Continuing the Pentagon’s penchant for UAV investment in the face of continuing resolutions and sequestration, the U.S. Navy announced the purchase of six more Northrop Grumman MQ-8C Fire Scouts. The MQ-8C is the extended-endurance version of the Fire Scout UAV, based on the Bell 407 helicopter rather than the smaller Schweizer 333 airframe used for the original Fire Scout. The 8C is being developed to meet special warfare requirements for more endurance and payload.
Combat systems, equipment and missiles related to ballistic missile defense (BMD) have proved particularly fruitful since the Missile Defense Agency (MDA)’s most recent Aegis flight test. Crewmembers of the guided missile cruiser USS Lake Erie conducted a test last June 26 with an SM-3 Block IB missile and the second-generation Aegis BMD 4.0.1 weapon system, marking the second such successful intercept using the system, which anchors the U.S. European Phased Adaptive Approach BMD concept.
INDIA’s CALL: Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai is calling for joint design and co-production of weapons and defense capabilities with the U.S. Appearing recently at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, Mathai told an audience that the two countries should enter into joint defense projects, which is a sign that New Delhi is increasingly interested in more than just utilizing traditional “offsets” — i.e., local spending by western defense companies — to build up its own industry.
SUB NEEDS: Gen. C. Robert Kehler, chief of U.S. Strategic Command, tells Senate lawmakers the Ohio-class replacement submarine remains important, even though the 2013 budget request slipped the acquisition two years. But there is a risk, he told the Armed Services Committee March 12. As his submariners remind him, Kehler says, it is the number of cycles that affects service life, as harsh environment and repeated stresses take their toll. Sliding the schedule two years puts deliveries in the zone when the first older submarines must be retired.
LONDON — The Italian Air Force (AMI) plans to upgrade its Panavia Tornado fighter bombers to carry two new weapons. Under the MET 27 deal, signed between Panavia Aircraft Gmbh and the NATO Eurofighter and Tornado Management Agency (NETMA), Italian Tornados will be made capable of firing the ATK-built AGM-88E Advanced Anti-Radiation-Guided-Missile (AARGM) and the Boeing Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) system.
NEW DELHI — The bribery scandal surrounding India’s purchase of AW101 VVIP helicopters from Finmeccanica subsidiary AgustaWestland seems to have cast a shadow on the purchase of Black Shark torpedoes for the Indian navy from Whitehead Sistemi Subacquei (WASS), another company owned by the Italian defense conglomerate. Though the Indian government says the procurement has proceeded “in a transparent and fair manner,” Defense Minister A.K. Antony says, “The contract for procurement of Black Shark torpedoes has not yet been finalized.”
BEIJING — Development of two major derivatives of the DFH-4 satellite bus of Chinese spacecraft builder CAST is running ahead of work on the state manufacturer’s larger DFH-5 product, says a sibling marketing company.
IED DETECTION: Cobham has been awarded a £16 million ($24 million) order to supply NATO forces with vehicle-mounted Improvised Explosive Device (IED) detection equipment. Cobham Antenna Systems of the U.K. is scheduled to deliver the systems this year. “Cobham will deliver enhanced Counter-IED detection capabilities, which can be safely deployed from within the protection of mine-resistant ambush-protected [MRAP] vehicles,” Fred Cahill, vice president of Cobham Antenna Systems, said in a statement.
DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY Raytheon Co., El Segundo, Calif., was awarded contract (SPRA1-11-G-003X). The award is a firm-fixed-price, sole-source contract against a basic ordering agreement for $24,608,501 for F/A-18 components. Location of performance is California with an April 30, 2016 completion date. Using military services are Navy and Foreign Military Sale customers. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2013 Navy Working Capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Aviation Strategic Acquisition, Philadelphia.
Even as the Pentagon struggles under continuing resolution spending caps and the nation tries to figure out the immediate and long-term effects of sequestration, the U.S. Navy is investing more funding into one of its most sacred programs — the aircraft carrier fleet. The Navy awarded NASSCO Earl Industries — a General Dynamics unit based in Portsmouth, Va. — a $10.4 million modification to a previously awarded contract for the CVN-65 USS Enterprise ship terminal operation program in support of the ship’s deactivation.
BERLIN — Researchers at more than half a dozen European space institutes are working to build better tools to forecast the space weather patterns produced by the Earth’s Sun. Space weather events such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) create streams of energetic particles that can adversely affect astronaut health, satellite operations and terrestrial power grids.
The current fiscal crisis could prevent the U.S. from cashing in on the opportunity to build two Virginia-class attack submarines per year at an affordable price in a timely manner, according to ship- and sub-builder Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII). “The industry has sized itself and invested to get to this point to build two per year,” says Michael Petters, CEO of HII, whose Newport News Shipbuilding unit shares submarine-building contracts with General Dynamics’ Electric Boat arm.
LONDON — Sweden has inked a contract to purchase the surface-launched IRIS-T missile as the basis for its new ground-launched air defense system. The country’s Defense Material Administration signed a SEK270 million ($42 million) contract with Germany’s Diehl Defense on Feb. 28 to deliver the IRIS-T SLS system as part of a program to upgrade Sweden’s air defense network. Diehl will deliver the IRIS-T missile, missile launching station and fire control systems, which will be operated by the Swedish army.
While the U.S. defense community remains focused on shaping budgets to deal with continuing resolutions and sequestration, officials also need to shift their attention more toward developing a better overall strategy to cope with the new financial realities, says Michael Petters, CEO of Huntington Ingalls Industries, the nation’s biggest military shipbuilder.
LOS ANGELES — Virgin Galactic says a series of final confirmation hot-fire tests of SpaceShipTwo’s RM2 hybrid rocket are under way at Mojave, Calif., in preparation for the start of powered test flights of its suborbital passenger vehicle.
