A transformation to make Cyber Command and a number of UAV, fighter and bomber units and squadrons heavily manned is already under way and by design, says Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, the Washington-based National Guard bureau chief. Those affected include long-endurance UAV units, F-22 fighter, B-2 bomber and Joint Cargo Aircraft airlift squadrons and, quite likely, the next generation bombers due on the ramp in 2018. In some cases, they will be commanded by Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve and Army National Guard personnel.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry "Trey" Obering, director of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), expects Congress to finalize almost three-quarters of the Pentagon's fiscal 2008 request toward European antimissile radar and interceptors and with only a slight delay in the Defense Department's construction effort there.
Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said Sept. 19 that the service cannot afford to split the acquisition of its next fleet of aerial refueling tankers between Boeing and Northrop Grumman bids because of expected annual orders. "We still think we can't afford it," Wynne told a briefing organized by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments on Capitol Hill. "If we have to buy seven-and-a-half [annually] from each company, we're in trouble."
DOMESTIC SOURCE: The U.S. Air Force is awarding L-3 Communications Electron Technologies of Torrance, Calif., a $5.3 million technology investment agreement to establish a domestic source to develop a manufacturing capability for K-band traveling wave-tube amplifiers for commercial and military satellite applications. The Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting agency.
The U.S. military needs to focus on the battleground of virtual space and developing more precise intelligence, the former head of U.S. Central Command says. "The virtual domain is a domain of war," Gen. John Abizaid (USA Ret.) told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Sept. 17.
UT AWARD: Hamilton Sundstrand, a United Technologies Corp. subsidiary, said it received a potential $400 million award to supply integrated secondary power systems for the U.S. Marines' fleet of CH-53K heavy lift helicopters from Sikorsky Aircraft, another United Technologies subsidiary. Hamilton will provide the environmental control system, auxiliary power unit and main engine start system. Design and development will begin immediately with first hardware deliveries scheduled for 2009, the company said Sept. 17.
Russia's video of its Father of All Bombs shows that it doesn't quite meet Moscow's claims of being the equivalent of a nuclear weapon without the radiation or that it was dropped from a high-speed bomber.
U.S. Air Force special operations officials changed a key performance parameter (KPP) during a vital review stage of the combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) helicopter source selection in a way that avoided Pentagon attention because they wanted to field a new aircraft more quickly and thought there was too much risk involved in developing other platforms, according to sources intimately familiar with the service community and the program.
The DigitalGlobe Ball Aerospace WorldView 1 spacecraft is undergoing early checkout in a 270-nautical-mile polar orbit following launch onboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. Sept. 18. The spacecraft has half-meter panchromatic resolution. This is four times greater than any previous commercial imaging spacecraft.
SES Global South America Holdings, a unit of Luxembourg-based SES, has finalized a five-year agreement to lease two standard Ku-band and three extended Ku-band transponders on SES Americom's AMC-6 satellite to AR-SAT, an Argentine satcom startup created in 2006. Earlier this year, SES sold off its holdings in Brazlian-based Star One, after earlier unloading its shares in Nahuelsat, a struggling Argentine operator, so it could reorganize its effort to penetrate the Latin American market.
Dragonfly Pictures says it has sold two of its DP-6 Whisper tandem rotorcraft to major U.S. prime contractors. The electrically powered unmanned aircraft is designed for quiet operation in combat reconnaissance.
LONG BEACH, Calif. - Space must be a national priority and its exploration a shared responsibility of government and the private sector, a Boeing official said Sept. 18 at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics space conference.
The Pentagon announced Sept. 18 that it will stop buying Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites with the capability to intentionally degrade the accuracy of civil signals, called selective availability (SA), as it pushes for the GPS III system.
A robotic Russian recoverable capsule crammed with life sciences and other microgravity experiments is due to return to Earth Sept. 26 following its successful liftoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The Foton-M3 lifted off on a Soyuz-U rocket at 7 a.m. EDT Sept. 14 and achieved its 300-kilometer orbit without incident. The mission plan calls for 12 days in orbit at that altitude before a parachute return to the steppes of Kazakhstan near the Russian border.
Northrop Grumman and EADS North America, its partner in the KC-X competition, still expect the Air Force to select a replacement aircraft for its aging refueling tanker fleet by year's end, a company official said Sept. 18. "The information we're getting today [on the downselect date] is year end," said Paul Meyer, vice president of Air Mobility Systems for Northrop's Integrated Systems unit. "Until they decide other factors play out, we're hoping that that is the date," he added.
In a unique flight set for liftoff from India Sept. 17-20, Israel's first "Polaris" military imaging radar satellite is to be launched along with India's first military reconnaissance spacecraft on the same powerful Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). The mission, set from India's launch site on an island in the Bay of Bengal, also will put into practice major new military space cooperation between India and Israel.
ARMY Waukesha Foundry Inc., Waukesha, Wis., was awarded on Sept. 7, 2007, a $10,499,998 firm-fixed-price contract for P900 Plates for Mine Protected Ambush Resistant Vehicle Armor Kits. Work will be performed in Waukesha, Wis., and is expected to be completed by April 22, 2008. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This was a sole source contract initiated on Aug. 22, 2007. The U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (W56HZV-07-C-0621). AIR FORCE
After more than a year of development work, the U.S. Air Force has conducted its second flight-test of an inert version of its new low-collateral-damage weapon. The Sept. 14 test demonstrated solid flight characteristics for the Focused Lethality Munition (FLM), a variant of the 250-pound Small-Diameter Bomb (SDB). This test, together with a July 11 trial, validates that the weapon's in-flight guidance flew as required.
