EDITED BY PATRICIA J. PARMALEE

Kazak Composites’s PADD (precision aerial delivery of dropsondes) is a means of delivering sensors that can improve the placement accuracy of the U.S. Navy’s Antisubmarine Warfare (ASW). The service’s system “delivers unguided sensors that follow a ballistic trajectory, resulting in errors in actual placement point of the sensors,” says Kazak President Jerry Fanucci. PADD is an air vehicle delivery device coupled with a dropsonde launcher to provide a precision, standoff delivery capability using existing ASW.

U.S. Air Force Materiel Command at Hansom AFB, Mass., awarded Raytheon a $21.8-million contract for modifications to the Joint Environmental Toolkit (JET) program for next-generation weather systems. JET provides environmental intelligence and tailored network-centric solutions supporting warfighters on base in deployed operations. The contract covers Increment 2 of the program, focused on integration, consolidation and potential replacement of meteorological operational capabilities. JET engineering development and integration is based at Raytheon’s Omaha, Neb., site.

Schiebel’s remotely operated video enhanced receiver (Rover) has been tested and integrated onto the company’s Camcopter S-100 rotary-wing unmanned aircraft system. The integration enhances the flow of information to users on the ground. The integration “will greatly improve the field commander’s situational understanding and decision-making process,” says Neil Hunter, managing director of Schiebel. With a Rover system transmitter-equipped S-100, the UAV operator and ground units are seeing the same image.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) conducted a flight test of a two-stage Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI), from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., on June 6. The two-stage GBI is undergoing developmental testing as part of the Defense Department’s investment in a new missile defense option for homeland defense. A target missile was not launched for this test. Following flyout maneuvers, the two-stage booster delivered an exoatmospheric kill vehicle to a designated point in space.

Boeing recently announced that its ScanEagle Compressed Carriage (SECC) unmanned airborne system on May 12 underwent testing at a facility in eastern Oregon. In a 75-min. flight, the aircraft’s airworthiness and flight characteristics were evaluated in a simulated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission. The SECC, powered by a 6-hp., heavy-fuel engine, was launched from a ground vehicle, flew an autonomous flight plan at various altitudes and provided streaming video from its electro-optical/infrared sensor package to a nearby ground station.

Two weeks after Russia announced its plan to produce Israeli UAVs, Azerbaijan also is inaugurating a production line for Israel’s Aeronautics Defense Systems’ Aerostar and Orbiter UAVs. says Yaver Jamalov, Azerbaijani defense minister. The country’s defense industry will hold 51% of the joint venture. The contract with Aeronautics has an estimated value of more than $200 million. Azerbaijan has signaled interest in arming the UAVs with bombs and rockets. The country’s air force already operates several dozen Aerostar tactical UAVs and Orbiter mini-UAVs.

Taxi tests of the AeroVironment Global Observer hydrogen-powered high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft have been conducted at Edwards AFB, Calif. Next up is a final flight readiness review and initial low-altitude battery-powered flights.