aerospace america mar2010

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March 2010

ISR in today's war: A closer lookWorld tanker market: More than just KC-X

A 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

Unmannedand airborneA NEW PLAN

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COVERThe Phantom Ray is the latest of Boeing’s forays in the development of unmanned systems, a sector the companybelieves will continue to grow. Read all about their plans in the story beginning on page 24.

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Aerospace America (ISSN 0740-722X) is published monthly by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. at 1801 Alexander Bell Drive, Reston, Va. 20191-4344 [703/264-7577].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 additionalmailing offices. Copyright © 2010 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. Patentand Trademark Office. 40,000 copies of this issue printed. This is Volume 48, No. 3.

EDITORIAL 3Space, safety—and risk.

INTERNATIONAL BEAT 4Environmental regulations fly high and wide.

WASHINGTONWATCH 8Feeling the pinch and scaling back.

THEVIEW FROMHERE 12Why asteroids beckon /NASA and near-Earth objects.

AIRCRAFT UPDATE 16World tanker market: More than just KC-X.

ENGINEERINGNOTEBOOK 18Reconnecting with a magnetic mystery.DARPA’s Vulcan engine goes Navy.

OUTOFTHE PAST 44

CAREEROPPORTUNITIES 46

March 2010

AIAAMeeting Schedule B2

AIAA Courses andTraining Program B4

AIAA News B5

Meeting Program B17

Calls for Papers B24

BULLETIN

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UNMANNEDANDAIRBORNE:A NEWPLAN 24Boeing is pursuing vigorous development of UAVs and other systems neededin this fast-growing sector.by J.R. Wilson

ISR INTODAY’SWAR:A CLOSER LOOK 32Advances in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance are allowing closerviews of targets and faster, more precise strikes than ever before.by James W. Canan

OPEN ROTOR RESEARCH REVS UP 38Researchers are reshaping an old concept into advanced technology for a newgeneration of open rotor aircraft engines.by Philip Butterworth-Hayes

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The FY11 NASA budget request represents a sea change for the agency—notjust in terms of missions but, at least for human space operations, in the way itwill bring those missions to fruition. It would bring the curtain down on theConstellation program, the agency’s dominant program over the last five years.

The new budget supports extending the lifetime of the international spacestation beyond its current 2016 expiry out to at least 2020, funding programsto increase station capabilities and enhance ground support. It also commitsfunds to complete the space shuttle’s current manifest, even if it must bestretched into another year.

But the mission to return humans to the Moon and then travel onward toMars would be cancelled, replaced by robotic precursor missions to varied des-tinations in the solar system, followed by human exploration.

Gone as well are Ares I and Ares V, meant to launch crew and cargo, re-spectively, as well as the Orion crew vehicle. But what is more telling is what ismeant to take their place. Building upon the “successful progress in the devel-opment of commercial cargo capabilities,” the budget authorizes the invest-ment of $6 billion over five years to “spur development of American commer-cial human spaceflight vehicles.”

The passage of the president’s budget request is by no means certain, andportions of the Constellation program such as the Orion, which has made con-siderable progress, might be redirected and survive in some guise, but the na-tion’s future in space may well reside in the hands of commercial enterprise.Though they have often been partners with NASA, this new budget places thereins in their hands.

Many have argued since the decision was first reached to retire the spaceshuttle that human-rating the Atlas and Delta EELVs, which have excellentsafety records, was a viable, lower cost alternative to reinventing the rocketyet again. It also would fall in line with the Augustine commission recommen-dations for a “flexible path” to space—albeit with lower funding.

But determining exactly what the criteria are for human-rating a launchvehicle is no easy task. Some argue that the directives laid down by the Colum-bia Accident Investigation Board are so rigorous that building a new vehicleunder those strictures would be next to impossible.

Throughout the history of aviation in the U.S. there has always been thedrive for the next generation—trying new vehicle shapes, new engines, evennew fuels. Each new drawing, each new prototype was an effort to get uswhere we want to go more safely, more quickly, and as inexpensively as possi-ble. Those criteria drove the development of a gamut of aircraft from the X-1to the X-51, from the flying boat to the 787.

The pilots who sat in the cockpit of many of those experiments under-stood the risks they were taking—but were buoyed by the knowledge that someof the best minds in the nation were behind those aircraft. And so it went, andwe did fly faster and further with each new effort. And though many were metwith failure, and some with tragedy, we learned lessons from each and contin-ued forward.

And so it should be now, with whatever the next launch vehicle turns outto be, that we put safety first, but not so much so that it keeps us Earthbound.The brave men and women who are the pioneers of this new century deservenothing less—and, I believe, expect nothing more.

Elaine CamhiEditor-in-Chief

is a publication of the American Instituteof 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, Edward Flinn, TomJones, Théo Pirard, David Rockwell,Frank Sietzen, J.R. Wilson

Fitzgerald Art & DesignArt Direction and Design

Craig Byl, Manufacturing and DistributionDavid W. Thompson, PresidentRobert S. Dickman, Publisher

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EDITORIAL BOARD

Ned Allen, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics;Jean-Michel Contant, EADS; EugeneCovert, Massachusetts Institute of Technol-ogy; L.S. “Skip” Fletcher, Texas A&M Uni-versity; Michael Francis, United Technologies;Christian Mari, Teuchos; Cam Martin,NASA Dryden; Don Richardson, DonrichResearch; Douglas Yazell, Honeywell

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March 2010, Vol. 48, No. 3

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Space, safety—and risk

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by the Kyoto UNFCCC meeting, held inDecember 1997, which set binding tar-gets for 37 industrialized countries andthe European Union to reduce green-house gas emissions by an average of5% against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012. For environ-

mental campaigners and some govern-ments, one of the most important as-pects of the Copenhagen meeting wasto deal with aviation emissions from2013, and the failure to do so hasopened up important questions on howaviation emissions should be regulated inthe future.

4 AEROSPACE AMERICA/MARCH 2010

THE FAILURE OF THE COPENHAGEN UNITEDNations Framework Convention on Cli-mate Change (UNFCCC) in December2009 to agree to global, binding targetsfor nations to lower their greenhouse gasemissions has both good and bad impli-cations for the world’s aerospace indus-try. But one immediate result will be a re-evaluation of the way the industry will beregulated on this issue in the future.

Environmental pressure groups hadbeen campaigning for conference dele-gates to set a cap on aviation emissionsand introduce charges to airlines, basedon their emission performance, to fundclimate change management schemes indeveloping countries. The final agree-ment—which was not agreed to unan-imously—committed developed countriesto generate $100 billion a year by 2020for poorer nations, but there was nomention of how aviation-generated emis-sions should be treated.

Moving targetsThe International Air Transport Associa-tion (IATA), perhaps fearful of a newwave of taxes and emission limits, wel-comed the accord as “an important stepin the right direction for climate change.”According to IATA, which represents theworld’s largest scheduled airlines: “Avia-tion emissions were not addressed specifi-cally in the accord, a reflection of theproactive measures the industry has takento set challenging targets for itself, to-gether with an aggressive strategy toachieve them.”IATA favors self-regulation, and be-

fore the conference had agreed with itsairport, manufacturing and air naviga-tion service provider partners on indus-try-wide targets to improve fuel efficiencyby an average of 1.5% per year to 2020,stabilize carbon emissions from 2020with carbon-neutral growth and work to-ward a net reduction in carbon emissionsof 50% by 2050 compared to 2005.

These targets differed somewhatfrom limits agreed to by the InternationalCivil Aviation Organization (ICAO), theMontreal-based U.N. global aviation reg-ulator, at its High Level Meeting on In-ternational Aviation and Climate Changelast October. Government delegates to

that meeting agreed that the civil avia-tion industry will need to reduce its car-bon footprint by 2% a year for the next10 years. However, there were no sanc-tions or penalties outlined if these targetswere missed.The challenge of managing aviation

emissions had been delegated to ICAO

Environmental regulationsfly high and wide

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AEROSPACE AMERICA/MARCH 2010 5

“With zero progress at Copenhagenwe will continue to press for tough avia-tion emissions reduction target-setting tobe given to UNFCCC itself,” says JeffGazzard, board member of the AviationEnvironment Federation, a U.K.-basedenvironmental lobbying group.

“We simply cannot trust the global in-dustry-dominated politics at ICAO to de-liver meaningful limits—we will stronglyencourage the European Union’s 27member states to press hard for the EUaviation emissions trading scheme tobecome the global model but with atougher cap, 100% auctioning of carbondioxide and inclusion of aviation’s non-carbon dioxide impacts. We want theEU’s New Year resolution to be to de-velop mutual effective ETS [EmissionTrading System] schemes with like-minded states and blocs throughout2010,” Gazzard says.

Environmental campaigners are nowtargeting the next UNFCCC decision-making meeting in Mexico City in No-vember 2010, rather than the ICAO as-sembly meeting in September, for theappearance of new global regulationscapping aviation emissions.

One outcome of the last ICAO meet-ing was that its contracting states would“evaluate the possibility of more ambi-tious goals by the next ICAO assembly[2010], taking into consideration indus-try’s collective commitments and thespecial needs of developing nations.”And this is where a key structural prob-lem in the current global environmentalregulatory system appears.

The regulatory conundrum“The UNFCCC works on an understand-ing of common but differentiated obliga-tions—a device developed at Kyoto forbridging developed and developing na-tions,” says Andrew Charlton of the Ge-neva-based aviation government affairsfirm Aviation Advocacy. “In the Kyotoprotocol a two-track system was devel-oped that created positive obligations ondeveloped nations to achieve goals andaspirations for developing nations. Oneof the main issues in Copenhagen waswhether to preserve the Kyoto arrange-ment—which would have excluded the

According to the European BusinessAviation Association (EBAA), of the6,000 aircraft operators on the Euro-pean Commission list for ETS, around5,000 collectively account for less than1% of total CO2 emissions. For opera-tors of small aircraft, the cost of joiningthe scheme is prohibitively high—theEBAA estimates it will cost a medium-size European business aircraft operatoralmost $100,000 in the first year ofETS. The threshold for joining thescheme is more than an average of 243flights into and out of the EU over threeconsecutive four-month periods.In December 2009, three U.S. air-

lines, American, Continental and United,and the U.S. Air Transport Association(ATA) brought a case in the U.K. courtschallenging the inclusion of non-EU air-lines in the ETS. The case was pendingat press time.

Sharing the painAircraft operating companies are not theonly aviation stakeholders who will beimpacted by the EU ETS issue. “Ourmembers are concerned about any newregulation that would increase their costsand potentially make them less prof-itable,” notes Kevin Morris, environmentand sustainability manager for ADS, theU.K.’s trade association of defense andaerospace manufacturing companies.“In this respect they are concerned

about the emissions trading scheme justas they are concerned about the othercarbon management schemes put inplace by the U.K. government, such asthe climate change agreement (CCA)and carbon reduction commitment(CRC) schemes. This is because there isa significant opportunity for doublecharging and money being removedfrom the industry that could have beeninvested in new technology that wouldactually help reduce emissions.”Starting in April 2010, the CRC will

be a U.K. mandatory carbon tradingscheme that works in tandem with theEU ETS. The initial phase of the CRC iscompulsory for organizations that con-sumed over 6,000 MWh of half-hourlymetered electricity during the periodfrom January to December 2008.

U.S. from negotiations—or find a way tobring everyone on board. ICAO doesn’thave the luxury of common but differen-tiated goals—all ICAO members areequal.”One possible outcome of this current

impasse will be for the global regulationof environmental issues to be shared be-tween ICAO and the UNFCCC, with thelatter taking a more supervisory role.

Without a global agreement, the nextfew months will see the global aviationindustry continue to pursue different di-rections. The most serious potential riftinvolves the inclusion of aviation withinthe European Union’s ETS. EU repre-sentatives at the November ICAO meet-ing wanted this ETS to be adopted on aglobal scale, but the ICAO Assembly in-stead recommended it be adopted onlyas a voluntary measure.

Cash or creditUnder the current timetable, beginningJanuary 1, 2012, all flights landing in ordeparting from the EU will be covered bythe ETS. Airlines will be given a freequota of carbon dioxide emission “cred-its”—but if they exceed this allowancethey will have to start buying more cred-its from the market. Airlines have beenobliged to provide precise data on theirtraffic and CO2 emissions rates sinceJanuary 1, 2010.The quota is based on 97% of the

total average annual levels of CO2 emis-sions measured as having been sourcedby aircraft operators between 2004 and2006. This cap will be reduced to 95%at the start of 2013. Of the overall avail-able carbon credits, 85% will be allo-cated on a free basis to aircraft opera-tors and the remainder auctioned off,with the proceeds directed to climatechange measures in European memberstates.But the scheme is complex and,

many aircraft operators argue, confus-ing. Over the last 12 months aircraft op-erators have had to register their planswith appropriate national authorities formonitoring, reporting and verification ofCO2 emissions from their fleet. Differentcountries set different deadlines for filingthese plans.


come” according to Aviation Advocacy’sCharlton. “The newly appointed Euro-pean Commissioners have made cleartheir commitment to environmental is-sues. They even acknowledge that it willcome at a price. There is a dire need for

leadership now. If it does not come fromICAO, it will come from somewhereelse. The clock is ticking.”

Philip Butterworth-HayesBrighton, U.K.

[email protected]

The aim is to reduce the level of car-bon emissions currently produced by thelarger “low-energy-intensive” organiza-tions by about 1.2 million tonnes of CO2per year by 2020 and a 60% reductionin CO2 emissions (over 2008) by 2050.In theory, where emissions have beencaptured by the EU ETS and CCA, theywill not be captured by the CRC. Inessence, the CRC is targeted at low-energy-intensive users.

U.K. companies, like most EU manu-facturers, have had CO2 emission reduc-tion plans in place for some time. Butthese efforts will have to be intensifiedover the next few years to meet morestringent national and international lim-its beyond the ETS. For example, in Jan-uary 2008 the European Commissionreleased its Climate Action and Renew-able Energy Package which, when itcomes into operation in March 2011,will include a measure to reduce CO2emissions by 20% below 1990 levels bythe year 2020. The ETS itself includesmore stringent limits as time goes on,with industrial enterprises increasinglyhaving to bid for credits. The aluminumsector will be included within the ETSfrom 2013.

“In one respect, the ETS may beseen as an opportunity for the aircraftmanufacturers, as to reduce the costs oftheir emissions in the scheme will requirethe airlines to invest in new aircraft,” saysMorris. “However, those airlines need tomake a profit before buying any newtechnology, and removing money froman industry when it is already in a precar-ious state will have negative impacts aswell. The industry is collectively commit-ted to a global sectoral emissions tradingscheme as highlighted by ICCAIA, ACIand IATA in Copenhagen, as there is agood deal of concern that national or re-gional schemes will only serve to distortthe market.”

The EU could still decide to extendthe ETS to imports into the continentfrom states that are not taking compara-ble action to reduce greenhouse gasemissions—though this would probablytrigger a series of court cases at theWorld Trade Organization and other in-ternational courts.

��“There are many twists and turns to


Events CalendarMARCH 6-132010 IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, Montana.Contact: David Woerner, 818/726-8228

MARCH 16-17Congressional Visits Day, Washington, D.C.703/264-7500

MARCH 22-24Eighth U.S. Missile Defense Conference and Exhibit, Washington, D.C.Contact: 703/264-7500

MARCH 22-24Forty-fifth 3AF Symposium of Applied Aerodynamics, Marseilles,FranceContact: Anne Venables, [email protected]

APRIL 12-15Fifty-first AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamicsand Materials Conference; 18th AIAA/ASME/AHS Adaptive StructuresConference; 12th AIAA Nondeterministic Approaches Conference;11th AIAA Gossamer Systems Forum; Sixth AIAA MultidisciplinaryDesign Optimization Specialist Conference. Orlando, Florida.Contact: 703/264-7500

APRIL 20-22AIAA Infotech@Aerospace 2010, Atlanta, Georgia.Contact: 703/264-7500

APRIL 25-30SpaceOps 2010 Conference: Delivering on the Dream (hosted byNASA Marshall and organized by AIAA), Huntsville, Alabama.Contact: 703/264-7500

MAY 4-6ASTRO 2010—15th CASI Astronautics Conference, Toronto, Ontario,Canada.Contact: G. Languedoc, 613/591-8787; www.casi.ca

MAY 11-12Inside Aerospace—An International Forum for Aviation and Space Leaders,Arlington, Virginia.Contact: 703/264-7500

MAY 13-15Fifth Argentine Congress on Space Technology, Mar del Plata, Argentina.Contact: Pablo de Leon, 701/777-2369; [email protected]

MAY 31-JUNE 2Seventeenth St. Petersburg International Conference on IntegratedNavigation Systems, St. Petersburg, Russia.Contact: Prof. V. Peshekhonov, www.elektropribor.spb.ru



IN FEBRUARY, THE NATION’S CAPITAL WAS

humming with debate about NASA’shuman spaceflight program after releaseof the Obama administration’s FY11budget request .

