Europa Mission may Have Budget Squeeze in FY 2017

While NASA says its support for a mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa is now aligned with Congress, project officials are preparing for a possible “squeeze” on mission funding in the next fiscal year.

In presentations at an Aug. 11 meeting of NASA’s Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG) in Flagstaff, Arizona, officials involved with what’s widely known as the Europa Clipper mission said they are looking for ways to cut costs in 2017 while keeping the mission on track for a 2022 launch.

“There is this squeeze in FY17 that we have,” said Bob Pappalardo, the mission’s project scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said. “We’re asking the instrument teams and various other aspects of the project, given that squeeze, what will it take in the out years to maintain that ’22 launch. We’re actively pursuing that question as we speak.”

Pappalardo didn’t elaborate on the budget details, but the administration’s request for the mission in its 2017 budget proposal, $49.6 million, is far less than the $175 million it received from Congress in 2016. There is uncertainty in Congress as well: a House appropriations bill for fiscal year 2017 offers $260 million for the Europa mission, yet a Senate bill, while “supportive” of the mission, does not explicitly allocate any funds for it. Neither bill has been passed by either chamber.

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NASA to get $19.5 Billion in House Budget, Europa Orbiter & Lander get $260M

The House Appropriations Committee has released a spending bill that would give NASA a budget of $19.5 billion for fiscal year 2017, which is $500 million above President Barack Obama’s request. The measure boosts spending for exploration and science programs.

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American Directed Energy Weapons not Getting Enough Funding

On Capitol Hill and in the Pentagon’s courtyard earlier this month, the focus was on developing new air and ground-based weapons that would direct high-energy beams against a range of threats — from frying enemy roadside bombs to zapping ballistic missiles in the boost phase.

Despite the promise held out by industry proponents of lasers and high-power microwave bursts, military officials and senators from both sides of the aisle said that lack of funding was putting a crimp on the necessary research and testing for the new weapons under the constraints of the 2011 Budget Control Act.

“We’re on an unaffordable path” for research, said Adm. William E. Gortney, who was expected to retire this summer as head of U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, said at an April 13 Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces hearing on Ballistic Missiles Defense Policies and Programs.

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Is the US Navy Serious About Buying the V-22s for Shipboard Logistics?

After years of hesitation, the Navy finally decided last year to buy 44 CMV-22B variant Ospreys to replace its C-2A Greyhound airplanes in Carrier Onboard Delivery (COD) missions. But the way the Navy handled the V-22 in this year’s budget calls into question how firm its commitment to buying that many Ospreys really is. The Navy has so many competing, expensive and higher priorities that some Osprey partisans wonder if the money will be there for all those aircraft in the end even if, as expected, the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) and Osprey makers Bell Helicopter and Boeing Co. negotiate a new multiyear contract – a bulk purchase at lower unit prices. In other words, the poverty penalty could come into play.

“The stress on the budget is real, it’s acute,” said one retired Marine general. “We don’t know right now how many airplanes the Department of the Navy is going to buy. If the multi-year falls apart, it could be less.”

Under an informal rule set by Congress, multiyear contracts are required to provide at least a 10 percent saving over annual contracts. Under the final year of the program’s second multiyear contract, the Marine Corps requested 16 Ospreys in fiscal 2017 at a “flyaway” price of $74.7 million apiece. Future projections released with this year’s budget show that price rising to $94.7 million per Osprey if they don’t get a new multiyear.

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Stealth Saga #23

KF-X:

South Korea's KF-X project for a indigenous stealth fighter has kicked into gear.

PAK-FA:

Russia has learned stealth aircraft are hard and expensive, as witnessed by the buy of new Su-35s and cutting back the planned buy of the Sukhoi Pak-FA.

MiG-31 Replacement:

The replacement program has been delayed until at least 2020.

Budget:

The US Air Force is facing a budget problem with the F-35, Long Range Strike Bomber and new tanker.

Sixth Generation Fighter:

Boeing's defense unit is under enormous pressure to win a contract, one of which is the 6th gen fighter.

Long Range Strike Bomber:

The acquisition of the long range strike bomber gets profiled and the method of acquisition discussed.  We're likely to see this methodology repeated, including on the 6th generation fighter.  What is not generally acknowledged is there were two prototypes built and tested for the LRSB program.

