PROVISIONAL COMMANDER: Brig. Gen. James Kowalski will serve as commander of the provisional Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC). The Air Force has not yet determined a permanent location for AFGSC, which initially will be located at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, and has proposed that a three-star general lead the permanent command. The provisional AFGSC is scheduled to be activated Jan. 12, 2009, at which point Kowalski will assume command.
Two members of the International Space Station (ISS) crew are set to venture outside the orbiting facility Dec. 22 to install a probe that will measure a phenomenon that may have caused two returning Russian Soyuz vehicles to fall into a perilous “ballistic” reentry. Expedition 18 Commander Mike Fincke and Flight Engineer Yuri Lonchakov will install a Langmuir probe near the Soyuz docked at the station’s Pirs docking compartment so Russian engineers can gauge the temperature and density of the surrounding plasma as well as its electric potential.
SURVEILLANCE BUY: Boeing has completed its purchase of Digital Technology Inc. of Germantown, Md., developers of wireless surveillance devices for government customers, to become part of Boeing Network & Space Systems unit. Terms of the agreement were not released.
FULLY FUNDED: The U.S. Air Force has modified a fixed-price incentive contract to Boeing Satellite Systems for $233.8 million that completes all funding for the satellite portion of the six-satellite Wideband Global Satcom contract. Some support systems funding remains uncompleted under the $1.8-billion WGS contract.
BAD NEWS: The U.K. National Audit Office’s annual review of military procurement continues to make uncomfortable reading for the British Defense Ministry. The newly released Major Projects Report 2008 highlights a number of program delays and budget increases among the 30 procurement projects examined during the 12-month period that ended Mar. 31, 2008.
SHUTTING DOWN: SES Americom plans to shut down its IP-Prime service, established two years ago to provide internet TV to small business and consumer users, by the end of July 2009. The move, which SES says will not materially affect financial guidance for 2008-09, was motivated by the slow take-up of the service by small and medium-size telecom operators and the difficult market outlook. Americom says it had less than 10,000 subscribers and 70 small telcos, of which only 37 had reached commercial operation.
MiG BOOST: Russia is to provide Lebanon with 10 MiG-29 fighters, taken from air force stocks. The offer was made during a visit to Moscow by Lebanese defence minister Elias Murr. Expected to arrive in 2009, the twin-engine multirole fighters will be a significant boost for the Lebanese Armed Forces, which in November reactivated a handful of Hawker Hunters retired 15 years ago. Lebanon’s grounded Dassault Mirages were sold to Pakistan in 2000.
INFRARED DETECTION: Sofradir, a leading French manufacturer of infrared detectors for defense, space and commercial applications, has acquired Electrophysics, a New Jersey-based IR component supplier. The U.S. affiliate, renamed Sofradir Engineered Components, is intended to serve as a beachhead for the North American market.
SPACE RADAR: Lockheed Martin and Thales Alenia Space have formed a partnership to jointly develop and deliver a new family of low-cost, highly responsive, agile space radar systems for the U.S. and international market. The deal, which is based on a framework agreement concluded in 2007, aims to draw on Thales’s strengths in turn-key radar imaging systems and Lockheed’s small satellite know-how. The two companies say an integrated design is already nearly complete and the team has jointly answered a request for information recently released by the U.S. Air Force.
NEW DELHI India’s parliament has passed two anti-terrorism bills — to shore up the anti-crime Unlawful Activities Act and form a new National Investigation Agency (NIA) — clearing the way for them to be sent to the Upper House for final approval. The NIA will be headed by a director general appointed by the federal government. The bill will apply to citizens of India and overseas and provide for the investigation of other terror-related offenses with special courts.
The U.S. Air Force is developing requirements for the next upgrade of the F-22 Raptor following the decision to equip the fighter with a stealthy datalink under development for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. “The F-22 program has begun the weapon system requirements development phase of Increment 3.2, which includes Multifunction Advanced Data Link [MADL] capability,” Lockheed Martin says.