The NASA request would add $6 bil-lion over five years, far less than theamount recommended in the Augustinecommission report on the future of hu-man spaceflight. The administration hasbeen focusing on deficit reduction, eventhough polls show Americans favor gov-ernment spending as a source of em-ployment in today’s jobless economy.

The plan would kill the Constellationprogram, including the Ares I and AresV launch vehicles and, while allottingR&D funds for future heavy-lift develop-ment, transport of astronauts to the ISSafter retirement of the shuttle would fallto commercial ventures. The additional$6 billion will be used to “spur the devel-

opment of American commercial humanspaceflight vehicles.”

In January, the New York Times hasquoted NASA Aministrator CharlesBolden, speaking in Israel, as saying,“What NASA will focus on is facilitatingthe success of—I like to use the term ‘en-trepreneurial interests.’”

Robotic precursor missions would besent to the Moon, Mars, and various as-teroids and Lagrange points to scout tar-gets for future manned activities .

Critics on Capitol Hill are uncomfor-table with what they call the “outsourc-ing” of human spaceflight, and the can-cellation of a program that has alreadycost billions of dillars.

Last year a blue-ribbon panel headedby former aerospace executive NormanAugustine concluded that NASA wouldneed an increase of $3 billion to sustainthe human spaceflight program (knownas the “vision”) that it has been pursuing.“That kind of money was never going tobe there,” says a NASA insider, citinggrowing concern over this year’s $1.42-trillion federal deficit. Space enthusiastsfear the public is no longer inspired byjourneys beyond the atmosphere. Socialcritics question whether a debt-burdenedfederal government should finance anyspace program at all.

In Washington and in the capitals ofother participating nations, experts arepreparing to meet in Japan later this

year to debate the future of the ISS. U.S.funding for the space station had beendue to expire at the end of FY15. In aworst-case scenario, that would requiredeorbiting the ISS and destroying the re-sult of many years of work aimed at es-tablishing a permanent presence inspace. Obama’s budget request, how-ever, calls for station funding to continuethrough 2020.

ESA boss Jean-Jacques Dordain saidin a January statement that participatingnations will have to decide the future ofthe space station together—a rebuff tothe idea that the U.S. can decide unilat-erally—and that future planning requiresthe U.S. human spaceflight policy to beclearly defined.

“The decision must be made earlyenough to put the budget in place, tobuild the hardware necessary and to de-cide on which transportation policy weshall use between 2015 and 2020,” saidDordain. “There are a lot of aspects tobe discussed, and if decisions are notmade by the end of this year [or the] be-ginning of next year, it will become moreand more difficult to have the approachunder which we will exploit the spacestation.”

Dordain acknowledged that meas-ures can be taken to make ISS opera-tions more economical. He questionedwhether participating nations need fourcontrol centers, and whether six astro-nauts must staff the station, arguing thatduring some periods a smaller crewmight suffice.

Big budget,big changes

The Ares I-X rocket was a test platformin the Constellation program that wascanceled in the administration’sbudget request.

ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain

The budget commits additional funding to extendthe lifetime of the ISS to at least 2020.

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The general wants the military to fielda more diverse range of weapons. He isespecially enamored of advanced target-ing pods (ATPs) that increase the intelli-gence, surveillance and reconnaissancecapabilities of existing platforms and canalso assist with navigation.

Almost unnoticed, the Air Force hasinstalled 448 Northrop Grumman Liten-ing and Lockheed Martin Sniper ATPson A-10, F-15, F-16, B-1 and other war-planes and has established a requirementfor 1,230 ATPs altogether. A modest$160 million in the FY10 defense ap-propriations law will underwrite ongoingATP development, including a new com-petition between Litening and Sniper forfurther purchase orders.

Schwartz offered a B-52 Strato-fortress with a Sniper ATP totake pictures of the damageinflicted by the January 12earthquake in Haiti. Theoffer was not taken up,but ATPs are in increas-ingly widespread useand offer an alternativeto space-based technol-ogy. The general said AirForce scientists are devel-oping other technologies to

augment GPS. Some high-tech alternatives to space-based

systems are thought to be includedamong the Pentagon’s “black” pro-grams—those not publicly disclosed inbudgeting documents.

Army aviationWhen President Obama decided to in-crease U.S. troop strength by 30,000 inAfghanistan—a process to be completedby late autumn—U.S. Army aviationfound itself facing unexpected challenges.

“We carry out air assault and medicalevacuation missions,” says Lt. Col. Wil-liam C. George, an Army spokesman. “Alarge part of our duty consists of simplyhauling people and equipment aroundthe country.” Vertical lift offers a way ofcircumventing the improvised explosivedevices, or roadside bombs, that insur-gents regularly plant on Afghanistan’s fewpassable roads.

Altogether, the Army has 19 Com-bat Aviation Brigades (CABs), includingeight in the National Guard. A “heavy”CAB consists of four battalions eachwith 48 AH-64D Apache, 38 UH-60MBlack Hawk, 12 HH-60M Black Hawkand 12 CH-47F Chinook helicopters.The Army has maintained three to fourCABs in Iraq, a country two-thirds the

As if to punctuate the decline in pub-lic enthusiasm for spaceflight, NASA haslowered its prices in what amounts to ayard sale of shuttle vehicles and supportequipment. The agency is offering twoshuttles to approved purchasers—almostcertainly museums—for $28.8 millioneach, or about 40% less than it oncesought. NASA already plans to transferthe shuttle Discovery to the SmithsonianInstitution’s National Air and Space Mu-seum but is offering Atlantis and Endeav-our to any buyer who can assure theywill be “displayed in the broadest interestof the American public.”

Under the proposed deal, NASA willretain ownership while the shuttles stayon permanent display. The agency alsowants to dispose of surplus main enginesfrom the shuttle and other memorabiliafrom the soon-to-end program, includingspacesuits and wind tunnel models.

Global positioning problemThe U.S. has become so reliant on satel-lite technology that it could be vulnerableto attacks on key nodes of the global po-sitioning system, Air Force chief of staffGen. Norton Schwartz warned at a Jan-uary 20 conference in Washington. Mili-tary officers have long called for an alter-native to GPS to give the U.S. a fallbackmethod of navigation in time of crisis.

“Global positioning has transformed[our] war-fighting capability,” Schwartzsaid. “Our dependence on precision nav-igation in time will continue togrow.” But he said U.S. mili-tary service branches mustfind a way to reduce,rather than increase,their reliance onGPS.

Schwartz said heworries that an en-emy might find away to attack theGPS datalink or mighthack into and programU.S. satellites to send inac-curate coordinates. He notedthat the military now relies heavily notjust on GPS but on other space-basedcapabilities, including satellite imageryand communications.

Discovery will head off to the National Air andSpace Museum after its final mission;, the othershuttles will be on the auction block.

Gen.NortonSchwartz

A U.S. CH-47 Chinook resupplies Charlie Companyat its outpost in the Kandahar province ofAfghanistan on Dec. 12, 2009. DOD photo byMaster Sgt. Juan Valdes, USAF.


lyst Richard Aboulafia noted (see “Air-craft industry rides out the recession…sofar,” January, page 21), the rotary-wingmarket grew by 30.1% in 2009. Thisyear, growth could reach 40%. TheFY10 defense appropriations law de-voted $3.34 billion to the largest recentincrease in U.S. military helicopters: TheObama administration got its request for$1.26 billion for 79 Black Hawks, $882million for 27 Chinooks, and $326 mil-lion for 54 remarkably economical UH-72 Lakota light utility helicopters.Still, Pentagon staff officers are talk-

ing about an Army “helicopter shortage”similar to the “fighter gap” being pre-dicted in the Air Force and Navy. Theservice hopes to compensate, in part,with unmanned aerial systems.That will not include the RQ-8B Fire

Scout unmanned minihelicopter, whichonly six years ago was touted as a keycomponent of the Future Combat Sys-


around and deploy again. At least twoother CABs are expected in Afghanistanby late autumn.An upsurge in the need for military

helicopters is a boon to industry. As ana-

size of Afghanistan, but kept only one inAfghanistan until recently.

Notorious for its lofty mountain ele-vations and scattered special operationsoutposts, Afghanistan has always needed—and tested—military helicopters. Dur-ing the period June to September, thecountry experiences harsh atmosphericwinds that create high clouds of dustamidst very hot temperatures. Only thetwin-tandem Chinook has consistentlycoped with “high and hot” conditions inthe Hindu Kush.At the start of this year, the Army

had two CABs in Afghanistan, one eachfrom the 3rd Infantry and 82nd AirborneDivisions. At press time, the CAB of the4th Infantry Division (Mechanized) wasdeparting Fort Hood, Texas, to jointhem. The 159th CAB, associated withthe 101st Airborne Division, completeda one-year stint last December but wasexpected almost immediately to turn

The Army canceled the RQ-8B because of limitson funding for aviation.


January when it movedto Taji, Iraq. Althoughstill in the test phase,the Sky Warrior willnow support soldiers onthe ground, includingtroops in combat withinsurgents. If the de-ployment and field useof the Sky Warriorprove success-ful, it willmove into full-rate production andemerge as one of the most prominentArmy aerospace programs. The Iraq de-ployment will enable the Army to scruti-nize the system’s strengths and limita-tions, and to develop a concept ofoperations for wider use of the MQ-1C.Army chief of staff Gen. George W.Casey Jr. says his service hopes to giveevery CAB a Sky Warrior capabilitystarting in 2012.

While the Army continues to sort out

tem net-centric weapons program. InJanuary, the Army canceled the RQ-8B,saying it did not improve on existing sys-tems. The problem was not with the ve-hicle itself but with limits on overall fund-ing for Army aviation programs. “Thiswas a handy thing to have,” says one of-ficer, “but we have other systems thatperform as well or better.”

Although little noted in the press, theArmy’s largest unmanned flyer is theGeneral Atomics MQ-1C Sky Warrior,often described as a Predator on ster-oids. The MQ-1C has a wingspan of 56ft (25 ft more than an F-16 and 9 ftmore than a Predator) and can carryAGM-114 Hellfire air-to-ground missiles.This UAS has been quietly under devel-opment with support from Congress.The program has proceeded on scheduleand on budget.

The 1st Air Cavalry Bri-gade becamefirst to deploy with the Sky Warrior in


its aviation needs and tries to accommo-date the Afghanistan buildup, it maycatch some flak from a sister service overthe nagging question of who should op-erate a UAS in flight. The Air Force hasjust unveiled a separate career field forUAS pilots, separating them from pilotsof manned aircraft—and they are all offi-cers. The Army allows enlisted soldiersto pilot the MQ-1C and other UASs.

. Robert F. [email protected]

After completing a 24-hour mission, an MQ-1C Sky Warrior aircraft makesa landing on January 11.


The boulder-studded surface of Itokawa, about 500 m long,loomed toward Japan’s Hayabusa spacecraft in2005. (JAXA image.)


NEAR-EARTH OBJECTS (NEOS), GENERALLYspeaking, are asteroids and comets thatapproach or cross Earth’s orbit. As theWhite House and Congress take up thedetails of NASA’s future, NEOs are grab-bing attention on several fronts. From aminor scientific curiosity two decadesago, these denizens of the inner solarsystem have been recognized as both ahazard and a major option for NASA’shuman exploration program.

Even before the release of NASA’sFY11 exploration budget, NEOs hademerged as realistic destinations forU.S. astronauts. Six months ago, theAugustine commission put the explo-ration of NEOs at the center of its Flexi-ble Path options for human spaceflight.The committee’s attraction to pilotedNEO missions was based on their acces-sibility, scientific value, operational chal-lenge and potential for tapping space re-sources. Late last year, asteroid missionswere front and center with NASA man-agers, at the Office of Science and Tech-nology Policy and in White House dis-cussions of the agency’s future direction.

One superficial reason for height-ened NEO visibility was that “they’re notthe Moon.” More substantively, NEOscomprise an attractive suite of deepspace destinations that will enhanceNASA’s human exploration effort anddeliver cutting-edge scientific and techni-cal benefits.

Close encounters with NEOsNEOs were garnering plenty of at-tention outside NASA as well. Inearly January, ROSKOSMOShead Anatoly Perminov told re-porters that Russia would beginplanning a robotic mission to deflectasteroid 99942 Apophis. “I don’t re-member exactly, but it seems to me itcould hit the Earth by 2032,” Perminovsaid. “People’s lives are at stake. Weshould pay several hundred million dol-lars and build a system that would allowus to prevent a collision, rather than sitand wait for it to happen and kill hun-dreds of thousands of people.”

Perminov’s worries, like Apophis it-self, are a little wide of the mark: TheNASA NEO program’s latest orbitalanalysis gives Apophis only a four-in-a-million chance of striking Earth in 2036.Still, it was noteworthy that the head ofRussia’s space agency views NEOs as adistinct hazard to our planet, and offeredRussian leadership to demonstrate an as-teroid deflection. If NASA moves towardextensive robotic and eventual human ex-ploration of NEOs, Perminov plainlydoes not intend Russia to be left on theground.

In a letter to the Russian administra-tor, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.)applauded Perminov’s proposal: “Itwould be foolish and irresponsible forAmerica to cede our responsibility onthis critical threat to all of humanity. Youcan count on me to try to make this a

joint project with the UnitedStates.” Rohrabacher’s missivewas plainly aimed at NASA, too.He has long cajoled the agency totake a more active role in planetaryprotection from NEOs.

Apophis is clearly not a threat,but a botched deflection could putit on an impact trajectory. Permi-nov was quickly advised by his sci-entists that Russia should choose aNEO with zero chance of strikingEarth for a demonstration.

As the growing catalog of knownNEOs approaches 7,000 (see http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/stats/), we are awareof more frequent close encounters withsmall asteroids. A recent attention-getterwas 2010 AL30, some 10-15 m across,which streaked by on January 13 just130,000 km from Earth. A NEO thissize will pass within the Moon’s orbitabout once a week on average.

If smaller than 30 m, asteroids gen-erally will be too small to penetrate theatmosphere; nonetheless, 2010 AL30’sclose approach reminds us that some 2million NEOs roam the inner solar sys-tem. The random rock that caused the1908 Tunguska explosion, estimated atabout 5 Mt of TNT-equivalent energy,was just 30-40 m across; there are morethan 100,000 future Tunguskas outthere, and one of them will strike Earthevery 300-500 years. On a bad day, hit-ting in the wrong place, such an explo-sion would destroy a city.

You can get there from hereWe are undoubtedly in some undiscov-ered NEO’s gunsight. By exploring theseobjects, we gain an opportunity not onlyto reduce the future impact hazard, but toturn these potential blockbusters to ouradvantage, through benefits in science,

Why asteroids beckon:NASA and near-Earth objects

Charles Bolden (l.) and Anatoly Perminov metlast October at Mission Control Center Moscowin Korolev. (NASA photo; Bill Ingalls.)

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expanding this NEO target set is earlyand sustained funding for the next-gener-ation search systems. NASA should stepforward to provide this, given its missionrequirements, but DOD, NSF and inter-national support should also help. Themore NEOs we discover, the larger thenumber of opportunities for reachingthem with robotic and human explorers.

NASA’s Constellation program, instudying NEO missions in 2007, foundthat with minor modifications the Orionspacecraft can support crews on deepspace missions lasting up to six months.NEOs a few hundred meters across havealmost no surface gravity, so Orion mis-sions would not require development ofa separate, expensive lander. For a crewof just two or three, astronaut comfortand safety could be improved by addinga small (perhaps inflatable) habitationmodule, including an airlock. NASA hasalso considered adding more propellantcapacity to Orion’s service module,which would expand the target set of ac-cessible NEOs.

