Low rate initial production of the EA-6B Prowler electronic attack aircraft's Improved Capability (ICAP) III system was approved last year without complete information on an operational assessment, increasing the risk of having to make costly retrofits, according to a new report from the Department of Defense's inspector general.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has amended the request for proposals (RFP) for its Organic Air Vehicle (OAV) II program, including new specifications for the vehicle's payload volume. The OAV effort is intended to refine the technology of autonomous ducted-fan unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and prepare it for inclusion in the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program. Honeywell was the prime contractor for the OAV I effort. Contract awards for the OAV II RFP are expected in October.
MORE SHIPS? The U.S. Navy may not need more than 375 ships because the vessels it is buying will be more capable than their predecessors, says Steven Kosiak, director of budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Requirement studies have at times estimated a need for as many as 400 ships. Kosiak says the Navy may need to reconsider its fleet configuration. "If they want that many ships, you can't buy lots of $2 billion submarines and billion-dollar-plus surface combatants ...
SLAM-ER TEST: The Boeing Co. has successfully conducted a first captive-carry test of a Standoff Land Attack Missile Expanded Response (SLAM-ER) enhanced with moving-target, network-centric software, the company said Sept. 3. SLAM-ER production software with moving target capability will be delivered to the U.S. Navy in October.
The program schedule for the U.S. Navy's DD(X) multimission destroyer does not allow for the vessel's new technologies to demonstrate a high level of maturity, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). "[With] many of the tests to demonstrate technology maturity occurring around the time of critical design review in the late fiscal year 2005, there is a risk that additional time and money will be necessary to address issues discovered in testing," the report says.
B-52 JAMMER: The U.S. Air Force is moving forward with plans to give the B-52 bomber a standoff radar-jamming capability. The Air Force says it intends to award a pre-system development and demonstration (pre-SDD) contract in March 2005 and an SDD contract in April 2006. Both contracts will go to a still-unidentified lead system integrator. A market survey is under way to identify candidates for the system integrator. The Air Force hopes to give the B-52 a limited jamming capability as early as fiscal 2009 and a more robust capability a few years after that.
ERAM AWARD: Raytheon Co. has been awarded a $440 million contract for the system development and demonstration phase of the Standard Missile-6 Block I/Extended Range Active Missile (ERAM), the Department of Defense announced Sept. 3. ERAM is intended to fill the Navy's need for a long-range interceptor to defeat aircraft and cruise missiles (DAILY, Aug. 26).
SBIRS-HIGH REVIEW: Acting Pentagon acquisition chief Michael Wynne plans to lead a Sept. 9 Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) review of the Air Force's Space Based Infrared System-High (SBIRS-High) program, which has experienced a series of cost and schedule overruns over the past few years. The most recent glitch, which involves software problems and other difficulties, is expected to raise the cost of the missile-detecting satellite system by more than $1 billion.
HYPER-X: The "Hyper-X" X-43A demonstrator aircraft tentatively is scheduled for a captive-carry flight Sept. 7 that will serve as a "dress rehearsal" for its third and final flight attempt expected in late October, according to NASA. The unpiloted demonstrator and its modified Pegasus booster will be carried to 40,000 feet by a B-52 but will not be released. In a normal flight, following deployment from the B-52 the modified Pegasus boosts the X-43A to 95,000 feet, at which point the demonstrator separates and ignites its supersonic-combustion ramjet (scramjet) engine.
RETURNING: With Congress returning to work this week after a monthlong recess, the House Aerospace Caucus is set to meet Sept. 8 to discuss NASA. The aerospace agency's fiscal 2005 budget has not bee completed, and is likely to be rolled into an omnibus spending bill. Work on the FY '05 defense authorization bill also is expected to resume, with the House choosing its conferees to meet with the Senate and hammer out a compromise.
Discontinuing production of the DDG-51 Arleigh Burke guided missile destroyer without immediately starting work on the U.S. Navy's new DD(X) multi-mission destroyer would cause a rise in unit costs for all other vessels, according to a report by the American Shipbuilding Association (ASA).
A recent report by the Defense Science Board (DSB) concludes that the U.S. Air Force's Space Based Radar (SBR) program has the potential to make "substantial contributions" to ballistic missile defense.
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has resumed the use of its Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) after a pebble that had jammed the tool's rotors two weeks earlier apparently fell out. The RAT is used to bore into martian rocks, exposing their interiors for further analysis. Mission controllers had planned to rotate the mechanism in the other direction to dislodge the pebble, but apparently the rover's normal movements were enough to make it fall out (DAILY, Aug. 19).
The U.S. Marine Corps plans to set up new programs in the Middle East to sustain H-1, CH-46 and CH-53 helicopters deployed in Iraq, according to a service official.
BAE Systems is bringing together Alvis and RO Defence to create a new Land Systems business, the company said Sept. 2. The new business will be led by Ian King, group managing director of Customer Solutions & Support (CS&S) and Land Systems.
China ranked first among developing nations in the value of arms transfer agreements with the United States and other nations, according to a Congressional Research Service report. "Developing nations continue to be the primary focus of foreign arms sales activity by weapons suppliers," says the report. "Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations," an unclassified annual study released this week, found that between 2000 and 2003 China had $9.3 billion in agreements with the United States.
The U.S. Air Force later this year plans to show that it can control multiple unmanned aircraft from a single ground station, an ability that would help boost the contribution of such vehicles to network-centric operations, according to Lt. Col. Eric Mathewson, chief of Air Combat Command's UAV division.
Raytheon Co.'s ASQ-228 Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) targeting pods are deployed on the USS John F. Kennedy (CVN 67) with two F/A-18C Hornet squadrons and successfully completed numerous missions in July without missing a sortie, the company said Sept. 1.
C-130S: Lockheed Martin Corp. has been awarded $8.4 million for seven C-130E aircraft for Pakistan's air force, the U.S. Department of Defense said Sept. 2. The sale was conducted under the Foreign Military Sales program. The work is to be completed by December, the DOD said. Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, Robins Air Force Base, Ga., awarded the contract.
NASA has awarded the first contracts for companies to perform preliminary concept studies on human lunar exploration and the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), the agency announced Sept. 1. The 11 contracts are worth approximately $27 million, with options for another $27 million. They are a result of the Concept Exploration and Refinement (CE&R) Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) issued by NASA in May. Each contract covers a period of six months, with an option for an additional six months.
The U.S. Army's Tank and Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) recently awarded United Defense Industries Inc. (UDI) an $18.4 million contract modification to study ways to counter tank-fired kinetic energy (KE) rounds, UDI said Sept. 1. UDI will conduct active defense systems engineering, analysis, and testing. Experiments will simulate, model, define and help understand all aspects of defeating KE, and a direction will be decided on for future technology investments for full-spectrum protection, UDI said.
