NEW DELHI – India’s defense research agency is preparing to test its ballistic interceptor missile this week, the country’s top scientist says. The Advanced Air Defense (AAD) interceptor, capable of destroying any hostile ballistic missile at low altitude, will blast off from Wheeler Island in India’s eastern state of Odisha, says Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) Director General V.K. Saraswat.
WASHINGTON – While the Pentagon has done well in making sure it bought and received Defense Advanced Global Positioning System (GPS) Receivers (DAGR), the military has lost track of how it stored and moved some of those DADRs, a recent Defense Department Inspector General (IG) report says.
Washington – As of Nov. 19, 877 Hamas rockets had been fired into Israel, according to Israeli Defense Forces count. Of those, 570 landed in Israel and 307 were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system. However, the 570 that hit Israel and were not intercepted does not mean that Tel Aviv’s prize new Iron Dome short-range missile defenses failed. It means the system’s ability to determine which missiles are headed toward populated areas – and which are not – is working as designed.
Aviation Week Events - Defense Technology And Affordability Requirements March 5-6 2013 Hilton Arlington Arlington, VA Join senior defense officials and discover where priorities and opportunities exist beyond the FY 2014 budget and hear First-hand how programs are implementing affordable and effective designs! Register now at www.aviationweek.com/events/dtar
NAVY Bechtel Plant Machinery Inc., Monroeville, Pa., is being awarded a $355,877,746 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for naval nuclear propulsion components. The work will be performed in Monroeville (68.75%), and Schenectady, N.Y. (31.25%). Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. No completion date or additional information is provided on naval nuclear propulsion program contracts. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (N00024-13-C-2121).
NEW YORK – The state-of-the-art in military energetics is HMX, a powerful material that is dense, thermodynamically stable and low in sensitivity — in other words, a devastating explosive that is safe to handle. Research by the University of Michigan and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) indicates that the explosiveness of HMX can be increased with no trade-off in sensitivity, by combining it with an energetic known as CL-20, which while powerful, is by itself too sensitive for use.
Houston – U.S., Japanese and Russian astronauts dropped through a wintry overcast sky for a rare night Soyuz landing in northern Kazakhstan early Nov. 19, bringing their 127-day mission to the International Space Station to a successful conclusion.
WASHINGTON – Over the next month, the White House and congressional leaders will continue the seesaw of negotiations to avert damage to the nation’s economy. If they fail to agree on how to handle expiring tax cuts and nearly $1 trillion in government budget cuts by January, the nation could fall back into a recession, the Congressional Budget Office has warned.
ARLINGTON, VA. – While the U.S. Navy wants to field a fleet that can do battle today, it needs forces that stick around for the long haul , says Vice Adm. Richard Hunt, service staff chief.
GUN SYSTEM: BAE Systems, Land and Armaments L.P., U.S. Combat Systems, Minneapolis, has been awarded a $24 million contract modification to exercise options for the Advanced Gun System (AGS) for the DDG 1002 Zumwalt-class destroyer, the Pentagon announced Nov. 19. The destroyer will employ two AGS 155mm, vertically loaded, stabilized gun mounts and magazines in support of ground expeditionary forces. The work will be performed in Louisville, Ky.; Cordova, Ala.; Minneapolis; and Burlington, Vt. It is expected to be completed by January 2018.
The Air Force is proposing to dramatically scale back cuts to the Air National Guard that were included its original fiscal 2013 budget request, cutting its original reduction to personnel by 40%, according to a draft slide from the service. The Air Force is not commenting publicly on its draft proposal for an Air Guard end strength of 105,300, which could also curb by 60% its planned reduction to aircraft.
HOUSTON — Ellen Ochoa, a former astronaut who has been deputy director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center since late 2007, will become director of the 14,100-person field center as of Jan. 1, the agency’s administrator, Charles Bolden, announced Nov. 16. She succeeds Mike Coats, 66, as the 51-year-old installation’s 11th director and the first Hispanic to serve in the post.
March 5-6 2013 Hilton Arlington Arlington, VA Join senior defense officials and discover where priorities and opportunities exist beyond the FY 2014 budget and hear First-hand how programs are implementing affordable and effective designs! Register now at www.aviationweek.com/events/dtar Click here to view the pdf
