With less money and fewer people to carry out a widening range of global missions, the U.S. military will need more satellite surveillance, unmanned aerial reconnaissance and other spy technology improvements to keep up with rapidly evolving threats around the world, the Pentagon’s top civilian intelligence officer says.
The U.S. Navy is evaluating a scaled-down version of the Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (Sewip) system for potential incorporation on future Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), Naval Sea Systems Command (Navsea) confirmed earlier this month. Sewip is an evolutionary development block upgrade program for the SLQ-32 Electronic Warfare (EW) System and will be designated as SLQ-32C(V)6. Still in the early stages of development, its purpose is to provide LCS with an improved electronic warfare suite to improve the ship’s defense capabilities, Navy officials say.
LONDON — Helicopter operator Bristow Group has confirmed it has purchased a pair of AgustaWestland AW139s as part of a contingency plan against delays in the certification of the search-and-rescue capable AW189. The two aircraft have been built by AgustaWestland in Italy as concerns grow about the availability of the new intermediate heavy AW189 to service Bristow’s so-called Long SAR contract with the U.K. Department of Transport.
Textron began fabrication this month of the Navy’s first Ship-to-Shore Connector (SSC) at its New Orleans plant. The Navy approved Textron In October 2014 to start production following the SSC Production Readiness Review, during which the Navy evaluated the design maturity, availability of materials, and industry’s ability to start and sustain fabrication.
LONDON – The U.S. Navy could fly its Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornets beyond 2040, a senior officer says. Speaking at the International Fighter Conference in London on Nov. 20, Rear Adm. Michael Manazir, the Navy’s director of air warfare, told delegates that by simply extrapolating the longevity of the current fleet of U.S. Marine Corps legacy Hornets, which are due to exit the inventory in 2030, it was likely that some F/A-18E/Fs and also EA-18G Growlers could still be flying 40 years after they entered service.
Forward Deployed Regional Maintenance Center (FDRMC) Detachment Rota completed its first selected restricted availability (SRA) on Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Donald Cook (DDG 75) earlier this month in Rota, Spain. The ship completed combined contractor and type commander sea trials after maintenance at the recently opened center, which benefits from the efforts of the Spanish navy and local industry while enabling U.S. ships to operate more effectively in the region.
BEIJING -— Japan has chosen the Northrop Grumman E-2D Hawkeye over the Boeing 737 AEW&C to fill a requirement for four surveillance aircraft, while also confirming it will go ahead with orders for the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk and Bell Boeing MV-22 Osprey. Three RQ-4s will be ordered in the fiscal year beginning in April 2015, NHK television says. The timing of orders for the other types is unknown. The defense ministry announced selection of the E-2D, RQ-4 and MV-22 on Nov. 21.
KELLSTROM DEFENSE AEROSPACE (Merex) has exclusive 3-year licensing agreement extension with Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Training to manufacture, market and sell KDA C-130 Short-Pod APU upgrade kits, installation kits and spare parts. VECTOR has 5-year contract to provide structural maintenance/support out of Fleetlands, U.K. for French navy Lynx Mk.4s. FOKKER TECHNOLOGIES was selected by Lockheed Martin to supply drag chute fairing assembly (ordered by Norway) for F-35.
An Israeli cabinet panel has rejected a decision of the defense minister to procure an additional 31 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters and limited the procurement of Israel’s second batch of JSFs to only 13.
Test data from the exposure of almost 4,000 material samples on the Materials International Space Station Experiment (Misse) are available online in a NASA database set up for scientists and researchers as part of the Materials and Processes Technical Information System (Maptis). Misse data available includes physical, mechanical and environmental properties for metallic and non-metallic materials that may be used in spacecraft.
Even before Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had formally announced his resignation Nov. 24, White House officials were already talking to reporters about potential successors – and about Hagel’s distance from the White House’s inner circle. Given the difficulty that seems to have been described by many a Cabinet official, maybe the question should not be who the White House will choose, but who will accept the offer.
Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron (VAW) 121, the “Bluetails,” launched its first E-2D Advanced Hawkeye earlier this month during a test flight from Naval Station Norfolk as the squadron gets ready to replace its E-2Cs with the new Hawkeyes.