The Economist talks about Obama's plan to replace the American nuclear arsenal, of which the LRSB is part.

F-22:

The US Air Force is squelching the idea of restarting F-22 production.

Here's more on the first combat seen by an F-22.

Eight F-22s have been deployed to Japan.

F-35:

The US DOD has stated the fix will come later this year for the ejection seat problem despite media reports.

The Pentagon and P&W announced an agreement for the next engine buy for the F-35.

The first combat coded F-35A has to start dropping bombs in tests. 

 The Storm Shadow missile will not be integrated with Britain's F-35Bs.

Chinese soldiers have been linked to the hack going after F-35 technical information.

Norway is facing a dual crunch of a weak currency and low oil prices when it comes to buying the F-35.

Russia Officially Cans Lunar Exploration Until at Least 2025

According to the FSP for years 2016-2025, the Russian space industry will refrain from creating a lunar landing complex, a lunar orbital station, a lunar space suit and the system of robotic software for Moon flights, the newspaper said.

In 2012, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees the country’s space industry, suggested setting up space research base on the Moon, and pledged to personally control and manage all the processes related to its construction and functioning in the future.

Roscosmos also decided to suspend the project, and the Federal Space Program does not include expenses for it.

The suspension of the so-called Moon Program allowed to save the budget some 88.5 billion rubles ($1.2 billion at the current exchange rate), the newspaper notes.

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US Navy Told to cut Littoral Combat Ship buy From 52 to 40, Downselect to one Design in FY2019

The US Navy's fight to buy 52 variants of its littoral combat ship (LCS) from two shipbuilders may have taken a fatal blow this week after the secretary of defense directed the service to cap its buy at 40 ships and pick only one supplier. The directive also orders the Navy to buy only one ship annually over the next four years, down from three per year.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter, in a Dec. 14 memo to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, told the Navy to "reduce the planned LCS/FF procurement from 52 to 40, creating a 1-1-1-1-2 profile, for eight fewer ships in the FYDP, and then downselect to one variant by FY 2019."

FF is a Navy designation for frigate. Beginning with LCS 33, the Navy is planning to build a more heavily-armed LCS variant with the FF designation — the result of a 2014 directive from then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to produce a more powerful ship.

The "1-1-1-1-2" profile would provide for one ship each year in 2017-2020 and two ships in 2021, the end of the current future years defense plan (FYDP).

Carter, in the Dec. 14 memo, directs the Navy to reallocate savings from the LCS/FF cuts to buy more F/A-18 and F-35 aircraft, more SM-6 surface-to-air missiles, and support Virginia Payload Module (VPM) development for future Virginia-class submarines. The VPM is an extra hull section that would be built into Block V submarines and mount four large vertical payload tubes.

The directive to cut the LCS comes in the face of strenuous Navy objections. The service has argued that building a ship takes much longer than ordering a new aircraft or missile.

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NASA Budget Grows by More Than $750 Million

The final version of a fiscal year 2016 spending bill will provide NASA with nearly $19.3 billion, funding most agency programs at or above the administration’s original request.

The omnibus spending bill, released by House and Senate appropriators early Dec. 16 after extended negotiations, allocates $19.285 billion to NASA for fiscal year 2016. That total is $756 million above the administration’s requested budget and the total provided the agency in a House spending bill passed in August. It is nearly $1 billion above a Senate bill that appropriators approved in June but was never passed by the full Senate.

That increased spending, enabled by a budget bill passed in October that raised overall spending caps for discretionary programs, allowed appropriators to avoid long-standing debates about agency spending priorities by funding most programs at, or in some cases well above, the administration’s request.

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The Budget Battle Begins: F-35 vs the LRS-B

he F-35 is going to eat up so much of the Air Force’s procurement budget going forward that the service will likely have to reduce the number of Joint Strike Fighters it buys to pay for other things, such as the Long Range Strike-Bomber, experts said on Tuesday.

As part of the Defense Department’s proposed budget for fiscal 2016, the Air Force would purchase 44 F-35s this fiscal year, 48 in fiscal 2017 and 60 each year from fiscal 2018 through 2020, budget documents show. The total procurement cost of the 1,763 F-35s is about $215 billion.

