The F-22 Raptor will use Tactical Targeting Network Technology (TTNT) to transmit data and other information that can be used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), said Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Peterson, service chief of warfighting integration and chief information officer. Speaking about the Raptor on Feb. 16 at an Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association luncheon, Peterson said, "You cannot imagine the exquisite ISR platform it is."
'BREAKING GROUND:' Lt. Gen. Gary North, chief of U.S. Central Command's air forces, says that he's trying not to have to increase the number of sorties for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft needed to support the new security strategy on the ground in Iraq. Instead, he says, officials are "breaking ground" in coordinating tips from various ISR aircraft already executing missions there. Furthermore, communications via secret Internet chat rooms are allowing ground soldiers to use information from the ISR aircraft more quickly.
Astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria and cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin are scheduled for a six-hour spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Feb. 22 to swing a stuck Progress-vehicle docking antenna out of the way. The antenna failed to retract as designed when the unpiloted supply vehicle docked to the aft end of the Zvezda service module last October. Controllers in Moscow and Houston worry that in its current configuration the antenna will snag handrails on Zvezda's hull and go out of control during its planned undocking in April.
GOOD ENOUGH: Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley rebuts reports that he was unhappy with his service's choice last year of a Boeing Chinook-based design for the future Combat Search and Rescue Helicopter (CSAR-X). At the end of a press conference at the annual Air Force Association meeting in Orlando, Fla., this month, he tried to set the record straight. "That's a big helicopter," he remarked about Boeing's design. The winner wasn't his top choice, but "we'll make this work."
FLYING AGAIN: The U.S. Air Force resumed Global Hawk flights from Beale Air Force Base on Feb. 15, nearly three months after a communications loss incident in November that prompted the suspension of Global Hawk flights from the base and a long series of negotiations with FAA over the development of new lost-link procedures for the aircraft.
The Defense Appropriations Subcommittee in the House of Representatives is putting the aerospace/defense industry on notice: it doesn't have a high regard for the job it has been doing, and it intends to "reduce cost overruns and poor performance" in military procurement programs. That's the message subcommittee member Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.) had for industry and other government officials attending Aviation Week's Defense Technology and Requirements conference in Washington last week.
NASA should more consistently follow its own guidance on the payment of award fees to contractors to ensure that such fees are better tied to program outcomes, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). At the request of the House Science & Technology Committee, GAO reviewed $31 billion in cost-plus-award-fee (CPAF) contracts at NASA during fiscal years 2002-2004. CPAF contracts accounted for almost half of NASA's contracting dollars over that time, GAO said in a report released Feb. 16.
ATTACK UNLIKELY: In recent public comments, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the United States won't attack Iran. That should not surprise those who have read his book, "From the Shadows, The Ultimate Insider's View of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War," published in 1996 and released in paperback in 2006.
The Pentagon's plan to increase the size of the Army to 547,000 over the next five years may be too much or too little, depending on the Army's future mission, a panel of experts said Feb. 16. Lt. Gen. Theodore Stroup Jr. (USA Ret.), now vice president for education with the Association of the U.S. Army, says he doesn't believe that number is large enough and would like to see a force of 650,000 for the active duty Army.
STUCK IN HAWAII: Even as defense budget-cutters prowl for new targets, the F-22's first air expeditionary force deployment hit a rough patch when the 12 stealth fighters had to turn back on their way from Hawaii to Okinawa because of a navigation computer problem. The software fix was considered minor and easy to do, say Lockheed Martin officials. However, because of the aircraft's system integration, the glitch "affected almost everything to some degree," position and orientation in particular, says an official with insight into the program.
SHUTTLE BUDGET: The shifting of $360 million from the space shuttle budget over to exploration for fiscal 2007 will not affect shuttle operations, according to NASA. The agency is being funded for FY '07 under a continuing resolution that essentially freezes spending at FY '06 levels, which amounts to a $544 million cut as compared to its FY '07 request.
HUNKERING DOWN: China faces sharp criticism this week over its Jan. 11 test of an anti-satellite weapon, as a U.N. panel in Vienna buckles down to setting international guidelines for controlling manmade space debris. China's representatives already have faced pointed complaints from the U.S., France, Germany and Japan at the opening session of the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.
F-35 prime contractor Lockheed Martin and the head of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program office say there are no cost issues to force the Navy to delay aircraft purchases. Navy Budget Director Rear Adm. Stanley Bozin said Feb. 14 at Aviation Week's Defense Technology & Requirements Conference 2007 that cost growth concerns prompted the service to delay some early F-35 buys.
The Swedish defense ministry may start a competition for a new aerial target drone. The system would be employed at the Vidsel test range in northern Sweden, operated by the defense material organization, FMV. The system also could be employed in other locations, including overseas. At this point, the Swedish government is only canvassing industry to see what options are available. Potential bidders are supposed to make their interest known by the end of March. FMV says it is only interested in an off-the-shelf system.
DISCREPANCY: A discrepancy between two air-sensing probes on the Joint Strike Fighter cut the aircraft's first flight by about 20 minutes and is being studied to determine why there was a wider variance than desired for the two sensors, a Lockheed Martin/JSF official says. The discrepancy has caused no serious hiccups for the JSF test flight program.
CLUSTER BILL: Democratic Sens. Diane Feinstein (Calif.) and Patrick Leahy (Vt.) are pushing new legislation that would ban the use of U.S.-made cluster bombs in civilian areas. The proposal comes after criticism over alleged Israeli misuse of cluster bombs against Hezbollah in Lebanon last summer. The legislation would also ban U.S. funding for the use, sale or transfer of cluster munitions that might drop explosive "duds" that later explode, killing noncombatants.
AIRSS DAY: The U.S. Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) at Los Angeles Air Force Base will hold an industry day for the Alternative Infrared Satellite Systems (AIRSS) program on Feb. 21 to brief prospective partners and discuss upcoming contracts. Begun in response to the cost overruns and delays on the Lockheed Martin-led Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) program, AIRSS is pursing alternate technologies for infrared satellites that would provide early warning of missile launches.
SAT LAUNCH CENTER: China's southernmost province, Hainan, is still pushing to host the country's fourth satellite launch center. A feasibility study on the proposal, begun in 2002, will be ready soon, says the acting governor of the island province. The center would be at Wenchang, 19 degrees north of the equator, compared with the 27 degree north position of Xichang, one of the other bases. That would add 7.4 percent to the payload of rockets launched from the site, state media reports, without specifying what kind of orbit the payload would go to.
LONDON - The British parliament on Feb. 14 delivered a generally positive progress report on the government's Defense Industrial Strategy, but with critical caveats, including issues with a new-generation aircraft carrier and the Joint Strike Fighter. The House of Commons Defense Committee report is broadly positive on making headway in DIS implementation. But it expresses concern about the lack of progress on restructuring the country's surface ship manufacturing sector and how that affects the aircraft carrier program.
Responding to congressional questions about the Air Force supplemental request for three F-35 Joint Strike Fighters as replacements for F-16s lost in military operations, Maj. Gen. Frank Faykes, Air Force budget director, said the proposal is technically proper and operationally desirable. "The request met all the DOD requirements for a supplemental," Faykes said Feb. 15 during a break in the Defense Technology & Requirements Conference 2007 in Washington.
