aerospace america 2013 05

Shifting fortunes for commercial X-bandA conversation with Eddy PieniazekA P U B L I C A T I O N O F T H E A M E R I C A N I N S T I T U T E O F A E R O N A U T I C S A N D A S T R O N A U T I C S

May 2013

Acquisitionreform:Realsolutions

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Aerospace America (ISSN 0740-722X) is published monthly, except August, by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. at 1801 Alexander Bell Drive, Reston, Va. 20191-4344[703/264-7500]. Subscription rate is 50% of dues for AIAA members (and is not deductible therefrom). Nonmember subscription price: U.S. and Canada, $163, foreign, $200. Single copies $20 each. Postmaster: Send address changes and subscription orders to address above, attention AIAA Customer Service, 703/264-7500. Periodical postage paid at Herndon, VA, and at additional mailing offices. Copyright © 2011 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., all rights reserved. The name Aerospace America is registered by the AIAA in the U.S.Patent and Trademark Office. 40,000 copies of this issue printed. This is Volume 51, No. 5.

May 2013

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BULLETIN

ACQUISITION REFORM: REAL SOLUTIONS 28Although true reform of defense acquisitions has presented enormousproblems, realistic solutions are possible.by Maj. Fred A. Kimler III, USAF

Russia’s robotic space renaissance 32After a chaotic period of transition, Russia is pursuing ambitious plansfor robotic lunar and planetary exploration.by Leonard David

SHIFTING FORTUNES FOR COMMERCIAL XBAND 38Commercial companies that provide X-band communications are findinginnovative ways of adjusting to growing competition.by Ben Iannotta

COMMENTARY 3Our own worst enemy.

INTERNATIONAL BEAT 4The world’s latest aerospace power faces tough choices.

WASHINGTON WATCH 6Budget realities hit home.

CONVERSATIONS 12with Eddy Pieniazek.

THE VIEW FROM HERE 16Deep space 2023: The art of the possible.

INDUSTRY INSIGHTS 20Hopes rise for U.S. UAV sales to Middle East.

ENGINEERING NOTEBOOK 26Comfortable in your own exoskeleton.

OUT OF THE PAST 46

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES 48

COVERMeaningful defense acquisition reform can only take place with the active involvement of legislators, the Pentagon,and industry. See the story beginning on page 28. Cover by Fitzgerald Art & Design.

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The current restrictions imposed on U.S. government employees, preventingthem from participation in scientific and technical activities, set the stage forundermining decades of progress and the credibility of our technical enter-prises. We must correct the misconception that government travels are junketswithout productive outcome, and protect attendance at technical convocationsclose enough that travel is not a consideration. These new regulations some-times even extend to participation independent of government affiliation andat one’s own expense, lest the appearance of government support be inferred.These issues are concentrated in the space and defense sectors, where the impact is immediate and lasting.

Everyone in our profession should realize the strong political and subjectiveinfluences in play, and deal with two facts: Most of the country does not understand what we do. And we are a very small constituency with insignificantpolitical influence. Most of the people who benefit from our work do not evenrealize that it is ours.

So, what can we do?First, our most senior leaders must resist amplifying the damage. To be sure,

they are political appointees. But having accepted the posts, their principalresponsibility should be to the missions of their agencies, not to political correctness. Might they be replaced by totally political agents? Of course, butthen we would know where they were coming from and could deal betterknowing that logic was a forlorn hope.

Second, those whose contributions are not affected by misguided policyshould take up the slack, representing the interests of the nation at least asvigorously as their personal or corporate interests. This suggests that govern-ment employees be more forthcoming with regard to the needs of their organizations and their missions. Industry and, to an extent, academia mustbecome the avatars for the common good.

Third, the aerospace community must support its professional societiesmuch more than it has. The only voices for our careers and productivity aregasping for air. Conferences are their major revenue source. Many are nowlosing money on irrevocable commitments compromised by the restrictions.Some respond with fewer but more expansive conferences, which may beself-defeating, since each of the fewer conferences will attract more attendeesthan the individual ones would have, amplifying agencies’ reluctance to sendmany employees to the same event. Conference organizers should also pullback on social events and locations that invite criticism.

Sequestration demands hard decisions from our legislators, and it is temptingto focus on what appear to be easy targets. But it is vital to look beyond that.Although participation in the technical community is but one among manyvictims, it is one with wide-reaching ramifications. This community is the heartof our national defense and the lifeblood of our commerce. A few dollarsmight be saved, but at what cost?

Dave FinklemanAcademician, International Academy of Astronautics

is a publication of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Elaine J. CamhiEditor-in-ChiefPatricia JeffersonAssociate EditorGreg WilsonProduction EditorJerry Grey, Editor-at-LargeChristine Williams, Editor AIAA Bulletin

CorrespondentsRobert F. Dorr, WashingtonPhilip Butterworth-Hayes, EuropeMichael Westlake, Hong Kong

Contributing WritersRichard Aboulafia, James W. Canan,Marco Cáceres, Craig Covault, LeonardDavid, Philip Finnegan, Edward Goldstein, Tom Jones, James Oberg,David Rockwell, J.R. Wilson

Fitzgerald Art & Design Art Direction and Design

Michael Griffin, PresidentSandra H. Magnus, PublisherCraig Byl, Manufacturing and Distribution

STEERING COMMITTEECol. Neal Barlow, USAF Academy;Carol Cash, Carol Cash & Associates;Brian D. Dailey; Basil Hassan, Sandia;Robert E. Lindberg, National Institute ofAerospace; Vigor Yang, Georgia Institute ofTechnology; Susan X. Ying; Boeing

EDITORIAL BOARDNed Allen, Jean-Michel Contant, Eugene Covert, L.S. “Skip” Fletcher,Michael Francis, Cam Martin,Don Richardson, Douglas Yazell

ADVERTISING Robert Silverstein, [email protected] Brody [email protected]

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Send materials to Craig Byl, AIAA, 1801Alexander Bell Drive, Suite 500, Reston, VA20191-4344. Changes of address should besent by e-mail at [email protected], or by faxat 703.264.7606.Send correspondence to [email protected].

May 2013, Vol. 51, No. 5

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Our own worst enemy

The latest aerospace power facestough choices

4 AEROSPACE AMERICA/MAY 2013

civil war to the south in Syria andeconomic collapse in Greece tothe West. With a return to peaceand economic stability thesegrowth rates are likely to increaserapidly.

Finally, Turkey’s civil aviationambitions are matched equallyby its military ambitions—notjust to buy but to develop an in-

digenous capability with the help ofkey Western companies.

Aerospace and defense rate highAccording to a recent U.S. Dept. ofCommerce report, Turkey is a $12-billion annual market for aerospaceproducts and services and a $4-billionmarket for defense-related goods andservices. “In 2011, U.S. exports to Tur-key increased by 38% over 2010 andreached nearly $15 billion, and bilateraltrade is up 35%, to nearly $20 billion.With a population over 75 millionpeople, Turkey has the world’s sixthlargest army with 720,000 soldiers, thesecond largest army in NATO after theUnited States, and the Turkish airforce is the world’s third largest oper-ator of F-16s, after the USA and Israel,”says the report.

In a recent study, “Revenue Oppor-tunity and Stakeholder Mapping—

Turkey Defense Market,” Frost & Sulli-van reports that the defense market

Black Sea coast, 37 miles northwest ofthe city center, with an initial capacityof 90 million passengers a year, risingeventually to 150 million.

Turkey, in other words, is taking onthe gulf states in the competition tobecome the key global connectingpoint between the Far East, MiddleEast, Europe, and North America.

But there are three key differencesbetween Turkey and the gulf states.The first is that Turkey is no greenfieldaviation market, where sudden spikesin demand look spectacular becausethe baseline of activity is so low.Turkey is already a mature aviationmarket, hosting the seventh busiestairport in Europe—and the only one torecord significant growth last year—and three of the top 10 busiest city-pair routes in the continent.

The second major difference is thatthese increases are taking place at atime of considerable political and eco-nomic unrest along its borders, with

TURKEY WILL BE ONE OF THE 10 BIG-gest economies in the world by 2030if the government’s current economicgrowth plans are successful. PrimeMinister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ‘Vi-sion 2030’ aims to increase the nation’sgross domestic product to $2 trillionfrom $775 billion in 2012 and raise percapita income to $25,000 from $10,524over the same period.

Ambitions are one thing, but what isremarkable about Turkey is that, de-spite the dire economic situation inthe rest of Europe and political turmoilalong its borders, the country is almoston course to achieve this ambition. Al-though most of Europe is strugglingwith economic stagnation, Turkey islikely to see its economy grow at least4% in 2013 over 2012—down from the8.5% growth rate in 2011 over 2010,but heading toward the 6% growth fig-ure next year that the government hastargeted as the annual minimum in-crease needed in the short and mediumterm to achieve the 2030 target. Ac-cording to the European Bank for Re-construction and Development, Tur-key should average an annual growthrate of 6.7% between 2011 and 2017.

Aviation: A key driverAviation and aerospace are key growthsectors for the economy. Turkish Air-lines is now the world’s fastest grow-ing international airline. In March 2013the airline detailed plans to order upto 117 Airbus single-aisle aircraft totake its fleet to 375 aircraft, includingfreighters. Business aviation is grow-ing, too, in a European market that iscurrently declining. According to busi-ness aviation market specialists Avin-ode, year-on-year business jet traffic inTurkey grew around 4.8% during 2012over 2011.

The country has also recently an-nounced plans to build a third airport,costing $9.3 billion, for Istanbul, a cityof 15 million. It will be built near the

Turkish Airlines has become the world’s fastest growing international airline.

Evolving Turkish Aerospace IndustriesTAI is one of the world’s fastest growing aerospace companies, rapidly evolving from a major licensedassembler of fourth-generation fighters to a designer and manufacturer of new generations of advanced trainers and rotorcraft. Its aircraft division produces the HÜRKU basic trainer and is engagedin a wide range of modernization programs for aircraft as varied as the country’s Boeing 737 AirborneEarly Warning and Control aircraft and the ATR-72 Meltem 3 anti-submarine-warfare platform. Theaerostructures business makes ailerons for the Airbus A350 XWB, section 18 structures for the AirbusA320, and the forward and rear fuselage shells for the Airbus Military A400M. Other structural partsare supplied to Boeing 737 and Boeing 777 programs and the Bombardier CSeries. In May 2012 theSSM issued a request for proposal from TAI’s helicopter division for an ‘Indigenous Helicopter’ program.The same division is developing the Turkish Utility Helicopter T-70, based on Sikorsky’s S-70 platform,and is building 59 T-129 attack helicopters based on the AgustaWestland A129 airframe, with upgradedengines, transmission, and rotor blades. Other TAI divisions are involved in developing satellites andlogistics services.

AEROSPACE AMERICA/MAY 2013 5

generated revenues of $18.76 billionin 2012, a figure which will reach$24.70 billion in 2021.

“Turkey’s bilateral position as aNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization(NATO) member with significant WestAsian associations is being leveragedto drive growth in its domestic de-fense market,” says research analystYasha Izadpanah, one of the authorsof the study. “Investment in domesticmanufacturing infrastructure is theprincipal trend in the Turkish defensemarket at present. This will continue,buoyed by Turkey’s steady economyand political intent to establish a self-reliant defense industry.”

Major Western companies have setup operations in the country for sometime. The first F-16 assembly line wasestablished by Turkish Aerospace In-dustries (TAI) under license to Lock-heed Martin in 1984. Since then it hasbuilt over 270 F-16s for the Turkish airforce as well as building other F-16sand providing modernization servicesfor F-16s in service in Egypt, Pakistan,and Jordan.

More recently Sikorsky has teamedwith TAI on the $3.5-billion contract todeliver 109 Black Hawk utility heli-copters to the Turkish military. Tomeet the requirement, Sikorsky hasexpanded its components manufactur-ing business of Alp Aviation, which is50% owned by Sikorsky, to offer sup-port, including the sale of Turkish as-sembled aircraft, to future Sikorsky in-ternational customers; that, togetherwith the Turkish order, could reach600 helicopters. Sikorsky is also teamedwith Turkish avionics supplier Aselanto provide a new digital cockpit forthe helicopter.

Airbus Military has set up a jointventure with TAI to provide in-servicesupport for the A400M aircraft orderedby Turkey, with the potential to pro-vide services to other A400M users inthe future. Pratt & Whitney and Good-rich have both signed joint ventureagreements with Turkish Technic toprovide maintenance, repair, and over-haul services to airlines in the region.

The normal method of procuring

Western aerospace as-sets and expertise is forTurkey’s main procure-ment agency, the Un-dersecretariat of De-fence (SSM), toencourage U.S. and Eu-ropean companies toestablish coproductionjoint ventures withTurkish defense indus-try companies, pavingthe way for the jointventure to sell Turkish-built platforms to otherstates in the region.

Thanks in large part to this policyover the last five years, Turkey’s do-mestic aerospace manufacturing capa-bilities have become increasingly ma-ture—especially in areas such asavionics and control systems—and arenow seeking, and finding, customersfor indigenously developed productssuch as the ANKA medium-altitudelong endurance remotely piloted airsystem. TAI has been the major bene-ficiary of this investment, but there arestill capabilities that cannot be met bydomestic suppliers; in March 2013 a $3billion-$4 billion competition for along-range defensive missile programwas being competed by U.S., Euro-pean, Russian, and Chinese firms.

“C4ISR and air platforms make up66% of military imports as a result ofTurkey’s lack of infrastructure. How-ever, the time to build this cooperationis now, as the opportunities for part-nership will diminish as indigenoustechnical capability continues to grow

in Turkey,” says Koray Ozkal of Frost& Sullivan. “Turkey will potentially be-come a major exporter to Gulf Coop-eration Council and Association ofSoutheast Asia Nations countries.”

What’s next?But it is what happens next that is in-teresting, because Turkey is at a cross-roads, both economically and strategi-cally. The next several years willdetermine whether the nation realizesits goal of becoming a major globaleconomic superpower with an indige-nous defense capability to match.

Despite the close industrial rela-tions with European and U.S. compa-nies, strategically the government hasshifted its foreign policy directionaway from seeking closer ties withWestern allies to pursue a more inde-pendent foreign policy agenda. Tur-key did not support the U.S. invasionof Iraq in 2003, and its bid to seekcloser ties with Europe through join-ing the European Union has been par-tially rebuffed by some EU memberstates. However, given the economicproblems now assailing southern EUstates, this may, for the moment atleast, be to the country’s best interest.

So in seeking to deal with politicaland economic instability among mostneighbors—it is surrounded by Iran tothe south, the Balkans to the west,and the Caucasus states to the north-east—Turkey has chosen to increas-ingly develop its own military capabil-

TAI and Sikorsky will deliver 109 Black Hawks to the Turkish military.

EUROPEAN AIRPORT ACTIVITY 2012Average Growth

daily onRank Airport departures 2011

1 Paris, C. De Gaulle 680 -3.4%2 Frankfurt, Main 659 -1.3%3 London/Heathrow 649 -1.5%4 Amsterdam, Schiphol 593 0.3%5 Munich 2 540 -3.2%6 Madrid Barajas 510 -13.3%7 Istanbul-Ataturk 482 12.2%8 Rome Fiumicino 429 -4.7%9 Barcelona 396 -4.6%

10 Zurich 357 -2.8%

Source: Eurocontrol. (Continued on page 23)

Budget realities hit home


She may well be the most politicallypopular person in Washington whosename no one knows. Described bythe Washington Post as a “veteran of-ficer with broad support inside theagency,” she remains under cover af-ter being placed on an acting basis inthe top spy position just before Bren-nan was sworn in as CIA boss.

The very existence of this smart,savvy officer poses a dilemma forBrennan. She was a pivotal figure inthe CIA’s post-September 11, 2001,program of secret prisons and interro-gation overseas, in which Brennanalso had a role. The program is nowdefunct, and Brennan and the admin-istration would like to distance them-selves from it. If Brennan does not as-sign the officer to the clandestineleadership job on a permanent basis,he is likely to draw criticism for actingin his self-interest as well as for under-mining diversity in an administrationalready under fire for having fewwomen in key spots. If he does assignher, he may draw flak for appearing toabide the detention and interrogationprogram.

The advice and consent of theSenate is not needed for Brennan’s de-cision on the CIA officer and was notrequired when Obama named a newSecret Service director. Julia A. Piersonwas sworn in as Secret Service bosson March 27. Pierson is a 30-year vet-eran agent who knows the 3,500-member service. She is expected tocontinue a cultural cleanup begun byoutgoing director Mark Sullivan in thewake of a scandal that ensnaredagents visiting Colombia last spring.Obama said Pierson is “breaking themold” as the first woman to lead themale-dominated agency.

FAA, sequester, and the 787The FAA is responding to the nation’songoing fiscal uncertainty by planningto close 149 control towers at U.S. air-

Washington to suddenly return to thetraditional budget process, and no oneis uttering the word ‘compromise.’”This lurching is “the new normal,” ac-cording to a different Dept. of Defensecivilian, “and we’ll just need to learnto work with it.” No one is certainwhether a major debate over the na-tion’s debt ceiling will take place thissummer, long before the FY14 budgetbattle.

In March, earlier than usual, theSenate and House passed competingversions of an FY14 budget. They didso in advance of the White House’sbudget proposal, which was expectedin early April. In the traditional budgetprocess, the White House makes itsproposal before Congress acts.

Women to watchThe view from the White House is alittle different now for Obama, whodoes not need to think about reelec-tion and has settled into his secondterm. His revamped cabinet team ismostly in place and includes Secretaryof State John Kerry, Secretary of De-fense Chuck Hagel, and CIA directorJohn Brennan.

