reuse of NASA's historic Hangar One located at Moffett.

The proposed long-term lease of Hangar One and MFA offers a unique opportunity for the private sector to collaborate with the government to reposition and manage federally owned property for private and public sector reuse, the GSA said.

"In the face of declining budgets and significant mission changes, NASA has been challenged to repurpose historic Hangar One and manage the airfield to support other non-NASA users,” said GSA Acting Administrator Dan Tangherlini. “This competitive approach is designed to create opportunities for development while eliminating NASA's management costs of the airfield."

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