LONDON — Using delay as a tool in managing the U.K.’s defense procurement program costs the Defense Ministry hundreds of millions of pounds every year — with the average monthly cost working out at around 0.5 percent of the overall program cost, according to the author of a government-sponsored report.
In a bid to advance work on renewable energy, the U.S. Navy will sign a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Agriculture to establish a joint venture.
Gen. James Conway, Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, said Jan. 14 he is concerned about the amphibious fleet after reviewing the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), due to be made public Feb. 1.
The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) is an elegant small battle network combatant, according to Robert Work, undersecretary of the U.S. Navy, who said he is convinced the ship will also lead the way technologically in international navies.
DATE SLIDES: Quentin Davies, the British minister for defense equipment and support, told Parliament earlier this week that a decision on the design of a next-generation ballistic missile submarine was now “a matter of a few months away.” Only a few weeks ago the government had said this decision would be taken early in the new year. The so-called initial gate decision on the design for the replacement to the Vanguard-class of ballistic missile submarine was originally intended for the third quarter of 2009, but the date has now been pushed back at least three times.
The U.S. Army’s Jan. 11 cancellation of the Multifunction Utility/Logistics and Equipment (MULE) robotic vehicle, once a part of the defunct Future Combat Systems (FCS) program, is only a partial termination.
Northrop Grumman announced this week that its industry team won a $577 million U.S. Army award to develop the armed service’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS) program — an apparent victory over a Raytheon-led effort. The five-year award — once expected last year, and previously valued at more than $1 billion — comes after the two companies had formally competed since 2008 over the system, which is supposed to integrate several systems from other agencies and even countries for soldiers.
GENOA, Italy — Italy’s 2010 defense budget is €20.3 billion ($29.5 billion), only 0.3 percent more than 2009. Excluding money for the Carabinieri police, pensions and administrative expenses, the true budget is €14.3 billion — 0.4 percent less than 2009.
BETTER BUSINESS: U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has continued to expand his mark on Pentagon advisory panels this month, with the Defense Dept. announcing Jan. 13 the appointment of its 2010 Defense Business Board. Michael Bayer, head of Dumbarton Strategies, a Washington provider of merger and acquisition counsel, will continue to serve as chairman, with John Goodman, managing director of consultancy Accenture’s U.S. Defense Group, as vice chairman.
Space shuttle and International Space Station (ISS) managers have decided to keep Feb. 7 as the target launch date for the shuttle Endeavour on the STS-130 mission to the ISS, despite a problem with ammonia jumper hoses for the Tranquility pressurized node the mission will deliver to space. The launch date was cast in doubt when a hose designed to link the node’s cooling system with the station system failed in a pressure test. Now managers have decided to fabricate a replacement out of shorter lengths of hose that have already been certified and tested.
GENOA, Italy — Italy will deploy additional air assets in Afghanistan to support its forces deployed in the western region of the country, which are to be boosted by almost 1,000 troops, topping at 4,000 in the second half of this year.
An unusually low orbit around the moon’s equator will put a high burden of reliability on the propulsion system of the Lunar Atmosphere Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) to keep it from tumbling to the surface during its 100-day mission in 2012.
The U.S. Coast Guard mobilized air and sea units just after the Jan. 12 earthquake that struck Haiti, District 7 headquarters in Miami says. As of the afternoon of Jan. 13, four Coast Guard cutters and nine aircraft were operating to aid in the humanitarian effort. U.S. Southern Command dispatched a team of 30 engineers, planners and a command and control group to Haiti on a Puerto Rico Air National Guard C-130 Hercules.
House Republican Rob Wittman (Va.) is challenging Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ premise that a platform or weapon need not be perfect before being fielded to combat personnel.
INTERCEPT TEST: China says it has successfully tested an anti-missile system for midcourse intercepts. The trial achieved the predicted results, the government says, stressing that the test was defensive in nature and not directed at any country. It produced no lingering space debris, the Foreign Affairs Ministry says. Details of the anti-missile system were not disclosed.
The U.S. Army canceled two more programs early this week — the Class IV UAV and the Multifunction Utility/Logistics and Equipment (MULE) robotic vehicle — as part of its trimming of the modernization plan formerly known as Future Combat Systems (FCS).
The U.S. hasn’t lost a helicopter to infrared-missile fire from man-portable launchers in Iraq or Afghanistan since 2007 — thanks to new tactics and advanced technology. But more advanced missiles such as the long-dreaded SA-18 are now in action in East Africa, and could make their way through the insurgent pipeline to Southwest Asia.
In the latest chapter of the on-again, off-again U.S. Air Force program to upgrade avionics for the C-130 airlifter fleet, industry officials suggest the program will move forward with a competition to build kits for the aircraft despite earlier plans for a termination.
The U.S. military is at a crossroads for determining long-term strategy, according to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), and cannot decide whether to focus more on conventional threats or newer irregular ones. “It appears increasingly clear that the United States will confront a very diverse and demanding array of strategic challenges over the coming decades,” CSBA says in its report, “Defense Planning for the Long Haul.” Those challenges, the report says, include the following:
NASHUA, N.H. — The electronic demolition derby that has disrupted military operations around Baghdad may be exported to Afghanistan, planners fear. The introduction of new devices regularly interferes with those already in operation, and the volume of communications has clogged the airwaves. Meanwhile, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and advanced communications devices are being poured into the larger, geographically isolated and less populated regions of Afghanistan to compensate for relatively small numbers of ground forces.
By 2018, variants of the U.S. Navy’s Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) will be carried by a half-dozen manned and unmanned aircraft, and perhaps more. As part of the electronic warfare formula, the yet to be selected EP-X signals and communications intelligence aircraft will be replacing the long-serving EP-3E.
