Tantalizing early results from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) indicate that hydrogen could exist in more areas of the south polar region of the moon than previously thought.
President Barack Obama is making major changes to plans started by his predecessor to establish ballistic missile defenses in Europe, and they will have major ramifications for interceptor makers Boeing and Raytheon. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright, say findings of a congressionally mandated review of missile defense — as well as adjustments in the intelligence assessment of the missile threat from Iran — underpin the changes.
The U.S. Navy would like to build on the success of the recent deployment of its new MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter, with requests coming in from the fleet ranging from expanded command-and-control using Link 16 to increased power for on-board radar.
CRITICAL DEFENSE: Key U.S. lawmakers are bemoaning a supposed lack of coordination between the Defense Department’s Northern Command (NORTHCOM) — the post-9/11 military command responsible for homeland defense — with state, local and tribal governments. Bipartisan leaders of both the House’s and Senate’s homeland security oversight committees released a joint statement Sept. 11 highlighting a recent report by nonpartisan congressional auditors and lamented a lack of standardized familiarity by NORTHCOM with nonfederal disaster plans and procedures.
The U.S. Air Force cannot begin to address the numerous challenges it faces until it attends to a so-called “institutional identity crisis,” claims Tom Ehrhard, deputy to the chief of staff of the Air Force, in a report written when he was still a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA).
While additional troop requests for Afghanistan in 2010 appear to be a near certainty, top U.S. Defense Department leaders worry about the effect that could have on the people there and want to consider innovative ways of dealing with security, according to a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report.
BETTER ENABLED: Intelligent Software Solutions said it has been awarded a $300 million, five-year contract by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory for a Web-enabled temporal analysis system (WebTAS), a government off-the-shelf software suite providing visualization, integration and analysis of disparate data in a service-oriented architecture.
FORT WASHINGTON, Md. — U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz has asked his chief scientist, Dr. Werner Dahm, to conduct a massive “technology horizon” study to outline what technologies are needed to move the service forward. The study began in July and is due back to Schwartz next summer. He says he is looking for blue sky thinking with a practical edge, so Dahm is keeping in mind the fiscal constraints expected at the Pentagon, as well as current and emerging missions.
GEOEYE MILESTONE: Satellite imaging company GeoEye is celebrating the first anniversary of the launch of its GeoEye-1 satellite. The satellite launched on Sept. 6, 2009. Since its launch, the satellite has collected data over 54 million square kilometers and taken more than 200,000 images, the company said, including during the inauguration of President Barack Obama in January and North Korean missile launches. GeoEye-1 has been supplying imagery to Google for Google Earth and Google Maps since March.
FORT WASHINGTON, Md. — U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has given the U.S. Air Force authority for oversight of the KC-X aerial refueler program, potentially worth more than $35 billion. Gates made the announcement early Sept. 16 during a speech at the annual Air Force Association conference outside Washington, D.C., and it was met with applause from the audience.
The U.S. Air Force is pondering the creation of a major command focused on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). A dedicated command could be part of a new way of doing business in ISR. The service is looking for alternatives to aging ISR technology, but is stymied by the time it takes from proposing new technology until it is operational, which is still about 10 years.
PASADENA, Calif. — NASA and Lockheed Martin are on track to close out all remaining open items from the Orion spacecraft preliminary design review by Oct. 1, program managers say. “All the requirements are met apart from a few outliers” says John Curry, NASA Orion project vehicle integration office manager. “We’re heading toward critical design review in February 2011 and the overall schedule is marching toward completion in 2015.”
Armadillo Aerospace flew its “Scorpius” lunar lander rocket vehicle twice in two hours at Caddo Mills Municipal Airport in Texas Sept. 12, simulating a lunar landing and officially qualifying for a NASA-sponsored $1 million prize.
GENOA, Italy — Ghana wants to be the first international buyer of an Alenia Aeronautica C-27J through a foreign military sales (FMS) contract. The U.S. Congress has been notified of the potential sale of four aircraft to the African country. Worth an estimated $680 million, the deal includes 10 R-R AE-2100 engines, four AN/ALE-47 self-protection systems and secure communications equipment.
SOUND OFF: Lockheed Martin has completed acoustic testing of the second Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) military communications satellite. During the test at Lockheed Martin’s Space Systems facilities in Sunnyvale, Calif., satellite SV-2 was subjected to the noise levels expected during launch. The test marks the last critical environmental test phase, and clears the way for the final integrated spacecraft and system test activities that will prepare the vehicle for flight.
MINE HUNTER: The U.S. Navy recently took delivery of the next-generation of the AN/AQS-20A Minehunting Sonar and the AN/ASQ-235 Airborne Mine Neutralization System (AMNS) from Raytheon. The AN/AQS-20A Minehunting Sonar detects, localizes and identifies bottom, close-tethered and volume mines, and AMNS reacquires and neutralizes the mines. Developmental and operational testing of the AN/AQS-20A Minehunting Sonar and AMNS began in 2002. Under current contracts, Raytheon will deliver a total of 20 AN/AQS-20A systems by January 2011 and five AMNSs by December 2009.
LONDON — A regular defense review akin to the U.S. Quadrennial Defense Review is in the cards for London, with British Secretary of State for Defense Bob Ainsworth endorsing the idea Sept. 15. Ainsworth says he favors the introduction of a defense review during the course of each parliamentary session, to better ensure goals are met. Ainsworth, speaking at Kings College in London, says the government would move to set up a regular review process, though this will almost certainly not occur until after national elections in 2010.
L-3 Communications’ Geneva Aerospace division has won a potential five-year, $250 million contract to supply the U.S. Special Operations Command’s (SOCOM) expeditionary unmanned aircraft system (EUAS). The system will use L-3’s Viking 400, a 530-pound gross-weight tactical unmanned air vehicle with an 8-10-hour endurance carrying a 75-100 pounds of payload. The aircraft is designed to operate conventionally from unimproved runways at expeditionary airfields.
ZERO EFFECT: U.S. Air Force Secretary Michael Donley says the Air Force maintains its position that the outcomes in cases against Boeing and Airbus before the World Trade Organization (WTO) will not alter the road ahead on the KC-X tanker replacement program. The WTO concluded in a preliminary ruling that Airbus is receiving illegal subsidies for its aircraft programs. There is “no initial impact on needing to add ... to the [draft] request for proposals” as a result of the preliminary ruling, he told reporters Sept. 14.
The Finnish defense ministry has placed an order with Saab for BOL countermeasures dispensers to be used on the northern European country’s F/A-18 fleet. The production contract, worth around €14 million, is part of a broader upgrade program Finland is undertaking for its Hornets. The system allows F/A-18 pilots to carry more chaff and flare than the baseline aircraft can accommodate. Each dispenser can carry 160 chaff or infrared expendable packages. First deliveries are planned this year and should run through 2011, Saab says.
OTTOBRUNN, Germany The European Space Agency (ESA) has pushed back the launch of its CryoSat-2 ice and snow monitoring mission to late February 2010 because of launcher availability issues.
DESERT GAMES: Lockheed Martin demonstrated its Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod (ATP) recently during the Empire Challenge joint forces exercise at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., and China Lake Naval Air Station, Calif. U.S. Air Force crews flew the pod on an F-16 to evaluate proposed intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. The Sniper pod demonstrated autonomous reconnaissance and data collection during the exercise, which Lockheed Martin says can be used to monitor convoy routes or wide areas of interest.
