MOBILITY STUDY: The Mobility Capability Study (MCS), which the Defense Department hoped to finish in April, will take a little more time than expected and is now slated for completion sometime in May, a Pentagon spokeswoman says. Proponents of the Air Force's Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules hope the MCS, which is looking at DOD's overall mobility needs, will support their case for reversing DOD's decision to stop production of the transport aircraft. Meanwhile, Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita says DOD hopes to finish reassessing its C-130J decision "soon."
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency is exploring the possibility that moisture in an interceptor silo contributed to a recent failed test of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system.
PERSONNEL EXPERIMENT: Navy engineering, acquisition and aviation engineering duty officers would receive "demonstration authority" under a Defense Department proposal to experiment with changes to officer personnel management. DOD officials want to test changes in compensation, promotions and retention. Among other changes, the project would allow for lateral entry into positions normally reserved for workers who have risen from a lower position. Army foreign area officers also would be subjected to the demonstration.
CLOSING IN: NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft has photographed its quarry, the comet Tempel 1, and is closing in for its high-speed July 4 rendezvous, NASA says. "With daily observations beginning in May, Tempel 1 will become noticeably more impressive as we continue to close the gap between spacecraft and comet," says Michael A'Hearn of the University of Maryland, Deep Impact's principal investigator.
EA-18G MODS: The Boeing Co. has finished building the first of two F/A-18F Super Hornets that will be adapted for use as EA-18G flight-test assets, a company spokeswoman says. The jet will now undergo about a year of modifications in St. Louis to equip it for the U.S. Navy's EA-18G electronic attack program. Boeing expects to finish building the second F/A-18F May 12 before converting it to an EA-18G test jet. The EA-18G program plans to begin flight-testing in September 2006.
SPACE CADRE: Gen. Paul Hester, commander of Pacific Air Forces, has only a small number of space personnel spread throughout the Pacific, but can supplement them as needed with a "plug" of personnel from Air Force Space Command, he says. "It's similar to our cooperation with Air Mobility Command," Hester says. "When we see a tension that requires a ... more significant focus on air mobility, then Air Mobility Command sends us a plug of people - a specially trained group of people to come and sit in our air ops center." Similarly, AFSPC Commander Gen.
May 3 - 5 -- 2005 Joint Service Power Expo, "Power - Energy Sources for Transformation," Tampa Convention Center, Tampa, Fla. For more information go to http://www.ndia.org. May 9 - 12 -- 13th Global Demilitarization Symposium & Exhibition, John Ascuaga's Nugget, Sparks, Nev. For more information go to http://www.ndia.org. May 24 - 25 -- Military Satellites, "Ensuring Optimal Secure Satellite Communications," Hilton Silver Spring, Silver Spring, Md. For more information call 1-800-882-8684 or go to http://www.idga.org.
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has approved Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., to begin preparing for a fifth space shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. Griffin had promised to revisit previous Administrator Sean O'Keefe's decision to cancel the mission, known as SM4, following the space shuttle's return to flight (DAILY, April 20). Now that the shuttle's launch has been postponed to July, "we're going to start early in reviewing the Hubble decision," Griffin said April 29.
MATURED TECH: The U.S. Army Science and Technology directorate is paying particular attention to accelerating mature technologies with promising capabilities into the current force, according to the consulting company Federal Sources Inc. These technologies include: networked battle command and logistics systems; networked precision missiles and gun launched munitions; improved intelligence sensors; active and passive protection systems; unmanned ground and air systems; and low-cost, multispectral sensors.
The U.S. Navy said April 27 that Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co. of Sunnyvale, Calif., is being awarded an $11.4 million contract to support the fiscal 2006 award for the United Kingdom Technical Services in support of the Trident Strategic Weapons System. The work will be performed in Sunnyvale and should be finished by March 2006. The contract was not competitively procured, the Navy said.
Net sales for body armor producer Ceradyne Inc. jumped 90% in the first quarter of 2005 and net income climbed 20%, the company said April 28. Net sales increased to $69.8 million from $36.7 million in the first quarter of 2004. Net income rose from $5 million to $6 million, the company said. Earnings per share for the first quarter of '05 grew to 24 cents per share compared with 21 cents a year ago, the Costa Mesa, Calif.-based company said.
Goodrich Corp. reported first-quarter 2005 sales of $1.3 billion, a 10% increase over the same period of last year. First-quarter net income per share was 47 cents, a 21% increase over 2004, the company said April 28.
A panel of expert witnesses warned House Science Committee lawmakers about the possible consequences of NASA's proposed scaling back of its efforts in Earth science observation during a hearing April 28.
Potential nuclear Earth-penetrating weapons, which could be used by the United States against hardened enemy bunkers, still would lead to thousands - if not more than a million - civilian surface deaths in dense cities, depending on the bomb's yield and other factors, a committee of experts convened by the National Research Council has concluded. "A nuclear weapon burst in a densely populated urban environment will always result in a large number of casualties," the group said in a report.
Combat vehicle and weapon builder United Defense Industries Inc. reported a drop in net income from $41.9 million in the first quarter of 2004 to $32.7 million for the first quarter of 2005. UDI said April 28 that the decrease mostly is due to an earnings loss from the company's Turkish joint venture and to expenses from its pending acquisition by BAE Systems.
About 123 remote sensing satellites worth an estimated $14 billion are scheduled for production between 2005 and 2014, a new market study from Forecast International says. "Efforts to protect the Earth's natural resources are propelling the need for remote sensing satellites and the imagery products they generate," John Edwards, Forecast's international space systems analyst, said in a statement.
The U.S. Air Force is taking a hard look at how it will support the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS), a top general said April 28. The Air Force is evaluating such things as how to resupply FCS units and how to meet the Army's desire to be able to transport the system through hostile territory, said Gen. John Jumper, Air Force chief of staff. FCS, which is under development by a Boeing-SAIC team, is designed to be a network of unmanned aerial vehicles and manned and unmanned ground systems.
The U.S. Air Force has decided to recompete most of its C-130 avionics upgrade program to address claims that the Boeing Co. received preferential treatment when it was picked to be the prime contractor. The Air Force said April 28 that the Avionics Modernization Program (AMP) will hold a new competition for two future phases: production and installation. Boeing will remain the contractor for AMP's development, which has been under way for several years.
DEDICATED: Boeing held a ceremony April 27 to mark the official opening of its new Space Launch Complex 6 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. SLC-6 is the new West Coast launch site for the Boeing Delta IV, which supports the Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program. The site will give the Air Force the capability to launch national security satellites to polar, sun-synchronous and high-inclination orbits, the company said April 28. The first launch of a Delta IV from the site is scheduled for later this year.
A squadron of U.S. Air Force Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will be permanently stationed on the island of Guam in 2008 or 2009, according to Gen. Paul Hester, commander of Pacific Air Forces.
Armament and defense electronics company EDO Corp. reported revenue of $116.5 million in the first quarter of 2005, up 5% from the $110.9 million recorded in the same period of 2004.