Brennan will soon have to decidewhether to keep the acting head ofthe CIA’s National Clandestine Service.

ON MARCH 27, PRESIDENT BARACKObama signed a continuing resolution(CR) that enables the federal govern-ment to continue operations until Sep-tember 30, the end of the current fiscalyear. The Senate and House of Repre-sentatives had approved the CR daysearlier, on March 24.

The CR locks in across-the-boardspending cuts mandated by the pro-cess known as sequestration, with afew exceptions. White House spokes-man Jay Carney told reporters that thepresident’s approval of the CR doesnot make Obama a supporter of se-questration. Carney said Obama wantsto negotiate with members of his ownDemocratic party and with Republicanleaders to find a longer term debt anddeficit solution that will focus on pri-orities rather than inflicting cutsequally to all agencies.

The alternative to the CR wouldhave been for the government to shutdown, and no one in either partywanted that, so the CR really does notchange much. Washington anticipatesa bruising battle over the budget forFY14, which begins October 1, andleaders in the executive and legislativebranches are mustering their argu-ments for that.

Meanwhile, some Democrats areunhappy with the president for sign-ing the CR because they do not likethe indiscriminate form of austeritythat comes with sequestration. SomeRepublicans are unhappy becauseeven with sequestration, big govern-ment will see only a small reduction inits size and influence. If the sequesterwere to remain in effect for severalyears, it would reduce total govern-ment spending by about 4% in an erawhen the feds are borrowing fully40% of all the money they spend.

“We’re still running government bylurching from one uncertain flashpointto the next,” said one Army civilianemployee in Virginia. “No one expects Secret Service Director Julia A. Pierson


ports in 38 states that conduct fewerthan 150,000 flight operations a year.This will mean furloughs for 20,000FAA employees. Originally scheduledto begin in April, the closures havebeen postponed until June 15, as legalchallenges are sorted out.

Local officials and congressionaldelegations are objecting. At facilitiessuch as Arizona’s Phoenix-GoodyearAirport, one argument against theclosings is that they will hurt localeconomies. At the Arizona location, amajor flight school that conducts 85%of the airport’s operations is threaten-ing to move away, taking from thecommunity 80 jobs, 200 people, andmost of the airport’s reason for being.

“Tales of turmoil at some of the na-tion’s busiest airports are beginning tosurface,” wrote Andrew Stiles in theNational Review, “causing some towonder whether public perceptions ofsequestration may soon begin to favorthe administration. The FAA has in-sisted these cutbacks are unavoidable,but the administration has a clear po-litical interest in maximizing the pub-lic’s outrage, so critics aren’t buying it.”

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Rep.Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) wrote to outgoingTransportation Secretary Ray LaHood,whose department overseas the FAA,calling for “a detailed justification andexplanation for how the FAA deter-mined each contract tower would beclosed.” They pointed out that all ofthe towers involved were operationalin 2009, when the FAA received lessfunding than it will get this year. Atpress time, the administration had notnamed a replacement for LaHood,who is scheduled to leave governmentin June.

Both the FAA and Japan’s Civil Avi-ation Bureau are keeping the Boeing787 Dreamliner grounded until ques-tions about the jetliner’s batteries areresolved. At a press event in Tokyo onMarch 15, Boeing unveiled a new ver-sion of the battery system, designed toovercome problems that caused twomuch-publicized earlier mishaps, in-cluding one serious fire. The Japaneseauthorities say preparations have not

been finished to permit even a testflight of the grounded 787.

In another development, the FAAis allowing 787 test flights on a limitedbasis, to evaluate improvements of thebattery installation. Boeing made thefirst such flight at Paine Field, Wash-ington, on March 25 using a 787 withLOT Polish Airlines markings. A flightfor the purpose of gaining formal FAAcertification of the new battery design,and hence the aircraft, was expectedto take place in early April. At presstime, 787 proponents were saying rev-enue airline flights might resume bythe end of April.

Reuters reported that the FAAmight certify the Dreamliner for oper-ations over land only. According tothe new service, even temporarily lim-iting extended operations (ETOPS) inthis way would cost the company andairlines. An unnamed FAA spokesper-

son said, “It’s really premature to talkabout what ETOPS certification wewould give them right now....We’ll bein a better position to answer ques-tions like that after we get through allthis battery testing.”

[In March, we wrote that other na-tions “followed the FAA’s lead” ingrounding all 50 787s worldwide be-cause of incidents caused by batteryproblems. One reader pointed out thatJapanese authorities grounded the 787two days before the FAA did. That isincorrect. To clarify: Japanese airlinesusing the 787 grounded the aircraftbefore the FAA action, but Japan’s civilaviation authority acted only after theFAA did.]

Aerial shows and air exercisesAerial performances for the public,and the air shows where they occur,are among the victims of Washington’sbudget uncertainty. At least 25 airshows scheduled at locations aroundthe country, including 10 at Air Forcebases, have been canceled. The AirForce’s Thunderbirds flight demonstra-tion team and the Army’s GoldenKnights parachute team have canceledscheduled performances from April 1until September 30, when the fiscalyear ends. The Navy’s Blue Angelsteam has not officially canceled itsseason program, but eight of its per-formances scheduled for this summerwill not take place because organizerschose to cancel the air shows for lackof a guarantee that the Blue Angels—

The FAA is facing closing control towers at manylesser-used airports.

Boeing made the first test flight with the new battery systems on March 25 using a 787 with LOT livery.


newer KF-16C Block 52 Fighting Fal-cons that received the CCIP, HTS, andLink 16 improvements while on theproduction line.

The 4th EFS was slated to rotatehome in April. Pearse, Sabia, and oth-ers say they do not know whetherplans for a replacement TSP will sur-vive ongoing defense cuts. Sabia saysthat spending six months in Korea hasbeen “an especially good experiencefor our younger pilots” but adds,“Whether a future squadron will fill inbehind us is still to be determined.”

Changing of the guardOn March 22, Lt. Gen. Stanley ClarkeIII became director of the Air NationalGuard in a ceremony at Joint Base An-drews, Maryland. Clarke replaces Lt.Gen. Harry M. ‘Bud’ Wyatt III as thenation’s top Air Guardsman. (Wyattwas also the last pilot in uniform tohave flown the F-106 Delta Dart inter-ceptor of the 1960s.)

The changeover happens whentensions are rife between the Guardand the active duty Air Force, withmany in Congress looking for ways tohalt Guard aircraft retirements thatwere planned by the active duty AirStaff. “I’ve arrived in a time of budgetturmoil and uncertainty,” Clarke says,“but I view this as a time of opportu-nity as well.”

Clarke is a command pilot withover 4,000 hours, including more than100 combat hours, in A-10 Thunder-bolt IIs and F-16s.

Clarke told a congressional over-

Lt. Col. Jay ‘Fang’ Sabia, squadroncommander, said in a March 14 tele-phone interview that he cannot pre-dict what will happen in Korea butthat “we stay ready flying the fullspectrum of realistic training missions,some with live ordnance.” Col. JohnW. ‘Yoda’ Pearse, the Wolfpack wingcommander, says that having the addi-tional TSP squadron is “a big help” butadds, “it’s disappointing that [theNorth Koreans] are ratcheting up theirrhetoric.”

North Korea detonated its thirdnuclear device on February 12 and is-sued a statement on March 11 declar-ing the Korean armistice invalid. NorthKorea also severed a ‘hot line’ be-tween Pyongyang and Seoul, at leasttemporarily.

The USAF maintains four fightersquadrons permanently on the Koreanpeninsula—one with F-16s and onewith A-10C Thunderbolt IIs at OsanAir Base, and two with F-16s at Kun-san. The ongoing presence of a de-ployed TSP at Kunsan provides a fifthsquadron. All the U.S.-operated F-16fighters are F-16CM Block 40 modelsthat have been modernized in theCommon Configuration Implementa-tion Program (CCIP). The update in-cludes the HTS (HARM targeting sys-tem), which enables Block 40 F-16s touse AGM-88 HARM (high-speed anti-radiation missiles), designed to homein on enemy radar emissions. The Re-public of Korea air force operates

called the ‘Rolling Stones of the airshow industry’ by one observer—would not be forced to back out at thelast minute.

On a more serious note, the AirForce canceled the Red Flag-Alaska13-2 exercise slated for April becauseof budget uncertainty. Red Flag Alaskais a mock conflict that simulates war inAsia and brings together U.S. combatunits from around the Pacific region,as well as British and Canadian forces,to play out a hyperrealistic warfightingscenario. Held periodically, the exer-cise is credited with sharpening readi-ness to deal with threats from NorthKorea, China, and elsewhere.

More serious yet, officials say thecurrent budget situation threatens theAir Force’s capability to maintain abolstered presence on the scene in re-sponse to tensions on the Koreanpeninsula. They say they are uncertainwhether funding will continue for aTheater Security Package, or TSP—abulked-out fighter squadron serving astemporary reinforcement at KunsanAir Base in South Korea.

F-16 Fighting Falcon pilots, main-tainers, and support troops of the 4thExpeditionary Fighter Squadron fromHill AFB, Utah, were completing a six-month TSP deployment at press time.The 4th EFS is a mixed unit consistingof active duty and Reserve airmen,with 12 aircraft, 18 pilots, and 230troops. During its temporary stay atKunsan, the squadron functioned as apart of the base’s 8th Fighter Wing, the‘Wolfpack.’

An F-16CM Fighting Falcon takes off from KunsanAir Base, Korea, in March, while serving as partof a Theater Security Package on the Koreanpeninsula. Courtesy: USAF.

Uncertainties about the availability of the BlueAngels have resulted in the cancellation of several air shows.

Lt. Gen. Stanley Clarke


sight panel that one of his priorities isto minimize the “dramatic toll” thatbudget cutbacks are taking on the AirGuard’s readiness and people. At fu-ture hearings, he can expect to begrilled about Pentagon plans to retireor cancel 38 C-27J Spartan tactical air-lifters and numerous other aircraftonce slated to equip half a dozenGuard units. Lawmakers are upset thatmanned flying missions are being re-placed by missions involving UAVs—

often flights that do not involve havingaircraft at home base. Clarke has ac-knowledged the concern and prom-ised to keep at least one manned fly-ing mission in every state.

Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, who pre-viously served as Army vice chief ofstaff, assumed command of U.S. Cen-tral Command from Marine CorpsGen. Jim Mattis in a ceremony atMacDill AFB, Florida, on March 22.Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel pre-

sided over the event. Mattis, who is re-tiring from the military after 41 yearsof service, had led CENTCOM sinceAugust 2010, overseeing the U.S. mili-tary’s activities in Afghanistan, Iraq,Central Asia, and the Middle East.

“Jim Mattis really is one of a kind.He’s a visionary,” said Gen. Martin

Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefsof Staff, during the ceremony. Demp-sey added, “I’ve never met a marinewho has served with Jim Mattis whohas anything but the highest regard forhis leadership.” Dempsey noted thatAustin also has done some “heavy lift-ing” downrange, having overseen theconclusion of the U.S. mission in Iraq.

Austin said he was honored tolead CENTCOM and thanked themembers of command for their serv-ice. “I’m reminded of the courage, de-termination, and professionalism ofthe soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines,and coast guardsmen and their fami-lies,” said Austin. He added, “They arewithout question the reason why oursremains the finest and most capablemilitary in the world.”

Robert F. [email protected]

Robert F. Dorr’s latest book is Missionto Tokyo.

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Grant E. Carichner and Leland M. NicolaiApril 2013, 984 pages, HardbackISBN: 978-1-60086-898-6List Price: $119.95AIAA Member Price: $89.95

About the Book

Fundamentals of Aircraft and Airship Design, Volume 2 —Airship Design and Case Studies examines a modern conceptual design of both airships and hybrids and features nine behind-the-scenes case studies. It will benefit graduate and upper-level undergraduate students as well as practicing engineers.

The authors address the conceptual design phase comprehensively, for both civil and military airships, from initial consideration of user needs, material selection, and structural arrangement to the decision to iterate the design one more time. The book is the only available source of design instruction on single-lobe airships, multiple-lobe hybrid airships, and balloon configurations; on solar- and gasoline-powered airship systems, human-powered aircraft, and no-power aircraft; and on estimates of airship/ hybrid aerodynamics, performance, propeller selection, S&C, and empty weight.

The book features numerous examples, including designs for airships, hybrid airships, and a high-altitude balloon; nine case studies, including SR-71, X-35B, B-777, HondaJet, Hybrid Airship, Daedalus, Cessna 172, T-46A, and hang gliders; and full-color photographs of many airships and aircraft.

About the Authors

GRANT E. CARICHNER’S 48-year career at the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works includes work on SR-71, M-21, L-1011 Transport, Black ASTOVL, JASSM missile, stealth targets, Quiet Supersonic Platform, ISIS high-altitude airship, and hybrid airships. He was named “Inventor of the Year” in 1999 for the JASSM missile vehicle patent. He also holds design patents for hybrid airship configurations. He is an AIAA Associate Fellow.

LELAND M. NICOLAI received his aerospace engineering degrees from the University of Washington (BS), the University of Oklahoma (MS), and the University of Michigan (PhD). His aircraft design experience includes 23 years in the U.S. Air Force, retiring as a Colonel, and 32 years in industry. He is an AIAA Fellow and recipient of the AIAA Aircraft Design Award and the Lockheed Martin Aero Star President’s Award. He is currently a Lockheed Martin Fellow at the Skunk Works.

Fundamentals of Aircraft and Airship Design, Volume 2 – Airship Design and Case Studies

“Leland Nicolai and Grant Carichner have succeeded in providing a cutting-edge two-volume aircraft design text and reference addressing probably the most productive modes of air transportation: fixed-wing aircraft and the promising low-speed hybrid cargo airship.”

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“Carichner and Nicolai have created the definitive work on modern airship design containing many techniques, ideas, and lessons learned never before published. In addition, they have collected a set of case studies that will enable tomorrow’s designers to learn from the experience of many who have gone before them.”

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The International Air TransportAssociation [IATA] is forecasting GDPgrowth of 2.3% over 2013, whichwould translate into passenger growthof about 4.5%. Yields are down a little,and I think cargo traffic is probablyquite a concern, so maybe we are see-ing some fundamental shifts there. Oilprices seem to be moder-ating, and again we arenot expecting to see anymajor uplifts. Airlines arelooking to generate closeto a $600-billion turn-over and profits of around $8 billionto $9 billion—which is a 1.3% margin.These are not stellar figures, but cer-tainly an improvement on where wethought we might be and with somegood indicators going forward.

European aircraft operator tradeassociations seem to be convincedthat we’re not in the usual cycle ofgrowth and decline but that there’s anew economic aviation dynamic withno clear path for growth. Some be-lieve that even in 2017 they won’t hit2008 traffic levels. Are they wrong?

No, I think in terms of Europethey’re probably right. People talkabout this being ‘a lost decade’ for Eu-

rope and I can quitebuy into that.We’re not seeinggrowth in Europebut stabilization,and you’ve stillgot some of thebigger, heritageairlines shed-ding numbers

and making big

losses and still trying to adapt theirmodel to what’s required going for-ward. The upstarts, the low-cost carri-ers are making waves and makingthings happen.

But the biggest potential for pas-senger growth is in Asia and theemerging markets, and certainly for the

next few decades growth in demand isgoing to be driven by those markets.If we have more stable oil prices—theymight still be high but at least if theyare stable—carriers can plan aroundthis, and they are managing their ca-pacity much better than they havedone before.

Previously they would just chasemarket share at any cost. Now they aremuch more disciplined, and I think theU.S. is leading the way here, growingcapacity very minimally and just tryingto get better yields and better margins,making their businesses more sustain-able. It’s similar to what we saw in theearly 1990s with some airline consoli-dation, a weak economy, and uncer-tainty over U.S. fiscal policies. Wemanaged to work our way out of thatand in fact the upturn came not by sur-prise but by stealth. You can almostsee that sort of thing happening again.

How does that translate to aircraftorders and deliveries?

The order and delivery boom isdriven primarily, I suspect, by fuelprice. The biggest shock we’ve had inthe past decade has come from fuel-price increases. It has shown how effi-cient today’s generation of aircraft iscompared to previous generations. Ifyou think back to the 1990s, you couldfly an Airbus A320 against a Boeing727 and you could make both of themwork; the reason was because oil was

What is the state of the civil aviationmarket today?

In 2012 we saw passenger trafficgrow ahead of capacity growth, andthat is always a good thing to see. Thereal growth areas have been, in termsof percentages, the Middle East, LatinAmerica, and Africa, while Asia Pacificis still growing annually at about 6% interms of passenger numbers. Europeis a little more anemic, towards the 5%mark, and North American growth isvery low, about 1%.

We will probably see something alittle bit better than this in 2013. Glo-bal gross domestic product [GDP] fig-ures are forecast to increase about2.6% this year and 3.5% next year. Soit looks as though we are coming offthe bottom of this particular downturnin the market. It also looks as thoughsome of the economic and financialcrises that we have recently seen arestarting to ease, even if they are notquite over yet.

There is no growth in the Euro-zone, but at least it’s stabilizing, not-withstanding problems in certain coun-tries. Political risk is ever-present, andthere is always something going onsomewhere in the world that can tripup the industry. If there are any cloudsout there they are probably on the po-litical side.


“People talk about this being ‘a lostdecade’ for Europe, and I can quite buyinto that.”

Eddy Pieniazek

Eddy Pieniazek is the Global Head ofConsultancy at the Ascend Worldwidegroup of aviation consultants, based inLondon. He is a visiting lecturer at theAir Business Academy in Toulouse, specializing in aircraft values, marketdynamics, and asset management.