Are NEOs worth visiting?Previous robotic touchdowns by theNEAR-Shoemaker and Hayabusa space-craft demonstrate that NEOs represent a

strange and varied zoo ofsolar system relics whosematerials have been unal-tered for more than 4.5billion years. Some will beloosely bound piles of frag-mented rubble; some, solidchunks of iron and nickel.Some will be of uniformcomposition; others, likeItokawa with its sprinklingof very dark boulders, dis-play dramatic signs of sur-face heterogeneity. EachNEO, with its own story offormation, collision and or-bital evolution, representsa surprise package of un-tapped knowledge.

After rendezvous, as-tronaut field geologists willsurvey the object while sta-tionkeeping. Initial remotesensing will pinpoint a few

prime “docking” sites on the low-gravitysurface. Using EVA jetpacks, or pilotingOrion to a physical touchdown, astro-nauts will collect tens of kilograms of theNEO regolith. They’ll not only samplethe surface but also probe crater floorsand snoop under the bulk of nearlyweightless boulders.

As in Apollo, crews will emplace in-struments such as tracking transponders,active seismometers and heat transferprobes. An Orion-mounted radar mightprobe the asteroid’s internal structure(Itokawa’s interior turned out to be 40%empty space). Measuring such physicalproperties will be essential to devisingengineering methods for deflecting fu-ture Earth impactors.

NEO explorers will also experimentwith resource extraction technologies,demonstrating practical recovery of as-teroidal water, volatiles and rare metals.These technologies are the key to mov-ing space exploration from total logisti-cal dependence on Earth to harnessingoff-planet raw materials for propellantand industrial feedstock.

We are just beginning to learn aboutNEOs up close, and are bound to be sur-prised by the results of robotic and hu-man expeditions. By exploring NEOs,we will immediately add an independent,third “planetary” surface to our ongoinglunar research and expanding investiga-tion of Mars.

Astronauts using EVA jetpacks could visit NEOsand collect samples of regolith.

Asteroid 2010 AL30, discovered by MIT’s Lincoln LaboratoriesLINEAR survey on Jan. 10, 2010, came within 125,000 km ofEarth on Jan. 13. JPL says the NEO was about 10-15 m across.(JPL image.)

operations, space resources and plane-tary protection.

These benefits all stem from onepractical characteristic of a small but spe-cial group of NEOs: their accessibility. Asmall fraction of NEOs circle the Sun inEarth-like orbits. Of this “attractive”group, with orbital inclinations, eccen-tricities and semimajor axes close toEarth’s, nearly 60 known NEOs wouldhave been within the reach of the Orioncrew exploration vehicle. More than halfof those could be reached for a round-trip delta-V less than that of a lunarround trip (about 9 km/sec). Any systemsized to reach lunar orbit or the Earth-Sun gravitational Lagrange points canalso reach a set of the best-situatedNEOs. NASA has already identified afew Orion can reach in a single heavy-liftlaunch. With cancellation of the Constel-lation program, however, they remainbeyond our grasp.

The list of these accessible objects willonly grow as new search capabilities be-come operational (such as PanSTARRSand LSST; see http://pan-starrs.ifa.hawaii.edu/public/; http://www.lsst.org/lsst). Thousands of new asteroids will befound in the coming decade.

The key long-lead-time capability for


several potential NEO destinations.While the new Orion spacecraft andheavy-lift launcher are tested, first inLEO and then in lunar orbit, engineerswill prove life support and crew healthsystems on the ISS. These incremental

efforts will give policymakers a cumula-tive record of milestones, building mo-mentum toward a commitment to truedeep space expeditions.

The timing of our beyond-LEO ef-forts will clearly be budget driven. If theAugustine commission recommendationfor a space budget worthy of a great na-tion is realized, we could be ready forNEO missions even before 2020. Be-tween now and then, NASA will have toaccumulate the public, congressional andexecutive support needed to make itsfirst trans-NEO injection burn.

One element of creating that supportis international cooperation. Although itmight add political and technical com-plexity, some of our ISS partners couldprovide a NEO campaign with propul-sion modules, habitation systems, EVAmobility systems and scientific hardware.Buttressed by these international com-mitments, a NEO exploration programwould be less vulnerable to political tur-

bulence during the decade or more re-quired for execution.

NEOs: An offer we can’t refuseThe public understands today that pro-tecting Earth from a future NEO catas-trophe is a worthy mission for NASA.Proving technologies and gathering in-formation to head off an Earth impact,via robotic and human NEO exploration,gives the agency’s efforts in deep space acommonsense foundation. When thoseefforts take the form of astronautsdrifting across the rocky surface of aNEO under a gleaming, BB-sizedEarth 5 million miles distant, ourimaginations will be fully engaged.

With the White House’s direc-tion to NASA just released, wecannot yet gauge the prominenceNEOs have taken in the agency’srevised exploration charter. But Ibelieve we should seize the opportu-

nity to include these science- and re-source-rich objects in our plans. NEOswill reinforce the scientific, economicand technical strengths of the U.S. hu-man exploration program. We wouldreap the benefits of synergistic scientificreturn from a “new” planetary surface,substantially different in origin, age andcomposition from those of the Moon orMars. Explorers would also assay NEOresources potentially vital to future U.S.economic activity in space.

In coming decades, the global com-munity will certainly face a decision todeflect a hazardous NEO. Impact pre-vention is a fundamental, “know yourenemy” mission, and a commonsenserationale for NEO exploration. Grapplingwith these objects at a distance, beforewe are faced with such a threat, will pro-vide us the operations experience andcivil engineering data needed for a suc-cessful future deflection.

Finally, in the event that policymak-ers defer a U.S. return to the Moon,NEOs provide NASA with a challengingexploration alternative. Less expensiveto reach than the lunar surface, NEOswill nevertheless stretch our capabilitiesand set the U.S. on an ambitious and re-warding course of unapologetic humanexploration. Tom Jones

[email protected]

Learning the ropesfor deep space exploration

Deep space operations experienceis one of the most valuable benefits ofventuring well beyond the Moon. Multi-month NEO expeditions will stress allareas of mission operations. Designerswill have to produce reliable, fault-tol-erant systems for life support, computingand communications. Millions of kilo-meters from Earth, the communicationslag will force a high degree ofon-board autonomy and decision-making. Mission planning andvehicle control specialists mustconduct intense exploration cam-paigns while maintaining situa-tional awareness and safety.

By taking on these challengesat NEOs, we will be better able toexplore the Moon, build a thrivingspace economy and confidentlysend astronauts to Mars.

Outward momentumSince the close of Apollo, our progressin human exploration has been incre-mental. The shuttle and space stationhave been effective classrooms in space,teaching us how to live and work therewith confidence. To what purpose do weapply our hard-won education?

The 2004 Vision for Space Explo-ration, stripped of funding, has yet topropel us outward. Sending astronautsto NEOs will be an unmistakable com-mitment to long-term, ambitious explo-ration. Reaching and returning fromthese ancient landscapes will demandthe best talents of NASA’s exploration,operations and scientific organizations.

Our choices are excellence or failure;“muddling through” will not be a suc-cessful strategy. NASA will have to scourthe government and nation for theyoung engineers and scientists driven tobreak new ground in human and ma-chine performance.

Political momentum will be as impor-tant as technical progress if out-of-LEOexploration is to succeed. NASA willhave to deliver highly visible technicaland programmatic results on a scalesuited to our short political attentionspans. A NEO exploration program willstart with robotic precursors surveyingthe varied compositions and structure of


Formed almost 212 million years ago by a NEOimpact, the 100-km-wide Manicouagan Reservoiris located in a heavily timbered area of theCanadian Shield in Quebec. Astronauts aboardSTS-9 took this photo in 1983.



OVER THE PAST DECADE, DISCUSSION OF

the world air refueling tanker market hascentered on the USAF KC-X program,the largest tanker requirement by far. Yetdespite the program’s importance, inter-national requirements for these aircrafthave grown, reflecting a new, if some-what uneven, appreciation of what theybring to the table.

Meanwhile, the shifting dynamics ofthe KC-X competition look set to impactthis world market. The USAF draft re-quest for proposals has produced consid-erable speculation that Boeing’s KC-767now has the upper hand. This could re-store Boeing’s position in this market,following several high-profile losses toAirbus’s KC-30.

A broader requirementUntil 2001, the pool of customers will-ing to spend cash on Western new-buildjet tankers was limited to one customer.While many countries maintained somekind of air-to-air refueling capability,Saudi Arabia was the only one that hadactually purchased them new (in theform of eight 707s built as KE-3s). Eventhe RAF, the biggest tanker user outsidethe U.S., used Lockheed L-1011s origi-nally operated by Pan Am and BritishAirways, and Vickers VC-10s formerlyoperated by British Airways, BOAC andEast African Airways. All the other userseither also operated converted used jet-liners or KC-135s previously owned bythe USAF. France, for example, uses theKC-135R (the reengined type predomi-nant in the USAF); Turkey and Singa-pore have received them as well. Othercountries used turboprop tankers, mostnotably Lockheed Martin’s KC-130.

In 2001, the Italian air force signedon for the first new-generation, new-build tanker, Boeing’s KC-767. This pur-chase of four aircraft was followed by aJapanese purchase of four planes laterthat year. Thus the pool of new-build jettanker customers tripled in one year.

However, this promising start found-

ered. There were numerous technicalproblems and program delays; deliverydid not begin until 2008, when Japanreceived the first aircraft, followed byItaly in 2009. No further orders havebeen received. Boeing continues to re-fine the KC-767 offering, but the com-pany is focusing on the home marketcustomer.

Even worse for the KC-767, Airbus/EADS began developing a Multi-RoleTanker Transport variant of its A330.Airbus had produced MRTT variants ofits smaller A310 twin-aisle jet, but thesewere conversions of civil jetliners that

30s, followed by the UAE (three planes)in February 2007 and Saudi Arabia inearly 2008 (three planes, followed bythree more ordered in 2009).

Thus the scorecard for new-genera-tion tankers is currently 28 orders forAirbus versus eight for Boeing. This com-petition will continue for some time.Both have new twin-aisle midsized jets,the A350XWB and the 787, and neitherhas any plans to develop a tanker ver-sion. Given the advanced airframe tech-nology used by both these new aircraft,developing tanker versions would be par-ticularly difficult, even if there were a

World tanker market: More thanjust KC-X

had gone only to Canada and Germany.The KC-30 was a more ambitious effort:a larger, more capable jet with a robustcargo and tanker capability, offered as anew-build product. In particular, the com-pany moved beyond hose-and-drogue airrefueling technology, developing its ownboom under the Advanced RefuelingBoom System.

This more aggressive approach tothe market has been rewarded, with fourmore countries joining the new-build jettanker market. In 2005 the RAF chose itto replace its aging converted jetlinersunder a private finance initiative pro-gram. Australia has also ordered five KC-

deep-pocketed launch customer to spon-sor them.

The only other new-build product inthis class is Russia’s Ilyushin Il-78. About34 of these are in service throughout theworld, with about half in Russia and therest in India, in China and with other ex-port customers. It is much heavier, lessreliable, less capable and more expen-sive to operate than the two Westernproducts, but it is cheap to buy. As such,it represents a competitive threat in mar-kets such as India that are focused onlow up-front prices.

The only other product on the draw-ing board is Embraer’s KC-390, a tacti-

The KC-X decision may be driven as much by political considerations as by technical and economic ones.

KC-767

AIRCRAFTlayout310.qxd:AA Template 2/8/10 11:46 AM Page 2


cal transport considerably smaller thanthe KC-130. The current plan is to cre-ate a refueling derivative, but there is nocertainty that this will proceed, and thebaseline KC-390 transport will by itselfbe a major challenge.

The one certainty is that there is nohope of a dedicated new aerial refuelingairframe. While the Air Force’s creationof the KC-135 helped usher in decadesof U.S. jetliner industry dominance,there is absolutely no way to identify newtechnologies—structures, propulsion andso on—that would guarantee an easytransition from a new military tanker toa new design concept for a series of com-mercial jetliners. Just as important, theUSAF has made it quite clear that it can-not provide the development dollars tofund an all-new strategic aircraft opti-mized for just this role.

Estimating the marketThere is growing recognition of the im-portance of aerial refueling tankers, al-though some countries are quicker thanothers to realize how crucial they are. Is-rael, unsurprisingly, has always been atthe forefront of developing this capabil-ity, and it has had an in-country tankermodification capability for years. IsraelAircraft Industries has modified eightKC-707s to serve in this role. Of course,these are old aircraft, and even with up-grades they cannot provide the fuel andrange of new-generation equipment.

However, in 2008 the Bush administra-tion, usually friendly toward Israeli armsrequests, denied their request for a KC-767 purchase, reportedly because it be-lieved the new tanker would give Israel aconsiderably greater offensive strike ca-pability, thereby increasing the likelihoodof a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

At the other end of the spectrum isIndia. In January 2010 the Indian gov-ernment decided to cancel the Indian airforce’s proposed acquisition of six KC-30s on the grounds that they would betoo expensive. The country instead isfunding the acquisition of well over 300new combat aircraft in the next decade,including the largest single purchase ofexport fighters in world history. India’scurrent fleet of 12 Il-78s will continue tosoldier on as the country’s only jet tankerforce, perhaps with a follow-on buy.

Clearly, for some countries, buyingadditional “shooter” planes will always bemore attractive than buying “enabler”planes, no matter how useful those en-ablers would be as force extenders. Withall the uncertainty over how much prior-ity nations will actually give to fundingtankers, it is difficult to estimate a marketsize. After all, if a major air power like In-dia balks at purchasing a modest fleet of10 modern planes to supplement 12 oldRussian models, are there any certainprospects? And while many countriesclaim to be in the market (Turkey, Fin-land and Poland, for example, have allrecently expressed interest in an acquisi-tion), some of them may be happy withused and converted jets.

Still, surveying the world of currentand potential tanker customers, we can

arrive at a rough approximation of de-mand over the next decade. At a mini-mum, the KC-30 should be able to getanother 12 orders just from home mar-ket countries (particularly France) andfollow-on buys from one or more of thefour current users. Also, given the agesof tanker fleets worldwide, there shouldbe an additional market for a minimumof 30 new-build tankers over the nextdecade.

Right now, the KC-30 appears ex-tremely well placed to dominate that 30-aircraft market, which could easily growto as many as 50 planes. It should alsobe noted that tanker contracts tend to in-volve a higher degree of aftermarket andservice work than other military aircraftcontracts, and they are certainly muchmore lucrative than commercial jetlinercontracts. This makes the KC-30 projecteven more worthwhile as an Airbus/EADS strategic goal. But the USAF KC-X program might change this.

Oh,THAT tanker competition...The U.S. is the one country that has un-derstood the importance of tankers, andits fleet of 500 KC-135s and KC-10s rep-resents a powerful symbol of globalreach. Unfortunately, for the past twodecades that understanding has not trans-lated into an actual funding commit-ment, leaving a force that averages over40 years old. Even if the KC-X programsucceeds in starting acquisition of 179aircraft at a leisurely pace of about 14planes a year, the oldest KC-135s will beclose to 80 years old by the time a futureKC acquisition program replaces them.

KC-45

JET TANKER MARKETSCurrent generation, through 2020

USAF KC-X(179) 69.6%

Uncommitted(30) 11.7%

Likely KC-30(12) 4.7%

KC-30 orders(28) 10.9%

KC-767 orders(8) 3.1%

(Continued on page 23)



MAGNETIC RECONNECTION MAKES THINGS

explode. It operates anywhere magneticfields pervade space—which is to say al-most everywhere. On the Sun, magneticreconnection causes solar flares as pow-erful as a billion atomic bombs. In Earth’satmosphere, it fuels magnetic storms andauroras. In laboratories, it can cause bigproblems in fusion reactors.

However, scientists cannot explain it.The basics are clear enough. Mag-

netic lines of force cross, cancel and re-connect, and an explosion results. Mag-netic energy is unleashed in the form ofheat and charged-particle kinetic energy.

