The Obama administration plans to stick to its controversial plan to realign approximately 8,000 marines from Japan to Guam and relocate the Marine Corps Futenma Air Station in Okinawa, according to testimony before the House Armed Services Committee. The testimony comes as the White House struggles both with maintaining Japanese agreement for the deal and convincing Congress to fully fund the U.S. side.
JAM PACKED: According to the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA), after the closed-door House defense appropriations subcommittee markup July 27, the annual spending bill will not go to the full House Appropriations Committee until after Congress’ August recess. Also, it is expected that the corresponding Senate defense subcommittee could mark up its bill Aug. 5 before the recess. Once senators mark the defense appropriations bill in subcommittee, Sen.
HOUSTON — Two cosmonauts equipped the International Space Station’s new Rassvet module with a KURS automated docking system and made other upgrades during an obstacle-filled spacewalk early July 27. Fyodor Yurchikhin and Mikhail Kornienko completed an excursion that stretched to nearly seven hours just before 7 a.m. EDT. The two men struggled with bulky cable fasteners and watched as at least one large unidentified tool and other smaller pieces of hardware floated away while they worked outside the station’s Russian segment.
The U.K. will publish a consultative Green Paper on the Defense Industrial Strategy before the end of this year. A full DIS will then follow. A July 20 article said a new DIS would be published this year.
CAPE CANAVERAL — Two satellites of NASA’s five-member Themis constellation, launched in February 2007 to study geomagnetic storms, are approaching lunar orbit for a new mission called Artemis. NASA has yet to authorize funding for Artemis (Acceleration Reconnection and Turbulence and Electrodynamics of the Moon’s Interaction with the Sun), but there was no time to wait. Left in their previous orbits, the satellites would have fallen into prolonged periods of deep shadow that likely would have resulted in their demise.
NEW DELHI — U.S. Ambassador to India Timothy Roemer and Indian Home Affairs Secretary G.K. Pillai signed the Counterterrorism Cooperation Initiative (CCI) Memorandum of Understanding on July 23, marking the latest cooperative effort between the U.S. and India on counter-terrorism and information sharing.
For the first quarter of its 2011 fiscal year, Precision Castparts reported sales in its Fastener Products division were $328.9 million, down from $345.3 million in the same period last year, as aerospace suppliers and manufacturers continued to run down their inventories.
NASA has not violated a congressional prohibition against using Fiscal 2010 funding to terminate the Constellation Program of human spaceflight vehicles, the congressional Government Accountability Office (GAO) has ruled.
JOINT DEFENSE: The Defense Business Board is on course to recommend major cuts in contractor employment by military commands — even disbanding Joint Forces Command and scrapping the Office of Secretary of Defense’s Networks and Information Integration (NII) directorate. The board is only a Pentagon advisory panel, but it has been charged by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to help identify ways to meet his five-year, $100 billion-plus cost savings mandate.
Radar images collected by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) probably pinpoint thick deposits of water ice in a small crater near the Moon’s north pole. Work with the Mini-RF synthetic aperture radar (SAR) on LRO follows up findings by a similar instrument called the Mini-SAR on India’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter, which used the polarity of radar returns from the Moon’s north polar region to identify more than 40 small craters displaying the signatures of ice.
Executives for BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman acknowledge that U.S. Army leadership is somewhat split on the benefits of a hybrid-electric drive for the service’s new Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV), but they say their bid featuring such a system is worth the gambit. “In the Army we have both supporters and skeptics,” said Mark Signorelli, vice president and general manager of GCVs at BAE Systems at a July 26 press conference in Washington detailing the companies’ bid to replace the Pentagon’s vaunted Bradley Fighting Vehicles.
BENGALURU, India — The U.S. Navy has received its first Boeing F/A-18 fighter fitted with Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.’s (HAL) gun-bay door. The aircraft was delivered July 20, a Boeing official said. The gun-bay door agreement is the first military contract between Boeing and Bengaluru-based HAL, and is a direct result of Boeing’s industrial participation commitment to India, which includes creating jobs with indigenous companies, the official said.
WASHINGTON – Problems identified earlier with government support for the commercial space launch industry that provides major support for U.S. national security interests have not been addressed in the Obama administration’s new National Space Policy, and threaten future military operations if they are not addressed, suggests the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Farnborough - You know times are tough when a company singles out the stagnant U.S. defense market as a growth opportunity. But that is exactly what EADS NV is doing. Leaders at the European defense giant used the Farnborough air show to reiterate an ambitious plan to grow their U.S. revenues eight-fold by 2020, to $10 billion a year. “International” is the new buzz word in the defense industry as contractors brace for their first downturn since the 1990s.
Scott and Mark Kelly, twin brothers who pursued parallel careers as naval aviators, test pilots and NASA astronauts, appear destined to become the first blood relatives to meet in space in early 2011, as commanders of the International Space Station and the final scheduled shuttle mission. The orbital encounter, if it is truly to be, would unfold between late February and mid-March.
LONDON – The Canadian government and Sikorsky have come to a contractual agreement on how to handle the program changes on the CH-148 Cycle maritime helicopter program, which has suffered delays owing to software development problems.
AIR FORCE Lockheed Martin Corp., Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co., Sunnyvale, Calif., was awarded a $34,804,061 contract modification which will exercise the fourth option for Space Based Infrared Systems Highly Elliptical Earth Orbit Payload 3 launch and early on-orbit support. At this time, $548,174 has been obligated. ISSW/PKF, Los Angeles AFB, Calif., is the contracting activity (FA8810-08-C-0002; P00012).
AIR FORCE Boeing Co., Long Beach, Calif., was awarded a $37,044,801 contract modification to incorporate an increase in funding and ceiling for Air Force Fiscal 2008 material improvement projects of the C-17 Globemaster III sustainment partnership contract. At this time, the total amount has been obligated. MSW/ASC/WLMK, Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8614-04-C-2004, P000371). NAVY
NEW DELHI – As foreign vendors await an increase in the current cap of 26% in foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Indian defense sector, the native industry has raised its voice emphatically in opposing any increase. The industry has also called for a level playing field in being permitted to apply for tenders in every defense project. There are currently certain levels of sensitive areas that only government-owned companies are permitted to bid against.
Bengaluru – The flight evaluation report on India’s much-awaited medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) will be ready by the end of July. Indian Air Force (IAF) chief Air Chief Marshal P.V. Naik told selected reporters in Bengaluru recently during the Defense Avionics Research Establishment (DARE) Raising Day celebrations that the $11 billion final contract for 126 aircraft would be signed within a year.
A supersonic interceptor missile developed by India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) was tested July 26, with officials claiming success despite some expressed anxiety. A similar test this year in March had failed following the target missile’s errant launch. If confirmed, this is fourth successful test and second successful interception in the endo-atmosphere (within 50 km. of Earth’s surface). Previous tests were done in exo-atmosphere (above 50 km.).
ARMY Lockheed Martin Corp., Orlando, Fla., was awarded on July 13 a $95,964,520 firm-fixed-price contract. This is for the definitized letter contract to procure Army/Marine Corps requirements for the Fiscal 2009-2011 Javelin hardware program. The work is to be performed in Tucson, Ariz. (50%), and Orlando (50%), with an estimated completion date of Sept. 30, 2014. One bid was solicited with one bid received. U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (W31P4Q-09-C-0376).