He was previously director, consultancyand information services at Airclaimsand before that an analyst with AviationInformation Services. He has a bachelor of science (honors) degree in Environmental Science from the University of London.

$10 a barrel and the fuel equation wasa much smaller part of the overallcosts. But once you hit $100 a barrel,today’s aircraft suddenly are recog-nized for being so much more eco-nomic. So we’ve had this wave ofolder equipment that’s beginning tobe replaced.

For airlines what this means isthat even if oil prices come down theystill have to deal with the uncertaintyof future prices, so they simply needto have the most efficient aircraft intheir fleets, to cope with whateverhappens to oil prices.

What we have seen in the last fewyears is airlines competing to get holdof delivery slots, getting hold of newaircraft. A lot of orders have comefrom the low-cost carriers, and part ofthe lesson that they have learned is tohave a homogenous fleet and to buyin bulk. So, yes, we have a big back-log of close to 10,000 aircraft. In termsof the available slots I believe most ofthe slots for 2013, 2014, and 2015 havegone now—though there might be afew regional jet slots available, basedon aircraft production rates publishedby the manufacturers. Some recent or-ders have specified deliveries in 2026;these are long lead times.

Is there any sign of Airbus and Boe-ing adding production capacity tomeet short-term demand, or are theystill being fairly conservative abouthow they manage their production?

There are two camps here. I thinkmanufacturers would say they are be-ing very conservative, but others be-lieve they are overbuilding. Manufac-turers say they are only building air-craft that people have ordered, butothers, who have already or recentlyinvested in aircraft, don’t want to seetoo many aircraft being built and aglut forming, which could drive downprices.

Airbus and Boeing have both gotslots to fill prior to introducing new

models—the Boeing 737MAX and theAirbus A320neo families—and theydon’t want to start decreasing produc-tion and then increasing it again. Sothey’re trying to sell off remainingavailability, and I guess some of theseLion Air, Ryanair, and Turkish Airlinesorders are soaking up some of that.The leasing companies are also look-ing at taking up some of the remain-ing near-term production availabilityas well.

I’m quite surprised that the values ofthe current Airbus A320 and Boeing737 families don’t seem to have beenbadly affected by the launch of theneo and MAX variants. Have thesenew types had any impact on the sec-ondhand value of the current fleet?

They haven’t. Values have stayedrelatively flat for a long time, and youcan buy a new A320 or a new 737 forbetween $40 million and $45 million—

the same cost as 10 or 20 years ago.There’s effectively been a cap on new-delivery pricing for these models; it’sgone up a little recently as labor andmaterials have gone up, but a lot ofthat’s just had to be absorbed. So yes,they have been relatively stable andwe think they’ll stay stable.

In the past we’ve seen new air-craft come along and the value of theolder models depreciated much morerapidly. That might happen a little butit won’t be as dramatic as it has beenin the past, probably because there’ssuch a large population of A320 and737 aircraft and you’re not just goingto replace them all in one fell swoop.It’s going to take 10 or 15 years tomake a material impact.

Maybe in the next downturn orthe downturn after that we will start to

see values probably fall away, butthat’s when much of the current Air-bus A320 and Boeing 737 fleets willbe 20 years old, and you’d expect tosee that happen anyway.

In terms of funding new aircraft,what are the big issues for 2013?

The biggest headline event in avi-ation finance for 2013 is the fact thatthis will be the first year that we willsee more than $100-billion worth ofdeliveries occurring. It’s a big numberthat covers both commercial jets andregional jets. Last year the total wasabout $85 billion, and we think thisyear it is going to be about $102 bil-lion. We think this will grow by per-haps around $10 billion a year for thenext few years because we’re getting alarge wave of widebody deliveries andof course they’re more expensive.

For the last five or six years themarket has been worried whether

there will be enough sources out thereto finance all these aircraft. But by theend of each year the last aircraft wasdelivered and the money was found.There are lots of new sources now.The export credit agencies in the U.S.and Europe have done a sterling jobsupporting these sales and have ac-counted for perhaps 30% to 35% of fi-nancing deliveries, by providing guar-antees that have in turn allowed someof the banks to also carry on provid-ing commercial debt into other aspectsof the business. Leasing companiesare coming to the fore as well.

Many banks and investors arehappier lending to leasing companiesnow because these companies knowhow to manage aircraft—they knowhow to place them into airlines, theyknow how to take them out, they


“The biggest headline event in aviation finance for 2013 isthe fact that this will be the first year that we will see morethan $100-billion worth of deliveries occurring.”

Interview by Philip Butterworth-Hayes

there. We also have deliveries of newfreighters like the Boeing 747 and theBoeing 777s, so you have an immedi-ate overcapacity of aircraft.

It’s going to require some reallystrong economic growth and industryreplenishing inventories to kick-startthis market again, and I don’t see thatimproving near term; but aircraft willcontinue to be delivered and they willbe very fuel-efficient. I think in termsof Boeing 747 conversions, we don’texpect to see many more of these be-cause the older Boeing 747 may havehad its day in this particular market.

Traditionally aircraft stay in service25 years and are then scrapped—arethere any changes to the lifespan ofairliners?

This is very topical at the mo-ment. Some analysts believe lifespanshaven’t changed, others say they areincreasing and others say they are get-ting shorter. I suppose the question iswhether this is a structural issue orsimply part of a cycle.

What we are seeing at the mo-ment is that there are more aircraft re-tiring at a younger age, though it’s amarginal change. If you look from2000 onward, the average age of eco-nomic retirement—when they leaveservice and don’t return—was proba-bly hovering around the 27- to 28-yearmark. We are now down to about 25.And if you look at the overall averageage of retirement—including a periodin store after retirement—that’s comedown from around 30 to 26 years.

This is still a very young industryrelatively speaking, and there just isn’ta track record to give any long-termclarity. We are, however, seeing air-craft that are being broken up today ata very early age. We’re seeing Boeing777s being broken up at 10 or 15years; we’re seeing Bombardier CRJsbroken up at five years, and we’veseen a Boeing 747 freighter broken upfour years after it was converted. Air-bus A318s, A319s, and A320s as wellas Boeing 737s are being broken uprelatively early.

Much of this is because there is

an opportunity to recover more valuefrom the parts than there is from theaircraft as a going concern. So youmight be able to sell an older A320 for$6 million-$8 million as a going con-cern, but if you dispose of the partsyou might recover $10 million-$12million. There are opportunities there,windows that appear every now andthen, and if you’ve got the right air-craft type with the right engine variantyou can make a better return bybreaking it up.

Do you think Boeing and Airbus facereal competition on their single-aislefleets from new entrants in China,Russia, and elsewhere?

The competition’s real enough,but I think you just have to look atproduction rates to see how big an im-pact these new aircraft might have. Ifyou consider the Boeing and Airbusnarrow-body production rates andwind that clock forward to 2020 andlook at what’s going to be deliveredbetween now and then, even if thenewcomers build to their full produc-tion rates Airbus and Boeing will bythen account for 90% to 95% of thenarrow-body market. So I would sayAirbus and Boeing are fairly relaxedabout it; they are in a very strong po-sition now, and it’s going to take morethan a decade for any competitor toreally start eating into that market.

The COMAC C919 and Irkut MS-21are pretty much complementary designsto what’s already out there in terms ofsize, shape, and performance, and theyhasve got the same kind of engines. Sothey’re just adding to the mix and creat-ing more of a choice. They have do-mestic markets that will probably helpthem, and the indicators are that CO-MAC is very serious, and we expect thecompany to build a decent aircraft.

But looking at Airbus and its orig-inal A300 and A310 launch models, itwasn’t until Airbus delivered the A320that they actually started to hit a richseam. It could be that when COMACenters the widebody market, that’swhen they will start to make bigger in-roads. COMAC and the Russians have

know how to manage the process tomove them to the next operator, andthat gives investors confidence. So weexpect to see them play a bigger partgoing forward.

Many airlines are still fundingtheir deliveries with cash from theirown cash-flows, and once they takedelivery they’ll sell and lease themback as a refinancing deal—they there-fore have their own pool of moneythat keeps circulating. There are someregulatory changes happening thatcould make financing in some re-spects a little bit more expensive, but Ibelieve that’s something the marketwill absorb.

What are these changes?They are changes in terms of the

way funding occurs, making funding alittle more expensive for airlines tomanage, so interest rates will behigher. It’s all to do with protectingthe banks going forward and theirability to repossess aircraft and takethem back should things go wrong.It’s something that the market hasbeen aware of for a few years and isbeing implemented this year.

Are you less optimistic about thecargo market?

Yes. If you look at all the signalsfrom the cargo market it’s been strug-gling and continues to struggle for anumber of reasons. Because of theeconomic downturn, with China slow-ing down a little as well, that meansthere is effectively less traffic andmore competition to air traffic. One ofthe things we’ve noticed is that the re-liance on just-in-time production is notas important as it used to be. Thereare goods that are still important andneed to be delivered quickly, like per-ishables, but computers and iPads andiPhones now tend to go by ship be-cause it’s more affordable and not assensitive on a time basis.

I think the run-down in terms ofmilitary support in places like Iraq andAfghanistan has also released a lot ofaircraft back into the general cargomarket, so you have an oversupply


both said they are looking at the wide-body space, but we are probablylooking at 2025 or beyond for thosenew aircraft to materialize.

The Bombardier CSeries is a littlemore disruptive, because it’s placedbetween two particular markets and ithas more potential to be a game-changer here. If it can deliver whathas been promised it will probablyhave a very good future. Again, evenif the company builds to its full pro-duction rate it still won’t make that bigan impact on the overall market. But itcan at least start to capture a share ofthe business and be a success.

In the regional sector I thinkeveryone’s stepping up a gear, and theEmbraer E-Jet is showing the way interms of new seat capacity. There willbe great opportunities here, especiallyas new “Scope clause” rules, whichhave tended to limit the size of aircraftthat U.S. regional airlines have beenable to use on their feeder routes, arenow opening up the market.

The turboprop end is an interest-ing market because we’ve seen somesubmarkets, like the 30-seater sector,disappear from production. There isnothing in production there at the mo-ment and yet there are fleets of aircraft


“If you look at all the signals from the cargo market, it’sbeen struggling and continues to struggle for a numberof reasons.”

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of this size out there. In fact, there arehundreds of 30-seat aircraft still oper-ating. They will require replacing, andthere’s an opportunity there for some-body to step in and build a new30/35-seater. It’s not a massive market,but there’s got to be room for some-body to capture that.

The 19-seat market is also inter-esting, and at the other end—the 70-,80-, 90-seat turboprop market—I knowthere’s talk of even growing beyondthat. The turboprop’s had a prettygood renaissance at the larger end ofthe market because of fuel prices.Now that fuel has become the biggestcost component—it’s 50% or there-abouts of the overall costs for someaircraft operators—you live and die bythat, and so you’ve got to learn toadapt to it.

Deep space 2023: The artof the possible


shifts in the agency’s overall goals. Achange in NASA fortunes requires achange in strategic direction.

How far in a decade?On the current course, by 2023 NASAastronauts will still be working aboardthe ISS, an outpost heading into itstwilight years. Commercial transportfirms will be handling resupply, andNASA will be leasing private space-craft for the launch and return of itsspace station crews. ISS lifeboat serv-ices also will have gone commercial,shifting that duty to the U.S. for thefirst time since Russia’s Soyuz assumedthe role in 2000. NASA will announcea stream of interesting scientific dis-coveries from the ISS, but no scientificor technological breakthroughs willhave reached the marketplace. In pub-lic perception, the ISS and its missionwill still have a very low profile.

By 2023, NASA’s Orion will havelaunched just three times, and onlyonce with crew aboard. The heavy-liftSpace Launch System (SLS) mighthave two missions under its belt, per-haps propelling the first Orion crewaround the Moon in 2021. But thesemilestones assume flawless perform-ance for Orion and SLS in their initialshakedowns. Budget projections forthe 2020s envision NASA flying theSLS/Orion only once every couple ofyears. With progress and momentumso slow, and without the ability toequal even Apollo achievements, a fu-ture president and Congress couldeasily decide to end NASA’s entire hu-man space exploration enterprise.

NASA hopes its announced deepspace goal, an expedition beyond theMoon to a near-Earth asteroid (NEA)by 2025, will finally revive its fortunes.However, progress toward that goalhas been elusive: Orion and SLS arehardly on a fast track, and theagency’s ideal targets for such expedi-tions have yet to be discovered.

tional Research Council report issuedin December, stated that the agency’sprogress toward achieving its long-term priorities is hampered by a lackof national consensus on its strategicgoals and objectives. Another seriousobstacle is the mismatch between itsdirected goals and the congressionallyallocated budget. Because current lawrestricts NASA from reorganizing itspersonnel and infrastructure more ef-ficiently, the agency cannot use itslimited resources more wisely in pur-suit of long-term goals. The panel sug-gested that the White House take thelead in developing a national consen-sus on space policy goals and providea budget better suited to the directivesit gives NASA.

Far from boosting NASA’s re-sources, the Congress passed a budgetin March cutting about a billion dollarsthrough the rest of this fiscal year.Whatever the funding details for 2013and 2014, neither the White Housenor the Congress will make any major

“The object of your mission is to ex-plore the Missouri River, and suchprincipal streams of it, as, by its courseand communication with the waters ofthe Pacific Ocean...may offer the mostdirect and practicable water-commu-nication across the continent, for thepurposes of commerce.”

—Thomas Jefferson to MeriwetherLewis, 1803.

PRESIDENT JEFFERSON’S ORDER TOMeriwether Lewis inaugurating theLewis and Clark expedition offers thenation a model for guiding its explo-rations of Earth-Moon space. The U.S.should make deep space not only anarena of scientific exploration, but alsoa fertile economic frontier where pri-vate enterprise and industry canthrive. The guiding mission for the U.Sand NASA in the coming decadeshould be to explore Earth-Moonspace and tap the resources foundthere—for the purposes of commerce.

“NASA’s Strategic Direction,” a Na-

The SpaceX Dragon was captured and berthed at the ISS by Expedition 34 using Canadarm II on March 3.Future commercial vehicles will be essential in supplying propellant and hardware to exploration outpostsin Earth-Moon space.


NASA has not even allotted fundsto conduct the half-billion-dollar sur-vey mission, critical to finding a targetfor the administration’s 2025 asteroidgoal. As NASA’s own Small Bodies As-sessment Group reported in January,“Funding a NEO survey mission hasthe collateral benefits of identifyingpotential NEO targets for ISRU [in-situresource utilization] and robotic sci-ence missions, as well as PotentiallyHazardous Objects for planetary de-fense.” Yet no funds to commence theneeded space-based search (0.3% ofthe NASA budget over 10 years) canbe found.

Neither the scientific discoveries tobe made in deep space nor the pros-pect of losing leadership to China inthat arena seem to energize U.S. poli-cymakers. If science and foreign pol-icy are insufficient prods, perhaps weshould turn to another incentive, onethat has sustained U.S. progress formore than two centuries: entrepre-neurial commercial development.

Reviving a missionFortunately for NASA and the nation,the agency is already empowered tohelp open up the deep space eco-nomic frontier. Congress, in the Na-tional Aeronautics and Space Act (asamended in 2010), declares: “…thegeneral welfare of the United States re-quires that the Administration seekand encourage, to the maximum ex-tent possible, the fullest commercial useof space.”

The Moon and nearby asteroidsoffer abundant raw materials, and theSun provides nearly limitless energy topower industrial activity in space. Thepresident, then, should direct NASA toexpand the $300-billion global spacesector by using its deep space pro-grams to actively open the resourcesof Earth-Moon space to economic development.

The millions of NEAs are cosmicleftovers from the formation of the so-lar system, constantly streamingthrough Earth-Moon space. Asteroid2012 DA14, for example, passedwithin Earth’s geosynchronous satel-lite ring on February 15; at 45 m in di-ameter, its mass is about 130,000 met-

ric tons. The NEA population harborsmore than half a million objects aslarge as or larger than DA14, many onorbits accessible to NASA and privatespacecraft. To date, we have discov-ered just 10,000, barely 1% of the totalpopulation.

Two asteroid mining companies,Planetary Resources and Deep SpaceIndustries, have already announcedtheir intentions to go after these natu-

ral sources of water, metals, andvolatile organic compounds. Theyplan to find asteroidal water first andsell it to space agencies, later usingNEA metals, organic compounds, andrare elements as feedstock for con-struction and industrial processes. Theinitial benefit derived from the aster-oids (as from the Moon) is water foruse as propellant, to replace hydrogenand oxygen launched at greater cost

The Pan-STARRS 1 telescope atopHaleakala, Maui, is part of NASA’sground-based near-Earth objectsearch program. NASA’s key firststep toward locating and assessingasteroid resources should be tomount a comprehensive survey ofthe hundreds of thousands ofsmaller asteroids (about 50 m and up) in accessible, Earth-likeorbits. Courtesy Rob Ratkowski.

A deep-space mission to a near-Earth asteroid may reignite NASA’s fortunes.


launch systems, or harness commer-cial partners to put companies in di-rect contact with space raw materials.

First, NASA can announce its in-tention to spur prospecting for spaceresources by starting a focused searchfor small asteroids using existing andoff-the-shelf ground-based systems,such as the ATLAS search telescopejust funded by the agency. It can eval-uate this year and next the practicalityof a robotic asteroid capture and re-turn mission (see “Delivering on apromise to Columbia’s explorers,”March, page 14). NASA should initiatea low-cost mission to prospect for iceon the Moon using a commerciallybuilt rover and launcher.

