Congress is moving to pass a bill to authorize President Bush to award a congressional gold medal to the Tuskegee Airmen in recognition of their historical role, "which inspired revolutionary reform in the armed forces, paving the way for full racial integration," according to the sponsoring legislation.
Leading Defense Department officials are defending their fiscal 2007 budget request on Capitol Hill as not oversized and a small portion of the nation's wealth. Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England and Navy Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, vice chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, have told the House and Senate Budget committees in early March that the $439.3 billion request and the accompanying $50 billion supplemental request total just 7 percent higher than the current fiscal year's enacted budget.
Transportation Command Chief Air Force Gen. Norton Schwartz has told the House Armed Services Committee that his command is looking for new platforms that can lift more than 60,000 pounds to or from shorter, unprepared landing zones while providing improved survivability, speed and range.
The Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program will relax Cold War design constraints on nuclear weapons that maximized yield-to-weight ratios and allow U.S. researchers to design replacement parts that are easier to manufacture, safer and more secure, a top Energy Department official said last week.
A pair of NASA/German spacecraft that measures subtle changes in the mass of the terrain below has detected major melting in the ice sheet that covers most of Antarctica. The discovery by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), twin satellites that use lasers for extremely precise measurements of the distance between them as they orbit the Earth, suggests a global warming trend is already raising the mean sea level worldwide.
SHIPBUILDING: The U.S. Military Sealift Command's controlled fleet of four fuel tankers will pass their useful age in 2010, and the desire for additional international trade tankers for Defense Department cargo may result in opportunities for new tanker construction in U.S. shipyards, Transportation Command chief Air Force Gen. Norton Schwartz says.
NEW MISSION: The European Space Agency's Earth observation program board has OK'd construction and launch of a new CryoSat ice-measurement mission to replace the one lost in an October 2005 Rockot booster mishap. The go-ahead will allow the start of industrial contracting and pre-launch scientific validation campaigns for the mission, which is intended to measure land and sea ice with unparalleled accuracy.
Top Air Force leaders are asking Congress to undo a requirement that prohibits the service from retiring C-5A aircraft as its cargo fleet is stressed from global warfighting operations. Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley promoted the issues March 1 and 2 before the House and Senate Armed Services committees.
FOOD FROM SPACE: EADS Astrium's Infoterra unit, which will operate Germany's 1-meter-resolution TerraSAR-X synthetic aperture radar imaging satellite, says more than 10,000 wheat, colza, sugar beet and corn farmers operating on 250,000 hectares (618,000 acres) of farmland are using a satellite-based precision-farming system it developed with Arvalis, a leading French agricultural institute. Infoterra and Arvalis say the Farmstar system has help farmers cut nitrogen fertilizer use by 10-15 kilograms per hectare in 70 percent of the farms covered.
ASSESSING AIRFIELDS, SEAPORTS: Defense Department officials are identifying civil and military airfields and seaports, primarily in the Southern Hemisphere and Southeast Asia, for their ability to handle cargo and personnel shipments, according to Transportation Command Chief Air Force Gen. Norton Schwartz. As part of the Integrated Global Presence and Basing Strategy, the foreign airfields and seaports are being "nominated and assessed for their ability to permit transshipment between air, sea and surface modes of transport," Schwartz told House members March 2.
C-130 BURDEN: Eighty-two C-130 aircraft Air Force-wide are currently grounded or restricted, and combined with Reserve demobilization of C-130E/H personnel in 2006, the result "places a distinct burden upon the active duty fleet," according to Transportation Command chief Air Force Gen. Norton Schwartz. He told House lawmakers March 2 that after the planned acquisition of 168 C-130Js to replace the C-130Es was limited by PBD-753 to 53 aircraft - although later rescinded last May - funding to reach 79 C-130Js has only recently been restored.
