RESCUE ME: The U.S. Air Force may not need its own set of assets to perform “single digit” personnel rescues, which would obviate the need for a Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR-X) aircraft replacement, Pentagon acquisition chief John Young says. “We have to question the requirement from the beginning,” Young said of CSAR-X and other programs, including a Navy request for two new command ships. “I’m not sure buying [the ships] because we had them in the past is the right thing to do.”
PROWLER REPAIR: The U.S. Navy’s new EA-6B Prowler Improved Capabilities Systems III (ICAP-III) aircraft’s Weapons Replaceable Assemblies (WRAs) will benefit from a new repair capability available at Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Crane, Ind. Engineers unveiled the new capability for the aircraft’s ALQ-218 (V) 1 Electronic Warfare (EW) suite, on which ten unique WRAs and several unique antenna arrays are installed. NSWC Crane engineers are now capable of repairing five unique WRAs and four unique antenna arrays of the system for the fleet.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicated new calendar listing.) Dec. 2 — Information Sharing Federations, “Trusted Domains, Partnerships and Relationships,” The Ronald Reagan Building, Washington, D.C. For more information go to www.afei.org Dec. 2 - 3 — Microelectronics Reliability and Qualification Workshop, Manhattan Beach Marriott, Manhattan Beach, Calif. For more information go to http://www.aero.org/conferences/
Pentagon acquisition czar John Young would like the U.S. Navy and Army to reconsider collaborating on what has so far failed to succeed as a joint program — the Navy’s EP-3 replacement, called EP-X, and the Army’s Aerial Common Sensor (ACS).
Boeing has warned its employees to expect job cuts beginning early in 2009, citing challenges across its commercial and defense businesses including delayed programs and contract awards, expected slower military spending and the impact of a global recession on airlines.
WIDE OPEN: In the high tech arena, the ability for someone to attack the U.S. information technology infrastructure is greater that the ability to defend it, says Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence. In fact, the U.S. is the most vulnerable nation on Earth to cyber attack, he says. And the greatest threat from cyber attack is data destruction that can destroy, for instance, the banking industry. “So, the things we have left yet to do include causing the nation to be prepared for a cyber attack,” McConnell says.
LUNAR DUST-UP: The Planetary Society’s call for manned asteroid missions to replace a return to the moon as the prelude to manned exploration of Mars (Aerospace DAILY, Nov. 14). is drawing criticism in some quarters. Apollo 17 geologist and former Sen. Harrison Schmitt (R-N.M.) is so angry at the alternative vision that he resigned from the society. “Having led several objective studies related [to the topic], it is clear … that returning to the moon is the fastest and most cost effective path to Mars,” says Schmitt, who recently headed the NASA Advisory Council.
LONDON — The British Defense Ministry is studying the implications of a further life-extension of its ballistic missile submarine fleet, as it attempts to manage an already demanding schedule for a Vanguard-class successor. The Royal Navy’s Trident D5-equipped Vanguard boats were introduced into service beginning in 1994. The original 25-year life has been pushed to 30 years, with a projected out-of-service date of 2023. The follow-on class of submarine would need to enter service in 2024.
TAKE TWO: Without any new snags, the U.S. Air Force hopes to issue a request for proposals for a new KC-135 replacement competition by next summer. This is likely if the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama supports the push for up to 179 new refueling tankers, according to Lt. Gen. Mark Shackelford, the military deputy to the Air Force acquisition chief. A new program to develop a Core Component Jammer (CCJ), a standoff electronic jamming system likely for the B-52 bomber, could get a new breath of life in the fiscal 2012 budget, Shackelford says.
NASHUA, N.H. – U.S. Navy ships suffer constant probing by and exposure to sophisticated signals and, in some cases, electronic attack (EA) that have progressed from just electronic jamming into the esoteric world of cyber attack. That means they are also vulnerable to fast, stealthy new families of cruise missiles. The sea service wants to protect itself by equipping warships with a combination of electronic surveillance, attack and protection capabilities, and industry researchers here are eagerly pursuing the business opportunities.
NAVY SAVE: The U.S. Navy is hoping to reprogram about $40 million in its fiscal 2009 budget to provide advance procurement funding for three F-35 carrier variant aircraft, according to a senior defense official. The funding was stripped from the budget by Congress earlier this year. Without it, Joint Strike Fighter program officials say they will have to either extend the initial operational test and evaluation period or split it into two segments — one for the Air Force and Marine Corps versions and a separate test period for the carrier version.