HOUSTON – The International Space Station (ISS) returned to six-crew status late Nov. 23 with the arrival of three U.S., European and Russian crewmembers. They are prepared to kick off external changes that will pave the way for the dockings of future U.S. commercial crew transports and play initial host to a pair of veteran astronauts trained for a yearlong stay.
LONDON – The U.K. defense ministry has formally signed up for its first batch of four F-35B Joint Strike Fighters, following the finalization of production agreements between Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Defense Department.
Nov. 17, 2014 ARMY Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Stratford Connecticut, was awarded a $771,957,753 modification (P00201) to contract W58RGZ-12-C-0008 for 41 UH-60M helicopters and 24 HH-60M helicopters and to fund associated support functions. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity. NAVY
Louis Chenevert, the architect of the biggest aerospace and defense (A&D) acquisition ever and a driving force behind Pratt & Whitney’s geared turbofan (GTF) engine, has stepped down as chairman and CEO of United Technologies Corp. (UTC). Gregory J. Hayes, UTC’s chief financial officer, is replacing him as CEO. Edward A. Kangas, a member of UTC’s board, will become non-executive chairman.
GENERAL ATOMICS AERONAUTICAL SYSTEMS INC. (GA ASI), HONEYWELL and FAA tested proof-of-concept sense-and-avoid (SAA) system for unmanned aircraft using a Predator B; GA-ASI also flight-tested pre-production air-to-air radar for SAA. NORTHROP GRUMMAN’s board of directors declared quarterly dividend of $0.70 per share on company common stock, payable Dec. 17, to shareholders of record as of the close of business Dec. 1.
Lockheed Martin has crafted a reduced-cost plan to “optionally man” the U.S. Air Force’s high-flying U-2 intelligence aircraft, throwing a new possibility into the mix as Congress weighs whether to shift to an all-Northrop Grumman Global Hawk unmanned aircraft fleet for high-altitude reconnaissance. With an optionally manned U-2, advocates for the so-called Dragon Lady say the venerable aircraft finally can match the endurance offered by the unmanned RQ-4B Global Hawk. Convincing lawmakers and the Pentagon likely will be an uphill battle, though.
The U.S. Department of Defense released its updated Military Intelligence Program (MIP) budget request for fiscal 2015 on Nov. 21. The total request, including base budget and core overseas contingency operations (formerly known as supplemental spending), is $16 billion. “The department determined that releasing this figure does not jeopardize any classified activities within the MIP,” the Pentagon says. “No other MIP budget figures or program details will be released, as they remain classified for national security reasons.”
The Pentagon and Lockheed Martin have agreed to cost targets for the eighth low-rate, initial production (LRIP) lot of F-35s, setting theirs sights on $94.8 million per F-35A. Target cost for the F-35B, to be used by the U.S. Marine Corps, is $102 million and the F-35C Navy variant is targeted at $115.7 million, according to Joe Dellavedova, F-35 spokesman for the Pentagon.
BEIJING – The Japanese defense ministry is holding open the possibility of joint international development for the country’s next fighter, but appears wary of being trapped in a late-running cooperative effort over which it has little control.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is tackling the potential of synthetic biology to improve national security, according to Darpa’s director. Arati Prabhakar said the science of creating new genetic code that doesn’t exist in nature could lead to developing highly energetic fuels, sensing capabilities, new ways to deal with infectious diseases like Ebola and ways to counter adversaries who might turn the new technology into a weapon.
NASA needed to make numerous modifications to the two early versions of the Northrop Global Hawk it inherited from the U.S. Air Force to make them capable of studying hurricanes, according to a space agency research meteorologist. The changes were needed to make the high-altitude, long-endurance UAV “science operative,” Scott Braun, the principal investigator for NASA’s Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) mission, said Nov. 18 at a conference on commercializing unmanned aircraft.
XCOR Aerospace has used its unique piston-pump technology to move two cryogenic propellants in a hot-fire test of the XR-5H25 engine it is developing as a pathfinder for a potential advanced upper-stage engine for United Launch Alliance (ULA) in the same class as the RL-10 engine in use today on the Atlas and Delta expendable launch vehicles.
BEIJING—Studies by the Japanese defense ministry’s Technical Research and Development Institute (TRDI) point to the advantages of big fighters with the fuel capacity and aerodynamic optimization to keep them on station for longer.
