The U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) has invested $3.5 million for 2008 and 2009 in the U.S. Army and Air Force’s Joint Heavy Lift (JHL) program, in the hopes of applying the results of the endeavor to a smaller aircraft for the Navy.
NEW YORK – The U.S. Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are working together to develop a joint program office for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), according to the Coast Guard’s commandant. Adm. Thad Allen told Aviation Week that the Coast Guard and CBP – both uniformed agencies within the Homeland Security Department – are working together on land-based unmanned aerial surveillance.
The U.S. Air Force has now used its B-1B fitted with an advanced targeting pod in combat operations for the first time. The service reports that a B-1B fitted with the Sniper laser targeting pod delivered a GBU-38 during a mission in Afghanistan Aug. 4. The bomber belonged to the 34th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron from Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., and is currently detached to the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing.
AIRCREW TRAINING: Boeing was awarded a U.S. Air Force contract to provide a C-17 Aircrew Training System (ATS) to Dover Air Force Base, Del. The system will provide training to Air Mobility Command and Air Force Reserve Command C-17 crew members. Financial terms were not released. Boeing already operates and supports nine continental U.S. C-17 ATS sites and expects to expand to three more within and outside the U.S. by 2010. The Weapons Systems Trainer at Dover will be the 20th to be delivered to the Air Force.
Early reports contend that pipelines running through the Georgian capital of Tbilisi from the Caspian Sea oil fields were unsuccessfully targeted by the Russian air force, which employed front-line Tu-22M3 bombers in the conflict. Intercepting or damaging the Georgian’s pipelines would be a heavy blow, but even just the insecurity to oil supplies that fighting in the region has brought could do even greater harm both to Georgia and the West. Meanwhile, French President Sarkozy has been trying to broker a cease-fire.
Ball Aerospace & Technology says it’s on track to complete final integration and testing this month of a key instrument for the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project.
NEW WATCHKEEPER: VT Halter Marine laid the keel for the U.S. Navy’s new missile range instrumentation ship (T-AGM 25) on Aug. 13 in Pascagoula, Miss. The to-be-named T-AGM 25, slated for delivery in 2010, will collect ballistic missile data for international treaty verification using the Cobra Judy Replacement radar developed by Raytheon and Northrop Grumman. T-AGM 25 will replace the USNS Observation Island, a 50-year-old Mariner-class ship converted for the missile-data mission in 1980. VT Halter beat Bender Shipbuilding & Repair Co.
STATE OF THE UNION: Ahead of November’s elections for control of the White House and Congress, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is running TV ads in battleground electoral states – Virginia, Wisconsin, Alabama, Ohio, Michigan and Indiana – questioning how foreign government-controlled investment funds, known as sovereign wealth funds, are partnering with private equity funds to invest in U.S. companies providing national defense, energy and homeland security.
BUSINESS REVIEW: The U.S. Defense Department said Aug. 12 that an “independent advisory panel,” the Defense Business Board, will review the overall performance of the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA). It follows scathing letters from lawmakers and a critical Government Accountability Office report July 23 that found lower-level DCAA auditors were hindered in some investigations of defense contractors (Aerospace DAILY, July 28).
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – The Bush administration still is hoping to enact export control reforms designed to ease the burden of selling technology abroad in the six months remaining before a new president takes office, says John Rood, acting under secretary of State for arms control and international security. Rood, appearing at the 2008 Space and Missile Defense Conference here, promoted executive-branch policy changes announced at the start of the year and declared that progress had been achieved against a backlog of export licenses.
Intelsat reported strong revenue growth for the second quarter of 2008, but an overall net loss due to financing charges associated with the February acquisition of Intelsat’s parent company, as well as a glitch that crippled the Galaxy 26 spacecraft.
LINK 16: Under a $12.2 million contract with the U.K. Ministry of Defense, Data Link Solutions (DLS) – a joint venture between Rockwell Collins and BAE Systems – will provide support services for Link 16 products installed on several platforms, including the Royal Air Force E-3, Tornado and Typhoon; Royal Navy Sea King helicopter and Type 42 destroyers; and the U.K. Air Defense Ground Environment.
