The U.S. Navy's proposed LHA Replacement ship would be assured of full funding under a Senate amendment added to the fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill, setting up a potential disagreement with the House, which has voted to cap the program. Mississippi Republican Sens. Thad Cochran, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and Trent Lott, former majority leader, proposed the amendment, which was adopted by unanimous consent as part of a package of amendments to the bill, S. 1042, which is being debated on the floor.
Boeing Co. said it has demonstrated how an F/A-18E/F Super Hornet can attack moving land targets. It apparently was one of a series of demonstrations in the Defense Department's Weapon Data Link Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (WDL ACTD), an effort to show that missiles and bombs can be linked in a network to increase the effectiveness of warfighters.
EARLY WARNING: Democrats are decrying the Senate GOP leadership's intent to cut off debate on the fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill now on the Senate floor. The annual bill, which was taken up July 20 after the Senate Armed Services Committee approved it May 12, historically is a target of numerous amendment attempts and already the Senate has 19 amendments set aside for further debate. However, Majority Leader Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has said he wants to end debate soon, and on July 22 Majority Whip Sen.
Pratt & Whitney has begun testing the engine it is developing for Northrop Grumman's X-47B unmanned aircraft. The first engine, J-001, which is for ground tests, has run for more than 50 hours since early July at company facilities in West Palm Beach, Fla., and is expected to accumulate 50 more hours of run time by about mid-August. Jim Reed, who manages Pratt & Whitney's work on the X-47B, said late July 21 that the propulsion system has been running "exceptionally well." F100 change
While still trying to sort out precisely what happened to its Cosmos-1 solar sail spacecraft, the Planetary Society hopes to be able to build and launch another solar sail by the end of next year, according to Director Louis Friedman. "We're going to make plans to try and do Cosmos-1 again and to have another attempt at flying the first solar sail mission," Friedman told The DAILY. "We have a lot of ground spares and we could probably build a spacecraft fairly quickly ... maybe in a year."
HAWKEYE AIR: Northrop Grumman Corp. will design, develop, fabricate, assemble, integrate, furnish, manage, test and evaluate an On-Board Oxygen Generating System for the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft under a $22.6 million contract from U.S. Naval Air Systems Command. The award was tacked onto an existing contract, the Navy said. The work is expected to be completed in December 2012.
July 26 - 27 -- Nanotechnology for Defense, Georgetown Conference Center, Washington, D.C. For more information call 1-800-882-8684 or go to www.idga.org. July 26 - 28 -- Naval-Industry R&D Partnership Conference 2005, "Enabling Naval Innovations to Win the Global War on Terrorism." Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, Washington, D.C. For more information go to www.onr.navy.mil.
MOBILITY STUDY: The Mobility Capability Study, which is assessing the Defense Department's transportation needs, remains on track to be completed in mid-to-late summer, a Pentagon spokeswoman says. The study could help determine whether the Air Force increases its planned buy of 180 Boeing C-17 Globemaster IIIs. Air Force Gen. John Handy, commander of U.S. Transportation Command, has said that at least 42 more C-17s are needed (DAILY, March 11, 2004). Boeing, meanwhile, says it needs a commitment from the U.S. government by January 2006 to go beyond 180 C-17s.
CHINA WATCH: Republicans in the House and Senate this week will keep the spotlight, and they hope a little heat, on China. Sens. James Inhofe (Okla.) and Susan Collins (Maine) have introduced an amendment to the fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill that would boost the role of what is now called the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS). Inhofe says he wants to rename it the Committee on Foreign Acquisitions Affecting National Security, and increase its congressional oversight. "I have outlined in my earlier speeches how China is a clear threat.
PRAGUE - The Czech government has approved a plan to sell state-owned aircraft producer Aero Vodochody despite reservations expressed by the country's defense ministry. The decision, made by the cabinet July 20, means the company could be sold as early as the spring of 2006. Cabinet ministers agreed to sell Aero in a two-round tender that will focus primarily on the best business plan for the company, which sunk into debt in the late 1990s.
PRAGUE - Seven companies have submitted applications for a tender worth at least $800 million to supply nearly 200 armored carriers to the Czech military, according to the Czech defense ministry. Defense officials declined July 22 to confirm the names of the companies involved but they are believed to include General Dynamics' Austrian subsidiary Steyr-Daimler-Puch Spezialfahrzeug and Patria of Finland.
Senate lawmakers on July 21 unanimously backed a move to authorize an additional $445.4 million for new up-armored Humvees for the Army and Marine Corps next year. Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, led the effort after noting that some field commanders recently increased their armored Humvee requests as insurgencies flare in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Belgium's defense ministry has approved the acquisition of various military equipment worth more than 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion), the government said July 21. The purchases will include:
AEGIS BMD: The U.S. Missile Defense Agency remains on track to conduct the next flight-test of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (Aegis BMD) system in the fall, an industry source says. The most recent test, in February, resulted in the intercept of a short-range ballistic missile and was the first flight-test of the initial operational version of the sea-based Aegis BMD (DAILY, Feb. 28).
GLOVE CHALLENGE: NASA's latest Centennial Challenge prize competition will award $250,000 to the team that can design and create the best new glove for astronauts. The purse will be awarded in November 2006, when competing teams will go head-to-head testing their designs. The gloves must be strong, easy on the hands, and allow a high degree of dexterity, NASA says. The space agency is partnered on this challenge with Maryland-based nonprofit Volanz Aerospace Inc., which will run the competition at no cost to NASA.
NOT FADE AWAY: The European Space Agency's XMM-Newton space observatory has shown that SN 1979C, a star that exploded in 1979, is as bright today in X-ray light as it was when it was discovered years ago, an unexpected finding. Researchers can use the light from the supernova as a "time machine" to "study the life of a dead star long before it exploded," says Stefan Immler of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Md., leader of a team of astronomers studying SN 1979C. An abundance of solar wind has helped keep the supernova bright, they speculate.
AIRBORNE SETS: The U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division has tapped Cartwright Electronics of Fullerton, Calif., and Micro Systems Inc. of Fort Walton Beach, Fla., to provide up to 731 AN/DSQ-50A Airborne Sets each, including sensor and telemetry downlinks. The sets are used in aerial and surface targets to evaluate capabilities of weapon systems and to train weapon system operators. The awards - representing the only two offers made for the multiple-award contract - are worth $18.7 million to Cartwright and $12.3 million to Micro Systems.
The House on July 22 backed President Bush's space exploration agenda, voting 383-15 to authorize $33.4 billion for NASA over the next two fiscal years.
GOES-N: The GOES-N team hopes to finally launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., as early as the end of this week, following NASA's next attempt to launch Space Shuttle Discovery. If the shuttle launches July 26, as currently scheduled, GOES-N could lift off on the 29th, according to Boeing spokesman Robert Villanueva. If Discovery has to scrub again, GOES-N could fly a day earlier on the 28th. Although the Delta IV rocket carrying GOES-N will launch from a different pad than the shuttle, the two flights share certain range personnel and infrastructure.
