The U.S. Air Force's Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) flew in what appears to have been a successful test July 20, giving the program a lift after taking a beating on Capitol Hill the previous month. During the test, the missile cleanly separated from an F-16 at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., and flew about 21 minutes before detonating in a hardened test target, a government source told The DAILY July 21.
The next-generation, tactical, vertical takeoff and landing unmanned aerial vehicle (VUAV) for the U.S. Coast Guard's Deepwater recapitalization program, Bell Helicopter Textron's Eagle Eye tiltrotor UAV, will take its first flight in September, Rear Adm. Patrick Stillman told House appropriators July 21.
NEW HELOS: Venezuela's army will receive 15 new Russian helicopters in early 2006 under a program to improve its land operations. They include Mi-17 light transport, Mi-26 heavy transport and Mi-35 combat aircraft, Venezuela army Gen. Raul Isaias Baduel said in a statement July 18. A total of 33 helicopters will be delivered by the end of 2006 under the Army Aviation Commando Enhancement Project. The aircraft will be used to help guard the country's southwestern region, Baduel said.
WAR OF WORDS: The House on July 20 agreed to a call for Chinese Gen. Zhu Chenghu to be relieved of his command after the general last week said China could use nuclear weapons in response to U.S. military defense of Taiwan if a conflict arose. Those comments were "both damaging to United States-China relations and a violation of China's commitment to resolve its differences with Taiwan peacefully," says a provision sponsored by Rep. Thomas Tancredo (R-Colo.).
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has decided to stop buying Lockheed Martin's alternative interceptor booster for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, the head of MDA said July 21.
NEW HELOS: Venezuela's army will receive 15 new Russian helicopters in early 2006 under a program to improve its land operations. They include Mi-17 light transport, Mi-26 heavy transport and Mi-35 combat aircraft, Venezuela army Gen. Raul Isaias Baduel said in a statement July 18. A total of 33 helicopters will be delivered by the end of 2006 under the Army Aviation Commando Enhancement Project. The aircraft will be used to help guard the country's southwestern region, Baduel said.
A Russian investigation board has concluded that the Volna rocket carrying the Cosmos-1 solar sail spacecraft failed because its first-stage engine shut down prematurely, according to an announcement from the Planetary Society. A joint effort of the society and Cosmos Studios, the $4 million Cosmos-1 spacecraft would have attempted the first controlled flight of a solar sail. The spacecraft launched from a submerged Russian submarine in the Barents Sea on June 21 (DAILY, June 23).
Longbow Limited (LBL), a joint venture of Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, won a $13.3 million Army contract for life cycle contractor support of the Longbow Fire Control Radar. The contract was awarded to LBL for 2005 with an option of the same amount for calendar year 2006. LBL already provides depot repair, production integration support and technical support to Apache squadrons in the field under a previous contract for 2004.
Senators attempting to amend the fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill will try to eliminate funds for developing the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), strip more than $60 million from national missile defense, and boost funding to buy up-armor Humvees for the Army and the Marine Corps.
NEW DESTROYER: The U.S. Navy will christen its newest Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, Farragut, on July 23 in a ceremony at General Dynamics Corp.'s Bath Iron Works shipyard in Maine. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) will serve as ship's sponsor. Designated DDG 99, Farragut is the 49th of 62 Arleigh Burke-class ships. The 9,200-ton Farragut is 509.5 feet in length, has a waterline beam of 59 feet and a navigational draft of 32 feet. Four gas turbine engines will power the ship to speeds of more than 30 knots. The ship honors Adm.
MISSILE-3 CONTRACT: Raytheon will provide the Missile Defense Agency with additional Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) rounds for Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense deployment requirements under a $124.1 million contract, the company said July 21. The contract is the first for the SM-3 Block IA, an upgrade to the SM-3 Block I. Raytheon previously delivered six SM-3 Block I missiles and is set to provide five more. The SM-3 Block IA is more reliable and supportable and costs less, the company said. The contract was awarded by the U.S. Navy.