HUMMING BIRD: Boeing announced Dec. 18 its A160 Turbine (A160T) Hummingbird unmanned rotorcraft has achieved two milestones: using its two-speed transmission to change gears in flight and passing the 100 flight-hour threshold. According to the company, shifting gears in flight is the final step in realizing the potential of the aircraft’s optimum speed rotor (OSR) technology and expanding the flight envelope at higher speeds and gross weights. The gear-change flight took place Nov. 25 and the100 flight-hour mark was passed Nov. 20.
PARIS The French government is eyeing part of a multibillion dollar bailout plan to accelerate deployment of urgently needed weapon systems and to keep beleaguered sectors of France’s defense industry afloat.
PATRIOT ORDER: Raytheon has been awarded a not-to-exceed $3.3 billion order to provide advanced Patriot air and missile defense capability, whole life support and training for the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The U.S. government approved the Foreign Military Sale of Patriot Config-3 capabilities including Patriot GEM-T and Lockheed Martin PAC-3 missiles, and Raytheon and teammate Lockheed worked for a year with the UAE government to close the deal. With the order, the UAE joins 11 other countries that use the Patriot missile.
ONE MORE: MicroSat Systems, which is building 18 Orbcomm satellites, will be lead spacecraft integrator for the “mystery” entrant in the Google Lunar X Prize competition, which revealed itself on Dec. 18 to be a U.S.-based group of academic, aerospace and business interests that calls itself Next Giant Leap. Team members include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Draper Laboratory, which has supported the Apollo, shuttle and space station programs, will spearhead landing operations.
SONAR AWARD: The U.S. Navy has awarded ITT Corp. a $33.2 million contract to produce sonar transducers for the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane, Ind. Under the contract, ITT Electronic Systems will produce AN/SQS-53C Unit 717 Sonar Transducer Array shipsets, a key component of the Navy’s AN/SQQ-89 (V) Surface Ship Undersea Warfare combat system. The combined system enables submarines to search, detect, classify and localize underwater targets.
PARIS French armaments agency DGA says it awarded the team of Thales Airborne Systems and DCNS a three-year, $29 million deal to show the ability of vertical take-off and landing unmanned aircraft (VTUAV) to perform automatic takeoff and landing aboard ships, in all weather and meeting stringent surveillance demands.
COUGAR PROTECTION: Force Protection Industries Inc. received two contract awards worth $30 million from U.S. Marine Corps Systems Command for 188 Cougar Exterior Ballistic Explosively Formed Penetrator (EFP) kits. Force Protection’s add-on armor package is the first of its kits awarded a contract by the Marine Corps. Delivery of the kits is scheduled for this month and early 2009.
ARMORED SURVIVAL: U.S. Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) has developed a new aircrew armored survival vest (ASV) for helicopter and nonfighter aircraft crew. NAVAIR’s Human System Division designed the ASV in three sizes to fit a range of body types and will reduce bulk, weight and heat stressors commonly encountered by helicopter aircrew flying for six or more hours on combat missions, NAVAIR says. The vest is constructed from a material called Halo-Tech, which is as fire-retardant as Nomex and more durable.
Negotiations for development of a new NASA spacesuit are expected to resume soon now that the two teams competing to do the work have joined forces. Exploration Systems & Technology (EST), a joint venture of Hamilton Sundstrand and ILC Dover, will not submit another bid for the Constellation Space Suit System (CSSS), and instead will join the team headed by Oceaneering International, Inc., to build the next-generation modular spacesuit.
Michael Griffin should continue as NASA administrator, at least until President-elect Barack Obama sorts out his space policy agenda, the chairman of a key House authorizing committee said Dec. 18. “I have recommended that, at a minimum, he be kept during the transition period,” House Science and Technology Chairman Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) said, adding that he was also recommending that Griffin “be considered” to be kept on beyond that.
The U.S. Defense Department’s annual report on the status of its prepositioned materiel and equipment should be more comprehensive to help keep Congress aware of potential logistical issues, congressional auditors say in a new report. Although DOD provides a single annual report, there are variations in information coming from the armed services because of the differences in the configuration of their prepositioned stocks, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) says.