The Air Force also plans buy between 80 and 100 Long Range Strike-Bombers for up to $100 billion. The new bomber will replace the Air Force’s fleet of B-1s and B-52s.

In order to pay for the bomber, the Air Force will likely have to reduce the number of F-35s and other procurement programs, said Richard Aboulafia, an analyst for the Teal Group.

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Will Russia's Reserve Fund be Exhausted by end of Next Year?

Next year could become the last for the Reserve Fund, Russia’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Tuesday. The minister noted that Russia’s Reserve Fund will no longer be the main source to finance budget deficit from 2017.

"Our reserves volume [in 2015 - TASS] will decrease by approximately 2.6 trillion rubles ($40.85 bln) - more than half. This means that 2016 is the last year when we are able to spend our reserves that way. After that we will not have such resources," he said.

In the draft budget for 2016, the Reserve Fund is considered as the main source to finance the budget deficit. In particular, it is planned to allocate 2.137 trillion rubles for this purpose.

As a result, in the end of 2016 the fund will shrink to 1.051 trillion rubles ($16.4 bln), or 1.3% of GDP. In the beginning of 2015 the fund amounted to 4.946 trillion rubles ($77.161 bln), or 6.7% of GDP.

According to the 2016 budget draft by the Ministry of Finance, revenues of Russia’s federal budget for 2016 are projected at 13.577 trillion rubles ($217 bln), expenses at 15.761 trillion rubles ($252 bln), leading to budget deficit of 2.184 trillion rubles ($34.9 bln).

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Some Naval and Marine Aviation News, Including UCLASS, From DOD Authorization Act

Here's a short list:

1.  6 Additional F-35Bs for the US Marine Corps, bring their total for 2016 to 15.

2.  12 Additional F-18Es for the US Navy.

3.  An additional MQ-4C Triton.

4.  $350 million for UCLASS (navy asked for $135M).   Up to $305M may be used for competitive prototyping and at least some of it is supposed to be used for the X-49B testing to reduce the risk of UCLASS.  The committee also said:

“The conferees believe that the Navy should develop a penetrating, air-refuelable, unmanned carrier-launched aircraft capable of performing a broad range of missions in a non- permissive environment. The conferees believe that such an aircraft should be designed for full integration into carrier air wing operations—including strike operations—and possess the range, payload, and survivability attributes as necessary to complement such integration,” according to the statement.

“Although the Defense Department could develop land-based unmanned aircraft with attributes to support the air wing, the conferees believe that the United States would derive substantial strategic and operational benefits from operating such aircraft from a mobile seabase that is self-deployable and not subject to the caveats of a host nation.”

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San Francisco's Transbay Transit Center Budget Explodes Past $2 Billion

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US Air Force Screwed up Long Range Strike Bomber Budget Estimates...TWICE

The U.S. Air Force misstated the 10-year cost for research, procurement and support of its new long-range bomber in annual reports to Congress.

Last year, the Air Force estimated the cost of the top secret Long-Range Strike Bomber at $33.1 billion from fiscal 2015 through 2025. This year, it reported the fiscal 2016-2026 cost as $58.4 billion.

Asked to explain the change from one estimate to the other, the Air Force responded that both numbers were wrong -- and the correct ones were $41.7 billion for each period. The 10-year cost is the first installment in what could be a 30-year program.

“The Air Force is working through the appropriate processes to ensure” that the congressionally mandated report “is corrected, and that our reports in subsequent years are accurate,” Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said in an e-mail.

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This Looks Familiar: Socialism, American Style

THE great 20th-century conservative economist Joseph Schumpeter thought the left had overlooked a major selling point in pressing the case for public — i.e., government — control over productive capital. “One of the most significant titles to superiority,” he suggested, was that public ownership produced profits, which means not having to depend on taxes to raise money.

The bulk of the left never took up Schumpeter’s argument. But in an oddly fitting twist, these days the mantra of public control in exchange for lower taxes has been embraced by a surprising quarter of the American political leadership: conservatives.

The most well-known case is Alaska. The Alaska Permanent Fund, established by a Republican governor in 1976, combines not one, but two socialist principles: public ownership and the provision of a basic income for all residents. The fund collects and invests proceeds from the extraction of oil and minerals in the state. Dividends are paid out annually to all state residents.