Researchers are trying to understandwhy the simple act of crisscrossing mag-netic field lines triggers such a ferociousexplosion. “Something very interestingand fundamental is going on that we do

pops up in nuclear fusion chambers(tokamaks) on Earth. It is the ultimatedriver of space weather, impacting hu-man technologies such as communica-tions, navigation and power grids.

MMS will seek to solve the mysteryof the small-scale physics of reconnec-tion. It will also investigate how the en-ergy conversion that occurs during theprocess accelerates particles to high en-ergies, and what role plasma turbulenceplays in reconnection events.

A natural laboratoryThese processes—magnetic reconnec-tion, particle acceleration and turbu-lence—occur in all astrophysical plasmasystems but can be studied in situ only inour solar system, and most efficientlyonly in Earth’s magnetosphere, wherethey control the dynamics of the geo-space environment and play an impor-tant role in phenomena known as spaceweather.

The MMS science investigation iscalled SMART—solving magnetosphericacceleration, reconnection and turbu-lence. Principal investigator James L.Burch of Southwest Research Institute(SwRI) in San Antonio will head theSMART team, comprising a group of re-searchers from several U.S. and foreigninstitutions.

The mission passed its preliminarydesign review in May 2009 and was ap-proved for implementation the followingmonth. Engineers can now start buildingthe spacecraft.

“Earth’s magnetosphere is a wonder-ful natural laboratory for studying recon-nection,” Burch points out. “It is big androomy, and reconnection is taking placethere almost nonstop.”

In its outer layer, where Earth’s mag-netic field meets the solar wind, recon-nection events create temporary mag-netic “portals” connecting the Earth tothe Sun. Inside the magnetosphere, in along drawn-out structure called the mag-netotail, reconnection propels high-en-

not really understand—not from lab ex-periments or from simulations,” saysMelvyn Goldstein, chief of the GeospacePhysics Laboratory at NASA Goddard.

NASA is going to launch a mission totry to get to the bottom of the mystery,through the Magnetospheric MultiScaleor MMS mission. MMS consists of fouridentical satellites that will fly in a tetrahe-dron formation through Earth’s magne-tosphere to discover how magnetic re-connection works.

When magnetic fields become tan-gled, as they often do in the magneto-sphere, they can merge, which createsan explosive release of energy wherebymagnetic energy is converted directlyinto heat and charged-particle kineticenergy. Magnetic reconnection sparkssolar flares and powers auroras; it even

Reconnecting with a magnetic mystery

The Sun unleashed a powerful flare on November 4, 2003, that could be the most powerful everwitnessed and probably as strong as anything detected since satellites were able to record theseevents in the mid-1970s. It was captured by instruments aboard the SOHO satellite.

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ergy plasma clouds toward Earth, trig-gering the Northern Lights when theyhit. There are many other examples, andMMS will explore them all.

The spacecraft and instrumentsNASA Goddard will build all four space-craft and integrate four sets of instru-ments into the four MMS observatories.“Each observatory is shaped like a gianthockey puck, about 12 ft in diameterand 4 ft in height,” says Karen Halter-man, MMS project manager at Goddard.

Goddard scientists will conduct envi-ronmental testing and support launch ve-hicle integration and operations. God-dard is also developing the MissionOperations Center that will monitor andcontrol the satellites and provide all theflight dynamics support for the extensivemaneuvering and orbit raising requiredfor the mission. Scientists and engineersat Goddard are also building the FastPlasma Investigation, which is part of theinstrument suite.

Engineers at SwRI will provide theMMS instruments as a suite. Under con-tract to Goddard, SwRI is responsiblefor the mission science, development ofthe instruments for the four observato-ries, science operations, data analysis,theory and modeling, education andpublic outreach.

The mission’s sensors will monitorelectromagnetic fields and charged parti-cles. The sensors are being built at anumber of universities and labs aroundthe country, led by scientists at SwRI.When the instruments are completed,they will be integrated into the spacecraftframes at Goddard. Launch is scheduledfor 2014 onboard an Atlas V rocket.

Improving on tokamaksAny new physics that MMS learns couldultimately help alleviate the energy crisison Earth.

“For many years, researchers havelooked to fusion as a clean and abundantsource of energy for our planet,” notesBurch. “One approach, magnetic con-finement fusion, has yielded very prom-ising results with devices such as toka-maks. But there have been problemskeeping the plasma [hot ionized gas]

released by the reconnection eventsknown to occur in Earth’s magneto-sphere. There is nothing standing in theway of a full two-year discovery mission.

Program structureScience team members and instrumentdevelopment for the MMS mission areprovided by the Universities of Califor-nia-Los Angeles, Colorado, Iowa, andNew Hampshire; Johns Hopkins Univer-sity Applied Physics Laboratory; RiceUniversity; NASA Goddard; LockheedMartin Advanced Technology Center;and the Aerospace Corporation. Inter-national contributions to the MMS in-strument suite are provided by the Aus-trian Academy of Sciences, Sweden’sRoyal Institute of Technology and Insti-tute of Space Physics; France’s PlasmaPhysics Laboratory and Toulouse SpaceCenter; and Japan’s Institute of Spaceand Astronautical Science.

MMS is a NASA Science Mission Di-rectorate Heliophysics mission in the So-lar Terrestrial Probes Program. Goddardmanages the effort, and Kennedy SpaceCenter is providing launch services.

Edward D. [email protected]

contained in the chamber.“One of the main problems is mag-

netic reconnection,” he adds. “A spec-tacular and even dangerous result of re-connection is known as the sawtoothcrash: As the heat in the tokamak buildsup, the electron temperature reaches apeak and then ‘crashes’ to a lower value,and some of the hot plasma escapes.This is caused by reconnection of thecontainment field.”

In light of this, one might supposethat tokamaks would be a good place tostudy reconnection. But no, says Burch—reconnection in a tokamak happens insuch a tiny volume, only a few millime-ters wide, that it is very difficult to study.It is practically impossible to build sen-sors small enough to probe the recon-nection zone.

Earth’s magnetosphere is much bet-ter. In the expansive magnetic bubblethat surrounds our planet, the processplays out over volumes as large as tensof kilometers across. “We can fly space-craft in and around it and get a goodlook at what’s going on,” he says.

The MMS spacecraft will fly directlyinto the reconnection zone. They aresturdy enough to withstand the energy

Inside a tokamak, magnetic reconnection can cause a sawtooth crash.


DARPA HAS A LONG HISTORY OF INNOVA-tion and technology breakthroughs in-volving speed. Many of the platformsand engines it has designed have pushedthe limits on how quickly and efficientlyan aircraft or missile can fly through theatmosphere or into space.

The agency has focused considerableattention on hypersonic research, whichinvolves speeds above Mach 5. But in2009, DARPA also began looking atprospects for creating an engine capableof accelerating a full-scale hypersonicvehicle from rest to Mach 4+. A key goalof the new program—called Vulcan—wasto accomplish this without developing anew Mach 4+ turbine engine, instead us-ing an existing full-scale productionMach 2+ turbine with only minimalmodifications.

When the first of its four plannedphases ended, however, the programwas significantly modified. While stillworking toward a high-Mach aerospaceengine, Vulcan will now also focus on us-

ing the same hybrid concept for a ship-based system to provide increased en-ergy and efficiency for naval powergeneration applications.

As a result, the final two phases weremerged, with a goal of transitioning anaerospace engine to the Air Force at theend of Phase II and a shipborne systemto the Navy at the end of Phase III.

Vulcan Phase I looked at a com-bined-cycle propulsion system architec-ture, integrating separate constant vol-ume combustion (CVC) engines andfull-scale turbine engines for high-Machmilitary aircraft. Possible CVC architec-tures included pulsed-detonation en-gines, continuous-detonation enginesand other unsteady CVC engine archi-tectures, according to DARPA Vulcan

program manager Thomas Bussing.The idea was to extract more useful

work from the engine by replicating theHumphrey cycle, characterized by CVC.Traditional jet and auto engines operateon a less efficient constant pressure cy-cle called the Brayton cycle. While onlyminor improvements are possible forBrayton cycle engines, “a Humphrey orpulse detonation CVC cycle offers anovel way to achieve game-changingperformance improvements,” Bussingsays. This is why Vulcan is seen as offer-ing significant improvements for a vari-ety of power applications.

“Phase I was high Mach, successful;Phase II is still CVC technology, but nowthe application is a marine power tur-bine that also can be applicable to avia-tion and high-Mach engines. So we arestarting off from a different corner of thebox, but with a very compelling businesscase,” Bussing tells Aerospace America.“We combined Phases III and IV into onebecause we were integrating the tech-

nologies earlier. The only difference isthese are smaller, 3-5-MW turbinesrather than the 25-MW machines weoriginally planned; the smaller turbinehas greater applicability to the fleet.

“The initial application for hybrid en-gines is the same for both the Air Forceand Navy, but the aviation engine ismuch more complicated. We picked thenaval engine because they are muchmore common in the industrial world aswell as the Navy. With a huge commer-cial tail, that gave us a better opportunityto get industry co-investment, getting itinto the Navy’s hands much sooner andmore cheaply than had there been nocommercial tail.”

The overall program length remainsroughly the same, with the final two

phases to run about two years each,compared to an anticipated 18 monthsfor each of the original phases.

Shooting for subhypersonicFor the aerospace engine, the Vulcanprogram focuses on the subhypersonicspeed realm, both to avoid the inclusionof a scramjet and because of the numer-ous potential applications to strike andreconnaissance vehicles operating atspeeds between Mach 2 and Mach 4.9.

“It also could serve as the acceleratorfor a hypersonic system, but we didn’twant the contractors to design systemswith scramjets, which would be morecomplicated,” Bussing points out. “How-ever, if we solve the first, we set thestage for the second. By itself, Vulcan isan intermediate step that would openthe way for a whole new class of vehiclesnot available today, both manned andunmanned.”

Vulcan builds on a variety of previousefforts, including multicombustor pulsed-detonation engine demonstrators andother work showing it is possible to burnliquid hydrocarbon and air directly at lowtotal pressures. By mandating the use ofexisting production engines and reducingthe top speed requirement, Vulcan de-velopment should be both less costly andfaster.

“The CVC would operate below theupper Mach level of the turbine, whichwould be off-the-shelf, such as the [Pratt& Whitney] F100-229 and F119 or[General Electric] F110-129 and F414,which are currently used in F-18s and F-22s. The idea then is to use the CVC cy-cle to get from where the turbine leavesoff to Mach 4+ and cocoon the turbinewhen not in use, so it is not exposed tothe high-temperature airflow,” Bussingsays. “There are different architecturesfor doing that, but I can’t give specificdetails, because the program is classified.But there has to be a mechanism toclose off the airflow and to keep temper-atures inside the cocoon low.

“The idea is to build a Mach 4 en-gine for less than it would cost to build a


DARPA’sVulcanenginegoesNavy

Bymandating the use of existing production engines andreducing the top speed requirement,Vulcan developmentshould be both less costly and faster.


Mach 6 turbine, as well as to demon-strate the CVC technology. We believethat this technology will outperform anyhigh-Mach turbine you could potentiallyenvision.”

Naval applicationsThis approach also significantly expandspotential applications, which led to a re-structuring of the program to addresssmaller power systems for ships, as wellas a variety of commercial applications.

The main nonnuclear propulsion sys-tem in the Navy fleet today is theLM2500. Used on 129 ships, those en-gines burn an estimated $2 billion in fueleach year. According to DARPA, retro-fitting only half the 434 LM2500 en-gines in the fleet with CVC technologycould save the Navy $300 million-$400million a year.

As added advantages, a Vulcan-stylehybrid engine would have significantlyincreased endurance and a reduced in-frared signature, an important defensivefeature.

Potential pluses“You could replace combustors in con-ventional gas turbines and see a 20%-plus fuel burn efficiency in ground appli-cations. Subsonic jet engines could applyit with a 10% fuel burn gain. It also couldbe used in powerplants and many otherapplications,” Bussing says. “Many ofthe combustion processes we use todaypotentially could benefit from an un-steady combustion process, which is aparadigm shift from how you burn fueland air.

“We have been focusing on improve-ments in performance, but there areother things the process enables. Youcould take advantage of the detonationwave and use it to remove ash from coalfurnace heat exchangers or produce ce-ramic materials and drive them into sub-strates. There are applications in non-lethal effects devices, mine-clearing andother new and unique possibilities usingthis cycle.”

If applied to existing military andcommercial aircraft, the cost savings infuel alone would be significant, accord-ing to DARPA program office estimates.A 10% fuel efficiency improvement us-ing a CVC hybrid engine replacementon the Air Force’s fleet of 543 KC-135

tankers could save as much as $270 mil-lion a year. And a CVC-powered missilecould be built using low-cost automotivemanufacturing tolerances, yet have a50% performance increase over a ram-jet missile.

In the commercial world, replacingcurrent powerplants with a pulsed-deto-nation engine could mean $500,000 ayear in operations savings on Boeing757 jetliners and $1.4 million for thelarger Boeing 777. With some 87,000gas turbine engines currently powering

commercial aircraft—including 35,000large gas turbines—the impact of conver-sion on U.S. airlines alone is estimatedat $2.8 billion.

Spaceflight possibilitiesThe Vulcan engine concept also has pos-sible applications to spaceflight, bothmanned and unmanned.

“It has been looked at as a first-stageaccelerator, coupled with a ramjet thatwould get you to Mach 6+, then a sec-ond stage to orbit. In fact, this technologyalso applies directly to rocket propulsion,which involves different cycles from lowthrust to high,” Bussing says.

“From Earth to Moon, low thrust isrequired, but for anything getting into or-bit, pulsed-detonation rockets would begood replacements for current chemicalpropulsion. It also could be used forspacecraft attitude control—if you canprecisely pulse the microthrusters, it is abetter mode for controlling attitude anduses less fuel, in addition to just operat-ing more efficiently.”

DARPA and the U.S. are not alonein pursuing this level of high-speed flightcapability. Bussing cites known projectsunder way in France, Russia, Japan,China, Sweden, Germany, Poland andSingapore, for example.

Hard—and DARPA-hardThe decision to build a high-Mach avia-tion application, Bussing notes, is in linewith DARPA’s traditional role of looking

at new enabling technologies for the mil-itary and ensuring the U.S. is not caughtby surprise, as it was by the SovietUnion’s launch of the first satellite, Sput-nik, in the 1950s, which led directly tothe creation of DARPA.

“DARPA’s role is to demonstrate theimpossible; the services’ responsibility isto then take Tier Level 6 technology,mature it and implement it into thefleet,” says Bussing.

Technology Readiness Level 6 isnear the end of a nine-level scale from

TRL 1—basic principles observed and re-ported—to TRL 9—actual system “flightproven” through successful mission op-erations. At TRL 6, a model or proto-type is successfully demonstrated in a rel-evant operating environment.

“At the end of Phase II, the proof oftechnology will be demonstrated to TRL6 and transitioned to the Air Force forpotential application to their improvedefficiency turbine development pro-gram,” Bussing continues. “At the end ofPhase III, it transitions to the Navy. TheNavy wants to increase both offensiveand defensive systems that require morepower, so they may want bigger engines;but either way, they will be CVC-based.

“The goal of Phase III is basically aTRL 6 demonstration of a fully inte-grated hybrid engine that is 20% moreefficient than existing power turbines,operating for 500 hr in the same vol-ume and dimensional footprint as exist-ing engines. So you have a retrofit to ex-isting 3-MW turbines or new 4-MWturbines that are backwards compatibleto existing ship engines. The Navy willneed to do a business case by the end ofPhase II on whether to do a retrofit oran all-new engine.”

For the aerospace side, a primaryend-goal for Vulcan would be full-scalehypersonic cruise vehicles for strike, in-telligence, surveillance, reconnaissance,or other critical national missions.

“A Mach 4 aircraft would be a lotlower technology effort than a Mach 6.


“Many of the combustion processes we use today potentiallycould benefit from an unsteady combustion process, which is aparadigm shift from how you burn fuel and air.” — Thomas Bussing


It is about half the thermal load, so tem-peratures in the vehicle are much lowerand wouldn’t require the exotic materialsa Mach 6 would need. That makes theaircraft relatively straightforward,” saysBussing.

