TAUSCHER TAPPED: More than a month after word first started leaking out about it, the White House announced May 5 that President Barack Obama is nominating Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) to be under secretary of state for arms control and international security. Tauscher is chair of the House Armed Services Committee’s strategic forces subcommittee. If confirmed by the Senate, Tauscher would serve as senior adviser to the president and secretary of state on arms control, nonproliferation and disarmament.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The message to U.S. Army aviation is the same one echoing throughout the services, according to senior aviation leaders: do more with less. A parade of generals addressed a group here May 6 at the Army Aviation Association of America (Quad-A) symposium, and though the message was positive overall, there was also a sense of burrowing in before lean times.
Potential oversight issues could continue to keep Congress busy with sea-based ballistic missile defense (BMD), according to a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report. “One potential oversight issue for Congress is how much technical risk there is in the Aegis BMD Program,” says the report, released last month.
DEAL DONE: Australia has signed contracts worth more than $350 million since mid-2008 for the majority of its planned Hobart-class Air Warfare Destroyer combat system, according to Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon. The latest two contracts are a $40 million deal with Raytheon Missile Systems USA for a Very Short Range Defense-Air capability, and another with Adelaide-based Babcock Strachan and Henshaw Australia for the ships’ Torpedo Launch Tubes, worth $10 million. The tubes will be manufactured under U.S.
More U.S. senators are lining up against a plan — mostly promoted in the House — to split the $35 billion program for the next U.S. Air Force refueling tanker between competitors Boeing and Northrop Grumman/EADS. Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the top two Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) a staunch Boeing supporter, all said this week they opposed a dual buy.
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The U.S. Navy’s program executive officer for unmanned aviation and strike weapons, U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Bill Shannon, says that over the next two years the service has plans to field 2,000 unmanned air systems.
LONGER LEGS: Protonex Technology has received a $265,000 Air Force Research Laboratory contract to demonstrate a fuel-cell power system in the AeroVironment Raven, the U.S. military’s standard small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The company is already under contract to develop a production hybrid fuel-cell/battery power system for AeroVironment’s larger Puma AE “all-environment” UAV to be used by U.S. special forces. A previous version of the Puma flew for more than nine hours on a fuel cell — three to four times its endurance on batteries.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The U.S. Army is undertaking a new aviation study that will drive force structure as well as reveal a strategy for the service’s canceled Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH), Deputy Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. J.D. Thurman said here May 5.
FINLAND RADARS: ThalesRaytheonSystems has been selected to supply 12 Ground Master 403 air defense radars to Finland, and another two to neighboring Estonia. The 200 million euro ($265 million) order will include a midlife digital upgrade for five Finnish Teresa 22XX radars supplied by Thales that will extend their life by 15 years and reduce lifecycle costs. The order for the Ground Master 403 — part of TRS’s new family of fully digital 3D air defense radars — is the largest to date for the system, which also has been selected by France, Malaysia and Slovenia.
Australia will help develop upgrades to the Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patroller under an agreement that Canberra says is its first step toward buying the aircraft. The country’s defense white paper released last week (Aerospace DAILY, May 4) set out a plan to replace the Royal Australian Air Force’s P-3C Orions with eight manned aircraft, presumed to be Poseidons, and up to seven large drones, possibly Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawks.
Boeing subsidiary Insitu will begin production deliveries of its Integrator unmanned aerial system (UAS) in the first quarter of next year, to an unidentified launch customer under a contract to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) services. Now in flight-testing, the Integrator is a larger follow-on to the ScanEagle UAS, with which Boeing is providing ISR services to the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Special Operations Command. Australia and Canada also operate ScanEagle.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Bell Helicopter Textron acknowledged reliability problems with the Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey here May 5, but the company says it is pushing hard to solve them. Responding to a recent critique made by the U.S. Marine Corps deputy commandant for aviation regarding the V-22’s reliability (Aerospace DAILY, May 4), Bell Executive Vice President for Government Programs Bob Kenney said, “I agree with him.” But while Kenney backed up the comments made by Lt. Gen. George Trautman, the Bell executive stressed the company’s efforts.
NEW DELHI — EADS Defense & Security has formed a defense electronics joint venture with engineers Larsen & Toubro (L&T), set to open for business next January in Talegaon near Pune in Western India. L&T’s defense engineering division makes Pinaka rocket launchers for the Indian Army, and a defense official said the Talegaon plant supports that weapons system.
LOFTY GOALS: The Obama administration has announced its goals ahead of the 2010 review conference for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Before then, the United States will promote U.S. policy objectives by presenting working papers and statements addressing various aspects of the treaty. According to the State Department, U.S.
Boeing has reduced its job count by nearly 4,000 positions across most of its employment units since the first of the year, achieving nearly 40 percent of the total it expects to shed in 2009.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — In an attempt to be responsive to U.S. Army needs, Boeing is changing its earlier sales pitch for an Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) replacement to push a manned-optional configuration. “We’ve been paying attention to what the Army’s needs are,” Mike Burke, Boeing’s director of Army rotorcraft business development, told reporters here May 4. But the Army’s needs regarding a replacement ARH — a program it canceled in October 2008 — won’t be clear until an analysis of alternatives (AOA) is developed. That process could take two years.
A NASA-supervised mission carrying a satellite with a prototype sensor technology for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) was put into a low-Earth polar orbit May 5 one hour after liftoff by a United Launch Alliance Delta II from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. The $400 million Space Tracking and Surveillance System Advanced Technology Risk Reduction (STSS-ATRR) mission, originally called the Block 2010 Risk Reduction, was launched at 1:24 p.m. PDT and achieved orbit at 2:22 p.m. from a two-stage Delta II 7920-10L.
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Raytheon announced that its KillerBee unmanned aircraft system demonstrated it can be recovered from a net on a moving platform in an exercise that simulated an at-sea recovery. The KillerBee is bidding to win the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps’ Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (STUAS)/Tier II program, which calls for a UAS that can be launched and recovered aboard a ship.
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If U.S. Air Force and Pentagon leadership decides not to recapitalize Air National Guard (ANG) units with fifth-generation tactical aircraft, then the Guard will look to upgrade its fourth-generation fleet — if not to “4.5” versions then at least with more modern capabilities, according to Air Force Lt. Gen. Harry Wyatt III, ANG director.
GATES GOOD: According to a Harris Poll of the U.S. public conducted online, Defense Secretary Robert Gates received even more positive ratings than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (68 percent vs. 62 percent) — among those who are familiar with him, at least. Harris asserts the finding reflects well on President Barack Obama’s political judgment in asking Gates to stay on to lead the Pentagon. Still, many of the 2,401 adults polled in mid-April also had little familiarity with Gates and other Cabinet members.