Delta Airlines is using new NASA technology to help pilots avoid dangerous turbulence, the aerospace agency said July 19. The Turbulence Auto-PIREP System (TAPS), developed jointly by NASA's Langley Research Center of Hampton, Va., and AeroTech Research Inc. of Newport News, Va., is currently being tested on more than 80 Delta Jets. PIREPS stands for pilot reports.
NASA will try again to launch Space Shuttle Discovery from launch pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 10:39 a.m. EDT on July 26, the agency announced. Engineers have spent the past week troubleshooting a problem with one of the shuttle's four liquid hydrogen engine cutoff (ECO) sensors that caused the agency to scrub the first launch attempt for STS-114 on July 13. NASA now suspects the intermittent failure of the ECO sensor, which has been showing false "wet" readings, may be the result of electromagnetic interference due to improper grounding.
Revenues climbed 12% and net earnings surged 15% for General Dynamics in the second quarter of 2005, the company said July 20. Second-quarter revenues were $5.2 billion, compared with $4.7 billion for the same period a year ago. Net earnings were $345 million, or $1.71 per share, compared to $300 million, or $1.49 per share, in the second quarter of 2004, the company said. Earnings from continuing operations jumped to $344 million, or $1.70 per share, from $290 million, or $1.44 per share.
Douglas Grier III has been appointed regional sales manager for law enforcement in the mid-Atlantic region. Bryan K. James has been named director of law enforcement sales.
Daniel J. McClain has been appointed corporate director of media relations. Douglas H. Young has been named vice president of space systems for the company's integrated systems sector and Crew Exploration Vehicle program manager.
ARMOR DISPLAY: The House Armed Services Committee on July 21 will host a Capitol Hill display of gun truck armor kits for convoy protection, a Humvee with a Marine Armor Kit and ballistic glass, and the Interceptor personal body armor system. The Vietnam-era gun truck armor kits were developed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to provide convoy protection in Iraq, where 31 such trucks are now operating with another 80 vehicles planned, the HASC said July 20.
In late summer or early fall the U.S. Navy plans to assess a miniaturized Cooperative Engagement Capability terminal developed by prime contractor Raytheon that takes advantage of modern computer technology to reduce the system's size and power requirements. CEC links radar systems on Navy ships and aircraft to create joint radar tracks and enhance targeting. Based on 1990s technology, the current Block I CEC system costs roughly $6 million per installation.
Ike Evans, Richard Gephardt, Robert Johnson, Lt. Gen. Ronald T. Kadish (USAF-Ret.), Connie Mack, Seth M. Mersky, Jeffrey L. Turner, and Nigel S. Wright have been named to the board of directors. Evans is an operating partner of Thayer Capital and vice chairman of Suntron Corp. Gephardt is a former Missouri congressman. Johnson is chairman of Honeywell Aerospace. Kadish is former director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency. Mack is a former Florida senator. Mersky is a managing director of Onex Corp. Turner is president and CEO of Spirit Aerosystems Inc.
TOMAHAWK FLIES: The submarine USS Tucson test launched a Tomahawk Block IV cruise missile while submerged off the coast of southern California on July 19. Seconds after being launched vertically, the Tomahawk transitioned to cruise flight and flew a fully guided 815-nautical mile test flight using Global Positioning System and digital scene matching navigation. The flight ended at a target site on a land range managed by Naval Air Systems Command. The Block IV Tomahawk achieved initial operational capability in May 2004.
The U.S. Air Force will adjust its plans for legacy fighters if the multiservice F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program experiences more delays, a service official told a congressional panel July 20. The Air Force plans to buy 1,763 F-35s from Lockheed Martin Corp. to replace its F-16s and eventually its A-10s. But the Air Force's initial fielding date for JSF already has slipped from 2011 to 2013 due to the program's weight problems, and more delays are seen as possible.