Texas is another example of conservative socialism in practice. Almost 150 years ago the Texas Permanent School Fund took control of roughly half of all the land and associated mineral rights still in the public domain. In 1953, coastal “submerged lands” were added after being relinquished by the federal government. Each year distributions from the fund go to support education; in 2014 alone it gave $838.7 million to state schools. Another fund, the $17.5 billion Permanent University Fund, owns more than two million acres of land, the proceeds of which help underwrite the state’s public university system.

Similar socialized funds — sometimes called sovereign wealth funds — are common in other conservative states. The Permanent Wyoming Mineral Trust Fund, with a market value of more than $7 billion accumulated from mineral extraction, is almost a direct expression of Schumpeter’s doctrine: Socialized ownership has helped to eliminate income taxes in the state.

Such “socialism, American style,” can produce odd reversals of conservative-liberal political alignments. One of the largest “socialist” enterprises in the nation is the Tennessee Valley Authority, a publicly owned company with $11 billion in sales revenue, nine million customers and 11,260 employees that produces electricity and helps manage the Tennessee River system. In 2013 President Obama proposed privatizing the T.V.A., but local Republican politicians, concerned with the prospect of higher prices for consumers and less money for their states, successfully opposed the idea.

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Navy Sec Mabus: UCLASS for ISR, US Senate: No

Sec Mabus states UCLASS is a stepping stone to an unmanned fight and ought to be focused on ISR:

Ray Mabus likes robots. The Navy Secretary has declared the F-35 will be “the last manned strike fighter” the service ever buys and invested heavily in unmanned aircraft, boats, and submersibles. But Mabus has frustrated drone advocates on one major program: the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) aircraft.

This morning, Mabus defended the Navy’s plans for a relatively modest UCLASS optimized for the “surveillance” aspect of its mission rather than the “strike” part — but he also promised UCLASS would be “the bridge” to a future unmanned strike plane, the one that replaces F-35. Given that the F-35 will be around for decades, however, this two-stage approach is unlikely to satisfy UCLASS critics like Senate ARmed Services chairman John McCain, House Seapower chairman Rep. Randy Forbes, and key players in the Pentagon itself, all of whom want a strike drone ASAP to deal with China.

Mabus said today at a DefenseOne leadership breakfast that “I’m for a full-up penetrating strike fighter” — eventually. “We see UCLASS as getting to that,” he said — but, he made clear, not as being that.

“For UCLASS…we ought to have endurance, we ought to have range, we ought to have payload,” he said, notably omitting stealth. “It should be an ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] platform, it should be a refueling platform, but it also should be a strike platform [for] uncontested or minimally contested environments.”

In the longer term, he said, “it ought to be the bridge to a full-up strike fighter — an autonomous strike fighter — that [operates] in contested environments.”

Senator Forbes replies:

“Building ‘bridges’ sounds great, but at some point you need to cross them,” Rep. Forbes snapped in an email when I asked about Mabus’s comments. “While I understand the Navy’s desire to ‘crawl, walk, and run,’ I am concerned that in the race between anti-access and power projection capabilities, we are falling further and further behind. The carrier air wing is going to need a long-range, deep penetrating strike asset, and it is going to need it soon. Given that the UCLASS program is supposed to deliver its first operational aircraft to the fleet in 2022-23, I am concerned that the program seems to be driven by the needs of today and not those of tomorrow.”

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Long-Range Strike Bomber Does not Need the $460 Million cut From Budget Until Contract Awarded

The two-star general in charge of the US Air Force’s nuclear mission says the Long-Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B) programme is “going exceedingly well” and meeting its major milestones despite a four-month delay to downselecting a prime contractor.

Maj Gen Garrett Harencak says he agrees with the $460 million funding reduction recently proposed by the house armed services committee for fiscal 2016, since the air force won’t be able to spend big on the programme until the contract is awarded anyway. Northrop Grumman and a Boeing-Lockheed Martin team are vying for the contract.

“We can keep this system on track and take those reductions,” he said at a 13 May Air Force Association event in Washington, noting that there would likely be years when money needs to be shifted from another account to support the bomber.

