The U.S. Missile Defense Agency's (MDA) Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) ballistic missile defense program conducted a nonintercept flight-test at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in New Mexico June 26 The endoatmospheric test was intended to provide engineers with performance and aerodynamic data for the lowest altitudes at which the system might be called on to intercept a missile.
NASA MARKUP: The Senate Appropriations committee on June 28 will mark up a fiscal 2008 spending bill that allocates $17.5 billion for NASA, including $4 billion for space shuttle operations and $2.2 billion for the space station. The bill also provides $4.2 billion for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), including $450 million to implement the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative's recommendations and $30 million to restore critical climate sensors to NOAA weather satellites.
Military microwave components provider Herley Industries said June 27 that the U.S. government has suspended two of its eight manufacturing facilities from receiving new government contracts pending an investigation into whether Herley employees falsified test data on equipment shipped to an undisclosed U.S. defense contractor.
Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) staff said the panel on June 26 voted on several Bush administration nominations, including the so-called war czar and a fully empowered U.S. Army secretary. SASC members were asked to vote on Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute to be assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan by roll-call vote.
NASA is beginning to pick some scientific investigations to fund on and above the lunar surface, as it works toward an eventual human return there. The agency's Science Mission Directorate has picked seven "suitcase science" experiments for further development in anticipation of the day when astronauts can deploy them on the moon's surface.
NO VOTE: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hopes to send the fiscal 2008 defense authorization bill to the Senate floor this week, but the heated debate over the future of U.S. commitments in Iraq is expected to delay a final vote until sometime in July. "I think a lot of us are still optimistic we'll get to defense authorization in July," Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a member of the Armed Services Committee (SASC), said June 26. "There's a lot of amendments," SASC Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said, adding: "We may move to Iraq issues this week.
BAE Systems received a subpoena June 25 from the U.S. Justice Department concerning anti-corruption law issues, including the company's long-standing Al Yamamah deal to supply and support weapons systems for Saudi Arabia. News of the subpoena precipitated a nearly 10 percent drop in share price for BAE, the U.K.'s largest defense manufacturer.
The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) believes the United States depends too much on digital dominance and would try to exploit that kind of vulnerability in a conflict, a recent RAND study says.
With many defense industry analysts predicting that contract protests will be as common to military acquisition as contract awards themselves, the concern now is whether the protests indicate a deeper problem in Pentagon purchasing -- and what needs to be done about it. For now, some analysts say, the Pentagon and contractors may need to include the protest timeframe as part of the overall contract schedule.
The Bush administration has bungled budgeting for long-term U.S. security needs and the government should cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security spending to pay for back-logged national security growth, said a panel of American Enterprise Institute and Goldman Sachs analysts June 26. Otherwise, the country should prepare for a major "squeeze" in defense spending and potentially weakened status abroad, said the conservative-leaning commentators.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Boeing, lead contractor on the SBInet border security program, are in trouble with lawmakers for not keeping them up to date on deployment slips for a virtual fence in Arizona.
Italy's Elettronica and Israel's Elbit Systems have teamed to jointly develop another contender in the directed infrared countermeasures (DIRCM) market. At the core of the effort is the "Music" laser-based DIRCM system Elbit has been working on. The work is carried out by Elbit's Elop unit. The combined effort targets both helicopter and large aircraft applications. In a joint statement, the two companies said they have already begun a marketing effort and could deliver the first countermeasures device by the end of next year.
Shuttle prime contractor United Space Alliance (USA) says the ongoing strike of roughly 570 shuttle workers that began June 14 has not yet had any impact on the scheduled launch of Endeavour on STS-118 Aug. 9. Endeavour is scheduled to roll out from its hangar to the Vehicle Assembly Building on July 2, three days ahead of schedule, according to USA spokeswoman Tracy Yates. "We continue to operate under our strike contingency plan," Yates told The DAILY. "So far things are going safely, smoothly and on schedule."
The U.S. Air Force is awarding Raytheon Technical Services a $75 million contract to rework the old GBU-15/AGM-130 family of weapons after the federal government last year sold off 90 MHz of radio spectrum for the mobile phone industry to use for so-called third-generation products and services. The Air Force has to vacate the 1710-1755 MHz frequency bands used for the training frequency for all weapons that are flown in the continental United States within four years, the Defense Department explained in its June 22 contract announcement.
Former House Space and Aeronautics subcommittee chairman Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) is calling on current chairman Mark Udall (D-Colo.) to convene a hearing on NASA's Spaceguard program, which is cataloging potentially dangerous Near Earth Objects (NEOs).
SUCCESSFUL AEGIS: Aegis ballistic missile defense system program officials and supporters have declared an apparently successful "hit-to-kill" intercept test June 22. The latest Aegis BMD test boosted system confidence because the medium-range target missile separated from its booster before the Aegis system's Standard Missile 3 Block IA slammed into it more than 100 miles above the Pacific Ocean and 250 miles northwest of Kauai, Hawaii. The test also entailed the first intercept launch of an SM-3 from a U.S.
Northrop Grumman has completed the critical design review and entered the integration and test phase for the Joint High Power Solid State Laser (JHPSSL) Phase 3 program after exceeding all demonstration requirements for the first gain module, or building block, forming the core of its 100-kilowatt solid-state laser system, the company announced June 25.