H-1 READY FOR EVAL: Naval Air Systems Command's (NAVAIR) H-1 Upgrades Program, which is replacing aging Marine Corps UH-1N and AH-1W helicopters with upgraded UH-1Y and AH-1Zs, is ready to enter operational evaluation following the completion of developmental testing Feb. 17, NAVAIR says. Two of the five developmental test aircraft already have been transferred to the operational test squadron and are being used to train the Marines who will conduct the operational evaluation. Two aircraft are in final preparation to be transferred to the operational test squadron.
February 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.
EELV: Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co. has been awarded a contract worth more than $50 million to perform work on launch capabilities for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) Program, the Defense Department said March 3. The work is expected to be complete by September 2007. Tasks include launch and range operations for Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.; mission integration; mission unique development and Integration; and systems engineering and program management.
The U.S. Transportation Command is seeking a "limited" research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) budget and acquisition authority to pursue "intermodal distribution needs" not addressed by existing Army, Navy and Air Force R&D spending, according to the command's four-star general.
TANKS STILL IMPORTANT: The main battle tank will continue to be a key part of modern armed forces worldwide for the next 10 years despite moves toward transformation, a Forecast International analysis says. The study, "The World Market for Tanks," predicts that almost 7,800 main battle tanks worth more than $31.6 billion will be produced globally through 2015. Almost 45 percent of all new tanks worldwide will be the cheaper, more easily obtainable models mostly designed by the Soviet Union, Forecast predicts.
TRYING AGAIN: Arianespace and NASA have rescheduled launches this month that were delayed earlier. After a telemetry problem with Eutelsat's Hot Bird 7A forced a slip in the Feb. 24 launch date of its heavy-lift Ariane 5 ECA rocket, Alcatel Alenia Space has reverified the telemetry system and cleared the satellite for launch. A subsequent inadvertent disconnect of a cryogenic purging umbilical line to the Ariane 5 forced a rollback Feb. 25 at the launch facility near Kourou, French Guiana, so a new connector could be installed.
Aiming to capitalize on rising demand for advanced jet engine metals, Ladish Co. is planning to increase its capacity to forge super-alloy materials by 50 percent. The company is planning to add a third isothermal forging press at its plant in Cudahy, Wis. Isothermal forging, a process pioneered by Ladish in the early 1970s, is required to forge super-alloy materials that can withstand high temperatures. Aircraft engine makers are using more advanced metals to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions.
New plans for completing the International Space Station call for a full six-member crew to move in by April 2009, with life support and lifeboats set to be available to support them on orbit by then.
EQUIPMENT FUNDS: Senate lawmakers, including Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), are concerned about a projected $3 billion shortfall in Army funding for the reset, repair and recapitalization of equipment returning from Iraq. Army leaders are assuring Congress that money will be put into the FY '07 supplemental this July to cover the balance and prevent a slip in the production lines for either the Bradley Fighting Vehicle or M1A2 Abrams tank lines. But if the supplemental slips, a break in the production lines will take place.
The Senate Armed Services Committee will conduct a "special" hearing soon into the Pentagon's decision to drop the alternative engine program for the Joint Strike Fighter, Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), the panel's chairman, said March 2. House and Senate leaders have expressed concern about the Defense Department plan that eliminates an engine to be produced by General Electric and Rolls-Royce. That leaves Pratt & Whitney's F135 as the sole engine for the JSF. Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne has said the move was largely economical (DAILY, March 1).
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. - NASA and its International Space Station partners have agreed to accelerate the launch of the European Columbus and Japanese Kibo modules on the space shuttle, ahead of any attempt to service the Hubble Space Telescope. The changes involve a major repackaging of ISS elements in the assembly sequence to ensure the full station configuration can be completed as early as 2009, before termination of shuttle flights in late 2010.
The U.S. Navy has chosen Anteon International Corp. for a $15.8 million, five-year contract to support the Office of Naval Research's Marine Corps science and technology programs, the company said Feb. 28.