According to language in the committee’s defense policy bill, the four-month contract delay left the air force with $360 million in surplus funding appropriated for fiscal 2015 that can cover some of next year’s expenditures. The additional $100 million can be cut due to a “slower spend rate” in fiscal 2016. In total, the committee would fund the LRS-B at $786.2 million. The programme requires $14 billion in funding over the next five years.

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NASA may Request Money in 2017 Budget to Begin Work to use ex NRO FIA Telescopes

NASA is considering requesting money in next year's budget to eventually start using two space telescopes it received from the United States' spy satellite agency, a senior official told Space.com.

NASA received the telescopes from the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in 2012. They have the same resolution as the agency's famous Hubble Space Telescope, but a field of view 200 times wider.

The telescopes are being eyed for use in a potential space mission called WFIRST-AFTA (the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope-Astrophysics Focused Telescope Assets), which could launch as early as 2024 if it gets the final go-ahead. WFIRST-AFTA's science goals include learning more about the mysterious dark energy that is accelerating the expansion of the universe.

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US Navy Asks Congress for Additional 12 F/A-18E/Fs and 8 F-35Cs Outside of Normal Budget

The U.S. Navy included 12 Boeing Co F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets and eight Lockheed Martin Corp F-35s on a list of "unfunded priorities" prepared for Congress, defense officials and other sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The Navy's list was reviewed by senior Pentagon officials and the Joint Chiefs of Staff this week, and should be sent to U.S. lawmakers in coming days, said the sources, who asked not to be named because the vetting is still under way.

Top Pentagon officials are skeptical about the weapons wish lists, and worry they help lawmakers "cherry pick" specific weapons programs to fund, while crowding out bigger priorities. However, they say they will not stand in the way of the military services complying with requests from lawmakers.

The total value of the additional 12 Boeing jets is around $1 billion, while the eight extra Lockheed jets would be just over $1 billion, the sources said.

A decision by Congress to fund the extra Boeing jets as part of the Navy's fiscal 2016 budget would help the company extend its St. Louis production line beyond the end of 2017, although it was not immediately clear for how long.

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Japan Budgets 20 P-1s, 5 V-22s & 6 F-35s

Japan’s parliament has approved a Y4.98 trillion ($42 billion) defence budget for FY2015, with a strong emphasis on new airpower capabilities.

The budget, posted on the web site of Japan’s defence ministry, is 2.8% higher than in FY2014, and sets a new record for Japanese defence spending.

It contains funding for several major aircraft programmes, notably 20 Kawasaki P-1 maritime patrol aircraft.

The budget will also see the radar and infrared sensors carried by the nation’s Lockheed Martin P-3C Orion aircraft upgraded, as well as service life extensions for three P-3Cs.

It also includes funding for five Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey aircraft, which will be part of a new amphibious capability modelled on the US Marine Corps.

Tokyo continues to place a premium on high-end intelligence surveillance & reconnaissance (ISR) platforms.

The budget includes improvements on one Boeing E-767 airborne early warning & control (AEW&C) aircraft, as well as the acquisition of one Northrop Grumman E-2D.

There is also funding toward Tokyo’s eventual procurement of the Northrop Grumman MQ-4 Global Hawk, but it does not specify a specific variant or the number of aircraft it plans to obtain.

Tokyo’s fighter fleet also gets a boost, with funding for six Lockheed Martin F-35As, the modernisation of eight F-15s, and improvements to nine Mitsubishi F-2 fighters.

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Russian Rearmament Program Delayed 4th Time, Supposed to be 1/2 Done, but Only 1/3

Russia's 10-year state rearmament programme has reached its halfway point but is only one third completed, the deputy chairman of the government's military industrial commission has conceded.

Oleg Bochkarev added in an interview with the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper on 26 December that the updated 2016 to 2025 armament programme is likely to be ready for signing by Russian president Vladimir Putin in December 2015.

Russia's current long-term defence plan - the 10-year Gosudarstvennyi Programme Vooruzheniya, or GPV - runs to 2020. It is the fourth such plan of its type and the most expensive in Russia's history. Formally announced in December 2010, the aim was to bring the proportion of modern weaponry in the Russian armoury to 70% by 2020.

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