Preliminary results from recent tests show the Lockheed Martin F/A-22 Raptor is proving to be up to "80 times better" than the Boeing F-15 it is designed to replace, a U.S. Air Force official said Jan. 12. The difference between the two air-to-air fighters is "staggering," Air Force acquisition chief Marvin Sambur told the Defense Writers Group. "The combination of supercruise, stealth and advanced avionics gives the F/A-22 a considerable capability advantage over everyone else," Sambur said.
Maj. Gen. Silas R. Johnson, Jr. (USAF-Ret.) has been appointed director of marketing, advanced tanker programs. Guy M. Hicks has been named vice president, communications.
The Air Force plans to make the case for restoring recent Pentagon cuts to the F/A-22 Raptor program during the upcoming quadrennial defense review (QDR) this summer, according to Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper. Shortly before Christmas, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz signed a program budget decision (PBD) instructing the Air Force to stop buying the Lockheed Martin fighter at the end of fiscal year 2008, stopping Raptor procurement at 181 jets instead of the 277 the service had planned (DAILY, Jan. 4).
Michel Mathieu has been named TRS chief executive officer. Terry Heil has been appointed chairman. Lou Laroche has been chosen as chief financial officer.
General Dynamics Electric Boat will buy long-lead material for ship alterations to the USS Michigan (SSBN-727) and USS Georgia (SSBN-729) submarines under an $8.7 million material order, the company said Jan. 11. Electric Boat is converting the two submarines, along with USSN Ohio (SSBN-726) and USS Florida (SSBN-728), to the cruise-missile SSGN configuration, optimizing the subs for conventional tactical strike and special operations support, the company said.
Total research and development funding in the United States will go up by 3.6% this year, rising from an estimated $301 billion in 2004 to $312 billion in 2005, according to Battelle and R&D Magazine's annual funding forecast. Federal spending, mostly by the Department of Defense, will increase by almost 6%, to $98 billion, compared with $92 billion in 2004.
A Lockheed Martin Corp.-led team building the first Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) expects to begin "cutting steel" on the futuristic naval warship by March after a milestone evaluation this week, company executives said Jan. 11. The construction will be followed by a keel-laying ceremony in June. The ship should be launched by June 2006, then 90% complete, with delivery to the Navy by the end of that year.
INTEL SYSTEMS: Electro-Optics Industries Ltd. (Elop), a subsidiary of Haifa, Israel-based Elbit Systems Ltd., will supply advanced imagery intelligence systems worth more than $100 million to various customers, Elop said Jan. 11. The customers' identities were not disclosed. "These wins are testimony to our customers' trust in the operational maturity and technological quality of our systems," Haim Rousso, Elop's general manager, said in a statement.
HIGH-TECH T. REX: NASA scientists at Marshall Space Flight Center, Ala., are using an advanced scanner to examine the skull of a Tyrannosaurus rex, NASA said Jan. 10. The skull, discovered on a South Dakota ranch in 1992, is believed to be the most complete and well-preserved T. rex skull ever discovered. The skull is being examined with a computed tomography scanner, used for nondestructive testing of space parts and equipment.
NOMINATED: President Bush on Jan. 11 nominated Michael Chertoff, a judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals' Third Circuit, to head the Department of Homeland Security. Chertoff, a former assistant U.S. attorney general and U.S. attorney for New Jersey, has "an unwavering determination to protect the American people," Bush said.
EADS will provide its close-range reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to the French armaments procurement agency for the DRAC (drone de reconnaissance au contact) program, the company said Jan. 10. EADS is the prime contractor on the DRAC system, working in partnership with French company SurveyCopter. The DRAC contract, the largest very close-range UAV systems program in Europe, will buy 160 UAV systems from EADS Defence and Communications Systems for a total of 30 million euros ($39 million).
A contract to logistically sustain the latest version of the Global Broadcast System is likely to go to the incumbent, Raytheon Co., according to Raytheon's program director. The Air Force on Jan. 6 issued a request for information that will help it identify potential contractors for the job, but, said Alan Goldey, director of the GBS program for Raytheon, "It's going to be very hard for anybody to compete against us."
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), the new chairman of the Senate Commerce, Transportation and Science Committee, said last week that there are "very serious issues" with NASA's financial footing, and that the aerospace agency will be a priority for his committee.
JTAMDO HEAD: U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Howard Bromberg has been appointed director of the Defense Department's Joint Theater Air and Missile Defense Organization (JTAMDO), DOD announced Jan. 11. Bromberg previously led the Army's Enlisted Personnel Management Directorate. JTAMDO, part of the Joint Staff, was formed in 1997 to ensure theater air and missile defenses are developed in a coordinated way. Its focus was expanded in November 2001 to include all air and missile defenses.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's X-50A Dragonfly unmanned aerial vehicle will resume flight-testing this spring or summer, according to DARPA spokeswoman Jan Walker. Built by Boeing, the first Dragonfly prototype was ruined in a March 2004 crash during a flight-test at Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz. (DAILY, March 31, 2004). The resumed flights will use a pre-existing ground spare that has been made flightworthy.
The Deep Impact team has made some last-minute adjustments to its planned Jan. 12 launch after discovering that the mission's Delta II rocket was somewhat overweight after being integrated with the spacecraft. Deep Impact is scheduled to launch from pad 17-B at Cape Canaveral during an "instantaneous" launch window occurring at 1:47:08 a.m. Eastern time. The weight issue was discovered during a late trajectory run-through, according to Omar Baez, launch director at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
MINEHUNTING: Sweden has purchased remotely operated underwater minehunting systems worth 70 million kronors ($10.2 million) from Sweden-based Saab Underwater Systems, the company said Jan. 11. The systems will be used on the Swedish navy's Landsort-class minehunters. France, the Netherlands and Belgium also have purchased the systems, Mikael Grodzinsky, president of Saab Underwater Systems, said in a statement.
The Chief of U.S. Naval Operations, Adm. Vern Clark, said Jan. 11 that the Navy is not "correctly balanced and optimized for the world of the future," and that it faces a three-decade-long effort to fully reform its forces to accommodate national security needs such as anti-terrorism and homeland security.
National security technology products maker ManTech International Corp. of Fairfax, Va., has won a five-year, $51.3 million contract to provide engineering and technical support services for the Submarine and Surface Ship Signature Silencing Program at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division (NSWCCD), the company said Jan. 10. The contract was awarded by the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA).
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT: Dynamics Research Corp. of Andover, Mass., will help improve the Missile Defense Agency's supply chain performance under a $25 million contract, the company said Jan. 10. The goal of the work, which will continue through January 2008, is to use continuous improvement tools and techniques to improve the performance of MDA suppliers.