“The only thing operating at Mach 4today is a ramjet, and I would expect tosee a 20% fuel burn improvement withVulcan. Ramjets operate at M 2.5+ anddon’t perform as well as CVC or pulsed-detonation engines. CVC also can oper-ate at much lower speeds, including sub-sonic. One critical factor is gettingthrough the transonic pinch point; thistechnology would enable that.”

All this is not to say there are no sig-nificant “DARPA-hard” hurdles to over-come. Those include designing an effi-cient air valve for the respective engine,fuel injection and detonation initiationsystems, efficient nozzles to handle ex-pansion of the gases—which have to bebrought together at the back end in aunique way—and materials. Despitetemperatures lower than those gener-ated by a Mach 6 vehicle, it is still im-portant to minimize the thermal loadgenerated to simplify the thermal man-agement system.

“Ideally, I would like to design it withminimal or no cooling,” Bussing notes.

Phased approachPhase I, which ran from April throughSeptember 2009, involved a systemconcept definition by four contractors—Alliant TechSystems, General Electric,Rolls-Royce and United Technologies. Itended with a conceptual design review(CDR) by each contractor that, accordingto DARPA, generated several interestingturbine/CVC architectures that appearviable for building a full-scale high-Machengine incorporating an off-the-shelf tur-bine and a CVC.

Following the CDRs, DARPA beganwork on a new broad area announce-ment (BAA) incorporating the changesBussing detailed. That BAA was releasedin mid-January 2010, with industry re-sponses due by the middle of this month.

Under the new structure, Phase IIwill involve component demonstrationand risk reduction—retiring all the tech-nology risks identified in Phase I (at bothcomponent and subcomponent levels)required to build the engine—full-scale

CVC component integration and dura-bility testing; and turbine and compres-sor rig testing with a full-scale CVC sim-ulator. Phase III will focus on thedevelopment, design and testing of acomplete Vulcan engine.

“The desire at the end of Phase III, ata minimum, is to demonstrate a completeVulcan engine with the fully integratedCVC module and validate durability, op-erability, capability and performance atvarious turbine engine power settings,”according to the January BAA.

“We have added a CVC turbine andCVC compressor test, so it is more inte-grated than Phase I, where the turbineand CVC could be separate. But inPhase II, we basically are effectively re-placing the combustors in the phase tur-bine with CVC combustors,” Bussingadds. “The program is designed to movestep by step through the technologies re-quired to make this work, retiring allrisks and minimizing costs by doing justwhat is required.”

Because of its higher complexity, get-ting the Air Force version of Vulcan to aproduction program and initial operatingcapability could take another decade.

“It could be done faster if there is achange in national priority, of course, aswas the case in building the SR-71,”Bussing says, referring to the long-range, high-altitude Mach 3 reconnais-sance aircraft fast-tracked after an Amer-ican U-2 spy plane was shot down overthe Soviet Union in 1959.

“So if future leadership decides tomove in that direction full-scale, this en-gine is the biggest enabler for Mach 6+,which is basically a flying engine. ForMach 4 applications, it’s not quite thatdynamic; the aircraft would look moretraditional, like the SR-71 or high-MachF-22.”

With its wide range of potential appli-cations, from powerplants to spacecraft,Vulcan is the quintessential DARPA pro-gram, combining existing capabilitieswith new technology to achieve previ-ously unattainable goals across multiplemissions, military and civilian.

“If we can solve this technology,”Bussing concludes, “I truly believe we areon the precipice of enabling a whole newclass of systems not available today.”

J.R. WilsonContributing writer


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AIAA has created a newtask force to assist in theformulation of a nationalroad map for the U.S. toaddress investments in theEarth-observing industryto adequately inform futureclimate change debatesand decisions. Composedof leading experts on policyand climate-monitoringtechnology from withinAIAA and in collaborationwith other organizations,the task force is developinga strategy to come up withrecommendations to helpreach this goal.

For more information,contact Craig Dayat 703.264.3849

or [email protected].

NOTEBOOKlayout310.qxd:AA Template 2/18/10 2:48 PM Page 6

Unfortunately for Airbus, dominanceof the global tanker market has nottranslated into a lasting victory in theonly truly noteworthy competition: theUSAF’s KC-X. While the KC-30 was se-lected as the winning contender for this179-aircraft competition (as the KC-45),the victory was overturned following asuccessful Boeing protest.

The new KC-X draft RFP is intendedto increase transparency, aiming to re-dress a concern expressed about the pre-vious RFP’s somewhat opaque scoringsystem. However, Northrop Grummanhas claimed that the new RFP achievesthis transparency through an excessiveemphasis on costs, resulting in what ithas termed a “price shootout.” Thismeans, according to the company, thatthe KC-767, which is a less capable butless expensive airplane, would have astrong advantage under the new scoringsystem. As a result, the company hasthreatened not to bid on KC-X.

Meanwhile, the political winds have

shifted. The KC-45 production planslargely involve congressional districtsthat are Republican, while the KC-767’slargely affect Democratic districts. WithDemocrats currently in control, any po-litical leverage brought to bear in thiscontest will favor the Boeing airplane.Even if Northrop Grumman does bid, itwill likely face an uphill battle. And if itdoes not bid, Congress will be less likelyto oppose a contract awarded to a singlebidder with a Democratic industrial andlabor footprint. Of course, given thesepartisan political dynamics, it is possiblethat ongoing deadlock keeps either sidefrom walking away with the contract un-

(Continued from page 17) opposed. This would imply either a splitbuy, or an endless series of protests andprogram delays.

If the KC-767 were to win KC-X, itwould change the battle for tanker ex-ports. A USAF endorsement would beextremely valuable in pursuing the re-maining undecided customers. It wouldallow Boeing to reassure customers thatthey had improved the original product,and would imply a steady stream of fu-ture upgrades. It would also create abroader global training and supportbase, which would certainly be appealingto export customers. The KC-767 wouldeffectively be back in the export game.

If the KC-767 wins the competition,the KC-30 can be regarded as a success-ful European platform that had the goodfortune to enter the world market beforethe U.S. military endorsed a locally builtcompetitor. But it would almost certainlylose its tight grip on the export tankermarket. Richard Aboulafia

Teal [email protected]

Creation of the KC-135 helped usher in decadesof U.S. jetliner industry dominance.



24 AEROSPACE AMERICA/MARCH 2010 Copyright© 2010 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Unmannedand airborneA NEW PLAN

Boeing’s latest plans call for vigorous development of unmanned

aircraft systems—not just the vehicles, but also the ground segment,

communications, and full range of systems needed in this

fast-growing sector. Freedom from the constraints of manned

aircraft requirements is also opening a wide range of possibilities

for UAV designs.

The Phantom Ray is under development as the follow-on vehicle for the J-UCAS program.

WILSONlayout310.qxd:AAFEATURE-layout.Template 2/8/10 11:13 AM Page 2


Boeing and the companies it has ac-quired—McDonnell Douglas, NorthAmerican Rockwell, and Hughes, for

example—were responsible for many of themost advanced military and commercial air-craft of the 20th century.

Those included most of the military’s ad-vanced aircraft—the F-15 Eagle, E-3 AWACS,B-1B Lancer, F/A-18 Hornet, CH-47 Chi-nook, AH-64 Apache, V-22 Osprey, AV-8BHarrier, C-17 Globemaster III, KC-135 Stra-totanker, KC-10 tanker—and more than two-thirds of the world’s commercial airliners,from the 707 to the 787 and the DC-8 to theMD-11, as well as the space shuttle.

But by the mid-1990s, after the mergerwith McDonnell Douglas, Boeing’s domina-tion of military aircraft began to wane. Theonly two new fighter aircraft prime contracts—the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II JointStrike Fighter—went to Lockheed Martin, newhelicopter contracts to Bell and Sikorsky, anda still-disputed new tanker initially to a North-rop Grumman-EADS team. Plans for a newbomber, presidential helicopter, and a combataircraft were canceled or indefinitely delayed.

In decades past, the ebbs and tides of mil-itary aviation were balanced by commercialcontracts. But the trifecta of post-September11 declines in air travel, a splintering of theglobal economy, and wildly fluctuating—though often record-high—oil prices led to air-line bankruptcies, cutbacks, and new order de-lays or cancellations.

Space programs provided little help, asBoeing’s role in a stalled U.S. human space-flight program was dramatically reduced andthe competition for satellite launches grew al-most daily.

Although still one of the three largestaerospace companies in the world—along withLockheed Martin and EADS, which, despitesome contract wins, also face a greatly re-duced market demand—Boeing began a hardreassessment of its markets and product lines,and of how and where it might regain its his-torically strong position.

One major element of Boeing’s approachappears to be a new and full-blown commit-ment to one of the fastest growing markets inmilitary aviation—and, potentially, major newcivilian markets to come: unmanned aerial ve-hicles (UAVs) and the ground and satellite sys-tems supporting them, typically combined un-der the title unmanned aerial systems (UAS).

by J.R. WilsonContributing writer



expensive systems than some of the mannedequivalents, which also tends to drive demand.And when civil/commercial markets ulti-mately open up, that will increase the poten-tial for larger unmanned systems to be a partof the growing Boeing business.”

It is a particularly interesting decision onBoeing’s part, because unmanned systemswere barely a blip on the corporate spread-sheet when UAVs went from interesting tech-nology to vital asset in the opening decade ofthe 21st century.

Boeing’s first big win in the arena was aDARPA program to develop an unmannedcombat air vehicle (UCAV) for a DARPA/AirForce/Navy Joint-Unmanned Combat AirSystem (J-UCAS) program. Boeing received a$130-million contract in 1999 to evolve anddemonstrate that technology.

“Today, looking at all the money that hasbeen spent within Boeing on UAVs, we’reprobably pushing $1-$1.5 billion, with proba-bly 80% of that government funded throughthe DARPA/Air Force UCAV program,” saysPhantom Works President Darryl Davis. “Sothere has been a significant investment in thepast decade. And that does not include themoney spent to acquire Insitu. If you do, we’reprobably pushing $2 billion in the past decadein UAV investments.”

In September 2008 Boeing acquired theInsitu Group, a Bingen, Wash.-based com-pany created in 1994 to pursue requirementsfor ISR (intelligence, surveillance and recon-naissance) UAVs. Its primary product is theScanEagle. This long-endurance tactical UAV,developed with Boeing in 2004, recentlypassed 200,000 flight hours and is in opera-tion around the world by the U.S., Canadian,and Australian militaries.

Insitu is a big part of Boeing’s new strat-egy to become a major player in the UAVmarket, through acquisition, partnerships andsignificantly increased internal development.

“Our plan is to build our legacy and growour position in unmanned systems. We’relooking at everything except, today, the insect-sized platforms that universities and others aredoing R&D on for nanotech-type capabilities,which would not normally be Boeing’s forte.But we are looking across the board at how wecan work with other companies or develop ca-pabilities on our own to bring good solutionsto our customers,” says Sweberg.

“One thing we are working to implementis being quick and innovative, which alsomeans open-minded to looking across indus-try, domestic and international, for other

UAV pushAt the Paris Air Show in June 2009, Boeingannounced the creation of a new UnmannedAirborne Systems Division within Boeing Mil-itary Aircraft. The business plan calls for theUAS Division to build and market a widerange of UAVs, with new projects and tech-nologies fed to it by Boeing Phantom Works,the company’s advanced research component.

“That was driven primarily by the market-place and the increase in applications and uti-lization by all our military customers of un-manned systems. There was a lot of discoveryin Iraq and Afghanistan about the utility ofUAVs,” UAS Director Vic Sweberg tells Aero-

space America. “This is one defense marketthat is clearly growing and, we believe, willcontinue to grow—from a defense standpoint,certainly—and we believe the civil and com-mercial markets also will be robust at somepoint.

“And it will become a major componentof Boeing, at some time, based on the pro-gression of the military need. Even without ac-tivity in Southwest Asia, I think we will see acontinued use of UAVs for training and devel-opment of doctrine and CONOPs [conceptsof operations] for future requirements. Thetechnology is evolving to the point where wecan accomplish a lot more with smaller, less

ScanEagle recently passed200,000 flight hours and isin operation around the world.

“From our perspective, unmanned systemswill be a greater and greater portion of theDOD budget as time goes forward.”

Darryl Davis, presidentBoeing Phantom Works



petencies to grow in this marketplace. So wehope to put up some good numbers in thenext 5-10 years.”

Davis agrees: “From today, which is avery small percentage of that BMA total port-folio, we see substantial growth and are mak-ing substantial investments to capture our fairshare of the market—to be the number-one ornumber-two player in the realm of unmannedsystems. Over the next 10 years, we projectthe unmanned portion could grow to 20-30%of BMA’s total revenue, from all types andclasses of UAVs, but particularly in the area ofHALE (high altitude/long endurance), elec-tronic attack, and ISR strike.

“Our plans tend to be about 10 years out;how we target our investments based on whatwe expect the environment to be like. Ourmission in Phantom Works is to be the incuba-tor for the next generation of technology andcapability and, at the right time, transitionthose to the business side for execution. Usingthe USAF road map, they predict a significantpart of the Air Force mission spectrum will behandled by unmanned in 2047. If that hap-pens, then greater than 50% of defense air-craft business may become unmanned. So it’san exciting time to be in the UAS business,and we will have a lot more to talk about in thenext year than we are willing to discuss today.”

To achieve its goal, Boeing plans to ad-dress the full spectrum of UAS market needs,not only the aircraft, but ground stations,command and control, interoperability, coor-dinated operations, and so on.

Sharing airspace“The biggest challenge for us in the next half-decade will be merging manned and un-manned in the national airspace [NAS]—howto deconflict them as they become a greater

companies with complementary capabilitieswe can take advantage of and help both themand Boeing in being successful. The strategyis to continue to look for opportunities topartner, to invest organically in technologiesat Phantom Works and on the division side,extending some of the systems we have todayas well as talking to other companies abouthow we might lash up together.”

Hot growth prospectsIndustry reports on global UAV sales rangefrom a predicted $4.4 billion in 2009 to asmuch as $8.7 billion within a decade, makingit “one of the hottest areas of growth for de-fense and aerospace companies,” accordingto Philip Finnegan, an author of the TealGroup’s “World Unmanned Aerial VehicleSystems 2009” market profile and forecast.Given their own internal forecasts and the re-ality of continued growth in UAV purchasesby nearly every military in the world, Boeingbelieves its new commitment to the UAV mar-ket ultimately will bring a substantial return oninvestment.

“The Air Force just issued its UAS Road-map through 2047, showing plans to migratetoward an unmanned fleet of systems to coverall mission areas, from ISR to strike to airdominance and, potentially, mobility,” Davistells Aerospace America. “That has been inthe works for some time—greater and greaternumbers, increasing in capability across thefull spectrum of aviation missions. Last year,DOD bought more UAVs than fixed-wing air-craft. And that will grow as time goes on.”

However, Boeing’s current estimated in-vestment of $2 billion in the past decade is noteven a drop in the bucket for a corporationthat, even in depressed economic times, re-ported total revenues of more than $33.6 bil-lion for the first half of 2009—half of that fromBoeing Defense, Space and Security militarywork, including $6.4 billion from Boeing Mili-tary Aircraft (BMA). Obviously, UAVs will notreplace that level of business, so the goal is topick up as much as possible to supplement fu-ture manned aircraft programs—including non-prime positions, as Boeing has on the F-22and F-35.

“We have goals to grow, but we don’t yethave what I consider firm targets or num-bers,” Sweberg says. “There are two movingparts to that—the unmanned part and the restof the business part. The expectation on ourdivision is to grow at a faster rate than others,because the market is growing and becauseBoeing has some unique capabilities and com-

Boeing is also workingon a high-altitudelong-endurance concept.



Military effortsPhantom Ray may be a blueprint for the wayBoeing plans to move forward in the earlystages of its new UAV effort. Internallyfunded, it will pick up where J-UCAS left offin 2006, starting with the X-45C, a largerUCAV Boeing designed to be a follow-on toits X-45A UCAS demonstrator. ApplyingPhantom Works rapid prototyping to meet afirst flight target of December 2010, thePhantom Ray demonstrator is scheduled for asix-month series of 10 test flights that may in-volve ISR, suppression of enemy air defenses,electronic attack, hunter/killer missions andautonomous aerial refueling.