In parallel, NASA should push ISSexperiments testing asteroid surfacesystems and commercial resourceprocessors aimed at exploiting water-bearing NEA regolith when available.Within five years, NASA should launchcommercially built asteroid probes to-ward promising NEA targets, with theresults guiding development of appro-priate resource processors.

The shift to including commercialspace activity as a NASA explorationgoal, equal to science and explorationtechnology development, can happenquickly in a series of small but high-profile steps.

One of the ambitious elements inthis sequence is a robotic capture mis-sion to ‘bring an asteroid to us.’ Thatenterprise will be far less expensivethan a human mission to an asteroid(now sliding inexorably toward 2030).

technology goals as it plans to sendastronauts to lunar distance and be-yond. By fast-tracking physical accessto in-space resources on both NEAsand the Moon, NASA can make thesematerials available not only to astro-nauts, but also to commercial industry.

Specifically, this means accelerat-ing the search for water ice at the lu-nar poles, and returning samples andbulk asteroidal material for industrialassessment and testing. It’s not enoughjust to invite industry to help NASA inthese efforts; the agency should use its

from Earth. Even a 500-ton asteroid(about 7 m across) could harbor 100tons of water, worth about $5 billionat today’s launch prices.

Space resources, step by step Both companies expect to take at leasta decade to bootstrap their way toprospecting missions on distant aster-oids. NASA can speed this progressappreciably.

As a matter of policy, the agencyshould put industrial use of space re-sources on a par with its science and

NASA astronauts Kevin Ford (foreground), Expedition 34 commander, and Tom Marshburn, flight engineer,worked with the combustion integrated rack multiuser droplet combustion apparatus in the ISS Destinylaboratory on January 9. The ISS can host commercial/NASA tests of equipment and processors neededto exploit resources on the low-gravity surfaces of near-Earth asteroids.

•A search for small, accessible NEA targets using ground-based systems.•ISS tests of NEA regolith collection and sampling, using simulated asteroid material.•Launch of an infrared NEA discovery telescopeto heliocentric orbit.•Commercial ISS demonstration of water extraction from meteorite materials.•NASA-commercial water ice robotic prospect-ing on the Moon.•NASA launch of commercial probes to nearbyasteroids. •Launch of a NASA robotic mission to captureand return a roughly 7-m NEA to high lunar orbit.

•Solar electric propulsion delivers a small habitat to the Earth-Moon L2 Lagrange point.•Using SLS, Orion visits the L2 habitat on thefirst crewed, deep-space mission.•Commercial launch services deliver cargo andpropellant to restock the L2 habitat.•International outfitting of the L2 outpost for remote sensing of lunar resources.•The first in-situ water production from lunar ice.•The first lunar water samples boosted to L2 for return to Earth by Orion crews.•A captured NEA placed in stable lunar orbit.•L2 crews visit a captured NEA for sampling and

processing demonstrations.•International and commercial access (via telerobotics) to a 500-ton captured NEA.•The first use of lunar-derived propellant in a launch from the Moon.•The first commercial-scale extraction of asteroidal water in high lunar orbit.•Competitive choice of space-derived water for propellant production: from the Moon or an NEA.•Space-fueled lunar surface sorties.•Space-fueled NEA expeditions.•Use of lunar or NEA materials for industrialprocesses in Earth-Moon space.

Steps to integrate commercial activities in NASA’s deep-space planning


With a small asteroid in a stable lunarorbit, astronauts in the 2020s will haveaccess to 500 tons of raw material, andwith far less cost and complexity thanputting humans on the Moon.

In fact, the U.S. should do both,but no one at NASA is proposing as-tronaut sorties to the Moon. Thatleaves small asteroid retrieval as theonly means of giving robotic and hu-man explorers access to bulk quanti-ties of raw materials. A bonus is thatasteroidal material avoids the consid-erable delta-V expended in gettinginto and out of the lunar gravity well.

These overlapping activities wouldbegin in 2015 and culminate in deep-space asteroid expeditions in about2030. Multiple robotic initiativeswould be followed by astronaut in-volvement, with international andcommercial participation providingtelerobotic hardware, human habitats,life-support consumables, and pro-cessing machinery on the Moon and ata small captured asteroid. The payoffin the 2020s is a breakout from the‘only governments in deep space’model, where commercial firms de-velop the capability to supply in-spacepropellants and lower the overall cost

of future exploration. In-dustry can determinewhat space products bestmatch markets on or offthe planet.

NASA should inviteits ISS international part-ners to participate in thiscommercial push, too. Inexchange for hardwareand transportation serv-ices, the partners wouldgain physical access tolunar and asteroidal ma-terials for assessmentand process demonstra-tion. Collectively, theycan contribute launch services, habi-tats, propulsion modules, logisticsflights, robotic rovers, and regolithsamplers and processors. What hap-pens after that is a matter of self-inter-est and competition: Those who con-tribute to the effort will get to pursuefollow-on partnerships in pursuit ofthese resources (there are plenty of as-teroids to go around).

Opening an economic frontierThe addition of a commercial elementto NASA’s deep space plans is well

Commercially designed lunar ice prospectors, like this Polaris robotic rover from Astrobotic Technology,a spinoff of Carnegie Mellon University, can help NASA accelerate the search for valuable resources inEarth-Moon space. Courtesy Astrobotic Technology.

Radar data indicates that the walls of Shackleton crater may hold ice.Actual observations (CPR) by LRO’s mini-RF instrument are comparedto calculated radar values for 0.5% to 10% ice. Credit: NASA.

out of NASA’s comfort zone. Jump-starting a space-supplied industrialfrontier isn’t a straightforward engi-neering challenge, like Apollo. Butthe shift is firmly based on the NASAcharter, and a willing president andCongress can pivot to commercial ex-ploration with the expectation ofwidespread support.

The alternative would be a contin-uation of the budget-constrained, slug-gish pace toward a few astronautdeep-space sorties in the 2020s. Re-sults will be meager, with nearby as-teroids still out of reach, the Martiansurface more so. Budgets will keepshrinking. A move to gain access tospace resources will draw commercialinnovation, public buy-in, private in-vestment, and a rush to find methodsof exploiting the raw materials and en-ergy NASA first makes available.

The president’s budget appearedafter this column went to press, but itis unlikely that he issued new ordersto NASA: No Orion sorties to EM L2,no outpost stationed above the farside of the Moon, no fast-paced,space-based search for accessible as-teroid targets. Our exploration outlookfor 2023 is stagnant, with a significantlikelihood that we will abandon deepspace to more energetic competitors.Could a goal of discovering materialand industrial wealth in space turnthose prospects around? We won’tknow until we try, as Jefferson andLewis did. Thomas D. Jones

[email protected]

Hopes rise for U.S. UAV salesto Middle East


with its presumption of denial. Thisexport version, the XP, is being of-fered to the UAE and Saudi Arabia,among other Middle Eastern coun-tries. The aircraft includes antitamperdevices to protect its technology andcarries a lesser payload to ensure itsMTCR compliance.

The UAE sale may assuage con-cerns among other oil-rich Arab statesabout buying the Predator XP as wellas other U.S. UAVs. In particular, SaudiArabia has repeatedly considered theXP purchase without moving ahead.

Illusory growthExpectations that U.S. UAVs woulddominate the market both in the Mid-dle East and worldwide have neverbeen realized, despite the systems’ ef-fectiveness in the wars in Iraq andAfghanistan.

U.S. industry’s serious competitiveadvantages over exporting rivals in Is-rael, Europe, and China have not yetresulted in export strength. The U.S.market will spend 62% of the $28.5billion spent on R&D over the periodfrom 2012 to 2021, according to pro-jections prepared by the Teal Group.The U.S. market will represent 55% ofthe $60.6-billion procurement marketover the same period. That figuremeans that U.S. industry will have

getting authorization to sell systems toother countries in the region is verydifficult. In addition, Middle Easternnations often want systems used bythe military that are considered MTCRCategory I systems (with a presump-tion of denial of exports according tothe MTCR’s rules).

The MTCR was a voluntary agree-ment established to limit the prolifera-tion of delivery systems for weaponsof mass destruction, including missilesand UAVs. It created categories in-tended to restrict the export of suchsystems. Category I is for systems thatwould deliver a 500-kg payload atleast 300 km. For this category, whichincludes Predator/Reaper and GlobalHawk, there is to be a presumption ofdenial for exports.

The U.S., as a signatory of theMTCR, is particularly stringent aboutenforcing the MTCR rule because itwants no loopholes under whichother countries could export missilesystems to Iran. However, U.S. indus-try executives complain that competi-tors in other countries are often notheld to the same standards by theirown governments.

In its effort to address the MiddleEast market, General Atomics un-veiled a version of its Predator thattakes it out of the MTCR Category I

THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES’ (UAE)decision to purchase the Predator XPsignals a breakthrough in U.S. industryefforts to break into the Middle EastUAV market. The $197-million sale isthe largest to date for U.S. UAVs in theMiddle East and, of equal importance,the first U.S. sale of a medium-altitude,long-endurance UAV in the region.The deal was signed in February.

The XP is an export version of thePredator A, known as the MQ-1 inU.S. service. The XP has built-in safe-guards to prevent any tampering withits technology and to ensure that itcannot carry weapons. It was de-signed to be compliant with the Mis-sile Technology and Control Regime(MTCR). U.S. industry executives wereconcerned that the UAE and other Per-sian Gulf states would insist on eitherbuying the Predator B or nothing at allfrom the U.S. When the UAE pur-chased its version of the F-16, theBlock 60, it bought a version that ismore modern than those flown by theU.S. Air Force.

The contest in the UAE was hardfought. It pitted U.S.-based GeneralAtomics Aeronautical Systems’ modi-fied Predator against BAE Systems’Mantis. Chinese industry also got in-volved by offering a medium-altitude,long-endurance UAV.

Addressing MTCR’s disadvantagesIn offering its next-generation Mantis,BAE Systems was hoping to gain UAVR&D funding for the cash-strappedprogram, according to industry sources.That concerned U.S. industry, whichsaw transfer of the Mantis technologyas potentially noncompliant with theMTCR, putting U.S. firms at a compar-ative disadvantage.

There are serious issues for U.S.UAV manufacturers and sensor makersin addressing the export market ingeneral and the Middle East specifi-cally. Because of Israel’s proximity,

Predator XP

clear advantages both in its ability tofund research and in having the econ-omies of scale that should make it theworld’s leader in sales.

Of all areas in the emerging world,it is the Middle East that offers the U.S.the greatest advantages. The U.S. isthe dominant arms supplier in thearea. Between 2008 and 2011, the U.S.provided 54% of the arms deliveries tothe region, according to figures com-piled by the Congressional ResearchService (CRS) in its annual report onarms transfers worldwide. Of SaudiArabia’s $33.7 billion of arms transferagreements in 2011, fully 99.9% werewith the U.S.

The Middle East is a critical regionfor any arms exporting country be-cause of the size of its market. Of the10 largest recipients of arms in the de-veloping world during 2011, sevenwere Middle Eastern or North Africannations.

In a leading indicator of futurearms deliveries, the Middle East ledthe world in arms transfer agreementsin 2011. Saudi Arabia ranked first inthe value of arms transfer agreementsamong all developing nations that areweapons buyers, concluding $33.7 bil-lion in such agreements, according toCRS. India came in second, with $6.9billion in such agreements. The UAEranked third with $4.5 billion.

Israeli industry, which has estab-lished itself as a UAV export power-house to Europe, Asia, and LatinAmerica, is unable to compete in theArab countries of the Middle East.That adds another potential advantagefor the U.S. in that region.

U.S. defense companies also havethe needed relationships with MiddleEastern countries. Yet expectations ofU.S. dominance in this market haveproved illusory. So far, U.S. sales inthis UAV market have been limited tosmall numbers of smaller, lower costsystems. In May 2012, the U.S. agreedto sell the Iraqi navy 12 ScanEagleUAVs to help the nation keep watchover its offshore oil facilities.

Kuwait also has shown interest inthe ScanEagle, which offers the coun-

try several advantages. The Kuwaitimilitary is familiar with the system be-cause U.S. troops have operated itthere and because the small tacticalUAV can be operated off ships as wellas from land.

Boeing Insitu has established apartnership with UAE-based AbuDhabi Autonomous Systems Invest-ments to promote sales in the UAEand to provide support for Insitu’sproducts there and in the rest of theregion.

There have also been small salesof AeroVironment’s inexpensive mini-UAVs. The 4-lb, hand-launched Ravenis operated in small numbers by SaudiArabia, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq.

The U.S. Army’s tactical work-horse, the RQ-7 Shadow, was exhib-ited in the November 2011 Dubai AirShow, but it has not been purchasedby any Middle Eastern nations despiteits extensive use during the Iraq andAfghanistan conflicts. Expected inter-est by U.S. Middle Eastern allies didnot develop.

Rising competitionU.S. industry has been active in argu-ing that the country has been squan-dering its leadership in UAVs in theMiddle East and elsewhere. “Today,the U.S. is struggling to sell unmannedaircraft to our allies while other na-tions prepare to jump into the market-place with both feet,” Wes Bush,Northrop Grumman’s CEO, warnedlast year in a speech at the Washing-ton Aero Club.

Tough export restrictions threatento undercut the advantage U.S. manu-facturers currently enjoy in the UAVmarket just as earlier restrictions un-

dermined the U.S. position in thesatellite export market. “Before thecontrols were applied, we held 75% ofthe satellite market. That percentagedropped to as low as 25%, with signif-icant revenue and job losses,” Bushwarned. It is important that the prece-dent not be followed, he said.

Middle Eastern nations frequentlyhave gone to other countries in Eu-rope, Asia, and South Africa for theirUAV imports.

The UAE, which has been themost active in the Arab world in de-veloping a UAV capability, already haslarge inventories of European modelsand is interested in developing its ownlocal UAV industry. The country al-ready has mini, fixed-wing tactical,and rotary-wing UAS in its inventories,making it the largest UAS user in theArab world. In making these acquisi-tions, the UAE has shown a willing-ness to buy from a number of coun-tries. It placed an order with Schiebelfor 60 S-100 helicopter UAVs in 2006,with options for 20 more. The pur-chases of the Camcopters mean theUAE now has one of the world’slargest fleets of these small helicopterUAVs, if not the largest. The UAE alsooperates the South African DenelSeeker II and deployed at least threeto Afghanistan in 2010.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largestarms importer, has not yet boughtmany UAVs. It purchased Italian Falcotactical UAVs several years ago. Fin-

Mantis

ScanEagle



ber, Turkey and Egypt signed a num-ber of cooperation agreements, someof which covered defense industrialcollaboration. Egypt might acquire 10Anka medium-altitude long-enduranceUAVs now under development in Tur-key under the agreement.

Middle Eastern nations’ evaluations oftheir own UAV requirements are beingspurred on by Iran’s aggressive acqui-sition of unmanned systems. In Febru-ary Iran revealed that it is building itsown version of ScanEagle after claim-ing to have captured one of the UAVsin its waters. The country claims thatits own development of this industryis sufficiently advanced that it has ex-ported UAVs and UAV technology toSyria and Venezuela.

Philip FinneganTeal Group

[email protected]

S-100 systems to Jordan in February2011 for the Jordanian Armed ForcesReconnaissance Squadron.

To obtain UAVs, the Egyptianshave turned to emerging suppliers,namely China and Turkey. Egypt’sArab Organization for Industrializationis building 12 Chinese ASN-209 tacticalUAVs under license. The 320-kg air-plane carries a 50-kg payload for up to10 hr. The organization said it com-pleted the first six last year. In Novem-

meccanica executives have said theyare hopeful that the kingdom willmake a second purchase. It is worthnoting that the Italian Ministry of De-fense awarded a $64-million contractto Textron’s AAI to purchase fourShadow 200 tactical UAV systems in2010 in preference to buying theFalco. It appears that for Saudi Arabiathe difficulties of purchasing a U.S.system may tilt the competitive advan-tages toward alternative suppliers inother nations.

Jordan has turned to two of thesame suppliers as UAE and Saudi Ara-bia. Under a November 2009 agree-ment, Finmeccanica’s Selex Galileo di-vision agreed to work with Jordan’sKing Abdullah Design and Develop-ment Bureau on joint UAV technolo-gies and electrooptical sensors for useby Jordanian special operations forces.Work will be based on the Falco UAV.Schiebel delivered two Camcopter

Camcopter

AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control ConferenceAIAA Atmospheric Flight Mechanics ConferenceAIAA Modeling and Simulation Technologies ConferenceAIAA Infotech@Aerospace 2013 Conference

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Four conferences will combine in 2013 to provide the world’s premier forum for presentation, discussion, and collaboration of science, research, and technology inthese highly related aerospace fields.

Boston, Massachusettsn Massach sMarriott Boston Copley PlacM ott Boston Copley Place

9–22 August 20119 22 A st 2013

Turkish advanced trainer/fighter; TAIbegan initial work on the project inSeptember 2011. A detailed technicaland cost evaluation on the project isdue to be submitted to the SSM and theTurkish air force in September.

This is already a crowded market.But the success of the country’s rap-idly developing aerospace programs isgiving Turkey’s government renewedconfidence that, perhaps, their nationwill not be requiring the same amountof technology help from the U. S. andEurope as it has relied on in the pastto meet its capability requirements.

Philip Butterworth-HayesBrighton, UK

[email protected]

delaying an order for the first two by ayear, citing technical factors and a ‘highcost yield.’ At the same time, the SSM ispushing ahead with plans to develop a

ities rather than look for help fromabroad. While its indigenous aero-space industry has probably achieveda technical superiority to most of thedefense systems within neighboringstates, in the future its industry will bemore focused on finding new clientsin the global marketplace.