Launch of the MEASAT 3A satellite has been pushed back indefinitely while manufacturer Orbital Sciences assesses the damage done after a crane struck the spacecraft on Aug. 9 local time at Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. Launch provider Land Launch was preparing the Malaysian communications satellite for a planned Aug. 21 liftoff on a Zenit-3SLB rocket. The accident occurred when a crane operator was moving a piece of ground equipment after the spacecraft was mated with the rocket’s upper stage, according to Land Launch spokeswoman Paula Korn.
Israel is planning to replace its aging C-130s with new Lockheed C-130J-30s. The C-130J is the newest tactical intertheater transport aircraft in service with the U.S. Air Force. The 130J-30 is the stretched version operated by several foreign air forces. The Israeli Air Force presently flies two squadrons of 16 C-130 E/H and 5 KC-130H refueling tankers in its inventory. Some of these aircraft became famous during the dramatic Entebbe, Uganda, commando-rescue mission in 1976, in which they flew freed hostages to safety.
Despite indications otherwise, including the cancellation of DDG-1000 procurement, the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) says one of its primary goals remains ensuring dominance in littoral waters. “The DDG-1000 decision in and of itself doesn’t in any way communicate a shift in the Navy out of the littorals,” said departing ONR chief Rear Adm. William Landay. “We’re still, from a science perspective, interested in littorals.”
U.S. analysts are beginning to address the question of why the Israeli Air Force was able to penetrate Syria’s Russian-made air defenses, while the Russian Air Force was not able to finesse Georgia’s Russian-made air defenses. That Russian-built and designed air defenses are exploitable was shown in the Israeli Air Force’s total shutdown of Syrian air defenses prior to bombing a suspected nuclear site last year (Aerospace DAILY, May 2). But Russia apparently didn’t have or didn’t use the digital keys to unlock the Georgians’ network.
HAWKING GLOBALLY: Bank of America Equity Research analysts believe that Northrop Grumman’s reconfirmed win of the U.S. Navy’s Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) unmanned aerial system (Aerospace DAILY, Aug. 12) sets up the defense contractor for global predominance in high-flying drones. “We continue to believe that there is significant export interest in large UAVs (e.g. U.K.
TUCSON, Ariz. – The Phoenix Mars lander and its science and operations teams at the University of Arizona and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) will reach key milestones this week, including an official determination by NASA that the mission is a complete success. Most of the Phoenix team also will shift to Earth time, instead of making the daily adjustments to local Mars time at the Phoenix arctic landing site that forces team members to work through the middle of their nights. Daily meetings
Logistics costs are continuing their climb through the ranks of leading Pentagon expenses in 2008, tallying up about $2.6 billion in contracts and modifications at the midyear mark and finishing fifth among the leading Defense Department expenses. So far this year, logistics has accounted for about 10 percent of the top 10 Pentagon expenses, according to an Aerospace DAILY analysis of government contracting data provided by the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting. (See charts pp. 6-8.)
EGYPTIAN HAWKEYE: Northrop Grumman has been awarded a $38 million contract to upgrade the Egyptian Air Force’s E-2C airborne early warning and control aircraft. The aircraft will be refurbished and upgraded to the Hawkeye 2000 (HE2K) configuration to include upgrades to the radar, mission computer, tactical mission system displays and navigation system.
Australia’s Defense Materiel Organization (DMO) has selected Ultra Electronics to provide the sonar for the South Pacific country’s new Air Warfare Destroyer. The decision kicks off a round of subcontracts for the so-called SEA 4000 project, slated to deliver the first of three ships in the Hobart-class in 2014.
MAGIC ISLAND: Thales has demonstrated automatic takeoff and landing of its Watchkeeper unmanned aerial vehicle system now in development for the British Defense Ministry. Trials were performed in late July, with the Defense Ministry present, leading to the validation of the system, known as Magic ATOLS (Auto Takeoff and Landing System). The trials were carried out using the Megido airfield in northern Israel. The basic air vehicle for the Watchkeeper is the Elbit Hermes 450. The in-service date for the Watchkeeper system is 2010.
PREFLIGHT: Boeing’s P-8A Poseidon aircraft has moved from final assembly to preflight work. The aircraft, a military derivative of the 737-800, is destined for U.S. Navy service. The Navy plans to purchase 108 P-8As to replace its fleet of P-3C aircraft. Initial operating capability is slated for 2013. This P-8A will move on to Boeing Field in Seattle early in 2009 for systems integration and additional testing.
