NASA is reconsidering its plan to use a new version of the space shuttle main engine (SSME) for the larger of two launch vehicles to send human explorers beyond low-Earth orbit to the moon and beyond.
The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee has announced he will try to reign in the Bush administration's supplemental defense budget requests that he calls a "shadow budget." "We are seeing basically a process where emergency spending has become what I call a shadow budget, but at a minimum, it is an alternative budgeting process where you essentially have two budgets around here," Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) said March 13. 'No controls at all'
A heavy-lift Ariane 5 ECA sent a pair of satellites weighing 7,778 kilograms (17,112 pounds) toward their geostationary transfer orbits March 11, following a series of technical delays that held the mission at Europe's launch facility near Kourou, French Guiana, more than two weeks longer than planned.
The next likely commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard has identified special operations capabilities as one growth area under his administration, and told senators that such investments would help align the Homeland Security Department's armed service with the Defense Department. Indeed, the Bush administration's fiscal 2007 budget request would provide $4.7 million for the Coast Guard to work with the Defense and Justice departments to transform the prototype Enhanced Maritime Safety and Security Team (E-MSST) into a Maritime Security Response Team (MSRT).
Leading Senate Democrats, backed by a lobbyist for police, correctional officers and emergency medical providers, accused the Bush administration of underfunding homeland security needs in light of growing warfighting spending abroad. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (Conn.), ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said they will advocate for more money for first responders. Neither proposed changing nor reducing defense spending.
LONDON - Britain will cut its military presence in Iraq by just more than 10 percent in May, with its next rotation of forces in and around Basra in southern Iraq. The number of British service personnel deployed as part of the Multi-National Division South East will be cut by 800, bringing the number of British military deployed in the operation down to 7,000. At the height of operations the U.K. had 10,000 personnel in Iraq.
AIR FORCES: The Defense Department has been drawing down its air forces since 1990 and by 2024 will have reduced them by 42 percent, said Air Force Maj. Gen. Ronald Bath, special assistant to the service's vice chief. What's left will be completely embedded in a single, more advanced weapons system. "We're trying to get smaller while we have more capability," he told the Pacific Northwest National Security Forum.
IT SPURRED: When a war comes along, there are a lot of bills to pay, and it eats into the operations and maintenance accounts where many information technology projects get funded, says Ray Bjorklund, Federal Sources Inc. senior vice president and chief knowledge officer. Warfighting has delayed some IT efforts, but then again, a new environment for information sharing has been created at the same time. "It's tending to accelerate that transformation," he said. The trend is spreading to other federal agencies, starting with the Homeland Security Department.
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) placed itself in a highly elliptical orbit around the red planet with a 27-minute engine burn on March 10, successfully passing the riskiest milestone in its mission. The Lockheed Martin-built spacecraft traveled about 500 million kilometers (310 million miles) to reach Mars following liftoff from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Aug. 12, 2005.
PARIS - Apparently sensing a window of opportunity, Thales is earmarking more than $1 billion for acquisitions in a bid to grow its business by 25 percent over the next three years.
ST5 POSTPONED: Predicted bad weather at Vandenberg Air Force Base has prompted NASA to postpone the scheduled March 14 launch of the Space Technology 5 (ST5) spacecraft aboard an air-launched Pegasus rocket. The forecast improves on March 15, with an 80 percent chance of favorable weather. The mission consists of three 25-kilogram (55-pound) microsatellites built at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center that will fly in formation in the Earth's magnetosphere.
Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) plans to once again restructure the H-1 helicopter upgrade program in light of recent developmental and manufacturing problems, according to Navy officials. The H-1 program will replace the Marine Corps' aging AH-1W and UH-1N helicopters with 180 AH-1Z and 100 UH-1Y models. Ninety of the UH-1Ys will be newly built aircraft.
Early analysis of comet samples returned by NASA's Stardust spacecraft have surprised scientists, showing that at least some of the frozen bodies contain minerals formed at very high temperatures. Stardust collected dust samples from the nucleus of comet Wild 2 in 2004, as well as samples of interstellar dust. The sample canister parachuted down into the Utah desert on Jan. 15 (DAILY, Jan. 18). The completion of the mission marked the first time comet samples have been brought back for study.
LMRS UUV: The fast-attack submarine USS Scranton demonstrated homing and docking of an unmanned undersea vehicle (UUV) system during at-sea testing in January, the Navy announced March 9. The two UUVs launched from torpedo tubes and controlled via an underwater acoustic communication system are a part of the AN/BLQ-11 Long Term Mine Reconnaissance System (LMRS), to help submarines conduct clandestine undersea surveys (DAILY, June 3, 2003). Officials also tested a torpedo-tube-mounted recovery system.
Minneapolis-based Alliant Techsystems has been awarded orders worth more than $134 million to provide the U.S. Army with additional small-caliber ammunition, the company said March 10. The orders were made by the U.S. Army Field Service Command, Rock Island, Ill. ATK runs the Army's Missouri-based Lake City small-caliber ammunition plant that produces 5.56mm, 7.62mm, 50-caliber, and other small-caliber rounds.
The Defense Department's newly infused joint improvised explosive devices (IED) defeat group, headed by a retired four-star Army general, will be responsible for making recommendations on $3.3 billion worth of spending this year, but final decisions will be made by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, top DOD officials said March 10.
U.S. government lawyers are holding up deliveries of aircraft engines and other military hardware by demanding that contractors certify that metals in every component were made in the U.S., all the way down to screws and wires.
Department of Defense officials expressed confidence before lawmakers in Washington on March 9 that the nation's current limited missile defense system is ready in the event of an attack on the country. The U.S. has had a limited national defense against ballistic missiles deployed since late 2004, including interceptors positioned in Ft. Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.
In early May NATO is expected to release the final request for proposals for a missile defense system to protect NATO troops that will integrate existing anti-missile systems from NATO member countries rather than develop new hardware.
Feb. 21 - 24 -- Software Radio Conference, "Connecting Warfighters & First Responders for Maximum Interoperability," Sheraton Premier at Tysons Corner, Vienna, Va. For more information go to www.idga.org. March 7 - 10 -- AVEX 2006 - 2nd International Air Show & Aviation Expo, Sharm El Sheikh International Airport, Cairo, Egypt. For more information go to www.avex-2000.com.
