SINGAPORE — Australia’s defense minister, Stephen Smith, says the government has made a formal decision to buy a fifth Boeing C-17. “We will acquire another C-17 heavy-lift plane and we will do that as quickly as we can,” the minister told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Australia already has four C-17s, one of which is now in Japan. Smith says Australia and the U.S. are the only two foreign countries with military aircraft in Japan at the moment.
The U.S. military has become too reliant on batteries and bottled water for its forward operations and expeditionary officials, say soldiers and Marines. Expeditionary forces are looking for better ways to recharge batteries in the field and use what water can be made potable rather than carry additional batteries or bottles—or require a logistics chain to keep up the supply. It is part of a changing mindset, U.S. military officials say, to get all of the services to appreciate power, energy and its supply more so than they have been.
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I.T. SUMMIT: NASA will hold its second Information Technology Summit Aug. 15-17 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in San Francisco. Approximately 2,000 participants from NASA centers and support organizations, private industry, academia, other federal agencies and IT groups are expected to attend. NASA is partnered with the non-profit National Institute of Aerospace on the event.
LONDON — Despite efforts to protect science and technology (S&T) spending from cuts, further investment needs to go into the area, argues Peter Luff, the U.K. defense minister for equipment and support. While S&T will see cash growth during the coming years covered by last year’s comprehensive spending review, Luff says the drawdown in funding in recent years means that “is not enough.” S&T should be “an early priority for reinvestment,” he adds.
Widespread telecom disruption following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami have made satellite links typically used for entertainment in the highly industrialized nation an important source of emergency communications in some areas. In the days immediately after the March 11 disaster, the International Telecommunication Union shipped 78 Thuraya satellite telephones equipped with GPS terminals for search-and-rescue personnel to use, and an initial 37 Inmarsat Broadband Global Area Network terminals with more to follow. Thaicom
The United Nations has approved establishment of a no-fly zone over Libya, and Tripoli’s government has brought the conflict to a screeching halt by declaring a unilateral cease-fire. Nonetheless, planning and preparations for setting up the aerial screen over Libya continue. While aircraft and helicopters in flight will be considered legitimate targets, airfields, aircraft on the ground or military vehicles such as tanks will not be attacked as long as they are not firing at or electronically tracking coalition aircraft.
Engineers at the Applied Physics Laboratory are checking out the systems on NASA’s Messenger probe after it became the first manmade object to enter orbit around the planet Mercury March 17. Officials at the lab, a unit of the Johns Hopkins University, confirmed the probe had entered orbit at 9:10 p.m. EDT, when operators received signals indicating its orbit-insertion burn had shut down as scheduled.
NEW DELHI — Siemens PLM Software, a business unit of the Siemens Industry Automation Div., is accelerating its research and development (R&D) programs in India. “Our R&D staff in Pune has more than doubled,” says Raj Khoshoo, vice president for strategic planning at Siemens PLM. “We now have 1,000 people working there. We are also increasing the spread from maintenance projects to product development.”
In the ongoing congressional battle over how best to rein in government budgets, Senate Republicans are trying to move defense spending to the front of the line. In speeches on the Senate floor, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said they would refuse to consider another short-term spending bill unless defense was funded for the rest of the fiscal year.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Electric-drive propulsion has proven itself technologically, and the greater concern now is to find the funding for such ship-power systems, says Rear Adm. Frank Morneau, deputy director of the U.S. Navy Expeditionary Warfare Division. “We’ve already had success with the technology,” Morneau said March 16 during a break at the NAVEXFOR 2011 conference for expeditionary forces. The challenge now, he says, will be on the financial side. “But I don’t anticipate it will be pushed off,” he says.
A string of defense-related congressional hearings this week has revealed a lot of bad news and a bit of promise for proponents of cyberwarfare and electronic attack.
The U.K. defense ministry is considering extending the in-service period for the Nimrod R1 signals intelligence fleet by at least three months to cover a potential no-fly zone in Libya. The aircraft were to be phased out this month. The U.K. is “also concerned about a gap without coverage [in Afghanistan],” a U.S. defense official says. “It’s not approved yet, but is likely to be.”
Two of the Air Force’s new Global Hawk Block 30 aircraft are conducting imagery intelligence missions over Japan following the massive earthquake that struck off the island chain’s northeast coast March 11.
The U.S. Navy says it supports the Northrop Grumman spinoff of shipbuilding units that build its amphibious transport ships, guided missile destroyers and other vessels. Northrop’s board of directors has approved the spinoff of its wholly owned subsidiary, Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), to Northrop Grumman Corp. (NGC) stockholders, subject to final U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) clearance, the company confirmed this week (Aerospace DAILY, March 17).
SINGAPORE — Japan’s ministry of defense is investigating whether it can repair the 18 Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) Mitsubishi F-2 fighters that were damaged by seawater from the March 11 tsunami.
STATION KEEPING: Member states of the European Space Agency (ESA) have agreed to fund the International Space Station (ISS) through 2020, a move the U.S. and the other station partners have already taken at ESA’s urging. At a meeting at agency headquarters in Paris, the ESA Council approved spending €550 million ($770 million) on Europe’s share of station operations, logistics and transportation using the Automated Transportation Vehicle.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — U.S. Navy acquisition officials are starting to grade programs for energy conservation and efficiency in deciding whether to invest in them. “We are starting to consider energy as an attribute or key requirement when we buy our next-generation systems,” U.S. Navy Capt. James Brown told attendees March 15 at the NAVEXFOR 2011 conference for expeditionary forces. The theme of the conference was “Exploring Alternative Energy Solutions — An Operational Imperative for the Expeditionary Warfighter.”
The ongoing battle in Congress that has kept the Pentagon funded at the same level as last year has the potential to affect budget plans in 2013, the chief of naval operations said March 16. Top Navy officials have been warning for months that continued funding at 2010 levels would devastate operations and maintenance and military construction accounts, as well as the service’s contract to purchase two Virginia-class submarines and its plans to buy destroyers and parts for aircraft carriers.
KOCHI, India — The Indo-Russian PAK FA fifth-generation fighter aircraft attained supersonic speeds during a flight test last week, according to an Indian defense industry official. “We have received information that the second prototype of PAK FA, which recently joined the flight line, has achieved this milestone,” says a top official with the Aircraft Research and Development Center (ARDC) — a key division of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL). ARDC has been working closely with the Russian engineers and designers currently involved with the PAK FA program.
TACSAT-4 LAUNCH: The U.S. Office of Naval Research’s (ONR) Tactical Microsatellite (TacSat)-4 is expected to be launched in May or June, Navy officials said March 15. The microsatellite arrived at Alaska’s Kodiak Launch Complex on March 1. It will carry an ONR-sponsored and Naval Research Laboratory (NRL)-developed payload. Components will be carried on a bus built by The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. The Air Force’s Operationally Responsive Space Office funded TacSat-4’s launch aboard a Minotaur IV rocket built by Orbital Sciences.
CONTROLS REWRITE: The National Defense Industrial Association is hosting an industry gathering March 23 in Arlington, Va., in an effort to reach agreement with the Obama administration over rewriting export controls on the U.S. Munitions List’s Category VII (tanks and automotive vehicles). The State Department proposed changes to the list in December 2010 and sought comments from industry by Feb. 8. The administration’s Category VII Working Group is now going through these comments and drafting the final rule, according to NDIA.
