Despite the very public alarm bells rung recently over the breathing problems affecting F-22 Raptor pilots, Japanese officials have shown no concern about basing the jet fighters in their country, U.S. Air Force officials say. This is in stark contrast to the consternation displayed by Japanese officials because of recent flight accidents involving the V-22 Osprey as the U.S. Marine Corps deploys the tiltrotors to the region.
CYBER ALTERNATIVE: While Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and his co-sponsors of the controversial Cybersecurity Act of 2012 put their final touches on their bill in hopes of garnering more support for it, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce isn’t budging in its opposition. The Chamber’s main concerns with the legislation include the fact that “owners and operators of critical infrastructure would be evaluated by third-party members,” according to a July 25 document. R.
WEBSTER FIELD, Md. — Insitu has begun flight tests of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps’ RQ-21A small tactical unmanned aircraft (Stuas). Developed from the company’s Integrator commercial UAS, the RQ-21A made the 1-hr. flight on July 28 from an Insitu facility in Boardman, Ore. With six months left to run under its 27-month engineering and manufacturing development contract, the program is on track, says Boeing subsidiary Insitu. Development and operational testing will begin in August at NAS China Lake, Calif.
At the House Armed Services Committee on Aug. 1, the defense industry will be watching for clues about how the Obama administration plans to implement a penalty devised by Congress to force lawmakers to reduce the federal deficit. The penalty, known as sequestration, triggers a $1 trillion across-the-board government cut come January 2013, unless lawmakers reach a larger deal on deficit reduction.
LOS ANGELES and WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) has awarded an array of contracts for the Phoenix program, which aims to demonstrate the salvage and reuse of components, such as antennas, from dead satellites. The cost-saving concept is based on creating new space resources by repurposing equipment already in geosynchronous orbit. To demonstrate the scheme, Darpa plans to piggyback payload orbital delivery system (PODS) devices on a sample commercial communications satellite in 2015-16.
CYBER BULLYING: The controversial Cybersecurity Act of 2012, sponsored by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), is still stuck in the U.S. Senate even though numerous revisions have been made to make it more agreeable to all parties. So far the bill has 90 amendments waiting to be discussed, with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) as the number one contributor. A frustrated Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is skeptical it will pass. “We cannot let this bill die because of partisanship, and that is what’s happening,” Reid said July 31.
The Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee (SAC-D) has forwarded to the full committee a $604.5 billion U.S. defense spending bill for fiscal 2013 that for the second year in a row comes to the aid of a Lockheed Martin missile defense program.
THE PENTAGON — There is no single “smoking gun” that caused breathing trouble for F-22 Raptor pilots, but rather a “mosaic” of interrelated cockpit equipment issues that led to a chain reaction of glitches resulting in symptoms similar to hypoxia, says Maj. Gen. Charlie Lyon, Air Combat Command’s director of operations.
BEIJING — BAE Systems will upgrade 134 F-16s for the South Korean air force, making a rare incursion into a combat aircraft market that has long been reserved for U.S. companies. But a U.S. unit of the British company will do the work, which covers design and integration of a package comprising a new radar, mission computer, Link 16 datalink, a new navigation system, multi-function displays, Raytheon AIM-120C and AIM-9X air-to-air missiles, and wind-corrected munitions dispensers. The navigation system will use inertial measurement and GPS.
U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus should stick to his job and get out of the biofuel business, says Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). “You are the Secretary of the Navy, not the Secretary of Energy,” McCain says in a July 27 letter to Mabus, in which he also tells the secretary to avoid “politically driven demonstrations,” referring to a recent Pacific Rim exercise that, McCain says, apparently featured green-painted ships and aircraft as well as baseball hat souvenirs.
Defense research agency has developed its first submarine-launched ballistic missile, plans to develop a new range of missiles to boost the country’s military
FT. PICKETT, Va. — CSC is offering customers video-by-the-hour unmanned-aircraft surveillance services, using assets originally acquired for a U.S. Navy contract. “If you want video, tell us where. You don’t have to buy anything or train for anything,” Bob Frizelle, CSC vice president and general manager for mission systems, told potential customers during a demonstration of its UAVs at Fort Picket, Va., on July 26.
Click here to view the pdf NOAA's National Environmental Satellite Data andInformation Service (NESDIS) Fiscal 2013 Markup ($ in thousands) NOAA's National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NESDIS) Fiscal 2013 Markup ($ in thousands)
WGS AWARD: Boeing has been awarded a contract for the 10th Wideband Global Satcom spacecraft by the U.S. Air Force in the last award of the current series of high-bandwidth communications spacecraft. The contract is valued at $338.7 million and continues an X- and Ka-band communications constellation that began in 2000. There have been four WGS launches thus far. The latest to reach orbit, WGS-4, was orbited in January and is currently undergoing acceptance testing. Boeing is building WGS-5-9 in a pulsed-line production process at its El Segundo, Calif., factory.
