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).
Robert D. Johnson will retire as president and CEO of the aerospace business in January 2006. Robert J. Gillette will replace Johnson. Adriane M. Brown has been named president and CEO of the transportation systems business.
Ceradyne Inc., which builds lightweight ceramic systems, has opened a new vehicle armor design and armored vehicle prototype facility in Wixom, Mich., the company said Jan. 11. The new facility will be a "center of engineering excellence for the design and application of advanced armor and blast protection systems for the military's tactical wheeled vehicle fleet," Ceradyne said.
Michel Mathieu has been named TRS chief executive officer. Terry Heil has been appointed chairman. Lou Laroche has been chosen as chief financial officer.
The U.S. Navy's nascent Sea Basing concept, whereby the U.S. military could base itself abroad from the ocean rather than relying on forward land bases, would push the frontier of supply transport and management technology, according to Rear Adm. John C. Harvey, deputy for warfare integration, Naval Operations. "We're going to be pushing technology awfully tough. We're going to be doing this ... at sea, with connectors coming in, skin-to-skin transfers," Harvey said Jan. 12 at the Surface Navy Association's national symposium in Arlington, Va.
Capt. James D. Wetherbee (USN-Ret.), the space shuttle lead in the Independent Technical Authority at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, and a former astronaut who flew six times aboard the space shuttle, has retired. Steve Isakowitz has been selected as deputy associate administrator for the exploration systems mission directorate.a
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 U.S. Army needs some form of sea basing to accelerate its transition of land forces from strategic to operational maneuvers, Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, (USA-Ret.), said Jan. 12. The Army also needs a mobile offshore base for "just in time" logistics, and as a place to station command and communications, he said. Scales spoke at the Surface Navy Association National Symposium in Arlington, Va. Sea Basing is part of the Navy's "roadmap to transformation," which includes Sea Shield, Sea Warrior, Sea Strike and Sea Enterprise.
DEEP IMPACT LAUNCHES: NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft launched successfully from Cape Canaveral, Fla., Jan. 12. Boeing's Delta II rocket deployed the spacecraft 34 minutes after launch, putting it on a course to rendezvous with comet Tempel 1 in July. Built by Ball Aerospace, the spacecraft will deploy a penetrator to strike the comet and expose its interior, which is believed to contain material unchanged since the birth of the solar system.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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."
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.
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.