“We have mobilized our assets to con-tinue the tremendous potential we developedunder J-UCAS and now will fully demonstratethat capability,” says Davis.

While the FAA’s concerns about UAVsflying in the same airspace with other civil air-craft mirrors military concerns for combat air-space, Davis says the key for the military isnot just interoperability, but collaboration aswell. And to become a key player in the futureUAV marketplace, Boeing believes it must ad-dress all of those issues rather than just build-ing platforms.

“You have a flight of manned/unmannedor all unmanned vehicles, and how they oper-ate as a single entity. DOD is looking at thingslike swarm technology, such as a beehive.How do UAVs work in a swarm—not flying apreprogrammed flight, but aggressively ma-neuvering like a swarm of bees? You will wantto do what, in a fully manned configuration,would be done in a formation where everyoneknows what everyone else will do,” he says.

“Those are being thought about today, in-cluding how to employ those in an urban envi-ronment, where you may have terrorists ornoncombatants you want to track, or evenvery small UAVs you may want to fly indoors.So you would have nano- or micro-UAVs upto very large, five-year UAVs. You have to takethe limitations of the human being out of theequation, because you can rotate humans inthe ground station while the UAV never comeshome. All those things are in the realm of thepossible, and we’re working on all those.”

Out of the boxSweberg believes Boeing is extremely wellplaced to bring all of the necessary technolo-gies and requirements together—and, wherenecessary, push the envelope with out-of-the-box thinking on the future of UAVs.

“We are at an interesting point in history,

part of air traffic,” Davis points out. “Therewill be lots of shapes, sizes, and capabilities aswe continue to push the boundaries on howthey work with manned aircraft, flying in thesame airspace. And that is a big attention

area—how do you do sense and avoidwithout a man in the cockpit? We arepushing technologies that will giveus that capability in the next 10years.”

Maneuvering a UAV—

generally classified as a non-cooperative aircraft becausethere is no pilot on board—to avoid conflict with otherair traffic within boundariesset by the FAA is a majorconcern for all UAV manu-facturers and operators. Andwithout FAA approval for

UAV operations within theNAS, commercial applications will

be severely limited.“We hope, in less than 24 months,

to demonstrate how all that can come to-gether,” Davis vows, but adds it is far from theend of the problem. “Then you have to dealwith instrument flight conditions, including at-mospheric absorption of whatever spectrumyou’re using. Those technologies are a littlefarther out and integrated into the air trafficcontrol NextGen effort, all communicatingtheir positions back to ATC.

“You may have as many unmanned air-planes flying in a given space as manned, sohow do they deconflict, do collision avoid-ance? We have to solve that problem, but wethink it is very solvable in the next few yearsand are making investments in that direction.”

Cooperation, interoperability, and collab-orative operations are not just a problem forNAS operations, however. The skies over Iraqand Afghanistan have been so filled withdozens of types of UAVs flying thousands ofmissions that manned aircraft pilots have be-gun to refer to them as “airborne FOD” (for-eign object debris).

“We have been looking at how mannedand unmanned will become interoperable—ex-tensions of manned aircraft in some areas, re-placements for manned in others. With theHummingbird [unmanned helicopter], Phan-tom Ray test bed, and HALE UAVs, plussmaller UAVs such as ScanEagle and Integra-tor, we will have a spectrum from low end tohigh end, from 6 hr minimum endurance toup to five years on station with DARPA’s Vul-ture program,” he says.

The A160Hummingbird offersmany advantages overtraditional, manned helicopters.



“Boeing took stock and determined it had a lot of capabilities,but scattered around the enterprise, and decided it was time tobring all those under one roof and provide a focused face to themarketplace in the area of unmanned aerial systems.”

Vic Sweberg, directorBoeing Unmanned Airborne Systems Division

manders would prefer not to waste or risk hu-man pilots. But the growing complexity ofthese platforms has, in some cases, changedthat perspective as well.

“We tend to inhibit ourselves based onwhat we’ve done previously with manned air-craft, but those who have spent their lives inunmanned are not hindered by those experi-ences,” Davis says. “When you open up thedesign constraints of the vehicle beyond what

where unmanned has clearly demonstratednew capabilities people did not envision just10 years ago. And the technology continuesto evolve to enable unmanned to meet somemanned missions, but we still have not enoughtime and experience with unmanned to tellwhere they ultimately will go. So it is a time forpositioning,” he says. “Obviously, Boeing hasa very strong legacy, and today still has astrong installed base of fighter and mobilityaircraft and rotorcraft, which we still see as agrowth area. And it may be premature tothink manned aircraft are on the way out andunmanned will be the future.

“I do think unmanned aircraft systemshave proven very capable, and clearly thereare niches where it makes a lot of sense to gounmanned. And as the technology continuesto advance, we will see a growth in unmannedapplications. I also see unmanned/manned in-teroperability being a very powerful capabilityto meet the mission requirements our defensecustomers have.”

The push for commonalityAnother requirement that is high on the U.S.military list is achieving the greatest possibledegree of commonality in the ground stationsthat operate a diverse range of UAVs.

“The pressing requirement customers areexpressing for common control harkens backto there being a lot of systems out there, eachwith its own hardware and software, logisticstail, ground control, etc. So if customers wantto operate more than one system, they haveto haul around multiple complete sets, whichis cumbersome and logistically difficult to ac-commodate,” Sweberg points out. “I am hear-ing more and more that customers want morecommonality—not just from one company, butacross providers—with one ground controlsystem to accommodate many different UAVsystems, which would be a significant savings.

“So we are all thinking about how tomeet customer requirements there. However,the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines allhave their own thoughts on common C2[command and control] and using their ownsystems as a baseline, so it will be interestingto see how DOD will come out with standardsand an approach to achieve as much com-monality as possible.”

Changing paradigmsUAVs originally were seen as less expensivereplacements for manned aircraft in a tradi-tional robot operational paradigm—doing thedull, dirty, dangerous jobs on which com-

The X-45A was Boeing’s demonstrator for the UCAS program.

(Continued on page 42)

was possible with human flight, you can ma-neuver more aggressively and design thinnerplatforms, depending on what you are design-ing the aircraft to do. It is more a blending ofparadigms in some mission areas.

“And paradigms will change—already arechanging. Some medium- to large-scale un-manned vehicles cannot have loss rates suchas were acceptable in manned aircraft a fewdecades ago, especially when flying over pop-ulated areas. So in some cases things are go-ing in a different direction, to get more relia-bility into them, but you also have more designfreedom that allows you to do more with sen-sors, for example. Our challenge is to bringthe best of both together and leverage both.Each comes with its own mindset, and weneed to take advantage of that expertise onboth sides.”

The future of UAVs, then, is a blendingof manned and unmanned experience andcapabilities, of bringing experienced pilots from


30 AEROSPACE AMERICA/MARCH 2010 Copyright© 2010 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

by James W. CananContributing writer

more heavily on intelligence, surveillance andreconnaissance (ISR) to thwart and defeat Tal-iban and Al Qaeda insurgents. ISR operationsare at the core of the U.S. counterinsurgencystrategy for stabilizing the country and makingit inhospitable to terrorists, and will stronglyinfluence whether that strategy ultimately suc-ceeds or fails.

This viewpoint is widely shared by Penta-gon officers and other officials with connec-tions to the military campaign in Afghanistan.As they see it, ISR is the essential means of lo-cating, identifying, tracking and targeting ad-versaries around the clock and in all kinds of

terrain. ISR also makes it possible to distin-guish and isolate enemy combatants fromcivilian bystanders and attack them selectively.

Selective targeting has become all themore important in light of the restrictive rulesof engagement that Gen. Stanley McChrys-tal, the top commander of U.S. and coalitionforces, promulgated for his troops in 2009.Those rules are aimed at eliminating orgreatly reducing civilian casualties from airstrikes and ground fire, and thus at precludingpostattack backlash reactions among theAfghan populace.

ISR is also seen as the first line of defensefor U.S. and allied ground troops against

Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance

technologies are growing more and more

vital to U.S. campaigns in Afghanistan,

Iraq and other potential trouble spots.

Advanced instruments and new aircraft,

including UAVs, are enabling warfighters

to see farther, respond faster and strike

with greater precision than ever before.

ISR intoday’swar:

U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan are relying ever

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aircraft shot down by shoulder-fired infraredmissiles that the U.S. supplied the Afghanfighters of that era. Perhaps more to thepoint, military analysts note, the Soviets lackedthe sophisticated counterinsurgency strategyof today’s U.S. forces and the air and spacesurveillance and reconnaissance assets thatmake that strategy viable.

Renewed emphasisLate last year, well in advance of PresidentObama’s decision to send 30,000 more U.S.troops to Afghanistan, the Pentagon beganconcentrating on stepping up its deploymentand use of ISR assets there. Defense Secre-

deadly roadside bombs. The troops rely ontimely information from ISR aircraft andother sources to detect insurgents in the actof emplacing those improvised explosive de-vices (IEDs). The IED threat is expected toworsen as the Obama administration’s de-ployment of 30,000 additional troops toAfghanistan gains momentum in the comingmonths. This will make ISR an increasingly ur-gent priority, officials say.

Those who believe that the U.S. and itsallies are unlikely to prevail in Afghanistan of-ten cite the failure of Soviet forces therethrough the 1980s. But those forces sufferedheavy losses of helicopters and other combat

A closer look

An MQ-1 Predator, armed with AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, flies a combat mission over southern Afghanistan. (USAF photo/Lt. Col. Leslie Pratt.)



demanded,” Deptula declares. “We may neverfulfill the demand, but we are getting betterand better at defining the [ISR] requirementsand then matching them with our present ca-pabilities. We are also beginning to look out tothe future and wed technology advancementswith emerging needs.”

Advanced capabilitiesDeptula observes that the advanced technolo-gies of today’s aircraft, bombs, missiles, sen-sors and communications enable the AirForce to strike any target rapidly and pre-cisely, anywhere on Earth, around the clockand in all kinds of weather. Now, he says, thebiggest challenge for the Air Force lies not infinishing off targets, but in finding and pin-pointing them by means of ISR.

It took only a few minutes of flight timefor two USAF F-16 strike fighters to deliverthe bombs that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,the head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, but 6,000 priorhours of Predator UAV flight time to trackhim and finally fix his position for the kill,Deptula notes. Those Predator hours are aclassic example of “persistent ISR,” he says.

UAVs are uniquely capable of persistentISR “in their ability to stay in position or ma-neuver over large areas for a long period oftime—and that’s where a person in an aircraftbecomes a limitation,” Deptula explains. UAVs“can operate in dangerous environments andcan either watch or strike and…conduct unde-tected operations and penetrations,” he says.

Pentagon officials cite many examples ofpersistent ISR in Iraq that, they claim, demon-strate its vital importance in so-called irregularwarfare against roving insurgents. ISR was theessence of Task Force ODIN (observe, detect,identify and neutralize), an aviation unit cre-ated during the Iraq war expressly to counterand check the rising toll from roadside bombs.

Military sources claim that ODIN, takingadvantage of more numerous and increasingly

tary Robert Gates noted inmid-November 2009 that“we’re pushing a lot into thetheater…we’re moving asfast as we can. The Air Forcehas significantly expanded its[ISR] capability, and we in-tend to keep expanding it.”

Gates explained that the ISR expansionwould involve not only airborne platformssuch as manned MC-12 Liberty aircraft andunmanned MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reap-ers, but also ground stations and their person-nel, notably linguists and intelligence analysts.At the same time, Gates formed a multiserviceISR task force and set about reprogramming$1.2 billion from other DOD projects to helppay for the escalation of ISR.

The secretary had been pressing the AirForce to deploy more UAVs for ISR in the Af-ghanistan/Pakistan theater. Air Force officialsinsist that the service had been building up itsISR assets and overhead intelligence-gather-ing capability all along, and that it is movingmore Predators and Reapers into the theateras fast as it can.

Gen. Norton Schwartz, Air Force chief ofstaff, and Michael Donley, secretary of the AirForce, made ISR a blue-ribbon priority for theUSAF. Schwartz observes that a major key tomaking a smaller Air Force even more effec-tive is “persistent and pervasive ISR,” alongwith the precise air strikes that it fosters.

In accentuating ISR, the Air Force ap-pointed Lt. Gen. David Deptula, a veteranfighter pilot, wing commander and planner, tothe newly created post of deputy chief of stafffor ISR. The service also unveiled its first-evercomprehensive ISR strategy, made sweepingchanges in how it trains and uses operators ofUAVs (which it prefers to call remotely pilotedaircraft) and other ISR platforms, and set aboutimproving its ISR capabilities across the board.

“The more ISR we provide, the more is

The Air Force’s new mannedintelligence, surveillance andreconnaissance platform, theMC-12, is designed to directlysupport ground forces withreal-time ISR capability.(USAF photo/Senior AirmanTiffany Trojca.)

IEDs like these collected inBaghdad are an ever-increasingthreat to ground troops inAfghanistan.



Saving the day again and againISR is credited with saving the day in Af-ghanistan on innumerable occasions. In one,a Predator spotted a substantial force of Tal-iban fighters moving into position to attackthe U.S. air base at Kandahar, and notifiedthe combined air operations center. The cen-ter quickly transferred control of the dronefrom Creech AFB in Nevada back to itslaunch-and-recovery crew near Kandahar.That crew contacted the Joint Terminal At-tack Controller (JTAC), whoguided Apache attack heli-copters to the scene. TheApaches destroyed much ofthe Taliban force and pre-vented its planned attack onthe air base.

In another operation, aPredator discovered a smallband of insurgents emplacinga roadside bomb and commu-nicated their position to theJTAC, who relayed it to an airborne B-1bomber. The bomber attacked the insurgents,three of whom ran from the blast. The Preda-tor tracked them, saw one drop by the way-side, and attacked the other two with its Hell-fire missile. One was killed; the other rolledinto a ditch. The Predator coordinated againwith the JTAC, who guided an A-10 close-sup-port aircraft to the scene to finish the job. ThePredator loitered overhead “for a long periodof time,” to make sure that no Taliban fighterescaped, says an Air Force source.

capable ISR assets, resulted in the capture orkilling of more than 3,000 insurgents and adramatic decrease in the number of coalitionforces killed or wounded by IEDs. ODIN forcesflew Warrior Alpha UAVs equipped with elec-trooptical and infrared sensors or with syn-thetic aperture radar, along with laser targetmarkers, laser rangefinders and missiles, todetect and destroy IED emplacers.

ISR may be more challenging in the irreg-ular warfare of Afghanistan than it was inIraq, officials say. It must detect and track notonly the tactical formations of enemy fightersand the movements of individual IED emplac-ers, for example, but also the foot traffic ofroving Al-Qaeda insurgents inside the countryand across the mountainous 1,500-mi. Af-ghanistan-Pakistan border, which is not con-ducive to infantry reconnaissance patrols.

To accomplish ISR all across the Afghan-istan/Pakistan theater, U.S. and allied forcesrely most heavily on manned and unmannedaircraft equipped with cameras, radars and in-frared sensors. Those ISR platforms have di-rect communications links with rapid-reactionspecial forces on the ground, and with heli-copters, artillery, strike fighters and unmannedaircraft armed with air-to-ground missiles.

Schwartz notes that the surveillance andtargeting provided by the UAVs make strikeaircraft and other types much more effective.“A UAV may tip a gunship, or tell a rescuehelicopter crew where their pickup needs tooccur, [and] these are the kinds of things thatare happening all the time,” he says.

Task Force ODIN forces flewWarrior Alpha UAVs equippedwith electrooptical and infraredsensors or with synthetic apertureradar, along with laser targetmarkers, laser rangefinders andmissiles.

Schuyler Dunn replaces a part ofthe multispectral targeting systemball on an MQ-1B Predator atAli Base, Iraq.(USAF photo/Tech. Sgt. Sabrina Johnson.)



on enemy combatants. “The issue is whereand what we want to strike,” Deptulaexplains. “We might want to achieve a non-kinetic outcome.”

Integration and analysisISR practitioners emphasize that networks ofsensors are required to provide timely andcomprehensive coverage, and that sensorsoperating singly are not usually adequate tothe task. This, they say, is why U.S. and coali-tion forces in Afghanistan require a wholly in-tegrated ISR architecture that embodies thefull range of ISR assets (including space sys-tems) and is capable of fulfilling diverse com-bat requirements.