Turkey’s defense sector currentlyexports $1.1 billion of materiel—ex-ports in 2011 were 29% higher than in2010—which the SSM plans to increaseto $2 billion by 2016, initially by in-creasing exports to the Gulf, Africa,Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Ac-cording to government figures Tur-key’s defense industry currently sup-plies 54% of the country’s equipmentneeds and employs just over 24,000workers. The SSM is investing $2 bil-lion in Teknopark Istanbul, a majornew industrial technology researchpark at Sabiha Gokcen Airport, east ofIstanbul, and accommodating morethan 30,000 people. The target is togenerate more than $10 billion in de-fense and civil business annually as aresult of the investment.

Earlier investments in defense arestarting to pay dividends—in Novem-ber 2012 Egypt announced it wouldbuy 10 indigenously developed ANKARPAS units which were due to enterproduction at the start of the year. An-other major program to enter seriesproduction this year is the T-129 at-tack helicopter; TAI is the prime con-tractor with Aselsan and AgustaWest-land NV as the main subcontractors.

Although Turkey has plans to buy upto 100 F-35s and TAI is an industrialpartner in the program, at the start of2013 the SSM announced it would be

Events CalendarMAY 13-16Reinventing Space. Los Angeles, California.Contact: www.ReinventingSpace.org

MAY 15-17Seventh Argentine Congress on Space Technology. Mendoza, Argentina.Contact: Pablo de Leon, 701/777-2369; [email protected]

MAY 27-29Nineteenth AIAA/CEAS Aeroacoustics Conference (34th AIAA Aeroacoustics Conference). Berlin, Germany.Contact: 703/264-7500.

MAY 27-29Twentieth St. Petersburg International Conference on Integrated Navigation Systems. St. Petersburg, Russia.Contact: Prof. V. Peshekhonov, +7 812 238 8210; [email protected]

MAY 29-31Requirements for UTC and Civil Timekeeping on Earth: A ColloquiumAddressing a Continuous Time Standard. Charlottesville, Virginia.Contact: Rob Seaman, 520/318-8248; [email protected]

JUNE 6Aerospace Today…and Tomorrow: Disruptive Innovation, A ValueProposition. Williamsburg, Virginia.Contact: Merrie Scott, [email protected]

JUNE 12-14Sixth International Conference on Recent Advances in Space Technologies.Istanbul, Turkey.Contact: Suleyman Basturk, [email protected]

JUNE 17-192013 American Control Conference. Washington, D.C.Contact: Santosh Devasia, [email protected]


(Continued from page 5)

BUSIEST AIRPORT PAIRS PER NUMBER OF DAILY FLIGHTSAvg. Daily Growth

Rank Departure Airport Arrival Airport Movements on 2011

1 Barcelona Madrid Barajas 62 -19.1%2 Istanbul-Ataturk Izmir-Adnan-Menderes 59 12.5%3 Toulouse Blagnac Paris Orly 51 0.6%4 Trondheim/Vaernes Oslo/Gardermoen 49 4.3%5 Milan Linate Rome Fiumicino 48 1.9%6 Oslo/Gardermoen Bergen/Flesland 48 -2.2%7 Paris Orly Nice 46 1.6%8 Istanbul-Ataturk Antalya 44 6.4%9 Oslo/Gardermoen Stavanger/Sola 44 2.0%

10 Istanbul-Ataturk Ankara-Esenboga 42 4.3%

Source: Eurocontrol.

13–17 JANUARY 2014 NATIONAL HARBOR, MARYLAND (near Washington, D.C.)

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the Human Health and PerformanceDirectorate is to make sure astronautsget equipment that will benefit them.It must not put them at unacceptablerisk of injury in orbit, where there arelimited medical supplies and a longto-do list for each astronaut.

NASA needs to be sure the devicewill not overextend the crew’s joints,tendons, or muscles. The agency isconservative on matters of safety; evenin the Johnson lab, not just anyone ispermitted to don the X1.

“There is a core group of peoplewho are checked out to wear the de-vice and evaluate it,” Rovekamp says.“Some people are checked out to op-erate powered; some are checked outto operate it passively.”

For the most part, the testers areproject engineers, although “we havehad one crewmember in it,” he adds.

Safety firstX1 engineers can hardly complete asentence without uttering the wordsafety. They considered it from thevery start of the design and develop-ment work last April.

The device has, for example, built-in mechanical hard stops to make itimpossible for the computer tooverextend the wearer’s joints.

Engineers had two starting pointsfor their design work. One was an as-sisted walking device called Mina, builtby the Pensacola Institute. The Minasoftware has been adapted to performthe high-level control and integrationof data from the different joints. Theother starting point was Robonaut 2, ahumanoid robot whose torso and armswere delivered to the space station inFebruary 2011 by the crew of Discov-ery. R2 firmware governs the lowerlevel control algorithms that monitorand run each individual joint.

Robonaut looks nothing like awearable computer, but it’s what’s in-side that matters.

mitigate loss of strength and musclemass during long stays in space.

Not doing squat?Could something like the X1 comple-ment or even replace the squat ma-chine? There is no consensus yet, evenamong the designers. Finding out ex-actly what the X1 can and cannot dois one of the team’s top priorities forthe coming months.

“Our goal right now is to under-stand what we are getting [in terms ofexercise] and what we are not get-ting,” says NASA’s Roger Rovekamp,mechanical engineer for the project.

Rovekamp’s software engineeringpartner, Chris Beck, chimes in: “Thefirst priority is to compare our deviceto what’s currently out there and basi-cally try to prove that we can [make]what they have. After we prove that,then we can hopefully try to showthem what we also have that theydon’t currently have.”

The bottom line is that after six orso more months of ground tests anddesign revisions, the team hopes toearn a thumbs-up from NASA to builda flight version for testing aboard thespace station.

Spinoff applicationsBeyond NASA’s walls, the field ofwearable robotics is taking off. As-sisted walking devices offer new hopeof mobility for those recovering fromstrokes or suffering from spinal cordinjuries, with commercial prices ex-pected to range from $80,000 to$150,000. Exactly what a space-quali-fied exercise version would cost is notcertain, but the team predicts that unitcosts will be lower than the $1.3 mil-lion provided so far for X1 underNASA’s Game Changing Technologyinitiative.

The team has work to do to con-vince NASA management to send aversion of the X1 into orbit. Job one in

ON THE OUTSIDE, NASA’S X1 EXO-skeleton looks like a set of high-techleg braces with a harness running upthe back and over the shoulders. Acomputer inside a pouch tells the de-vice’s motorized joints how much re-sistance to apply as the wearer moveshis or her legs. Sophisticated algo-rithms match the complexity of humanlocomotion.

Engineers at NASA Johnson andthe Florida Institute of Human andMachine Cognition designed and builtthe $1.3-million X1 to catch the eye oftheir colleagues in NASA’s Space LifeSciences Directorate, which last Au-gust was renamed the Human Healthand Performance Directorate.

A flight version of the device couldbecome a new workout tool for astro-nauts aboard the space station or onthe long trip to Mars and back. Atleast, this is what the developmentteam hopes.

At 57 lb, the X1 is small and light-weight compared to the 1,500-lb squatmachine used by astronauts on thespace station for working out and to

Comfortable in your own exoskeleton

Project engineer Roger Rovekamp demonstratesthe X1 robotic exoskeleton for resistive exercise,rehabilitation, and mobility augmentation inthe Advanced Robotics Development Lab. Imagecredit: Robert Markowitz


“The spaceflight-proven softwareand firmware [for Robonaut] are thesame stuff that’s on our device,” saysNASA’s Beck, a software expert andbiomedical engineer.

Capitalizing on Robonaut let theteam save valuable development time.It also created opportunities for brain-storming. The Robonaut team is work-ing on legs for the torso in the sameroom where the X1 team works.

“We’re always talking and under-standing what they’re doing,” expalinsRovekamp.

The X1 team finished the device inDecember and continues refining it.The big challenge was to make a de-vice whose primary purpose would bejust the opposite of Mina’s—to provideresistance instead of assistance. Engi-neers also had to consider how astro-nauts move in space.

“We’re trying to think about thingslike, what’s going to happen in zero g?What’s the body orientation going tobe like? How are you going to react toloads?” says Rovekamp. “If we can re-main free floating while using the de-vice, then we can avoid imparting vi-bration disturbances into the ISSstructure,” he adds.

Working with the Pensacola groupand the Robonaut team was helpful,but only to a point: “There’s really nota precedent to what they’ve done inthe past,” says Rovekamp. “It’s a veryradical concept.”

Even in space, the X1 will needstronger motors than those of walkingdevices to provide the extra torque re-quired for an exercise machine.

Maintaining strengthFlip a switch and the X1 also can be-come an assisted walking device togive to spacesuit-clad astronauts afterthey land on Mars. “Now it’s helpingthem walk around if they’re a little bitweak after the long space flight,” Beckexplains.

Exercise remains the top near-termgoal, however. The device is program-mable, so NASA can adjust an astro-naut’s exercise routine, and it will beable to stream back dynamometerreadings telling doctors how fast thewearer’s legs are moving.

“The doctors can say, ‘Okay, yourhamstrings are not being exercisedproperly. We need to change your ex-ercise protocol a little bit,” Beck says.

That would be a big improvementover the way things are done now.Before missions, astronauts learn howthey will need to exercise to minimizeloss of muscle. Dynamometer readingsare taken to make sure the exercisesare rigorous enough. The astronautsgo to space with a prescribed exerciseprotocol telling them how much theyneed to work out on various devices,including the squat machine (officiallyknown as the advanced resistive exer-cise device).

Once the astronauts are in orbit,doctors cannot gauge their perform-ance, but can only wonder, “What wasyour effort in that squat? Was it a reallygood squat or are you cheating some-how?” Rovekamp says.

The X1 would improve that pro-cess by streaming back dynamometerreadings.

None of that can happen withouta safe, comfortable, wearable robot.The X1 team started its work by mak-ing a quick structural mockup. “Oneof the challenging things with a deviceis, where do you pivot?” says Rove-kamp. “We put all of the bearings inthe position we thought they wouldbe in. A lot of times our initial assump-tions were not correct, and it wasmore comfortable another way.”

The result was a design with 10joints: motorized joints on the hipsand knees, plus six passive joints forstepping sideways, turning, and flex-ing the foot. Adjustment points makethe X1 adaptable for different wearers.Mechanical hard stops prevent thewearer from exceeding his or herrange of motion.

Sensing and controlThe control software is key. The pro-cess starts with readings from positionsensors at each joint. “We can deter-mine from that what the person’s jointangle is,” Beck says. “The software isintelligently written so that it can basi-cally manage all the joints at once. Itknows where all of them are, and whatthe person’s left knee is doing andwhat the person’s left hip is doing—

everything.”The Pensacola group’s algorithms

were critical. The engineers combinedthem with the flight-proven Robonautsoftware: “It has gone through severaliterations of safety reviews to makesure it’s safe for use on orbit,” Rove-kamp points out.

That strategy, the team hopes, willlead to quicker approval for a flightversion of the X1. Even as they workon it, engineers have the future inmind. The rig might be a gamechanger, but it still is more bulky thanthe engineers would like.

“The ideal exoskeleton is like apair of pants. You’re comfortable inthem. It’s natural,” says Rovekamp.“We would like to get even smallerand lower profile.”

If the engineers can do that, astro-nauts could someday wear an ex-oskeleton for an hour or two and geta workout while doing chores aboardthe station or on the way to Mars.

“It has to be extremely comfort-able. It has to be low profile so theycan zip throughout the space station.We have a lot of different ideas forhow this could continue to evolve intoa device that has extreme payoff tothe crew long term,” Rovekamp says.

But first things first: Earning ap-proval to make a spaceflight versionof the X1. Ben Iannotta

[email protected]

Project engineer Shelley Rea demonstrates the X1.Image courtesy Robert Markowitz.

Viewpoint

28 AEROSPACE AMERICA/MAY 2013 Copyright ©2013 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

USAF Maj. Fred A. Kimler is currently a divisionchief for the Air Force Operational Test andEvaluation Center. He holds a master's degreein aeronautical engineering and has experiencein test and evaluation, depot maintenance,structural design, and aircraft propulsion.

Repeated attempts to reform the

nation’s defense acquisition process

have had surprisingly little impact.

Technical complexity, ever-increasing

costs, and cumbersome management

structures are just a few of the

difficulties inherent in this vast

and complicated system. Political

considerations further distort a

picture already clouded by unrealistic

promises and expectations. True

reform will be achievable only if

some vital—and missing—ingredients

are brought into the mix.

REAL SOLUTIONS


Viewpoint

The Dept. of Defense acquisitionsystem was first codified onJuly 13, 1971 (in DOD Directive5000.1). The system has evolved

since then, following numerous attempts atreform. Yet despite these changes, manymajor defense acquisition programs still en-counter significant problems in meetingtheir cost, schedule, and performance re-quirements. Unfortunately, DOD has seenacquisition cost overruns continue to grow.

With cost growth now exceeding 30%,

DOD must begin making better acquisitiondecisions or the number of program invest-ments will have to be reduced significantly.This becomes especially true given thedrawdown of forces in Afghanistan and thepending effects of sequestration. Furthercompounding problems, the average pro-gram delay in FY12 was 23 months, 32%beyond original estimate. This means thatDOD programs not only cost more, theyalso deliver much later, and often with re-duced capabilities.

Even though the overall number of majordefense acquisition programs has remainedreasonably steady since FY05, program costshave continued to grow. To put it bluntly,DOD’s return on investment has been verypoor and continues to get worse.

This is certainly not a new problem.“Our review of the efforts of the military de-partments to correctly estimate initial deliv-ery dates for about 50 weapon systems in-dicates that, on the average, the weaponsystems experienced 33% schedule slip-page. Average cost growth of these systemswas approximately 30%.” That statement,from a report of the General Accounting Of-fice (GAO, now the Government Accounta-bility Office), appeared in 1971.

Quotes from two other reports are alsosignificant in this regard:

“In the last several months, the Officeof the Secretary of Defense and the militaryservices have been engaged in a substantialeffort to resolve problems identified as ad-versely affecting the acquisition of majorweapon systems. These problems includecompromised performance, delayed avail-ability, and increased costs,” says one.

“Since 1997, there have been 74 Nunn-McCurdy breaches involving 47 major de-

fense acquisition programs. [Nunn-McCurdyis an amendment regarding cost overruns.]Of the 47 programs that breached, 18 pro-grams breached more than one time,” saysthe other report.

These two quotes say essentially thesame thing: Programs cost too much, aredelivered late, and do not meet perform-ance objectives. The first quote is from a1971 GAO report. The second is from aGAO report issued 40 years later, in 2011.

More worrisome is that there have beennumerous efforts to reform the acquisitionsprocess during that period. Since 1994 therehave been six acts of Congress passed ex-plicitly for acquisitions reform. This is in ad-dition to the numerous panels and boards,with their subsequent studies and reports,convened to explore ways to improve theprocess (27 major studies from 1960 to 2009,and a host of smaller ones).

J. Ronald Fox, a Harvard BusinessSchool professor, puts it most appropriately:“Despite the many studies and the similarityof their findings, major defense programsstill require more than 15 years to deliverless capability than planned, often at two tothree times the initial cost.”

The real question is, as Fox suggests, if allof these studies find essentially the same is-sues and make the same recommenda-

tions, why haven’t acquisitions gotten sig-nificantly better?

One of the reasons was well stated by

A CLOSER LOOK

REASONS FOR POOR PERFORMANCE


the Institute for Defense Analyses in itscomments on the 1986 recommendationsof the Packard Commission: “The first fourof these recommendations [for clear com-mand channels, stability, limited reportingrequirements, and small, high-quality staffs]have generally been implemented cosmeti-cally and in a way that does not supportrecommendation five [communicationswith users]. Consequently, we believe thesubstance and intent of these recommen-dations has not been implemented.”

Another reason is the implementationof additional oversight of the process be-cause of continuing poor performance.

Finally, the GAO offered yet anotherinsight: “One of the most troublesome fea-tures of the present program managementstructure is difficulty in obtaining decisions.It seems to us the most likely cause of thisproblem is that decision-making layering isnot commensurate with organizational lay-ering.…Most of the decisions that the proj-

ect manager does not make himself aremade at the highest levels of the service orby OSD.

“Between the project manager and topmanagement are a large group of organiza-tional units whose commanders attempt tokeep themselves informed about a particu-lar weapon system and study and deliber-ate on pending programs to recommendsome course of action. As a rule, they haveno direct approval powers. They can delayor stop a project but cannot make deci-sions to proceed, change direction, providemoney, or take other positive action.”

This was a very astute observation, andthe situation has not changed very muchsince 1971, when the report was issued.DOD, since the advent of Microsoft Power-Point, has become exceptionally fond ofbriefings. Staffing time alone for a normalprogram can take as long as 180 days. Fora joint or international program, it can takenearly a year.

Almost every acquisitions reform report orstudy mentions the need for changes in theprogram manager (PM) position. Most em-phasize the need to keep the PM in the po-sition for a significant length of time. Insome cases, this has been carried out togood effect; often, however, the PM is amilitary officer and must be reassigned af-ter a few years. The reason usually cited isthe need to keep the officer competitive forpromotion against others in the peergroup. This is potentially one of the biggest

shortcomings in the acquisitions system—ittakes time to bring a new person up tospeed on a complex program, so it wouldseem most beneficial to leave the PM in theposition for as long as is practical.

