CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS: Despite U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s vow to increase defense spending, the employees of defense companies continue to invest in incumbent President Barack Obama. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the defense sector has contributed $660,800 to Obama’s presidential campaign and $574,841 to the Romney effort. Boeing’s employees have given $110,383, nearly double the amount they provided to Romney, which was $58,020.
NETANYA, Israel — At one time spy agencies drove development of advanced investigative cyber technology, but nowadays it is banks, credit card companies, PayPal, Google and Yahoo that are steering the design and functionality of new investigative tools.
COLLISION PROBE: The U.S. Navy and the Pentagon are investigating the damage and cause of a weekend collision between an attack submarine and an Aegis-equipped cruiser. The USS Montpelier submarine and San Jacinto collided about 3:30 p.m. Oct. 13 during an anti-submarine training exercise off the U.S. East Coast, Navy officials say. No one was injured and both ships were able to continue to operate under their own power.
NEW DELHI — Indian state-run defense manufacturer Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) and Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) gave the go-ahead Oct. 12 to their long-delayed project to develop a Multirole Transport Aircraft (MTA). “With this HAL and UAC-TA will start the preliminary design work immediately at Moscow,” HAL Chairman R.K. Tyagi says.
NEW DELHI — Russia has further delayed the delivery of the refurbished aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov to India. “We have detected a malfunction in the boiler and power plant of the ship. We have given the revised schedule of the delivery of the aircraft carrier to the Indian side,” visiting Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov says. “We believe it will happen in the fourth quarter of 2013. We need to test everything so that we are sure we are transferring an aircraft carrier of perfect quality,” Serdyukov says.
Japan plans to begin development of its next homegrown fighter within five years, with the aim of beginning production under the designation F-3 around 2027. While the schedule suggests Japan may want to merge the F-3 into the U.S. Next Generation Tacair effort, Japan is laying the groundwork for going its own way by investing in stealth technology and building its own powerful fighter engine. IHI Corp. is to develop a technology-demonstrator engine of 15 metric tons (33,000 lb.) thrust, according to an official document.
A new House Intelligence Committee report recommending U.S. companies and the government steer clear of two Chinese telecommunications companies is sending a shudder through the business community, with a recommendation for Congress to consider expanding federal reviews of international business deals. The bipartisan report starts a conversation about a very real problem facing U.S. companies as well as the nation’s security — how to protect classified and proprietary information in a massive global supply chain.
Additional aerostat-mounted wide-area surveillance systems are being deployed to protect forward bases in Afghanistan, with the prospect that the systems could be redeployed for border surveillance once they are returned to the U.S. Logos Technologies will supply an additional 22 Kestrel day/night optical surveillance systems under a $111.8 million U.S. Navy contract awarded earlier this month. The first batch of 16 Kestrels were delivered by July.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) oct. 16 - 17 — NDIA Gulf Coast Chapter 38th Air Armament Symposium, Emerald Coast Convention Center, Fort Walton Beach, Fla. For more information go to www.ndia.org/meetings/Pages/default.aspx oct. 15 - 18 — Aerospace Testing Seminar, Sheraton Gateway Hotel, Los Angeles, Calif. For more information go to www.aerospace.org/education/conferences/
The Office of Naval Research’s (ONR) Electromagnetic (EM) Railgun program recently started to evaluate the second of two industry railgun prototype launchers at a facility in Dahlgren, Va., officials announced Oct. 10. General Atomics has delivered its prototype launcher to Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Dahlgren Division, where engineers have engaged in a series of tests similar to the evaluations conducted on the prototype demonstrator made by BAE Systems which arrived on Jan. 30.
The Pentagon is on the cusp of finalizing new rules of engagement for activities in the cyberdomain, including how to defend domestic networks and respond in the event of an attack.
TURKISH INTERCEPTION: Given the international impasse over the conflict in Syria, “practical measures,” such as the interception of civilian aircraft, will become increasingly important for neighboring countries seeking to restrict Syrian forces’ access to military goods from external sources, say analysts at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri). “Turkey is well-placed to stop illicit arms shipments,” Sipri says.
While the U.S. Marine Corps is drawing down its force levels to reflect the nation’s pullback from overseas military operations, the service also is shifting focus to more covert or cyber-based operations, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus says. “As the Marine Corps is getting smaller, there are two areas in which it is bigger,” Mabus said Oct. 9 during a luncheon hosted by the National Aeronautic Association. “One is special operations and the other is cyber.”
CYBER SUMMIT: The U.S. Air Force is planning to conduct a Cyber Summit next month to help the service and industry shape the mission and its requirements for the future, according to Lt. Gen. Mike Basla, the service’s CIO at the Pentagon. The summit will be hosted by Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh and Secretary Michael Donley, and attended by senior leaders in the service.
The Obama administration is nearing the final and most contentious phase of its massive export control reform — telling Congress what items it ultimately plans to transfer from the U.S. Munitions List (USML) to one controlled by the Commerce Department. By the end of the year, congressional aides are anticipating the administration will detail how it will transfer two key aerospace categories of products from the USML controlled by the State Department to the Commerce list.
TEL AVIV — Armoring light combat vehicles has always been a compromise, as the weight allowed for the armor could never provide adequate protection against all threats. Future combat vehicles need to maintain a good balance between mobility, protection, size and weight — and all that at an affordable cost.
NAGOYA, Japan — Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) forecasts sales of about 100 civil derivatives of its XC-2 aircraft in the next 30 years, should the manufacturer decide to proceed with such a program after completing the development of its military transport. The Japanese manufacturer has started building the first four series-production units of the XC-2, says a program official, and the country’s defense ministry is test flying two prototypes.
The DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer passed a major milestone this month with the delivery of the ship’s composite deckhouse to the U.S. Navy. Weighing in at 900 tons and bigger than half a football field, the deckhouse packs the ship’s bridge, radars, antennas and intake/exhaust systems into a structure designed to provide a significantly smaller radar cross section than any other ship in the service’s current fleet.