Sensors on ISR aircraftinclude infrared imagers andcameras that provide airand ground commanderswith still photos or full-mo-tion videos. Rapid correla-tion and distribution of im-agery is vital. Daniel Leaf, aNorthrop Grumman vice

president and former three-star general incharge of Air Force requirements, observesthat information gathered by ISR platformsrepresents “wasted effort if we can’t get it tothe warfighters in usable form” via communi-cations networks.

This is why the Air Force created its so-called “distributed common ground system” ofISR analysis centers in Korea, Germany, Ha-

Deptula cites yet another successful oper-ation in Afghanistan as an example of thetimely and seamless distribution of communi-cations in ISR at its best: The automated sig-nals intelligence (SIGINT) suite in a high-alti-tude U-2 intercepted Taliban communicationstraffic and automatically transmitted it toBeale AFB, Calif. Traffic analysts there de-duced considerable Taliban activity aroundKandahar and immediately called the U-2 pi-lot back and told him what was happening.The pilot then alerted the U.S. JTAC on theground, who relayed it to an Army combatunit in the vicinity, enabling that unit to thwarta Taliban ambush in the making.

The distribution of communications inthat operation “took lessthan two minutes,” and ex-emplified the seamless na-ture of ISR, Deptula says.He notes that an Army unitmay take its cue from datacollected by a U-2 to requesta follow-up video feed from aUAV, and then take action.The unit may also direct the UAV to point outthe target to a manned bomber, “and all thismay have been planned in a forward operat-ing post with imagery collected from a GlobalHawk the day before.”

The Air Force ISR boss points out thatISR enables air and ground forces to distin-guish among potential targets in order toavoid killing and wounding civilians while firing

Information gatheredby high-flying U-2s is sentto analysis centers,processed and returnedto the theater.

Among the UAVs operatedby ground troops are the 40-lbScanEagle (right), the BATMAVand the RQ-11 Raven (facingpage, top and bottom).



More than 1,000 UAVs of assorted sizesand capabilities are said to be operating in theregion. Michael Isherwood, a senior analyst atNorthrop Grumman’s analysis center and aformer Air Force colonel and command pilotin Iraq and Afghanistan, notes that the UAVsinclude more than 10 types of small, man-portable handheld systems operated by Armyand Marine Corps companies and platoons,plus seven additional types controlled by bat-talion and brigade commanders.

Among the UAVs operated by groundtroops are the 1-lb Battlefield Air TargetingMicro Air Vehicle (BATMAV) with forward-and side-looking cameras; the slightly larger,4-lb, all-weather, all-hours, GPS-guided RQ-11 Raven with TV and IR sensors; and the40-lb ScanEagle, with a turreted camera forboth EO and IR reconnaissance at distancesup to 5 mi. BATMAVs, also called Wasps, flyrelatively short distances at low altitudes toprovide over-the-hill and around-the-bend re-connaissance, and are operated by the AirForce as well.

In a recent position paper, the Army em-phasized its “continuing expansion of persist-ent surveillance capability through bothmanned and unmanned systems,” includingthe Shadow UAV used by soldiers and Ma-rines for reconnaissance, target acquisitionand battlefield damage assessment. Shadowshave seen heavy duty over Iraq and Af-ghanistan, providing surveillance and target-ing support to brigade combat teams and bat-talions at distances out to 125 km.

Shadows complement the higher flying,longer loitering Sky Warrior, Hunter and GnatUAVs that engage in surveillance and recon-naissance for corps and division commandersat ranges of hundreds of kilometers, the Armydocument explains. Warrior Alphas flown bythe Army are almost identical to Air ForcePredators, and are used, as in Task ForceODIN, for target acquisition, communicationsrelay and counter-IED operations, as well asfor surveillance and reconnaissance.

waii, California, and Virginia. The centers aremanned by communications operators, lin-guists, analysts and maintenance personnel,among others, and serve as “the linchpins ofour completely integrated [ISR] process,”Deptula explains.

“The information coming from a varietyof platforms, including our Predators, Reap-ers, Global Hawks and U-2s, is sent to theseanalysis centers, processed, evaluated andtransmitted right back into the theater for im-mediate use,” he says. “And the beauty of thissystem is that we don’t have to add more [ISR]people in Afghanistan as part of the [U.S.]surge there. What we do is shift workloadamong the five analysis centers; and we havethe personnel to do that.”

Proliferation of UAVsAccording to the Air Force, Global Hawks op-erate at an altitude of 65,000 ft. They areequipped with electrooptical sensors, groundmoving-target indicators, infrared sensors,synthetic aperture radar and a SIGINT suite.Reapers operate at 50,000 ft, twice as highas the lighter Predators. Both carry EO sen-sors for full-motion video, infrared sensors,SIGINT suites and laser target designators.Predators can be armed with Hellfire missiles,Reapers with Hellfires and various bombs.

In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, Air ForceUAVs operate in support of the joint forcecommander at both the tactical and theaterlevels of operation. Army and Marine Corps

UAVs operate in tacticalsupport of individualground commanders atthe corps, division and

lower unit levels.

Soldiers in Kandahar depend onISR input from myriad sources.(Photo by Tech. Sgt. Francisco V.Govea II.)



to see and understand, but we have to in-crease our capabilities to rapidly revisit loca-tions, provide still imagery and collect signalsintelligence and human intelligence.”

Airborne radar and communications in-tercept platforms are considered vital ele-ments of the overall ISR architecture. For ex-ample, the Air Force E-8C Joint SurveillanceTarget Attack Radar System (J STARS) air-craft, while conducting wide area radar sur-veillance, can alert a Predator or a Hunter(Army UAV) to take a closer look at some-thing suspicious that it detects from afar. TheAir Force RC-135 Rivet Joint aircraft, operat-ing at 30,000 ft, can pick up communicationstraffic 240 mi. away. Global Hawks and U-2s,operating at 60,000 ft or higher, can detectsignals out to 300 mi.

The Air Force will expand its capacity forwide-area surveillance by equipping ReaperUAVs with new “Gorgon Stare” pods. Theirdeployment is scheduled to begin in April.

“They will be able to see the same dis-tance as the video sensors now onboard theReapers, and they will be able to do it not justthrough a little soda-straw area but all acrossan area of 4x4 km,” Deptula explains. “Theywill be able to provide video from 10 differentimages anywhere in that area to 10 differentpeople on the ground.”

The pods weigh 1,000 lb each, whichmakes them too heavy for the Predators, butnot the larger Reapers, to carry. Deptula callsthem “one of the biggest things” now cominginto play in Afghanistan ISR. “The quickestway we can introduce additional ISR capacityis not to build additional platforms but to in-crease the capability of the platforms we al-ready have,” he declares.

Deptula calls ISR “extremely important”to the successful outcome of the U.S. strategyand operations in Afghanistan and environs.Could ISR make the difference between suc-cess and failure?

“Absolutely,” he replies.

Near the end of 2009, as the U.S. troopbuildup began in Afghanistan, Air Force offi-cials confirmed reports of a new, stealthy ISRremotely piloted aircraft: the RQ-170 Sen-tinel, built by the Lockheed Skunk Works.Flown by operators at two Air Force facilitiesin Nevada (Creech AFB and the TonopahTest Range), the Sentinel was test flown overAfghanistan but was not yet operational there,according to reports.

Sensor and communications advancesDeptula claims that advances in sensor tech-nology have enabled the Air Force to enhanceits ISR capability and capacity “throughout the[electromagnetic] spectrum,” but that muchmore must be done. For example, he says,“we tend to focus on video because it is easy

Aircrews performed a preflight check on an MQ-9 Reaper before ittook off for a mission in Afghanistan on September 31. Reapers willbe outfitted with “Gorgon Stare” pods. (Photo by Rinze Klein.)

The Joint Surveillance TargetAttack Radar System crewfrom the 7th Expeditionary AirCombat and Control Squadronpreflights an E-8C Joint STARSfor a mission. (USAF photo/Staff Sgt. Aaron Allmon II.)


Researchers in the U.S. and Europe are revivingan old concept and reshaping it into advancedtechnology for a new generation of open rotoraircraft engines. When first proposed in the1980s, the idea met with low acceptance fromthe public, who viewed propellers as noisy andoutmoded. Today, however, the promise ofgreater fuel savings and lesser environmentaleffects will likely give the updated technologya better reception.


by PhilipButterworth-HayesContributing writer

Copyright© 2010 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

I t is increasingly possible that the next gen-eration of Airbus and Boeing single-aisleaircraft, due to enter service around

2019/2020, will fly with open rotor engines.Open rotor engines use a gas-turbine

core to drive a large-diameter fan which pro-pels large amounts of cool air around theouter part of the engine—creating very high“by-pass” ratios and thereby considerably in-creasing the efficiency of the engine over con-ventional turbofans.

Rolls-Royce and General Electric (GE)have made sufficient progress in their com-peting open rotor technology demonstrationprograms that both companies believe the en-gines will be able to deliver the necessary step-changes in economics while meeting stringentnew performance and noise targets. The con-cept has been proven, both say—now the hardwork starts on defining the details of the en-gine architecture that will provide the vital 1-2% competitive advantage.

Reviving an old ideaFor GE, the past two years of open rotor re-

search has involved revisiting the unducted fan(UDF) technology of the past. GE and the Fun-damental Aeronautics Program of NASA’sAeronautics Research Mission Directorate inWashington are jointly funding a researchprogram into open rotor research, while GE’spartner in the CFM International consortiumSnecma is concentrating on fan blade de-signs. The three organizations are essentiallyrecreating the GE36 research team of themid-1980s.

LEAP-X is the CFM International techno-logy program focusing on future advances fornext-generation CFM-56 engines. Ted Ingling,the program’s manager of engineering, leadsthe company’s open rotor work.

“The early generation of engines werebuilt at a time when fuel was at a very highprice, and it was thought it would stay like thatforever,” according to Ingling. “We demon-strated in ground and flight tests the theoryand practice of open rotors. Fundamentally itwas a sound technology to put fuel perform-ance first and then work on delivering Stage IIInoise performance in the production version.”

Open rotorresearch

revsup

Hayeslayout310.qxd:AAFEATURE-layout.Template 2/8/10 12:01 PM Page 2


bring the engine up to today’s standard of re-liability is the design of the pitch changemechanism, which will allow us to change thefan-blade orientation depending on the Machnumber and throttle setting. That mechanismis a piece of equipment that will be embeddedin machinery, so reliability and weight are key

Two basic challengesIngling believes that, apart from meeting strin-gent new reliability certification and operatingstandards, there are two fundamental designchallenges to be met in the next generation ofopen rotor engines: acoustics, and the reliabil-ity of the pitch-change mechanism.

“Today requirements are different,” hesays. “Regulations are more stringent, and thechallenge is to reduce the source of noise dra-matically. This means looking at the sourcenoise of the props and how they integratewith the airframe. We will have to make sub-stantial changes to blade designs, and it’s stillnot clear exactly what the optimal acousticperformance will look like.

“All propellers lose efficiency at highspeed, as the tips of the propeller approachthe speed of sound. This creates increasing‘wave drag,’ which can be obviated by in-creasing the number of blades and developing‘swept’ or ‘scimitar’ designs. In these designsthe blade is progressively more swept towardthe outside, to counter the increasing speed.

“The second enabling technology to

The acoustic challenge will have to be met by any open rotor design going forward.

Increased wave drag can beobviated by increasing thenumber of blades anddeveloping swept or scimitardesigns.



The team is currently designing and test-ing a classic airfoil design to a certain level ofperformance and will then be “looking at anenhanced design to see how the goal of aStage III tradeoff with performance can bemade,” says Ingling.

“The speed at which the aircraft cruiseswill have major implications for the design,” hesays. “As a company we are putting a greatdeal of investment into the program, but wehave to be selective about where that invest-ment goes.

“I am extremely encouraged on theacoustic side that we will get to where weneed to be—but at some stage we will have tolook at how we are going to trade overall en-gine efficiency against acoustics. Will thenoise issue be more important than green-house gas emissions, for example? Should wecustomize performance or trade it against en-vironmental improvements? Many of these is-sues will depend on what certification stan-dards are employed. At the moment it’s tooearly to determine how much we should lookat trading noise improvements with fuel burnperformance,” Ingling says.

Other efforts toward the goalThe goal is to have a certified engine in pro-duction, providing double-digit performanceenhancements over contemporary turbofans,by the end of the next decade.

GE and Snecma will feed new technolo-gies into the open rotor research from theLeap X research program as they becomeavailable. GE is redesigning the CFM-56 coreto provide around 7% of the targeted 16%fuel consumption improvement for the newengine; Snecma’s work on the CFM Leap Xprogram is focused on developing new 1.8-m-diam blades manufactured through a 3D resintransfer molding process.

Snecma’s understanding of open rotorfan-blade design will be enhanced through itswork on the €40-million DREAM (validationof radical engine architecture systems) pro-gram, a three-year research project led byRolls-Royce and funded half by European in-dustry and half by the European Commission.During the past year one-fifth-scale and one-seventh-scale blade testing has taken place atRussia’s Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute,on electrically powered rigs at speeds of up toMach 0.85.

The DREAM work is also part of a widerEuropean research initiative into next-genera-tion engines called the Sustainable and GreenEngine Integrated Technology Demonstrator

enablers of the technology,” Ingling says.For the past two years GE has been re-

viewing the data from the 1980s, talking tothe technicians and engineers involved in ear-lier UDF studies and seeing what improve-ments could be made with current testing tech-nology. “We have focused on how much moreacoustic benefit we could get using moderntools—especially in areas such as predictingoutcomes of new aerodynamic designs,” saysIngling. “In the 1980s there was a lot of trialand error. We’ve taken some of the data fromthe old rigs, run new aerodynamic designs,and launched additional analysis in areas suchas aerodynamic testing, aeroperformance, andacoustics. The new advanced codes tell us thatfor the same acoustic signature, we could re-cover overall engine performance.”

With the first-generation UDF, accordingto Ingling, GE engineers had to sacrifice someof the engine’s overall performance capabili-ties to meet the Stage III noise requirements.

Wind tunnel testingIn the next stage of research, GE Aviation andNASA have been working together on a windtunnel test program to evaluate counterrotat-ing fan-blade systems. The research phase be-gan in 2009 and is continuing into 2010. Theteam has built a one-fifth subscale model com-prising two rows of counterrotating fanblades, with 12 blades in the front row and 10in the back. They are being tested in simulatedflight conditions in NASA Glenn’s low-speedwind tunnel to simulate low-altitude aircraftspeeds for acoustic evaluation, and in Glenn’shigh-speed wind tunnel to simulate high-alti-tude cruise conditions.

Building on the pastGeneral Electric developed its GE36 unducted fan (UDF) featuring an aft-mounted,open rotor fan system with two rows of counterrotating composite fan blades duringthe mid-1980s. It was a joint development with NASA and Snecma, GE’s French partnerin the Snecma consortium that had a 35% stake in the program.

The core was based on a GE F404 military turbofan. Exhaust gases weredischarged through a seven-stage low-pressure (LP) turbine; each stator ring wasdesigned to move freely in the opposite direction to that of the rotors. One set of fanblades was connected to the LP turbine rotor system and the other set to the contra-rotating LP turbine stators—effectively creating a 14-stage LP turbine system.

The GE36 flew on the Boeing 727 and MD-80 aircraft and enabled speeds ofaround Mach 0.75. Although specific fuel consumption improvements of around 30%better than contemporary jet aircraft were measured, there were extensive noise andvibration issues—though the engine met Stage III noise limits, according to companyofficials.

An alternative UDF test program in the mid-1980s was pioneered by Allison andPratt & Whitney. The 578-DX propfan featured a more conventional reduction gearboxbetween the LP turbine and the propfan blades and was also flight tested on an MD-80.

Snecma is heading up SAGE workon the direct-drive open rotorconcept engine.


