Defense appropriations subcommittee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) pressed Defense Department budget officials for more details on their fiscal 2007 budget request during a hearing in Washington on March 7, predicting that without such detail passage of the department's spending bill will be a challenge.
The Pentagon on March 7 released the 26-page executive summary from The RAND Corp.'s 3,000-page classified tanker capitalization study, which recommends replacing the aging KC-135 fleet with a derivative of existing commercial jetliners.
Obtaining technology for disseminating, analyzing and sharing information is a "critical investment need," the commander of the U.S. European Command (EUCOM) told Congress March 7.
The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum will present the nation's highest aerospace awards on March 8 to the Mars Exploration Rover team and physicist Dr. James A. Van Allen. The Rover engineering and science team will be awarded the 2006 National Air and Space Museum Trophy for Current Achievement during a black-tie ceremony at the museum in Washington, D.C.
The Russian space agency has formed a state commission that will investigate the March 1 Proton Breeze M launch failure that left the Arabsat 4A spacecraft stranded in a low orbit. The panel plans to complete its investigation by the end of the month. The group is led by Victor Remishevsky, deputy director of the space agency Roscosmos. Deputy chairmen include Yuri Bakhvalov, first deputy general designer for Proton manufacturer Khrunichev, and Alexander Chulkov, Roscosmos director of payload deployment systems.
Britain and France on March 6 inked an agreement for further exploratory work on a common aircraft carrier design to meet their future carrier requirements. John Reid, the British defense minister, and his French counterpart, Michele Alliot-Marie, signed the deal for their respective governments.
Integrated Coast Guard Systems (ICGS), a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp., recently awarded a subcontract to Willard Marine Inc. for the first-of-class Long-Range Interceptor (LRI) ship. Further details were not provided on the subcontract. ICGS, in its February newsletter for the Deepwater recapitalization program, said the 11-meter LRI is a new rigid-hull inflatable small boat being introduced for the National Security Cutter and Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC).
The amount of unfunded priorities listed by the U.S. military services this year is up nearly 48 percent over last year and is the highest total since post-Sept. 11, 2001, operations began, according to the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.
Australia's rapidly modernizing Air Force counts on net-centricity to overcome long-distances and small force size. Air Marshal Geoffrey D. Shepherd, Australia's Chief of Air Force, will explain the vision at mid-course and how it's changing with shifts in world events in an upcoming edition of Aviation Week & Space Technology. The following is an excerpt.
SPACE TOURIST: First Japanese space tourist Daisuke Enomoto has begun cosmonaut training in preparation for his scheduled September trip to the International Space Station aboard a Soyuz TMA-9 spacecraft, Space Adventures announced March 6. Enomoto was able to begin his training after receiving Government Medical Committee approval from the Russian Federal Space Agency. The first phase of training will include cosmonaut theoretical and physical training, along with Russian language lessons.
iRobot has developed a payload for its PackBot robot that will fire a slug of water at an improvised explosive device (IED) to render it inert, according to iRobot Executive Vice President and General Manager Joseph Dyer. Explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) personnel deployed in Iraq are expressing increasing interest in systems that are capable of rendering IEDs inert without detonating them, to preserve forensic evidence that might lead back to the bomb-maker (DAILY, July 5, 2005).
The European Defense Agency (EDA) has asked Sagem Defense Securite to examine technology options for "sense and avoid technologies" to be used on future long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles. It's the second contract in the UAV field for EDA, after naming Finnish Patria Oyj to focus on "Digital Line of Sight & Beyond Line of Sight Data Links" options for long-dwell UAVs.
NEW DELHI - India could emerge as a global satellite launch hub with the United States permitting satellites with U.S components to be launched by Indian rockets. During President Bush's recent visit to India, the two countries agreed to continue exploring further cooperation in civil space, including space exploration, satellite navigation, and Earth sciences. Agreements are also being finalized that will allow the launch of U.S. satellites and satellites containing U.S. components by Indian launch vehicles.
The U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) has awarded BAE Systems a $32 million contract for add-on-armor kits and transparent armored gun shields, the company announced Feb. 6. Meanwhile, another BAE unit has received a $9.5 million contract from TACOM to provide 24 spare engines for M88A2 Hercules heavy equipment recovery vehicles to the U.S. Marine Corps.
Scientists who have combined modern solar observations with the record of sunspot activity dating back to 1880 predict a stronger "hurricane season" on the sun beginning late next year or early in 2008.
The Rolls-Royce MT30 contains more than 75 percent U.S. content and is packaged in partnership with DRS Power Technology Inc. of Fitchburg, Mass., a Rolls-Royce North America Inc. spokeswoman told The DAILY. The statement came in response to a March 2 DAILY article that noted recent concern voiced by Rep. Marty Meehan (D-Mass.) over the alternative choice to the originally planned permanent magnet motor (PMM) for the DD(X) destroyer program.
The four-nation consortium developing the Eurofighter Typhoon expects to receive government certification for full operational capability of the Trance 1 aircraft next year, according to program officials.
The U.S. Navy is preparing design modifications to the Virginia-class submarine program to cut acquisition costs "while sustaining or improving warfighting capability," the chief of naval operations (CNO) has told House members.
MINI MCS: The U.S. Transportation Command is carrying out its own "Focused Mobility Analysis" to concentrate on finding the "correct mix of C-17s, C-5s, and C-130 assets and aerial refueling and sealift recapitalization" from a TransCom perspective, according to the command's chief. Air Force Gen. Norton Schwartz told House lawmakers March 2 that the recently finalized Mobility Capability Study (MCS) "provides a starting point" for supporting far-flung combatant commands' needs in 2012.
MEASURING NUNAVUT: Vexcel Canada, an Ottawa-based remote sensing company, has used 10-year-old data from the European Space Agency's ERS-Tandem mission to map elevations on Baffin Island and elsewhere in the frozen territory of Nunavut with unprecedented accuracy, demonstrating the long-term utility of space-derived data sets. Vexcel has produced 21 digital elevation model map sheets of Nunavut as part of a Canadian government effort to update its geographic data on the Arctic territory, which is roughly the size of Western Europe.