Obviously, reality stands in the way inmost cases, and PMs must be replaced fortheir own professional benefit. Further re-forms could make the position a fixed termfor military as well as civilian PMs. (Usuallya civilian PM is required to sign an agree-ment to stay for four to five years.) There

In 1983, the President’s Private Sector Sur-vey on Cost Control, the Grace Commis-sion, released its report recommending thestreamlining of the acquisitions chain ofcommand. This was further amplified inthe 1986 Packard Commission report. Bothreports led to the creation of new under-secretary-level positions within DOD andbrought the management of programs di-rectly under the purview of the secretary ofdefense. Although the need to produce aseemingly endless number of briefings toorganizations outside the direct acquisi-tions chain persists, for the first time the re-porting chain was actually fully defined.

Another area of reform progress hasbeen the professional development of theacquisitions corps. For anyone assigned in

a coded acquisitions position, certificationstandards and identified training are nowrequired. Most of the training is managedthrough the Defense Acquisition University,which maintains and defines the courses re-quired for certification in numerous special-ized acquisitions areas. Training evolvescontinually based on new trends, policies,and lessons learned.

Finally, there have been some im-provements in the contracting laws andpolicies governing defense acquisition.Contracting vehicles, such as the SimplifiedAcquisitions Procedures for small pur-chases, have brought some degree of san-ity back into the overall process. It can cer-tainly be argued, however, that morereform is needed in this area.

WHAT HAS WORKED?

WHAT HAS NOT WORKED?

Early on, the F-16 had some significant technical issues buthas become very successful after several block upgrades.Credit: MSgt. Andy Dunaway/USAF.


really is no reason that military personnelcould not also be required to stay forlonger terms, as long as the individual serv-ices recognize the status of the position ormake it a competitive assignment.

The individual services should con-sider putting their acquisitions personnel ina separate promotion category, as in thecase of medical or legal personnel (nonlineofficers). They should also ensure thatthese acquisitions officers are placed intosenior positions. Such actions would helpto strengthen the PM position.

Another frequently voiced concern re-garding PMs involves accountability. Ide-ally, a PM is recognized for good perform-ance through awards or promotion (whilestill maintaining the position after a promo-tion). Likewise, poor performance by a PMwould result in dismissal; however, thisrarely occurs, because the effects of a PM’sdecisions may not be known for manyyears, when the program enters full devel-opment or production. PMs should occupytheir positions long enough for these ef-fects to become apparent.

In the case of a grossly underperform-ing program, the PM should be removedimmediately, especially if he or she hasfailed to suggest the program’s cancella-tion. It also should be implicitly understood

that some programs are going to fail—thereis no guarantee that the analysis of alterna-tives process chose the correct option. Inthese cases, there should not be any nega-tive repercussions for the PM.

Another issue that most reports have notdiscussed very thoroughly is the PM’s ex-perience. The services prefer the PM to besomeone who has operated similar sys-tems. This, however, is a potential mistake.The complexity of the acquisitions processitself requires that the PM be someone whois familiar with its functioning and proce-dures. Most programs are highly technicaland entail complex decisions involvingtradeoffs of cost, schedule, and perform-ance. There is no real shortage of operatorswho can be called on to provide theneeded expertise on these issues and onimportant operational considerations. Inaddition, having an operator in chargesometimes leads to ‘gold-plating’ of thesystem being acquired (paying for capabil-ities above what is actually required), fur-ther increasing program risk.

DOD must use incremental develop-ment strategies more effectively. Often, thefirst increment of a system contains manynew technologies that not only must be si-multaneously developed (usually inde-

pendently) but also must be integrated to-gether. Unfortunately, integration is themost difficult part of the process.

A more successful approach probablywould be to use existing subsystems, ratherthan newer ones, on the first increment.Once the newer subsystems have matured,they can then be integrated onto the sys-tem as a follow-on increment. For exam-ple, the first increment develops the newairframe, while using existing radars, an-tennas, seats, and avionics. The second in-crement integrates the new radar and an-tennas. New avionics would be part of thethird increment, and so forth. There seemsto be much less risk in such an approach.

Another area that needs improvementis defense contracting. One of the biggestissues is that in many cases the contract ve-hicle is not consistent with the program un-der development. There has often been apreferred contract vehicle, such as costplus award fee or firm fixed price. Attemptsto use this preferred approach on every-thing, even when it is not appropriate,

THE PM’S EXPERIENCE

PERCENTAGE INCREASE

FY12FY11FY10FY09FY08FY07FY06FY05

MDAP Current Budget over Initial Budget Estimate

Major Defense Acquisitions Programs (MADP)


have been the result. Using a firm fixed-price contract to develop something fromscratch will likely result in cost and sched-ule overruns and poor performance. Con-versely, using a cost plus incentive fee topurchase a readily available item could re-sult in DOD paying too much.

Most defense contractors would saycontracting laws, policies, and proceduresare too complicated. Many contracting offi-

cers probably would agree. There couldcertainly be more progress in this area;however, this is largely because of the re-quirements for insight into a program’s per-formance and the need to ensure compli-ance with other public law, such as theBuy American Act or Small and Disadvan-taged Businesses Act.

Requirements for a system must be real-istic at the very beginning. Once defined,they must remain stable during develop-ment. Not only must the PM be able to en-force them, but the contractor also must beforthcoming when they need to be adjustedor waived. Both the PM and the contractorare responsible for informing users of how arequirements change will affect the systembeing developed. If the requirement can bealtered or waived, the program may con-tinue. If the requirement cannot be changed,the PM must be able to decide on the valueof continuing the program.

No discussion of defense acquisition re-form would be complete without address-ing the military-industrial-political complex.Although the original phrase omitted theword ‘political,’ it was added in later yearsbecause there was growing recognition ofhow this sector contributes to acquisitionsinstability. The political realm is also thearea with the most potential for reform,given the continuing decline in acquisitionsprogram performance.

Most of the literature on acquisitions reform focuses on the military, obviously be-cause it is the military service that creates theprogram and purchases the resulting system.However, there is still a need for reforms in

this sector’s interactions with the other two.The foremost of these is that DOD must

become more willing to cancel underper-forming programs. All too often the PM hasspent a great deal of time selling a programin order to get it approved and funded. Can-celing it then seems much less desirable; sothe program continues and is continually re-structured. In the end, the services are stuckwith a system that requires the start of newupgrade programs to get it to full opera-tional capability (or even, in some cases, tomake it usable). In addition, industry bringsin political forces to garner more support forthe program, making cancellation extremelydifficult.

MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL-POLITICAL COMPLEX

The development of the Bradleytank was so troublesome that a comedy was made about it.

120

100

80

60

40

20

0FY12FY11FY10FY08FY07FY06FY05FY04FY03FY02 FY09

NUMBER OF MAJOR DEFENSE ACQUISITIONS PROGRAMS (MADP) AND TOTAL COST

$2.00

1.75

1.50

1.25

1.00

.75

.50

.25

0

Number of MADPs Cost

$Trillions


The PM must be empowered and will-ing to be an honest broker concerning theprogram’s status. DOD in turn must be will-ing to cut those programs that cannot meettheir requirements. This is all the more im-portant in light of declining budgets.

Industry also needs some reform.Companies must be more honest and upfront about their actual capabilities to de-velop and produce a particular system.DOD could encourage this more effectivelyby not advertising the cost ceiling for aprogram. This would, to some degree, al-low the contractor to provide a bid at amuch more accurate cost instead of thelowest cost possible. This in turn couldmake it far more likely to meet the require-ments of the contract. All too often thecontractor must make overly optimistic as-sumptions in order to be competitive. Morehistorical or empirical data should be usedto provide more realistic projected programperformance.

In addition, DOD must make itsbudget submissions more accurate by do-ing a better job of estimating programcosts. Finally, there also should be moreemphasis placed on each bidder’s past per-

formance andthe risk itcould bringto the program.

The element that proba-bly requires the most reform is thepolitical sector. Industry has learned, cor-rectly, that the best way of ensuring a pro-gram survives is to split up its subcontrac-tors into as many different states as possibleto gain the maximum number of congres-sional constituencies. As a result, some pro-grams that should be canceled continue,because of earmarks (congressional addi-tions to the budget). Members of Congressmust understand the impacts of their deci-sions, particularly in terms of added costs tothe government.

There is potential for some reductionin congressional oversight requirements(generally additional reporting). This, how-ever, would be difficult to accomplish, be-cause many of these requirements havecome about directly because of poor per-formance on previous programs. UntilDOD and industry prove they can executeseveral large programs successfully, this sit-uation is likely to continue.

Twelve years as an acquisitions officerhave led this author to formulate two fun-damental questions:

Is the success of a weapon system anindication that the acquisition program ex-ecution was a success?

On its face, this answer would appearto be an obvious ‘yes,’ but looking deeperinto the question leads to the opposite con-clusion. In some ways this is a Machiavel-lian question; the system is the end, theprogram is the means. In other arenas, theends do not always justify the means, andthe same should be true of an acquisitionsprogram. There is little doubt that any sys-tem can be made highly effective given in-finite, or at least substantial, resources. ButDOD’s resources are not infinite—in factthey will be far less substantial in the com-ing years. The result must be that programsare scored on their current merit, not onwhat the future may promise.

Is the acquisition system broken, or isthe execution of the system broken? Thesystem itself has not changed fundamen-tally since its introduction in 1971; thus theinevitable conclusion is that its execution is

the true, underlying issue. The PM must bemore of a decision-maker and less of abriefer and program advocate. The usersmust allow the PM to make the appropriateprogrammatic decisions.

Overall, there must be more honestythroughout the process and from all par-ties. Without this, much of the vaunted re-form will not be effective. Recognizing thepart each sector plays in the process willincrease the chances for success in the ex-ecution of acquisitions programs.

If all three sectors of the military-indus-trial-political complex continue to operateas they have since the 1940s, the trend to-ward poorly performing programs willlikely continue. In competing for programs,industry must provide more realistic, exe-cutable bids. DOD must cancel programsthat have little chance of meeting their re-quirements within the cost and scheduleparameters. Congress must understand theeffects of continuing programs that shouldbe canceled. No individual program that issignificantly underperforming should becontinued at the expense of other morepromising ones.

TWO FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS

The AIM-9X is one of the fewmodern weapons programs tomeet its acquisitions baselinecost, schedule, and performance.

Russia’s robotic space renaissance

by Leonard DavidContributing writer



A revamping of Russia’s robotic spaceexploration program appears to beunder way, perhaps even a rebirth

for the country’s interplanetary endeavors.To some extent this 21st-century revivalmirrors the former Soviet Union’s missionsto a variety of destinations beyond LEO.

First on the agenda of Roscosmos, theRussian Federal Space Agency, are lunarmissions. Longer range plans include thedesign of an aggressive Venus mission, anattempt at the first landing on Mercury, anda rekindling of Mars exploration. Add tothis a reported Russian Jupiter researchproject that would place a lander on theJovian moon Ganymede by 2023.

But are these grand plans on solid foot-ing, given Russia’s spotty track record overthe years, underscored by the botched Pho-bos-Grunt mission to Mars? That aggressiveundertaking, launched in November 2011,ended when the probe plunged back toEarth in an uncontrolled reentry some twomonths later—felled by the tug of gravity,yes, but also by technical and managementslip-ups.

Years earlier, the country’s ambitiousMars 96 mission suffered a similar fate,crash landing just one day after liftoff, pos-sibly in South America. The jam-packedprobe carried a Mars orbiter, surface sta-tions, and surface penetrators.

Nonetheless, history shows that the So-viet space program, fueled by Cold War ri-valries, scored significant achievements atthe Moon, Venus, and Mars.

But today, the situation is different.

Notably absent“I personally am very excited to see theRussians building on their outstanding suc-cess of the past and returning to earlier des-tinations where they were major innovators

in science and technology,” says StephenMackwell, director of the Lunar and Plane-tary Institute in Houston, Texas.

Mackwell notes that the Soviet Unionwas a key player in the early age of roboticand human solar system exploration. Onemight argue, he says, that the U.S. wouldnever have sent astronauts to the Moonhad the Soviets not launched Sputnikand set the course for taking astrategic lead in the new frontierof space.

“While the Soviets’ earlylead in space was clearly sur-passed by the United Stateswith the phenomenal Geminiand Apollo programs, Russiawas a major early driver forlunar exploration with its Lunaand Zond programs of lunarimpactors, flybys, circumlunarspacecraft, orbiters, landers,rovers, and, ultimately, sample returnmissions. In total, the Soviets attemptedover 45 robotic missions to the Moon andhad considerable successes, including theonly robotic sample return from the lunarsurface,” says Mackwell.

“Unfortunately, the Soviet lunar pro-gram ceased in 1976, a few years after theUnited States abandoned its lunar missions.While the scientific community never lostinterest in the Moon, and vibrant studies oflunar samples continued...it was only in the1990s that we saw a resurgence of interestin lunar missions.

“This time, however, the broader inter-national community had started to becomeinvolved. First the Japanese, and then theEuropeans, Chinese, and Indians sent mis-sions to the Moon. The United States tooflew a series of missions that made majoradvances in our understanding of the

The demise of the Soviet Union left its much-vaunted space program

underfunded and in disarray. Technical, monetary, and management

problems have continued to plague Russia’s efforts during the difficult

transition to a new era. Several high-visibility undertakings, such as

the Phobos-Grunt Mars mission of 2011, have ended in failure.

Nonetheless, recent activities indicate that ambitious plans are in the

offing for the country’s robotic lunar and planetary exploration efforts.

Luna 24 was the last of threesuccessful Soviet lunar samplereturn missions. The mission returned 170.1 g of lunar samplesto the Earth on August 22, 1976.


‘Hothouse orchid’ theoryJames Oberg is a long-time historian andexpert on Soviet/Russian space matters. ForRussia, he says, the key to acquiring the21st-century technologies crucial for futurespaceflight activities is in efforts led bySergey Zhukov, a trained but unflown cos-monaut who is pushing well-financed tech-nology development projects.

“Available space funding just isn’tenough to maintain, much less modernize,the broad base of Soviet-era space capabil-ities,” Oberg observes. “Many projects have

already starved, and still more need tobe terminated, to allow concentra-

tion on key areas where Russ-ian space efforts may yet

again shine.”There are others,

however, who view Rus-sia’s space program as a‘hothouse orchid,’ aflower that needs pam-pering because it is nothardy enough to grow

under natural conditions.This theory, which

Oberg does not find en-couraging, also holds there

are several independent, particu-lar factors that must all appear con-

currently for the space program to succeed.These include not just intentional pamper-ing, but other incidental and unintentionalfactors that also turn out to be critically im-portant to enabling success.

“In this view, the spectacular Soviet-eraspace successes required the conflation ofseveral highly specific conditions that to-gether created a world-leading capabilitywhich has long since faded, and probablycan never be rebuilt. Aside from financiallargesse, those years saw the best andbrightest Soviet engineers and managersflocking to the space effort, because of thehistorical challenges as well as uniqueperks—special stores, schools, hospitals,travel—that ordinary Soviet citizens had nohope of otherwise seeing. The entire coun-try was mobilized to provide them with thebest materials, minds, and methods,” saysOberg. “That’s all gone now and will neverreturn. A scaled-back, modest program withrespectable specializations is the best theycan hope for,” he concludes.

Rubles for deep space rocketryAsif Siddiqi, associate professor in the Dept.of History at Fordham University in New

Moon, the Earth-Moon system, and the evo-lution of the early solar system,” he says.

More recent missions, he observes, alsoset the stage for an ultimate human returnto the Moon, involving longer term plansfor habitation and resource utilization. TheRussians, however, have been notably ab-sent from these activities.

Resurgence of interest“Now we are beginning to see a resurgenceof interest in both robotic and human ex-ploration of the Moon and other bodies inthe solar system, beyond the con-tinued activities with Mars…notably Venus, where theSoviet Union was a keyinnovator and hadgreat robotic missionsuccess with orbiters,landers, and bal-loons,” says Mack-well. “I am also ex-cited to see Russianinterest in participat-ing in human explo-ration activities beyond[the international space]station. Human explorationhas always been a risky andexpensive endeavor. The greatsuccess of Apollo was driven by nationalsecurity issues, where major investmentwas regarded as justified by the interna-tional political climate of the time.”

But Mackwell views this new centuryas one in which collaboration, rather thancompetition, seems to be the best way for-ward. “Few nations have the fiscal capabil-ity or the political will to reach out intospace with humans. However, there is greatsupport from the general public for explo-ration, and capturing the technological ca-pabilities of the Russians and engaging withthem in human exploration makes a lot ofsense if we are to truly expand our hori-zons in space.”

While the United States is developingnew launch vehicles and space transporta-tion systems, Mackwell says, a key missingpiece is the ability to land on any object inthe solar system with any appreciable grav-ity. “International partnerships, especiallywith the Russians, may help significantlywith redevelopment of that capability. Itwould be such a great thing, 50 years afterthe first Apollo landing, to see Russians andAmericans return to the lunar surface to-gether,” he concludes.

Plans for a Russian return to theMoon include the Luna Glob probe.Credit: Lavochkin Association.

York, is a scholarly specialist in SovietUnion/Russian space endeavors. Althoughthe Russians have never lacked ambitiousplans, he tells Aerospace America, over thepast two decades “the payoff has not beensignificant.” Siddiqi does note some smallsignals, such as cooperation with ESA andIndia, that suggest Russia is exploring otheravenues. However, he does not see any fun-damental shift having occurred to changethe current paradigm.

