Defense Secretary Robert Gates is dramatically restructuring the fighter, attack and cargo aircraft industrial base with a host of realignments to the fiscal 2010 budget proposal announced April 6 at the Pentagon. Perhaps most dramatic are decisions to discontinue purchases of two key aircraft — Lockheed Martin twin-engine stealthy F-22 and Boeing’s C-17 strategic airlifter.
LESS REFERRAL: The number of U.S. defense contracting fraud and corruption cases sent by government investigators to prosecutors dropped “precipitously” under the Bush administration, even as contracting by the Defense Department almost doubled, according to the Center for Public Integrity in Washington. DOD investigators during the last administration sent 76 percent fewer contracting fraud and corruption cases to the Justice Department for potential criminal prosecution than under the Clinton administration.
Republicans in Congress are calling for beefed-up missile defense spending and economic sanctions against North Korea for its weekend missile launch, which was ostensibly to send a satellite into orbit but is suspected of being a covert intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test.
LOCAL POWER: India has flown its Nishant unmanned air vehicle powered by an indigenously developed Wankel rotary engine. Developed by India’s Defense Research and Development Organization, the 55-horsepower single-rotor engine flew for the first time in the rail-launched and parachute-recovered UAV on March 31. Deliveries of the Nishant, powered by the original UAV Engines AR801 engine, are expected to begin soon to the Indian Army, almost 15 years after its first flight.
After a delay of almost 18 months, the U.S. Navy has released the final request for proposals for development of the Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (STUAS), which also will be procured for the U.S. Marine Corps as its land-based Tier II UAS. To meet its ship- and land-based surveillance, targeting and communications relay requirements, the Navy plans to buy around 56 systems, each with three air vehicles, including a variant of the land-based configuration for SEAL special-operations units.
At best, lawmakers on Capitol Hill greeted Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ restructuring of the defense budget April 6 as an honest — if overweening — attempt to fix a broken system, while at worst, they decried it as an attempt to divert funding to domestic programs at the expense of warfighters.
ARMY Caterpillar Inc., Defense and Federal Products, Mossville, Ill., was awarded on March 31, 2009, a $24,579,261.00 firm fixed price contract for 105 Heavy Loader Type I and II, with attachments (105 sweepers and 53 forklifts). The work is to be performed at Montgomery, Ill., with an estimated completion date of Dec. 31, 2010. Bids were solicited on FedBizOpps with five bids received. The U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (W56HZV-05-D-L424).
POWER PLAYERS: Alliant Techsystems and Rolls-Royce Liberty Works will work on Phase 1 of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Vulcan program to demonstrate a combined turbine/constant volume combustion engine capable of accelerating a hypersonic vehicle from zero airspeed to Mach 4 and faster.
THAWING OUT: Efforts to seek formal reductions in nuclear weapons in Russia and the United States are getting predictably warm receptions around the world. But details are far from clear and the two countries are facing a December deadline while they feel each other out. Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev met for the first time April 1 in London where, after acknowledging “drift” in bilateral relations, they said they want to replace the expiring Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).
OPENING SALVO: Washington and industry everywhere are holding their breath until April 6, when it is believed U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates will begin unveiling plans to restructure, cancel or otherwise affect numerous weapons programs and systems. Industry, government officials and watchdogs have been expecting as much for months, especially with the Pentagon’s budget now not expected to get detailed until next month.
SOYUZ CLUB: Two-time space tourist Charles Simonyi’s return to Earth with two members of the International Space Station (ISS) crew on April 7 won’t necessarily mark the end of Soyuz flights for well-heeled private passengers, even though all flights on the books now will be needed to support the six-person ISS crew that arrives by the end of May.
SWEET HOME LOUISIANA: The U.S. Air Force has selected Barksdale Air Force Base, La., as its preference to house the new Global Strike Command headquarters. This new command will oversee the service’s nuclear platforms, including ballistic missiles and bombers. Final approval of Barksdale is pending the completion of an environmental impact study.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — After many years of failed attempts to place high-end radar systems in orbit, Pentagon efforts for a “Tier 2,” or commercial-grade, Space Radar program are continuing to gain momentum. The Pentagon last year began buying synthetic aperture radar images from Canada’s C-band Radarsat. Now, it can add SAR Israeli products to its list of options.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicated new calendar listing.) Apr. 6 - 9 — 2009 Gun and Missile Systems Conference & Exhibition, “Shaping the Future in Weapon Systems Development, Deployment, and Reset,” Hyatt Regency Crown Center, Kansas City, Mo. For more information go to http://exhibits.ndia.org
MOSCOW — Russian Space Agency Roscosmos has chosen a team consisting of Samara Space Center (TcSKB Progress), RSC Energia and the Makeev Rocket Design Bureau to develop a new medium-class booster. The rocket will launch from the yet-to-be-built Vostochny cosmodrome in the far east of Russia. It should be able to boost manned and cargo spacecraft, as well as space station modules, to low-Earth orbit.
MOON BUMP: NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the piggyback Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite will launch on an Atlas V no earlier than June 2, to accommodate the delayed Atlas V launch of the second U.S. Air Force Wideband Global Satcom spacecraft. That launch, which was delayed by a liquid oxygen leak in its Centaur upper stage, was scheduled for 8:31 p.m. EDT April 3.
COST CONTROL: In a recent briefing, Teal Group Vice President Richard Aboulafia offers his explanation of why defense programs are in a bit of a fix. “Program problems aren’t just the result of requirements people working in a vacuum,” he says. “The requirements people respond to the broader environment, to the weapons acquisition philosophy created by each administration.” The Clinton era emphasized CAIV (Cost As an Independent Variable) as a response to limited budgets, establishing price as a key guideline for new systems development.
DOD is expected to announce the termination of the U.S. Navy’s Harpoon Block III anti-ship missile early this week, according to government and industry sources close to the effort. Harpoon Block III is said to be among 55 programs over which Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to announce significant changes as early as April 6.
