U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Adm. William “Fox” Fallon said March 19 that he tendered his resignation because he felt that unfounded rumors about policy conflicts between himself and President Bush were diverting attention away from what is truly important – that the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan be resolved as quickly as possible.
Ahead of the NATO summit in Bucharest, Hungary, British lawmakers claim in a new report that political frailty and the growing gulf in defense expenditures among NATO members threatens the future of the trans-Atlantic alliance. The U.K. Parliament’s Defense Committee is cautioning that the alliance needs to quickly address issues that will otherwise gnaw at its well-being – and eventually risk its existence.
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER – Spacewalkers Bob Behnken and Mike Foreman were set March 20 to conduct a deferred on-orbit test of a heat shield repair technique that could come in handy on a future space shuttle mission, and particularly on the upcoming flight to service the Hubble Space Telescope. The pair had a 6:28 p.m. EDT start time for the fourth extravehicular activity (EVA) of the STS-123/1J/A assembly mission to the International Space Station (ISS). It will be the first EVA of the flight that does not involve any station assembly or robotics activity.
SERV AWARD: Lockheed Martin announced March 20 that it received a $23.9 million contract modification from Northrop Grumman to provide hardware for the next phase of full-rate production on the Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Safety Enhanced Re-entry Vehicle (SERV) program. In this phase, Lockheed Martin will deliver 120 more full-rate production SERV hardware kits by December 2010. With options, the total value of the contract over seven years is estimated at $137 million.
Australia seems to be increasingly embracing Boeing’s F-18 fighters, including electronic-attack Growler versions, as the new government there aligns to some degree with decisions made by the leadership it dislodged in last year’s elections.
The U.S. Navy is planning to begin testing a new version of its AIM-9X short-range air-to-air missile that will feature a datalink for in-flight targeting in the spring. Initial flight-testing of the AIM-9X Block 2 will take place onboard the F/A-18C by June, with the Air Force’s F-15C to follow, says Navy Capt. Jeffrey Penfield, AIM-9X program director at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md. If testing goes as planned, the new missile will reach the field in late 2011. Both the Navy and Air Force are expected to procure it.
Half of the Pentagon’s weapons programs under review by the Defense Department’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) fail to make the grade, highlighting a worrisome trend, evaluators say. “Of the eight beyond low-rate initial production (BLRIP) reports published last year, most systems (88 percent) were operationally effective; but half were not suitable,” DOT&E chief Charles McQueary wrote in the agency’s annual report. “Program performance has not shown improvement.”
Northrop Grumman officials are promoting their unmanned strike aircraft being designed for the U.S. Navy as a “first-generation” unmanned combat aerial system (UCAS) with capabilities that include early missile defense intercepts.
Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) Weapon System Officers (WSOs) soon will benefit from a new undergraduate training program at the King Faisal Air Academy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, courtesy of Lockheed Martin. The company has been awarded a three-year contract for design, development and delivery of courseware, electronic classrooms, training devices, and a training management system as well as instruction and maintenance support services.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England likened the current global war on terror (GWOT) to the Cold War on March 19, and warned that the Iraq war will not end if the U.S. walks away from the battlefield.
GROWLER IOC: The U.S. Navy says Boeing’s EA-18G Growler program is going so well that it anticipates the aircraft’s Initial Operating Capability (IOC) may occur earlier than the originally scheduled date of 2009. The electronic attack aircraft will replace the aging EA-6B Prowler and be fielded first at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island in Washington state. Five aircraft have been delivered and are in flight-test, and eight low-rate production aircraft are on contract for delivery in fiscal 2008. The first squadron will transition officially in January 2009.
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER – The combined crews of the space shuttle Endeavour and the International Space Station (ISS) took a half day off March 19 after a busy week assembling Canada’s Dextre robot and getting the first pressurized Japanese module installed and outfitted. Still to come are some repairs and inspections, and tests of a thermal-tile repair technique that could be needed on the servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope coming up at the end of the summer.
A recent Rand Corp. report says that while terrorist groups could opt to use unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and cruise missiles, there are more likely threats to worry about. Nonetheless, the UAV and missile threat cannot be ignored, Rand says. “We conclude that they do not appear to have major advantages over other ways of carrying out operations against similar targets, although they cannot be dismissed outright as a potential threat,” Rand says in its recent report.
The U.S. Navy is facing shortfalls in the coming years in warships and aircraft and is increasingly encountering skepticism on Capitol Hill over whether the service’s planning is sufficient to meet its stated and expected requirements.
RESEARCH AWARDS: A mission-configurable stealth underwater batoid, heterogeneous unmanned networked teams and rotorcraft brownout mitigation are three of several multidisciplinary basic research concepts that DOD looks to fund with as much as $200 million over the next five years, DOD announced March 18.
Germany’s Rheinmetall Group says it has taken over Netherlands-based armored vehicle company Stork PWV from its parent company Stork NV. Financial terms were not disclosed, and the deal still requires approval from relevant competition authorities. With the acquisition, Rheinmetall becomes the 64 percent majority shareholder in the Artec consortium that is building the new Boxer family of modular 8x8 armored wheeled vehicles, one of the largest armored vehicle projects in Europe.
PARIS – Arianespace is planning to accelerate the ramp up of its new Soyuz launch pad in Kourou to meet telescoping demand. The new pad, due to open in mid-2009, is currently slated to start business with three missions the first year and four the second. But European institutional customers say this rate will not be sufficient to handle the number of public and commercial launches expected.
A draft request for proposals (RFP) could be released as soon as April for a new sea-based missile that would provide U.S. Navy combatant commanders with short- and medium-range tactical ballistic missile defense capabilities. Lockheed Martin recently completed a year-long feasibility study commissioned by the Navy demonstrating the ability of its Patriot Advance Capability-3 (PAC-3) Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) missile to be integrated onto an Aegis ship.
A LEGEND PASSES: Space visionary and author Arthur C. Clarke died March 19 at his home in Sri Lanka, after reportedly suffering respiratory problems. He was 90 years old. Clarke is credited with first proposing the concept of geostationary satellite communications in a 1945 article in Wireless World magazine. The first geostationary telecommunications satellite, Syncom 3, was launched in 1964. In later years Clarke also championed the concept of space elevators as a low-cost means of transferring cargo to orbit.
Two skeptics of the Pentagon and White House’s assertions behind the U.S. shootdown of a dying intelligence satellite last month are calling on Washington officials to publish their risk assessments or face the prospect that the unprecedented strike could do more long-term harm than good to U.S. interests.
The U.S. Navy is considering whether to seek a new engine for the Bell/Boeing V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor transport, program manager Col. Matt Mulhern said March 18. The existing Rolls-Royce AE 1107C Liberty engines are demonstrating an unacceptably short life, which has prevented the Navy and Rolls-Royce from reaching a deal on paying for engine support, overhaul and replacement.
NOAA AWARDS: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has chosen Integrity Applications Inc., of Chantilly, Va., for an award worth up to $9.9 million to provide systems engineering and technical support for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R (GOES-R) system.