Clearly, he says, the Phobos-Grunt dis-aster was a huge letdown after all the timeand effort spent preparing the mission. TheRussian space industry in general has beenplagued by a range of problems, from qual-ity control issues to brain drain to corrup-tion, as well as the tightening of rublesavailable for deep space rocketry. Thatcombination creates a very high-risk situa-tion, he says. The upcoming Luna Glob andLuna Resurs missions are being closelywatched by the Russian space community,and their outcome will be telling.

“Every couple of years there’s discus-sion within Russia’s space media, a sort ofhandwringing about the average age of en-gineers in their space program, which ispretty high now. If you are a smart youngperson in Russia, space is not on the top ofyour list…not a priority. You would proba-bly be going into software or somethinglike that,” says Siddiqi. “Young people seespace as a good thing, but it’s in the past.”

One development to keep an eye on,Siddiqi believes, is the Skolkovo high-techproject—a plan to mimic Silicon Valley andits innovative research and production.

Space technology is a major focus of the ef-fort, he notes, “and the whole point of thatis basically to feed very smart people backinto the space program.”

Author and Russian space watcherDavid Harland offers some similar views.“Although the Russians can employ theirSoyuz rocket to send a small payload toMars—as they did for Mars Express on be-half of the Europeans—they always buildheavy ‘Christmas tree’ probes that requirethe more capable Proton rocket becausethey are festooned with instruments, cap-sules, and landers. Yet, remarkably for thisday and age, both Mars 96 and Phobos-Grunt were stranded in Earth orbit by theirupper stages. One has to wonder whatcomplexity they have built into their de-sign, by either commission or omission,that makes it so susceptible to failure at thispoint in the mission…because an escapeburn is no longer rocket science!”

Optimism growsFrom inside Russia looking outward, sev-eral experts have offered their perspectiveon the history and future of Russia’s roboticlunar and planetary exploration program.

Mikhail Marov is a professor and aca-demician of the Russian Academy of Sci-ences. Paraphrasing Mark Twain, he callsrumors of the program’s demise “exagger-ated” and adds that “the situation right nowis much more optimistic.”

Speaking last October at an Arlington,Virginia, symposium on the 50th anniver-sary of planetary exploration, Marov notedthat the disintegration of the former Soviet

The failed Phobos-Grunt spacecraftdid not perform its scheduled burnto begin a trajectory to Mars, later tumbling to Earth in an uncontrolled reentry. Courtesy:National Space Science Data Center.



The two space scientists noted that theSoviet program was bold and innovative,achieving many firsts in space exploration,but was also riddled with flaws that causednumerous failures. Factors hampering theprogram included deficient electronicstechnology, poor system engineering man-agement, insufficient ground systems test-ing, and a complex, entangled, heavy-handed national system of control andsupply, said Huntress.

Robust missions, valuable scienceWhile he cannot speak for the Russianspace agency, Marov notes, he can sharehis understanding of its current situation.

“Yes, we are going to return to theMoon with the new robust and scientificallyvaluable missions Luna Glob in 2015 andLuna Resurs in 2017.” Their federal pro-gram is committed to the missions, saysMarov, adding, “I personally hope that theywill manifest our recovery with [a] lunar-planetary program after [the] turmoil of theformer two decades.”

Marov says there are also ambitiousplans for extended lunar study in futureyears. In addition, Roscosmos has signedan agreement with ESA about involvementin the European agency’s ExoMars pro-gram. That agreement, signed last Novem-ber, details cooperation by the two agen-cies on ESA’s 2016 and 2018 missions toMars. An orbiter and a stationary lander areplanned for 2016. A Russian lander is to de-liver the ExoMars rover, planned for 2018.Roscosmos will provide major contribu-tions, including the descent stage for the2018 flight, scientific instruments for bothmissions, and the two Proton launchers.

“As far as Venus is concerned,” he says,current plans are “sound enough indeed”and are still targeted for the early 2020s.

Tight oversightAs the Russians move beyond the failure ofthe Phobos-Grunt mission, just how realis-tic and technologically sound are theirplans for rebooting interplanetary probeprograms?

“Keep in mind that Phobos-Gruntstarted as the only interplanetary mission inthe program,” says Igor Lissov, senior editorof the Russian journal Novosti Kosmonavtiki(Cosmonautics News). “They decided tochoose a bold mission, and they tried todesign it from scratch. They [made] severalconceptual errors, which played out at thefirst possibility,” Lissov explains.

Union, followed by social and economicturmoil, had a dramatic impact on Russia’sspace program, specifically solar system ex-ploration. He emphasized that the country’sspace budget was drastically reduced, thelion’s share going for orbital station opera-tions, support for the Mir space station pro-gram, Mir-shuttle dockings, and later, par-ticipation in the ISS program.

“Space facilities were partly destroyed,cooperative links broken, and many skilledpersonnel in space science and technologylost,” Marov told attendees of the sympo-sium. In reviewing the launch, subsequentbreakdown, and fiery Earth reentry of theMars-bound Phobos-Grunt mission, he saidthe failure basically was caused by thesedestructive factors of the 1990s whose con-sequences “have not been yet overcome…though lessons were learned.”

Speaking at the same symposium wasWesley Huntress, director emeritus at theGeophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie In-stitution for Science in Washington, D.C.Huntress underscored the “tragic loss of vi-sion, enterprise, and expertise” of the So-viet Union’s robotic planetary effort, whichhad begun “in a spirit of bold adventureand technical genius.”

Russia’s Luna Resurs mission ison the books as part of thatcountry’s reconnection with lunarexploration. Credit: LavochkinAssociation.

An agreement signed by Roscosmos and ESA details their cooperation on ExoMars,ESA’s 2016 and 2018 Mars missions. Roscosmos will provide major contributions,including the descent stage for the 2018 flight, scientific instruments for bothmissions, and the two Proton rockets that will launch them. Credit: ESA.


Russia’s current lunar exploration pro-gram involves three launches of increasingdifficulty, notes Lissov, with designers hav-ing some leeway to err without ruining all:Luna Glob 1 (a test lander with very limitedscience payload), Luna Glob 2 (a scienceorbiter), and Luna Resurs (a polar landerwith a sophisticated science payload). “Thisseems to be a good choice to reestablishour capabilities. Future projects are beinglisted and discussed, but their chances offull funding and development dependheavily on the success [of the precedingmissions],” he says.

At Lavochkin Association, the groupthat also created Phobos-Grunt, differentpeople are working on the Luna missions.As far as Lissov can tell, the key persons in-volved in the failed probe’s design haveleft. “Oversight is tight, and the upper man-agement is more competent,” he says.

Funding has been available from thebeginning, Lissov says, noting that this wasnot the case for Phobos-Grunt, which lin-gered 10 years in the paperwork stage. “SoI believe the situation is much better fromthe budget, programmatic, and competencesides. Also, we are not bound by planetarywindows now, and Lavochkin can test theirspacecraft as long as needed….Of coursethis does not exclude design errors or com-ponent failures…but I have much morefaith in the Luna Glob/Luna Resurs seriesthan in Phobos-Grunt.”

Lunar strategyAlso emphasizing Russia’s robotic return tothe Moon is James Head, a noted space sci-entist in the Dept. of Geological Sciences atBrown University. He points to the pasttrack record of the Soviets: Successfullycompleting three robotic sample returnmissions (Luna 16, 20, and 24), two verywell instrumented robotic lunar rovers,Lunokhod 1 (Luna 17) and Lunokhod 2(Luna 21), and several orbiters—all under-taken more than 35 years ago. These basicaccomplishments, he says, represent a re-markable robotic capability not duplicatedby anyone, including the U.S.

“The Russians are building on the orig-inal clever and novel engineering designsfor these missions, and thinking ahead witha focus on polar landers and on exploringfor volatiles in the polar and near-polar re-gions,” Head says. “Sample return missionsare very likely to focus on the discoveriesof the early polar Luna lander and rovermissions, and to involve the return of

volatile-containing samples using specialdevices for preservation and return.”

Head and his colleagues at Brown havebeen involved for years with their Russiancolleagues from the Institute for Space Re-search and the Vernadsky Institute. Work-ing together they have scoped out candi-date landing sites for lunar spacecraft, andalso possible destinations for future Lun-okhods and sample return missions to theMoon. The lunar strategy is clearly workingtoward a set of larger Russian nationalgoals, possibly to include a lunar base,Head adds.

Given the apparent abandonment ofhuman and robotic lunar surface explora-tion by the U.S. for the near future, Headthinks the Russians see a major leadershipopportunity as well as a technology driverand are therefore moving out vigorously ontheir strategy.

“Clearly the Russians have long demon-strated that they have the technological so-phistication to engage in expansive spaceexploration activities,” says Roger Launius,senior curator in the Division of Space His-tory at the Smithsonian Institution’s Na-tional Air and Space Museum. “If they re-double efforts, invest sufficient resources,and structure a realizable long-term strategyfor robotic planetary exploration,” says Lau-nius, “there is no reason to believe they willnot be successful.”

However, he also notes that the boxscore on Soviet/Russian planetary explo-ration has been checkered, particularly re-garding Mars. They have had much greatertriumph with Venus and, especially, theMoon.

“What is past does not directly affectthe future, of course,” adds Launius. “But itwill require a concerted effort to restartthese activities and be successful with them.We’ll see what happens.”

Russia's re-rendezvous withMoon exploration also includesdiscussion of establishing aninternational lunar base.Courtesy: IKI.

The war in Afghanistan sparked a booming market for com-mercially provided satellite communications in the X-band

range of 8-12 GHz. This frequency band is reserved exclusivelyfor government use by the U.N.’s International Telecommunica-tion Union. Commanders, troops, and intelligence analystsneeded to share maps, detailed satellite images, and electroopti-cal and infrared videos of villages and roads. The U.S. govern-ment’s satellites could not cover all of the demand.

But now the U.S. and its allies are planning to bring mosttroops home from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, and the U.S.is trying to shift more of its diplomatic and military partnershipresources toward the Pacific region to meet a rising China. Thatpivot could spell business trouble for commercial X-bandproviders, because it is a region largely uncovered by them.

Those providers know they must adjust their plans if they areto sustain or grow their businesses, and there are signs that thisis happening.

“We’re very aware of the pivot to Asia that’s talked about bythe U.S. government,” says Andrew Ruszkowski, vice presidentfor global sales and marketing at XTAR in Herndon, Virginia.Founded in 2001, the company provides communications for theSpanish government, the U.S., NATO, and their allies.


by Ben IannottaContributing writer

Shifting fortunes for

The Air Force began launching WGS spacecraft in 2007.


In this corner, weighing 13,000 lb…As they seek to adapt, XTAR and other X-band providers will befacing a familiar competitor: the Boeing-built Wideband GlobalSatcom (WGS) satellites. The Air Force be-gan launching these in 2007 in the midstof the commercial X-band boom. A WGSspacecraft weighs 13,000 lb, almost twiceas much as some X-band-equipped com-mercial satellites. Each operates in both X-and Ka-band, and can even convert signalsarriving in one band to the other, so thatrecipients with different terminals can ex-change information.

The Air Force has started launchingupgraded Block II versions that are evenmore powerful. They have frequency by-pass electronics that transmit Ka-band re-connaissance imagery at three times thedata rate of the original satellites. By theservice’s calculation, a single WGS satelliteprovides more capacity than the entire Defense Satellite Commu-nications System they are gradually replacing.

The U.N.’s International TelecommunicationUnion reserves the X-band frequency exclusively for government communications.During the war in Afghanistan, the need forsharing battlefield information was so greatthat U.S. government satellites could notkeep up with it. As that war ends and the U.S. shifts its attention to other regions,commercial satellite companies face somesignificant challenges—including competitionfrom U.S. government spacecraft.

commercial X-band


XTAR’s reliance on SSL was not surpris-ing. Loral helped form XTAR in 2001 andremains the majority owner. The minoritypartner is Madrid-based Hisdesat, the gov-ernment services arm of the Hispasat tele-communications company.

If XTAR was once locked into SSL, it isnot now. Last year, Loral sold its SSL unit toMacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates ofRichmond, British Columbia, meaning Loraland by extension XTAR no longer have astake in SSL’s manufacturing.

“We enjoy a very good relationshipwith Space Systems/Loral,” says Ruszkow-ski. “But we also have good relationshipswith other manufacturers, and we will dowhat’s right with the XTAR business and byour customers and our users,” he says.

XTAR was founded partly on the con-cept of the hosted payload—separatetransponders installed on a satellite ownedby another company or agency. XTAR op-erates an eight-transponder X-band payloadcalled XTAR-LANT, which rides on Spainsat,a 7,500-lb Spanish military satellite. Spainsatwas launched in March 2006 to a positionhigh over the Atlantic at 30° W longitude,with an X-band communications footprintspanning west to Denver, south to LatinAmerica, and east across Africa and into theMiddle East.

SSL also built XTAR-EUR, an 8,000-lbsatellite launched in February 2005. It is lo-cated at 29° East (over the Horn of Africa).

Taken together, XTAR-EUR and theXTAR-LANT payload provide coveragefrom Denver to Singapore, which of courseleaves out most of the Pacific region.

XTAR wants to change that, and seesparticular need for expanding coverage toSoutheast Asia. The firm has not an-nounced details of its strategy, but Rusz-kowski hints that the solution could be asurprising one.

“We are XTAR, and today we are X-band, but if you recall, our mandate…is tosupport the government user with satellitecommunications. That, in our view, doesn’tnecessarily limit us to X-band. So while wemight grow by offering more X-band ca-pacity, we might also grow in other fre-quency bands, whether they be military Ka,commercial Ka, Ku,” he says.

As for applications, Ruszkowski pre-dicts the U.S. will need to tap commercialX-band services to move information off itslarge fleets of traditionally piloted intelli-gence, surveillance, and reconnaissanceplanes. The primary unmanned aircraft—Air

The commercial providers neverthelesspushed back hard on the U.S. government’splans to buy more and more WGS satellites,arguing that shifting to commercial capacitywould be cheaper at a time when govern-ments need to spend less. In an April 2012commentary in Space News, XTAR presidentand COO Philip Harlow said the U.S gov-ernment was now a “front-line competitor”in the market: “Not only does the [WGS]program appear focused on replacing asmuch commercial capacity as possible, thegovernment is becoming the de facto serv-ice provider to a host of high-value cus-tomers,” he wrote.

Since then, XTAR has cooled its rheto-ric about WGS. Only when pushed wouldRuszkowski attribute XTAR’s slow growthto the emergence of the WGS. “There wasa lot of promise [for XTAR’s profitability]early on, and then I guess I would say thatmaybe some policy issues particularly withthe U.S. government slowed down the de-mand for XTAR capacity,” he says.

These days, XTAR is adjusting its plans,rather than trying to get the U.S. govern-ment to adjust WGS. The U.S. shows nosigns of backing off from WGS in the faceof the industry’s criticism. There are nowfour of these satellites in orbit; a fifth wasscheduled for launch by the start of thismonth, and more are under construction. Infact, Boeing is now on contract to build atenth, ensuring there will be satellites tosustain the constellation for years to come.

Fresh approachesThe commercial X-band satellites andhosted payloads have been producedmainly by Space Systems/Loral of Palo Alto,California, and its European rival, AstriumSatellites, based in Stevenage, U.K.

XTAR-EUR and theXTAR-LANT payloadcoverage leave outmost of the Pacificregion.

Force Predators and Reapers—are equippedto communicate in other frequencies andthus are not candidates for X-band. “Thereare some new UAV systems, including theNavy’s BAMS system, which are going tocome out with an X-band-capable antenna.But if we’re talking the Predators and theGlobal Hawks that are out there today,those are typically Ka-band systems,” Rusz-kowski adds.

None of this is to say that XTAR is giv-ing up on X-band. The company’s strate-gists remain convinced that the U.S. and al-lied militaries are going to need additionalcapacity, and that XTAR can fill that role inmany cases. Military X-band satellites “oftenhave special features on them that makethem maybe more survivable in the case ofa nuclear attack or a little bit more resistantto offensive pursuit by an adversary,” ex-plains Ruszkowski.

XTAR’s payloads are simpler and lesscostly because of that. “XTAR is kind of inthis nexus between the technical features ofa milsat resource—X-band specific—and thefeatures that make for a value propositionby a commercial operator,” he says. “Weenjoy that position because we think we of-fer to the government user, to the militaryuser, a unique value proposition that theydon’t get elsewhere in the commercial orgovernment market of resources.”

On top of that, Ruszkowski says XTARknows the importance of adaptability tochanging demand and customer require-ments. In fact, such capability is engineeredinto XTAR-LANT and EUR through the ad-vent of steerable spot beams.

“It’s not a Game Boy, but you do liter-ally put in new coordinates to the ground-based system that flies the satellites andcontrols the payload,” he says. “The anten-nas are actually moved, repositioned on thesatellite to provide different pointing anddifferent coverage of the Earth.”

XTAR has done a lot of that in the past18-24 months in reaction to changing geo-political conditions. “Notably, we’ve moveda beam on the LANT payload to providecoverage of Latin America and the Carib-bean,” Ruszkowski points out. On XTAR-EUR, “we also repointed a beam from Eu-rope…to the Horn of Africa to addressobvious demand for military and diplo-matic” communications, he adds.

Pacific specificThere is another X-band-capable satelliteon the way, a commercial spacecraft called

Anik G1. Built by SSL for Canada’s Telesat,it will be positioned over the Pacific Oceanwest of Ecuador (107.3° West) in an orbitthat will maximize coverage of the westernPacific. The satellite’s main job will be tobroadcast Ku-band television signals forShaw Direct, a Canadian direct-to-home tel-evision service. If all goes as planned, itwill simultaneously route X-band militaryand diplomatic communications in the Pa-cific region.