Developers of open rotor technologies face a numberof challenging hurdles, not all of them technical:

•Competing technologies. The efficiency of currenttechnology engines is improving at an average of 1% ayear—which means traditional turbofan engines availablein 2020 are likely to be at least 11% more efficient thantoday’s production models, without any major technol-ogy risk. Meanwhile, the Pratt & Whitney PW1000Ggeared turbofan could provide a 22-23% fuelefficiencygain by 2017, according to the company, while the CFMInternational non-open rotor LEAP-X design could pro-vide 16% lower fuel consumption than the CFM56-7 by2018. Some manufacturers are skeptical about open ro-tor technology, worried that installation effects, addi-tional weight, complexity and interference drag couldobviate any improvements in fuel savings.

•Slower aircraft operating speeds. An open rotorpowered aircraft is likely to have a cruising speed 5-10% slower than a turbofan powered aircraft. “The av-erage route length for a single-aisle short/medium-range airliner is around 500 n.mi.,” according toRolls-Royce’s Nuttall, “and at that range, speed is notcrucially important.”

•Regulatory issues. Engine and airframe manufac-turers have already approached regulators such as the

European Aviation Safety Agency and the FAA to de-termine whether there might be any airworthinesscertification concerns around issues such as enginelayout and blade containment. Manufacturers wouldneed to know as early as possible if regulators didhave major concerns, to eliminate areas of potentiallywasteful research.

•Airframe integration. The integration of the en-gine within the airframe will be a critical issue, espe-cially if the prop diameter is close to the 170 in. underreview by Rolls-Royce. With this size blade a “pusher”arrangement would be more elegant, as the engineswould be placed behind the rear pressure bulkhead inthe fuselage, minimizing noise. It also would allow foran aerodynamically “clean” wing. A “puller” arrange-ment would dictate a high wing design, with the largerotating assembly next to the fuselage.

•Public perception. In the 1980s manufacturerswere concerned that passengers viewed propeller-dri-ven aircraft as outmoded, noisy and slow. Open rotorengine manufacturers have started some early re-search into this area. But it is likely that the environ-mental concerns of the 20th-century traveling publicwould make the open rotor concept an easier “sell”than the UDF concepts of the 1980s.


for strategic marketing at Rolls-Royce. Earlywind tunnel tests have shown its design wouldcomfortably meet current Stage IV noise reg-ulations. Tests were finished earlier this yearat the DNW wind tunnel in the Netherlands,using a one-sixth-scale electrically driven ro-tor to simulate low-speed operations, includ-ing takeoffs and landings. “We ran differentconfigurations and different numbers ofblades at different blade speeds—we finallydiscovered the optimal configuration for low-noise open rotor operations,” says Nuttall.

The model is now undergoing high-speedtests at the Bedford (U.K.) Aircraft ResearchAssociation transonic wind tunnel. “We firstran these tests at the end of 2008 and spentthe first quarter of 2009 understanding the re-sults,” says Nuttall. “We’re still being very cau-tious with our claims but we think that, interms of economic performance, our openrotor engine will perform 25% to 30% betterthan current turbofans.”

Rolls-Royce has yet to firm up on a coredesign. “We have a number of options in thisarea,” says Nuttall, “and we now have an in-ternal competition between our two-shaftcenter of excellence in Dahlewitz [Germany]and our three-core center of excellence inDerby, U.K.”

Nuttall believes there are five key tech-nology risks that must be addressed—thegearbox, pitch change mechanism, blades,

(SAGE ITD), a component of the €1.6-billionClean Sky Joint Technology Initiative researchprogram. SAGE researchers will develop twotypes of open rotor demonstrator engines.

Rolls-Royce is heading up work on ageared open rotor demonstrator, in a €111-million program involving Rolls-Royce ITP,Deutschland, Volvo Aero, Airbus, and Alenia.The research will focus on the propeller pitchmechanism, the donor core gas turbine, thetransmission system that transfers energyfrom the free power turbine to the contraro-tating assemblies, and the contrarotating pro-pellers themselves.

Snecma is heading up SAGE work on thedirect-drive open rotor concept engine. This€135-million program involves Hispano-Suiza, Techspace Aero, Aircelle, AVIO, VolvoAero, Airbus, and Alenia Macchi, with workfocused on the propeller pitch change mecha-nism, the contrarotating propellers, the con-trarotating turbine directly linked to the pro-pellers, and the gas generator.

Rolls-Royce, meanwhile, has already un-dertaken high- and low-speed tests of variousconfigurations of its own propriety technologyresearch program and has dedicated a newtesting regime, which it calls “Rig 145,” to de-tailed open rotor concept validation.

“We have now moved open rotor workfrom the theoretical physics to the engineer-ing stage,” says Robert Nuttall, vice president

Competitive market and technology challenges



Both GE and Rolls-Royce are working toa similar timescale. Rolls-Royce has targetedits flight demonstration with an open rotor en-gine—based on the core of a current produc-tion engine—for 2014, and a final go/no-godecision shortly after that, with a service dateof 2020.

Market uncertaintiesWhile both GE and Rolls-Royce have proventhat the core concept of the open rotor is vi-able—that 25% fuel improvements over cur-rent engines are possible within current andplanned noise regulations—there are still agreat many market uncertainties to overcome.

For Airbus or Boeing to consider an openrotor for their A320 or B737 replacementfamilies, they would have to embrace someradical new design concepts and be sure aboutthe key operating cost and environmentaldrivers that will prevail over the next 40 years.“One of the fundamental remaining questionsis whether you trade noise for carbon dioxideemissions,” according to Nuttall. “It will de-pend on what the industry wants.”

The problem for engine and airframemanufacturers is that no one can be quite surewhat the industry will really want in 2030.

noise/vibration, and airframe integration. Inone of its preferred current configurations,Rolls-Royce is working on an engine with170-in.-diam contrarotating blades—roughlythe diameter of regional jet fuselage. This willdemand a 16,000 shp gearbox to drive thecontrarotating blades, a sophisticated pitch-change mechanism and highly aerodynamicblade design made of composite materials.

“In the work so far we have proved wecan deliver what we thought we could at amacro level. Now the work is to zoom downto specific work areas such as blades and thegearbox. In this we are now looking for part-ners—a pitch-change mechanism is not some-thing we are expert in, for example.”

Airframe integration is a sensitive issue,as much of this work will have to be pioneeredby airframe manufacturers themselves. Rolls-Royce, Boeing, Ruag Aerospace, and De-harde Maschinenbau began a research pro-gram in May 2009 to test a model conceptairframe this year at Ruag’s low-speed windtunnel in Emmen, Switzerland. Airbus is work-ing with engine manufacturers on new engineintegration issues within the Clean Sky pro-gram, which should deliver the first resultsaround 2014.

Rolls-Royce is targeting 2014 fora flight demonstration of itsopen rotor engine but its designhas not yet been locked in.

the cockpit to the design labs and ground con-trol stations—and making the same kinds oftransitions and merged conceptualizationsamong engineers and even corporations. It isa challenge many others are taking on, at var-ious levels—with hundreds of companies indozens of nations around the world producinghundreds, if not thousands, of different UAVsevery year.

For Boeing, it is both a small gamble—interms of actual money invested by a companyaccustomed to spending billions on develop-ing a single new aircraft—and a big change inperspective.

Whether UAS someday represents 10%or 50% of Boeing Military Aircraft revenuesdepends on the company’s ability not only tobring all the requisite components together tomeet stated requirements, but also to antici-pate future needs and push the thresholds oftechnology. It also depends on how a militarycustomer that essentially dismissed UAVs fordecades—until technology evolved to makethem an indispensable combat asset—will lookat them in the future.

For small militaries that cannot affordlarge fleets of expensive manned aircraft, itwill be far easier to acquire and field UAVs toperform virtually any task now handled bymanned platforms. And there will be growingpressure, both budgetary and political, on na-tions such as the U.S. to use UAVs and otherrobotic platforms instead of far less expend-able human warfighters.

“I don’t think unmanned necessarily willsupplant lots of manned, but there will beplenty of both. I don’t believe today we knowfor sure if a next-generation fighter, bomber,or tanker will be manned, unmanned, or par-tially both. Across the board, the services arestill evaluating what those future systems willlook like,” says Sweberg.

“Augmenting the power of the largermanned aircraft today—the fighters and com-mand and control—with unmanned real-timeISR and, in some cases, real-time strike capa-bility and the CONOPs and mission scenariosemploying that duality of systems—I think ulti-mately we will be able to do missions fasterand more effectively.”

Unmanned and airborne(Continued from page 17)


delta wing bomber. F. Mason and M.Windrow, Know Aviation, p. 60.

March 18 At the U.K.’s Jodrell BankExperimental Station (later the JodrellBank Observatory), Princess Margaretpresses a switch that activates acommand radio signal for thetransmission of data by the NASAPioneer probe, which is now 1,040,000mi. from Earth and heading towardthe exploration of a 26-million-mi.gap between the orbits of Earth andVenus. Flight, March 25, 1960, p. 400.

March 25 The Aerobee 150-A, thelatest model in the famous Aerobeefamily of sounding rockets, islaunched for the first time. Loftedfrom a new launch tower at NASA’sfacility at Wallops Island, Va., therocket reaches an altitude of 150 mi.,where it conducts micrometeoritecounts. E. Emme, ed., Astronauticsand Aeronautics 1915-60, p. 121.

March 25 The hypersonic X-15rocket research aircraft achievespowered flight, piloted by NASA’sJoseph A. Walker to 48,630 ft and1,320 mph. D. Jenkins, X-15, p. 611.

March 28 Clusteredengines of the Saturnlaunch vehicle are firedfor the first time. Inthis first test, two H-1engines in an eight-engine cluster are fired.In further tests on April6, four of the enginesare fired together, thenall eight. A maximumthrust of 1.3 million lbis reached when the clustered enginesare fired on May 17. D. Baker,Spaceflight and Rocketry, pp. 100-101.

75 Years Ago, March 1935

March 7 John Tranum, the world’smost famous parachutist, dies in a


March 25 The secretary of the Air Forceannounces changes in the combat exclusionpolicy to allow women to serve as forward aircontrollers, fly and crew several models ofC-130 Hercules aircraft, and serve at munitionsstorage facilities. USAF History Web site.


March 1 As part of the space exploration program, NASA establishes its Officeof Life Sciences to undertake research on basic medical and behavioral sciences.Studies will examine the effects of space and planetary environments on livingorganisms, and the possibilities for the existence of extraterrestrial life. D. Baker,Spaceflight and Rocketry, pp. 99-100.

March 6 Aviation pioneer Roy Knabenshue, whose earlyaccomplishments included making the first dirigible flight overNew York in 1905, dies at 83. In 1904, he also made a record-breaking lighter-than-air flight when he piloted the CaliforniaArrow airship at the Pan American Exposition to 2,000 ft.In 1910-1911 he was an aviator for the Wright exposition team;

in 1913 he flew the first passenger dirigible in the U.S., the WhiteCity. Flight, March 11, 1960, p. 327; Roy Knabenshue file, NASM.

March 8 The 60th and last Thor IRBM missile supplied to Britain is flown to theU.K. from the Douglas plant in Santa Monica, Calif., in a USAF Military AirTransport C-124 Globemaster. Flight, March 18, 1960, pp. 359-360.

March 11 The 90-lb Pioneer V space probe islaunched into a solar orbit around the Sun by aThor-Able 4. The spherical probe, featuring solar cellsand four paddle-like vanes, measures radiation andmagnetic fields between Earth and Venus. On its closestapproach, the probe comes within 74.7 million mi.of the Sun. Flight, March 18, 1960, p. 358; TheAeroplane, March 18, 1960, p. 331.

March 15 The Saturn launch vehicle project is officially transferred from theArmy Ballistic Missile Agency, headquartered at Redstone Arsenal, Ala., to NASA.Consequently, the rocket’s development team, led by Wernher von Braun, is alsomoved to NASA and assigned to the Marshall Space Flight Center, adjacent toRedstone Arsenal. E. Emme, ed., Astronautics and Aeronautics 1915-60, p. 120.

March 15 Russian plans for sending spacecraft to Venus and Mars are approvedby Mstislav V. Keldysh, vice president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.D. Baker, Spaceflight and Rocketry, p. 100.

March 15 The 43rd Bomb Wing at Carswell AFB,near Fort Worth, Texas, becomes the first USAFunit activated with the Convair B-58B Hustler


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March 8 Three Dornier Wal flying boats of the Royal Dutch Navy under thecommand of Cmdr. W.H. Tepenburg arrive in Manila from the Netherlands EastIndies, the first Dutch aircraft to be seen in the Philippines. Although Tepenburgannounces that this is a goodwill flight, it is actually a mission to explore thepossibility of air service from Batavia to Manila. This service is not begun. E. Santos,Trails in Philippine Skies, pp. 183-184; The Aeroplane, March 27, 1935, p. 365.

March 9 Hermann Goering announces the existence of theGerman air force to Ward Price, correspondent of the LondonDaily Mail. This implies the unilateral breaking of the Treatyof Versailles clauses that prohibit a German air force.E. Emme, ed., Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1915-60, p. 32.

March 14 The Percival Gull aircraft is demonstrated for the first time atGravesend, England. The low-wing cantilever monoplane cruises at 152 mphwith three people, 75 lb of luggage and enough fuel for 600 mi. Top speed is172 mph. It lands at 43 mph with flaps down. The designer, Edgar Percival,demonstrates the plane to a private party. The Aeroplane, March 20, 1935, p. 328.

March 22 Deutsche Zeppelin Reederei, a new Zeppelin company, is formed withHermann Goering as president. Since Goering is Germany’s air minister, the firmwill come under close government supervision. Zeppelin pioneer Hugo Eckner ispresident of the company’s board of control. The firm is to develop transoceanicZeppelin services over the North and South Atlantic. The Aeroplane, March 27,1935, p. 366.

March 28 Robert H. Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket equippedwith gyroscopic controls. The nearly 15-ft-tall rocket reaches 4,800 ft at anaverage speed of 550 mph at Roswell, N.M. German experimenter Alfred Maulwas the first to use a gyroscope in a rocket for stabilization, although the rocketwas propelled by solid-fuel gunpowder. His experiments, in about 1912, were forthe purpose of developing military reconnaissance rockets that would carrycameras for photographing terrain from high altitudes. E. Goddard and G. Pendray,eds., The Papers of Robert H. Goddard; E. Emme, ed., Aeronautics and Astronautics1915-60; W. Ley, Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel (1958 ed.).


March 8 Baroness de Laroche of France isthe first woman to receive a pilot’s license.C. Gibbs-Smith, Aviation, p. 158; Flight,Oct. 30, 1909, p. 695.

March 10 Night flights are made for the first time by Emil Aubrun of France,who makes two such trips of 20 km each on a Blériot to and from Villalugano, a

suburb of Buenos Aires, Argentina. C. Gibbs-Smith,Aviation, p. 152.

March 28 Henri Fabre achieves the first flight ina seaplane, a Gnome-powered floatplane, atMartigues, near Marseilles, France. C. Gibbs-Smith,Aviation, p. 153.

An Aerospace Chronologyby Frank H.Winter, Ret.

and Robert van der Linden

National Air and Space Museum

Danish army plane over Copenhagenwhen his oxygen equipment malfunc-tions. He was attempting a parachutedrop from 25,000 ft. Danish-bornTranum emigrated to California,where was a movie stunt man. In thelate 1920s he went to England anddemonstrated Russell parachutes andIrving Air Chutes. His longest droptook place in May 1933, when hejumped from a plane at 21,000 ftover Salisbury Plain. He droppedmore than 17,000 ft, claimed as aworld’s record. Tranum scientificallychecked his parachute results with astopwatch and aneroid barometerand turned over the results to theU.S. Army Air Corps. The Aeroplane,March 13, 1935, p. 290.

March 8 Robert H.Goddard launchesone of his liquid-propellant rocketsfrom Roswell,N.M. He testsan equalizer toprevent liquidoxygen tank pressurefrom exceeding gasolinepressure. The rocket is also equippedwith a pendulum stabilizer and a 10-ftrecovery parachute. It reaches analtitude of 1,000 ft and lands 11,000ft from the tower. In a letter writtena few days later Goddard remarks,“We had the best flight we have everhad during the entire research. Thestreamlined rocket traveled nearly700 mph and…showed the first realindication of the rocket directing it-self. It was very impressive. It lookedlike a meteor passing across the sky.”E. Goddard and G. Pendray, eds., ThePapers of Robert H. Goddard.


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