While many inside and outside the U.S. Navy have been focused on the service’s plans for building new ships and submarines in the coming decades, there have been a few in Congress and analyst circles who have chosen to spotlight another issue that is likely have to a far-reaching financial impact on Navy ship-fleet plans: fleet readiness.
WASHINGTON – The Pentagon and U.S. Navy would do well to worry about the implications of its 30-year shipbuilding plan now, instead of thinking of its fleet strategy as a concern decades down the road. That is especially true for the Navy’s fleets of attack submarines, cruisers and destroyers, which face considerable shortfalls in coming years unless the service tweaks its plan or changes the scope of the vessels’ missions.
SAN DIEGO – Former U.S. Air Force Space and Missiles Systems Center (SMC) Commander Gen. Tom Sheridan warns that new investment is needed now to guarantee U.S. military access to space later this decade and beyond.
Washington – Now that Congress has passed a deal to raise the debt ceiling, some lawmakers are plotting how best to contain the damage to the defense budget.
NEW DELHI – A MiG-21 Indian Air Force (IAF) fighter jet crashed Tuesday in the western state of Rajasthan, killing the pilot, a senior IAF official says. The crash happened at mid-afternoon at Nal air base, about 15 km from the city of Bikaner, the official says. “The aircraft was returning from a routine training mission and crashed during the landing phase, tragically killing the pilot,” an IAF press release says. Defense spokesman S.D. Goswami says the pilot ejected, but later died from his injuries.
Amid speculation that the U.S. Navy would delay delivery or construction of the Gerald R. Ford next-generation aircraft carrier (CVN 78), the service has awarded Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) a $504 million cost-plus-incentive-fee contract modification to continue engineering work associated with the building of the ship. The late July contract modification is one of the clearest signs that the Navy and Pentagon plan to stay on course with the ship’s timeline.
A new U.S. State Department report says that since 2003, the U.S. government — led by State with help from the Pentagon — has found and destroyed more than 32,500 “excess, loosely secured, illicitly held, or otherwise at-risk” man-portable air defense systems (manpads) in more than 30 countries.
Aerospace & Defense Programs October 24-26, 2011 Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa, Phoenix, AZ Strategic Performance, Innovation and Sourcing will focus on government customers — from the initiation of development throughout delivery of product. A&D Programs will bring together these professionals who wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to interact and discuss common challenges and issues they face on a daily basis.
CONTRACT WOES: The Czech defense ministry is raising concerns about contractual deficiencies linked to its purchase of four Airbus Military C295 tactical transports. In particular, the ministry notes the supplier failed to meet a July 31 deadline to fix shortcomings with the missile warning system. The company now has been given until the end of the month to remedy the problems. If the company fails to address the issues, additional legal steps will be taken, the ministry says. The government is not ruling out a cancellation.
The congressionally driven debt-reduction compromise could slow down the U.S. military’s upgrading of its electronic warfare, cyberattack, directed energy and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) strategies, but it will not stop improvement altogether, say congressional and military analysts.
SINGAPORE – Airbus Military has delivered the first of three Airbus Military C212-400 maritime patrol aircraft to the Vietnam marine police. The marine police ordered the three aircraft in 2008. One more is scheduled to be delivered later this year and the third early next year. The C212s will be used to patrol Vietnam’s coastline in the fight against illegal fishing, drug trafficking and smuggling, it says.
LONDON — Ultra Electronics may complete several more acquisitions before the end of the year as the company looks to strengthen its technology positioning in potential growth markets, Chief Executive Rakesh Sharma says. With its low debt level of £10.1 million ($16.6 million), Sharma says the company has the “firepower” to spend slightly more than £100 million on deals. He expects several to be done before 2012.
NASA’s Merritt Island Launch Annex (MILA) in Florida was decommissioned this week, another fallout from the end of the space shuttle program. Located on 61 acres of land just west of Kennedy Space Center’s (KSC) Visitors Complex, MILA provided communications between the orbiters and Mission Control in Houston during launches and landings.
CAPE CANAVERAL — Faced with the choice of waiting for NASA and the U.S. Energy Department to develop a new type of nuclear radioisotope thermoelectric generator—typically used for deep-space missions — or design a survey of Jupiter with a solar-powered probe, program scientists opted for the latter, believing there was less risk to schedule and cost.
NEW THRUST: Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) plans to formally announce development of a new “super high-efficiency, staged-combustion engine” by the end of the year or early next year, according to Elon Musk, the company’s founder and chief technical officer. “We want to make sure we have all our ducks in a row before we make that announcement,” Musk said Aug. 1 at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Joint Propulsion conference in San Diego.
When it comes to supporting the latest deal to cut federal spending and raise the U.S. debt ceiling, Republicans on the House panel that authorizes defense spending are totally divided. They may be emblematic of right-leaning politicians and pundits across the capital — a prospect that has some hawks worried that the Pentagon is not in the clear from further budget slashing.
NATO EPAA: The Obama administration eventually plans to transfer operational control of its Aegis-based European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) missile defenses to NATO, an official told the 2nd Annual Israel Multinational Missile Defense Conference in Tel Aviv last week. “When NATO is ready, the president will transfer operational control of the EPAA to the alliance as the first national contribution to the NATO territorial missile defense capability,” said Frank Rose, deputy assistant secretary of State for the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance.
