TANKS DELIVERED: General Dynamics Land Systems said Feb. 16 that it delivered the first five of 59 M1A1 Abrams Integrated Management tanks to Australia's military on Feb. 16. A ceremony was held at the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center in Lima, Ohio. The Abrams tanks will replace Australia's aging Leopard main battle tanks. All 59 Abrams tanks will be shipped to Australia in June and December 2006.
SPIRALING DOWN: NASA's Chandra orbiting X-ray observatory has validated a theory about the formation of spiral galaxies like the Milky Way, detecting a halo of hot gas exactly where theory predicted it would be, surrounding a spiral galaxy 100 million light years distant. Showing up as a faint blue cloud that extends roughly 60,000 light years above and below the plane of galaxy NGS 5746, the X-ray-emitting cloud of hot gas is believed to be an inflowing remnant of the clouds of intergalactic gas that cooled and collapsed to form the spiral galaxy.
The Bush administration is requesting $1.726 billion in fiscal 2007 to reduce the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, which is a 6.9 percent increase over the FY '06 request. The Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) budget request includes $638 million for Fissile Material Disposition, $551 million of which will go toward disposing of U.S. and Russian plutonium, and $87 million of which will be used to dispose of U.S. highly enriched uranium.
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin defended NASA's fiscal 2007 science budget on Capitol Hill Feb. 16, saying that what some science stakeholders characterize as "cuts" are actually just unavoidable delays that follow years of robust growth in agency science funding. NASA's FY '07 budget proposes to reduce science programs at NASA by $3.1 billion through FY '10 as compared to projections in the FY '06 budget, to fund pressing human space flight efforts.
The Defense Department, Northern Command (NORTHCOM) and the National Security Agency were among 115 federal, state, local and private sector organizations participating in the just-completed Cyber Storm national cyber preparedness exercise. According to the Homeland Security Department (DHS), which ran Cyber Storm, the exercise tested national response to a large-scale incident affecting the energy, information technology, telecommunications and transportation sectors.
House defense appropriators are expressing concern with the Defense Department's proposal to kill the Joint Strike Fighter's alternative engine. "We're going to look very seriously" at whether to sole source the JSF engine or keep with two providers, House defense appropriations chairman Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.) told reporters Feb. 16. Young praised the Alternative Fighter Engine (AFE) program with the F-16 fighter, in which the Air Force divided engine orders between General Electric and Pratt & Whitney.
Engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center are running initial wind-tunnel tests on the human space launch vehicle that will replace the space shuttle, while trainers at Johnson Space Center have certified the first 11 astronauts selected after the Columbia accident shifted focus in the space program to the post-shuttle era.
LONDON -- BAE Systems is beginning to detail previously classified unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) research efforts, including flying a representative low observable air vehicle. BAE first flew a UCAV demonstrator, dubbed Raven, in late 2003. The low observable design is part of the company's wider work into UCAV technology for the British Defense Ministry.
The P-8A Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft (MMA) officially has entered its critical design phase following the recent closeout of nine action items left over from the program's preliminary design review in November, Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) announced Feb. 15. During the PDR, Navy program leaders met with prime contractor Boeing in Seattle. "Most technical review board members walked away from the P-8A PDR very impressed with how well prepared the program came to the event," Navy MMA lead Cmdr. Mike Moran said in a statement.
Leaders of the House Appropriations homeland security subcommittee from both parties are questioning the Homeland Security Department's fiscal 2007 budget request, and namely its emphasis on borders and immigration security as compared to continuing needs elsewhere such as the Coast Guard.
COMBAT CONTROL: Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems said Feb. 15 that it has been awarded a $31.7 million contract from the Naval Sea Systems Command to provide integrated combat control systems for the next five Virginia class submarines. The agreement includes all combat control hardware and software, as well as tactical software and logistics support. It includes procurement, production, testing and integration.
The Army secretary and chief of staff declined Feb. 15 to give House defense authorizers much insight on how they would fund a potential surge in troop levels, but said they were confident they could find the $963 million within the Army's $110 billion fiscal 2007 request. In particular, Secretary Francis Harvey and Gen. Peter Schoomaker did not answer whether they would take funds from weapon systems, despite ranking Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton's (Mo.) persistence at a House Armed Services Committee hearing.
