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.
The final NASA fiscal 2007 spending bill passed by the U.S. Senate Feb. 14 shifts $460 million in space shuttle and earmark funding over to exploration, which Sen. Barbara Mikulski thinks should be enough to keep the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle and Ares I rocket programs on schedule. The continuing budget resolution essentially freezes FY '07 spending at FY '06 levels, which for NASA amounts to a $544 million cut to the agency's topline request. This led to concern that the Orion and Ares might miss their scheduled 2014 debut.
U.S. Marine Corps aviation leaders still want their F-35 Joint Strike Fighters as soon as possible, but they acknowledge aircraft buys need to be slipped because the Navy requires later model F/A-18 Super Hornets for current conflicts, said Marine Brig. Gen. Robert Walsh, assistant deputy commandant for aviation.
The Homeland Security Department's Secure Border Initiative network's (SBInet) December 2006 spending plan is a high-level and partial outline of a large, complex and multiyear initiative, and it lacks "explicit and measurable commitments" over capabilities, schedule, costs and benefits associated with individual program elements, congressional auditors have concluded.
THE HAGUE - Italian-based Galileo Avionica, a Finmeccanica company, has won a contract worth 20 million euros ($25.8 million) to provide the Surveillance Information Management (SIM) system within Australia's Coastwatch program for the aerial surveillance of maritime areas surrounding Australia.
BANGALORE, India - Competitors for India's potential bumper fighter purchases are struggling to straighten out political and procurement snags prior to the eventual release of a request for proposals.
Prompted by China's recent demonstrations of its capability to attack orbiting satellites, the Defense Department is stepping up its space protection efforts, said John Young, Pentagon director of defense research and engineering.
NMT AWARD: The U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command should downselect the Navy Multiband Terminal (NMT) satellite communication system contract to a single winner in the third quarter of this fiscal year, contender Raytheon Co. said Feb. 15. NMT is designed as a system of submarine, shore-based and shipboard communications terminals for the satellite communications component of the Navy's FORCEnet concept.
Recently downed helicopters in Iraq were flying at low altitude, and a move to the V-22 Osprey could reduce that risk, said U.S. Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Robert Walsh, assistant deputy commandant for aviation. "All of the shootdowns have occurred at low altitude," Walsh said Feb. 14 during the Defense Technology & Requirements Conference 2007 in Washington. "All of them." The Osprey's flight and maneuvering capabilities will keep it at a higher altitude in dangerous areas, he said. "This airplane will get people up."
