CHINA RISING: China's army is in the process of a long-term transformation from a mass force designed for protracted wars of attrition on its territory to a more modern force capable of fighting short, high-intensity conflicts, according to the Pentagon's latest alarm-raising report on the Asian giant. Near term, China's buildup appears focused on preparing for operations in the Taiwan Strait, including against U.S.
VEHICLE GPS PRICES: Gartner Inc. says growing competition for vehicle navigation systems using Global Positioning System in autos will drive down prices and turn the products into a commodity if manufactures don't enhance their units. Nearly 40 percent of vehicle owners in the U.S. and Europe want to buy such systems versus the 8 percent of U.S. and 20 percent of European drivers who own them now.
COMPUTING SOLUTIONS: Many companies are investing in enterprise-wide computing solutions that are outdated, overengineered, overpriced and underperforming, according to Gartner Inc. Businesses are expected to waste $10 billion procuring Gigabit Ethernet for their local area networks by 2008, not counting the cost of related phones, power supplies, upgraded facilities and other requirements. Network designers still think they should invest in bigger and faster networking technology even though these improvements often don't serve the needs of users in the company.
June 1 -- Bank of America's Aerospace and Defense Supplier Conference, supported by McAleese & Associates, P.C., Four Seasons Hotel, Boston, Mass. For more information or live webcast information call Katie Weisgerber at (646) 366-4800. June 4 - 6 -- ACI-NA Business Information Technologies Committee Meeting, Hyatt Regency Montreal Centre-Ville, Montreal, PQ, 202-293-3029, email [email protected].
The U.S. Navy and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) said they conducted a successful ballistic missile defense (BMD) test May 24 of the intercept of a target missile in the last few seconds of flight. The Pearl Harbor-based cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG 70), outfitted with a modified Aegis Weapon System, launched a modified Block IV Standard Missile-2 (SM-2) for what was the first sea-based intercept of a ballistic missile in its terminal phase.
NATO, which is trying to transform to a post-Cold War world, is hampered by the paradox that its member nations seem increasingly willing to take on anti-terrorist and anti-insurgency missions such as in Afghanistan while they are less willing to fund the alliance's needs, according to the NATO military commander. "Those two are polar opposites in terms of where we want to get to," said U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, head of U.S. European Command and the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe.
The NOAA/Boeing GOES-N satellite is being maneuvered into its operational slot following a successful May 24 launch from Cape Canaveral on board a Boeing Delta IV. It was only the second flight for the Delta IV Medium Plus configuration, with two ATK 250,000-pound thrust solid rocket boosters in addition to the Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne RS-68 oxygen hydrogen engine. It was the fifth Delta IV flight overall.
Honeywell Defense & Space Electronic Systems has won a $61 million contract to develop the Class I Unmanned Aerial Vehicle System (UAVS) for the U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems program. The contract's awarding was announced May 24 by Boeing Co. and its partner, Science Applications International Corp., which are the lead systems integrator for the FCS. The Class I UAVS is the smallest of four FCS UAV classes. It will give soldiers battlefield reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition.
The Israel Missile Defense Organization (IMDO) has chosen Raytheon and Rafael to develop a new terminal-phase interceptor for destroying short-range ballistic missiles, Raytheon announced May 25. The Short Range Missile Defense (SRMD) program is a joint U.S./Israeli effort to protect the homeland and forward-deployed forces from short-range ballistic weapons. Such missiles and rockets are cheap, plentiful, easy to conceal and largely exempt from international arms control accords, Raytheon said.
L-3 MUST PAY: A federal jury in New York has ordered L-3 Communications to pay $125.6 million in damages to OSI Systems for breaching its fiduciary duties during L-3ís acquisition of PerkinElmerís detection systems business in 2002. L-3 said it would appeal the verdict. In separate news, L-3 announced a deal to acquire Crestview Aerospace Corp. for $135 million in cash.
The Defense Department's Inspector General Office has notified the White House and Congress that Virginia and local municipal governments in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake have not met all the requirements of the 2005 Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) law regarding Naval Air Station (NAS) Oceana, Va. Florida, under the 2005 BRAC law, now has an opportunity to meet conditions that would allow realignment by the Navy from NAS Oceana to Cecil Field, Fla.
Boeing's Spectrolab division believes it is making headway in its attempt to convince the U.S. government to take its space-qualified solar cells off the State Department's munitions list and put them back under Commerce Department control. "I've been at Washington, D.C., and talked to the Department of State a number of times and we're hoping everything is going to come under Department of Commerce jurisdiction shortly," Spectrolab President David Lillington told The DAILY.
Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), who could become the next chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, predicted May 25 that missile defense programs will become the "bill payer" as budgets tighten and Washington deals with the "train wreck" of defense acquisition.
DHS FUNDS: The House moved May 25 to pass its fiscal 2007 Homeland Security Department appropriations bill. At the press time, the chamber was set to vote on and pass the bill. House appropriators sliced $41.6 million from the Coast Guard's $934 million Deepwater recapitalization request and approved $373.2 million for operations, maintenance, and procurement by Customs and Border Protection's Air and Marine division.
W2M AWARD: Eutelsat has awarded Arianespace a contract to launch its W2M spacecraft, ordered earlier this year. The launch, the fifth won by the company this year, is set for 2008.
A new study from Forecast International predicts that the U.S. commercial remote sensing industry is entering a period of stability following the acquisition of Space Imaging by Orbimage, which has reduced the number of major U.S. industry players to two and will take pressure off the government to prop up the industrial base.
As the Defense Department prepares to implement a new incremental development approach for the Transformational Satellite Communications System (TSAT) program, officials still face gaps in knowledge that could hamper its success, according to the Government Accountability Office.