STENNIS CHIEF: NASA has named Arthur “Gene” Goldman the new director of Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. Goldman has served as deputy director since October 2006. He replaces Bob Cabana, who left last month to take the reins at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Prior to that, Goldman served as manager of the space shuttle main engine project at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., from March 2004 until he moved to Stennis in 2006.
WHAT FLIES HEAR: The hearing mechanism of flies is being used as a model for miniature acoustic sensors and sound localization techniques by mechanical engineering researchers at the University of Maryland. The work is expected to benefit the U.S. Air Force in its development of an artificial fly unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that would use both hearing and vision to navigate to inaccessible locations. Scaled up, the technology also would be available for micro aerial vehicles and UAVs to improve homing capabilities.
GLOBAL BANDWIDTH: Raytheon Company will restore the available bandwidth of the Global Broadcast Service (GBS) satellite communications system over the Atlantic Ocean to support naval vessels and operations as part of the Advanced Technology Support Program III. The company will complete the integration of the Satellite Broadcast Manager facility in Norfolk, Va., with the U.S. Naval Station uplink in Rota, Spain, to provide GBS broadcast coverage. GBS is a worldwide mission support system for military forces on post, in transit and in theater.
Problems with the International Space Station’s new liquid-waste recycling system could send the space shuttle Endeavour home without a sample of processed water for evaluation on the ground, complicating plans to expand the station crew from three to six.
HERMES 450: Senior Thales executives say the company remains bullish about proposals for a quick deployment of its Watchkeeper Hermes 450 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to support French troops in Afghanistan, despite the recent arrival in the theater of a batch of SDTI tactical UAVs, based on the Sagem Sperwer. Executives point to the Hermes 450’s extensive Afghan flight experience — more than 30,000 hours — high survivability and features such as auto-cueing capability, which enables rapid detection and suppression of enemy fire.
ENVIRONMENTAL STANDARDS: Boeing is working toward certification of all its major manufacturing facilities to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14001 standard by the end of this year. Its Rotorcraft Systems facility in Mesa, Ariz., earned its ISO 14001 after a late-September audit by independent auditors from DNV, an accredited certification body of quality, environmental and safety management systems.
Citing low mission-capable rates and a shortfall in meeting key performance parameters, U.S. Defense Department acquisitions chief John Young continued his vocal disapproval of the U.S. Air Force’s F-22 program with reporters Nov. 20.
TerreStar says it has obtained approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to delay launch of its first dedicated hybrid mobile satellite service spacecraft until June 30, 2009, and push back its operational debut until Aug. 30 of the same year. The satellite had initially been pegged for launch on Sept. 30 and operation on Nov. 30, but ran into design problems that have affected the satellite’s reflector and S-band feed array. TerreStar also received a similar OK from Industry Canada for the deferral.
DARPA is seeking concepts for an aircraft capable of converting into a submarine that can clandestinely insert and extract an eight-person special forces team. The mission is to take off from a runway, fly 1,000 nautical miles as a conventional aircraft, fly another 100 nautical miles close to the surface, then travel the final 12 nautical miles to the coast underwater. Transit should take less than eight hours.
NEAR MISS: A joint U.S.-Japanese test of the Aegis sea-based ballistic missile defense system did not yield a target intercept. The demonstration, which took place Nov. 20, was Japan’s second flight-test of the Aegis system. The first resulted in an intercept last December. During the recent test, Japan’s Chokai destroyer tracked a ballistic missile target launched from Kauai, Hawaii, developed a firing solution, and launched an SM-3 Block IA, but the weapon failed to intercept. The Missile Defense Agency is investigating the miss.
A Boeing-led team has been selected to continue development of a system enabling unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to autonomously rendezvous with a tanker and refuel. Phase 2 of the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s Automated Aerial Refueling (AAR) program will involve actual fuel delivery to a surrogate UAV.
The NASA Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover team has selected four finalist landing sites, all with ties to Martian water, as it moves toward final site selection next summer to support an Atlas V launch in September 2009. The nuclear-powered MSL rover is the size of a small car and carries much more powerful instrumentation to assess whether life evolved at any of the watery sites.