Adaptability to changing demandand customer requirements isengineered into XTAR-LANT andEUR through the advent of steerable spot beams.

Air Force officials launch a ULAe Delta IV-Medium rocket carrying the fourth WGS satelliteJanuary 19, 2012, from Cape Canaveral AFS. (USAF photo/Patrick Corkery.)


Astrium has no choice but to look be-yond Skynet if it wants to expand its Pacificreach. Skynet satellites are positioned overthe equator from the Atlantic Ocean toAfrica and the western Indian Ocean. Thebest they can do from those perches isreach eastward halfway across Australia.The newest of the satellites, the 11,000-lbSkynet 5D, will not change that. It waslaunched in December to a position overAfrica (25° East) and is in on-orbit testing.It was built at facilities in the U.K. and as-sembled in Toulouse under supervision bythe U.K. Ministry of Defence. “When thesatellite was being constructed, it was obvi-ously effectively part of the U.K. MOD withU.K. staff guarding it 24/7 to make sure no-body gets a close look at what’s on it,” saysAstrium U.K. spokesman Jeremy Close.

For Astrium Services Government Com-munications, Anik G1 is a compromise thatwill fill geographic gap for the MOD. KenHadfield, the defense and security advisorat Astrium Services, says Anik G1 will givethe company capability “virtually aroundthe globe, except for a tiny portion.”

Anik G1 is not a perfect solution whencompared with Skynet 5 series, which wasbuilt to exacting U.K. military specifications.Skynet 5D, for example, is “antijam, anti-laser, anti all sorts of other things,” he says.

Anik G1 is more of a consumer satellite

Telesat is not the only X-band providerthat is counting on Anik G1 to expand cov-erage in the Pacific region. U.K.-based As-trium Services Government Communica-tions (formerly known as Paradigm) hasleased X-band capacity on the satellite. As-trium wants to use the capacity to fill itscoverage gap in the western Pacific.

It is an unusual step for Astrium, whoserole has been as operator of the U.K. mili-tary’s Skynet fleet. The U.K. encourages As-trium to lease excess Skynet capacity toother governments, including the U.S., as away to defray satellite costs.

Astrium’s Skynet 5D satellite is currentlyin on-orbit testing. Credit: Astrium ServicesGovernment Communications.

Anik G1 arrived at the BaikonurCosmodrome on March 18 forlaunch on a Proton Breeze M.


than a military spacecraft, so it has less pro-tection. Hadfield says that is also true forother services, such as XTAR’s.

If Anik G1 shows the U.K.’s willingnessto compromise, the Skynet 5 series showsits willingness to innovate. These satelliteswere born of a stark choice: “If you’re do-ing warfighting operations against a sophis-ticated enemy, that means protectedcomms with survivability, resilience, and re-dundancy. That drives you toward a mili-tary-grade satellite that is nuclear hardened,antijam, capable of doing shaped beams,which is what a Skynet 5 is,” Hadfield says.

But how to pay for all that? “You either put a huge amount of

money into research and development anda huge bow wave of expenditure up front,or what you do is partner with industry tosmooth out that financial profile, and that’sexactly what the United Kingdom has donewith the Skynet 5, private-finance deal,”Hadfield says.

The ministry put in some ‘seed corn’during the concept definition phase of theSkynet 5 series, says Hadfield, then hiredAstrium to build the satellites using loans.

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After that initial funding, Skynet 5D wasbuilt without any MOD funds at all, he says.

Bank loans will be repaid as Astriumleases the spare capacity that the U.K. MODdoes not need. This capacity is leased as aservice to include billing and troubleshoot-ing. “The United Kingdom Ministry of De-fence takes the view that it should help usto generate extra revenue, and we havecommercial contracts with a number of na-tions, including the U.S. DOD,” he says.

The agreement between Astrium andthe U.K. runs through 2022; after that, satel-lites and ground equipment revert to theMOD. An extension would not be unprece-dented, however. The agreement was ex-tended once from 2018 to 2020, and then to2022. Skynet 5D was added to the planwhen a study by the MOD warned that theSkynet constellation would be out of capac-ity by 2016.

Hadfield, a retired officer who servedin the British Army’s Royal Corps of Signals,is anxious to see how a new communica-tions study now under way comes out. Theresult could be one indicator of whethercommercial X-band is here to stay.

May 2 At Cuxhaven, Germany, Berthold Seliger’s private company, BertholdSeliger Research and Development, reportedly launches an experimental three-stage solid-propellant sounding rocket. It attains a maximum altitude of 63 mi.,with its last stage returned by parachute. This is claimed as the first major firingof a rocket in West Germany since the end of WW II. D. Baker, Spaceflight andRocketry, p. 151.

May 6 JPL’s Deep Space Instrumentation Facility at Goldstone, Calif., succeeds inbouncing radar signals off Mercury, 60.5 million mi. from Earth. Preliminaryanalysis of the echo patterns indicates that Mercury has a rougher surface thanVenus or Mars. NASA, Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1963, p. 179.

May 7 Telstar 2 is launched by a Thor-Delta vehicle fromCape Canaveral. It is as successful as its famous predeces-sor, Telstar 1, launched on July 10, 1962, as the world’s firstactive communications satellite. Telstar 2 is used to conductseveral voice, TV, and other communications experiments.Essentially identical to Telstar 1, although heavier, it carriesan additional experiment designed to measure the ener-getic proton and electron distribution in the Van Allen belts.The spacecraft continues to function until May 1965, whenits transmitters are turned off. Aviation Week, May 13,1963, p. 36; Telstar 2 file, NASM.

May 7 Theodore von Kármán, the famous Hungarian-born aerodynamicist, dies in Aachen, Germany, at 81.Especially noted for his work on supersonic and hyper-sonic airflow characterizations, he is regarded as theoutstanding aerodynamic theoretician of the 20thcentury. Von Kármán received his doctorate in 1908from the University of Göttingen and taught there forseveral years. In 1930 he emigrated to the U.S. to acceptthe directorship of the Guggenheim Aeronautical Lab-oratory at the California Institute of Technology. In 1936,with Frank Malina and others, he founded Aerojet, thesecond U.S. commercial rocket company (after ReactionMotors). Von Kármán also helped to found other organ-izations, including JPL in 1944 and, later, AGARD (the

Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Development). He received numeroushonors for his many achievements. New York Times, May 8, 1963.

May 8 President John F. Kennedy approves the development of an antisatellitesystem based on the Thor missile and known as Program 437. A successor to the

Saint project, it is a defensive system against potential Soviet orbital bombs.D. Baker, Spaceflight and Rocketry, p. 151.

May 9 An experimental Midas early warning satellite is launched by an Atlas-Agena B from Vandenberg AFB. Midas subsequently demonstrates thefeasibility of missile detection and observation. It includes highly sensitive infrared detectors that sense hot exhausts of liquid-propellant rockets as wellas cooler exhausts from solid-propellant types. D. Baker, Spaceflight andRocketry, pp. 151-152.

25 Years Ago, May 1988

May 13 The Collier Trophy, the topU.S. aerospace award, goes to NASALewis and the NASA/Industry AdvancedTurboprop Team for pioneering workin developing a new generation offuel-efficient turboprop propulsionsystems. NASA, Astronautics andAeronautics, 1986-1990, p. 172.

May 14 An unmanned Soviet spacecraft performs a rendezvous anddocking with the Mir space station.This is a resupply mission providingfood, fuel, mail, and equipment tocosmonauts Vladimir Titov and MusaManarov, who have been on boardsince December. NASA, Astronauticsand Aeronautics, 1986-1990, p. 172.


May 1 Cuban Premier Fidel Castro isthe honored guest at Moscow’s MayDay parade, which displays the latestin Soviet missile hardware. The annualevent is always of great interest toWestern military analysts, althoughthis one has no major surprises. Asolid-propellant Polaris-type ballisticmissile with the NATO code nameSnark is the ‘newest’ weapon, although it was displayed the previousNovember at the anniversary cele-bration of the Bolshevik Revolution.An almost identical new missiledrawn by a Soviet T-54 tank is shown,however, along with the SA-2 and SA-3Guideline antiaircraft missiles and theShaddock, Shyster, and wire-guidedSnapper missiles. Aviation Week, May6, 1963, p. 36.

May 1 Famed aviatrixJacqueline Cochran sets anew women’s speed recordof 1,203.7 mph over a 100-km course, flying a TF-104 Starfighter. D. Daso,U.S. Air Force: A CompleteHistory, p. 431.


May 10 From Point Arguello, Calif., the Air Force lofts two 1.5-lb Tetrahedral Research Satellites (TRS), and its second 50-lb Project West Ford satellite, via anAtlas-Agena vehicle. They are launched piggyback aboard an unidentified satellite. The TRS measure solar cell radiation damage, while the West Fordplaces small copper needles in a belt around Earth for passive communicationsexperiments. The needles are ejected from a special dispenser. The first West Fordexperiment was attempted in October 1961 but failed following a mechanicalmalfunction of the dispenser. Aviation Week, May 20, 1963, p. 34.

May 15-16 Air Force Maj. Leroy Gordon Cooper Jr. successfully undertakes thesixth and final manned Project Mercury flight. In the capsule he named Faith,Cooper completes 22 “almost perfect” Earth orbits. This is the nation’s fourth orbital flight. An automatic control system of his MA-9 capsule forces him tocontrol the capsule manually during the reentry phase; nonetheless, he lands inthe Pacific Ocean less than 4 mi. from the recovery ship, the aircraft carrierKearsarge. C. Scarboro and S. Milner, Cape Kennedy: America’s Spaceport, pp. 220-221; Aviation Week, May 20, 1963, pp. 26-30.


May 13-15 The Kokenlong-distance-flightmonoplane, designedby Tokyo Imperial University’s AeronauticalResearch Institute andbuilt by the Tokyo GasDenki Works, sets anew long-distancerecord for a closed circuit of 400 km. The plane stays airborne for 62 hr 29 min49 sec for a total distance of 7,200 mi. Powering the low-wing monoplane is aliquid-cooled Kawasaki Special engine. Aireview’s The Fifty Years of Japanese Aviation 1910-1960, p. 114.

May 13 French pilot Elizabeth Lion breaks Amelia Earhart’s long-distance recordfor women (3,930 km), set in 1932. Flying her Caudron Aiglon, Lion covers the4,300-km distance from Istres in southern France to Abadan,Iran, in 32 hr. The Aeroplane, May 25, 1938, p. 627.

May 16 Famed German aviatrix Hanna Reitsch breaksthe world gliding record, flying the 156.25 mi. fromDarmstadt to the Wasserkuppe mountains and back in 5 hr 30 min. The Aeroplane, June 8, 1938, p. 727.

May 24 The first of three high-speed three-engineSavoia-Marchetti S.M. 83 airliners is flown from Milan to

Brussels for delivery toSabena Belgian Airlines. Aftertests on Sabena’s European network,the planes will be put into Belgium-Belgian Congoservice. Interavia, May 28, 1938, pp. 8-9.

May 26 Robert H. Goddard launchesone of his experimental liquid-fuelrockets, carrying a barograph, to analtitude of 140 ft. A gust of windmakes the rocket veer to the right,and it lands 500-600 ft from thelaunch tower. Three Army officerswitness the flight. E. Goddard and G.Pendray, eds., The Papers of Robert H.Goddard, pp. 1666, 1173.

May 28 Empire Air Day, celebratedat 90 RAF and civil airports throughoutBritain, features open-house staticdisplays, air races, and demonstrationsof RAF equipment and formation flying. There were to have been massbomber flying formations, but theplanes could not get through because of heavy downpours. TheAeroplane, June 1, 1938, pp. 653-654,661-665.

And During May 1938

—The Navy’s new blimp, the L-7, isdelivered to Lakehurst, N.J., from theGoodyear factory in Akron, Ohio.Powering the new 123,000 ft3 shipare two 145-hp engines. Aviation,June 1938, p. 61.


May 13 The Sikorsky Bolshoi (‘TheGreat’), the world’s first multienginelarge airplane, makes its maidenflight at St. Petersburg, Russia, piloted by its designer, Igor Sikorsky.Four Argus 100-hp engines powerthe aircraft, which spans 92.5 ft. The Bolshoi carries eight people andboasts a large cabin with four armchairs, a sofa, and dual controlsfor the pilot and copilot. C. Gibbs-Smith, Aviation, pp. 169-170.


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Deciding on the Form of Missile Defense

Flight Dynamics and Einstein’s Covariance Principle

Fundamentals of Communicating by Satellite

Introduction to Bio-Inspired Engineering

Introduction to Communication Satellites and their Subsystems

Lessons from Subsonic Ultra Green Aircraft Research (SUGAR) Study

Overview of Missile Design and System Engineering

Risk Analysis and Management

Space Radiation Environment

UAV Conceptual Design Using Computer Simulations

Contact Megan Scheidt, at 703.264.3842 or [email protected], for any questions about AIAA’s Continuing Education offerings.

Courses are subject to change. Please refer to the AIAA website for any updates.


By 22 July 2013 23 July–17 August 2013 2

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Registration TypeConference

Rate

AIAA Member Discount

Conference Rate

AIAA Member Discount

Option 1 Full Conference 3 $870 $710 $970 $810

Option 2 Full-Time Undergraduate Student $60 $25 $70 $35

Option 3 Full-Time Undergraduate Student with Tickets $180 $145 $190 $155

Option 4 Full-Time Graduate or Ph.D. Student $110 $75 $120 $85

Option 5 Full-Time Graduate or Ph.D. Student with Tickets $230 $195 $240 $205

Option 6 Full-Time Retired AIAA Member Only N/A $60 N/A $70

Option 7 Discounted Group Rate 1 3 $639 $639 $639 $639

Option 8 Continuing Education (CE)Course and Full Conference 2 3 $1,365 $1,255 $1,465 $1,355

Extra Tickets $200 $60 $60Pricing subject to change.1 10% discount off early-bird member rate for 10 or more persons from the same organization who register and pay at the same

time with a single form of payment.2 The Continuing Education Course standard registration deadline is 16 August 2013.3 Tickets for the Happy Hours are included in the registration fees where indicated; however, there is a cash bar and all

attendees are welcome to attend.


SpaceOps 2014

Pasadena, Californi

a


Early Bird by 10 May Standard (11 May–3 Jun) On-site (4–10 Jun)

AIAA Member $950 $1075 $1175 Nonmember* $1070 $1195 $1295

AIAA Member $149 Nonmember* $189 AIAA Student Member $60 Full-Time Student (Nonmember)* $70

Early Bird by 10 May Standard (11 May–3 Jun) On-site (4–10 Jun)


Early Bird by 1 Jul Standard (2–22 Jul) On-site (23–29 Jul)





Early Bird by 23 Aug Standard (24 Aug–15 Sep) On-site (16–23 Sep)


Early Bird by 29 May Standard (30 May–21 Jun) On-site (22 Jun)

AIAA Member $1278 $1378 $1478 Nonmember $1388 $1488 $1588




Early Bird by 17 Jun Standard (18 Jun–12 Jul) On-site (13–18 Jul)


Early Bird by 15 Jul Standard (16 Jul–9 Aug) On-site (10 Aug)



Early Bird by 22 Jul Standard (23 Jul–16 Aug) On-site (17 Aug)


ACHIEVE

CONNECT

INSPIRE

When you join AIAA, you gain countless OPPORTUNITIES TO CONNECT WITH MORE THAN 30,000 OTHERS in the field of aerospace science, engineering, technology, management, education, and policy.

AIAA connections and educational programs provide a LIFETIME OF OPPORTUNITIES for you to ADVANCE PERSONALLY AND PROFESSIONALLY and TO BE RECOGNIZED FOR YOUR ACHIEVEMENTS.

AIAA membership helps you SHARE IDEAS, SPARK INSIGHTS, MEET YOUR HEROES, AND BUILD ENTHUSIASM FOR AEROSPACE WITH THE NEXT GENERATION. When you join, you become part of AIAA’s mission to ADVANCE THE STATE OF AEROSPACE SCIENCE, ENGINEERING, AND TECHNOLOGICAL LEADERSHIP.

www.aiaa.org/join

AIAA PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIP JOINwww.aiaa.org/join

Your annual $110 investment in AIAA membership provides the professional development resources and contacts to advance your

career … expand your potential impact on the future of aerospace … and keep you at the forefront of aerospace technology.

12-0209_revised

This event includes the following conferences:43rd AIAA Fluid Dynamics Conference and Exhibit44th AIAA Plasmadynamics and Lasers Conference 44th AIAA Thermophysics Conference31st AIAA Applied Aerodynamics Conference21st AIAA Computational Fluid Dynamics Conference5th AIAA Atmospheric and Space Environments ConferenceAIAA Ground Testing Conference

AIAA Fluid Dynamics and Co-located Conferences and Exhibit24–27 June 2013Sheraton San Diego Hotel San Diego, California

AIAAAA Ground TeTT sting Conference

Hotel InformationAIAA has made arrangements for a block of rooms at the:Sheraton San Diego Hotel1380 Harbor Island DriveSan Diego, California 92101

Room rates are $222 per night for single or double occupancy. For reservations, please call 1.866.716.8106.Please identify yourself as being with the AIAA conference. These rooms will be held for AIAA until 22 May 2013 or until the block is full. After 22 May 2013, any unused rooms will be released to the general public. You are encouraged to book your hotel room early.

REGISTER TODAY!

www.aiaa.org/aafluids

#aiaaFluids

aerospace america 2013 05

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