As part of its work on the Joint Unmanned Combat Air System (J-UCAS) program, Northrop Grumman Corp. demonstrated a shipboard mission control system that would allow unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) to participate autonomously in conventional manned, aircraft carrier-based flight operations, the company said June 15. The demonstration occurred Feb. 23-29 on the USS Harry Truman aircraft carrier stationed off the East Coast of the United States.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency is on track to install the first operational interceptor for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system in about 30 to 45 days, an MDA spokesman said June 15. The interceptor, Initial Defensive Capability 1 (IDC-1), is on course for insertion in an underground silo at Fort Greely, Alaska, in mid- to late-July, the spokesman told The DAILY.
Israel Aircraft Industries' Bird Eye 500 Mini Unmanned Aerial Vehicle system was successfully demonstrated by Condor UAV B.V. in Nuenen, the Netherlands on June 14-15, IAI said. Condor UAV B.V. is the Haarlem, Netherlands-based distributor of mini UAVs for IAI's MALAT Division. The demonstration included traffic control, the detection and tracking of people and vehicles, fire detection, and urban and farm site monitoring.
The Coast Guard's Deepwater program is meeting its milestones, an Integrated Coast Guard Systems (ICGS) official told The DAILY after top service and industry officials met June 15 for a quarterly program management review. "... We are working concurrently across several domains or areas at the same time, with milestones being met in every domain. The Deepwater program is tracking positively with the overall plan and consistent with the funding received to date," said ICGS spokeswoman Margaret Mitchell-Jones.
SPACE IMAGING will provide commercial satellite imagery to the U.S. Geological Survey under a one-year, $5 million contract. The imagery will help the building of a seamless geographic land base of the United States. The data also will be used to support natural hazards and disaster response, homeland security, land and resource management, infrastructure planning and management, policy decision-making, and scientific study, the Denver-based company said. The contract has two one-year options that could boost its value to $15 million.
The Government Electronics and Information Association (GEIA) has released the first in a series of handbooks to help program managers navigate the Integrated Baseline Review (IBR) process when bidding on Department of Defense contracts with Earned Value Management (EVM) requirements. "The Program Managers' Guide to the Integrated Baseline Review Process" supports the Earned Value Management Systems Standard, EIA-74B.
LORAL SKYNET has renewed an agreement with HBO Pacific Partners, V.O.F. to distribute HBO and Cinemax across Asia through HBO Asia, the company announced June 14. Loral Skynet will continue to distribute HBO Asia's programming with its Telstar 10 satellite and later this month will launch Telstar 18. Telstar 10 and Telstar 18 will cover Asia, parts of Europe, Australia, Africa and Hawaii. HBO Asia provides Hollywood entertainment to Asia through licensing agreements with Columbia Tri/Star, DreamWorks, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios and Warner Bros.
One challenge facing the U.S. Navy's future Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) is the integration of mission systems that have never before cohabited on one ship, said Navy officials June 14. The Navy's goal is eventually to integrate most of the mission modules - mine warfare, anti-submarine warfare and anti-surface warfare. However, full integration probably won't happen for Flight 0, Rear Adm. William E. Landay, program executive officer for littoral and mine warfare, said at a briefing.
The M1A1 Abrams battle tank, manufactured by General Dynamics Land Systems Division, has proven itself to be the premier main battle tank in service today, according to Forecast International's annual ranking. The M1A1 has an unmatched combat record in Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), Dean Lockwood, FI weapons systems analyst, said in FI's re-evaluation of its annual ranking of the world's best main battle tanks. The ranking is based on combat experience.
In July, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) plans to perform a demonstration in which the Silver Fox unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) will work together to classify ships. The UAV will be the Silver Fox, conceived by ONR and built by Advanced Ceramics Research of Tucson, Ariz. NAVSEA is providing the 42-foot-long Power Vent USV for the demo, which will be outfitted with radar and a pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) camera.
The U.S. Army is deactivating cockpit airbags on more than 400 UH-60A/L Black Hawk and OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopters while investigators try to determine why the inflatable devices seemed to malfunction in two recent incidents, according to a spokesman for Army Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM).
BRAHMOS TEST: The BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, which India and Russia are developing jointly, was test fired June 13 for the seventh time since 2001. BrahMos, which is fired from a mobile launcher, has a range of about 300 kilometers (186 miles) and can carry a conventional warhead weighing up to 200 kilograms (441 pounds). A two-stage vehicle, its propulsion consists of a solid propellant booster and liquid propellant ramjet system.
A U.S. Forest Service plan to replace 33 tanker aircraft used to fight wildfires in the West with three times as many smaller aircraft is inadequate, according to Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) Flake has introduced a bill to require the temporary reinstatement of contracts for the larger tankers, which were canceled in May by the secretaries of agriculture and the interior.
Elbit Systems Ltd. and RAFAEL Armament Development Authority Ltd. said they will complete the development of an advanced system to defend Israeli airliners against shoulder-fired, heat-seeking missiles. The system already has been chosen by Israel's ministries of defense and transport as the long-term solution for protecting the country's civil aircraft. The team said it has been given the go-ahead to complete system development and engineering, already in advanced stages.
Debate is set to begin June 15 on an amendment to the fiscal year 2005 defense authorization bill that would ban funding for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP). Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) offered the amendment, which is scheduled to be the first debated as the Senate resumes work on the bill.
Pakistan has purchased 13 new Mi-17 Kazan Russian helicopters for $50.7 million, five of which may be used against al Qaeda and Taliban remnants along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The region has been in turmoil since the United States launched its operations in Afghanistan in October 2001. Pakistan also has asked the U.S. for 120 additional helicopters for its army.
The U.S. Navy announced June 14 that it has chosen the Boeing Co. to be the prime contractor for the Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft (MMA), a program expected to be worth tens of billions of dollars for the winner. Boeing, which defeated Lockheed Martin Corp., has been awarded a $3.89 billion contract to develop the replacement for the aging Lockheed Martin P-3 anti-submarine patrol aircraft. Total development and production costs are expected to be $25.5 billion.
BALTIMORE, Md. - The Lockheed Martin-Bell Helicopter Unmanned Combat Armed Rotorcraft (UCAR) team analyzed 11 vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) concepts before settling on a compound helicopter configuration, according to Walter Sonneborn of Bell Helicopter.
A bill to support Operation Iraqi Freedom by allowing the secretary of defense to rapidly acquire equipment to respond to combat emergencies is pending before the House of Representatives. The bill was introduced by Reps. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) and Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), the chairman and ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, and Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), chairman of the Government Reform Committee. It was approved by the House Armed Services Committee by a voice vote last month.
The Senate this week resumes work on the fiscal year 2005 defense authorization bill, including considering amendments that would affect the relationship between contractors and the Department of Defense. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) are among several lawmakers who are seeking to redefine how the Pentagon and contractors interact after problems have surfaced with a number of deals, including the U.S. Air Force's controversial 767 tanker lease-buy agreement with the Boeing Co.
The House Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee scaled back funding for the DD(X) next-generation destroyer program last week as part of its $416.1 billion defense appropriations bill for fiscal 2005.
MOSCOW - A Tselina electronic intelligence satellite was launched June 10 from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, after being delayed repeatedly since late April because of unspecified technical malfunctions. The spacecraft has been officially designated Kosmos-2406, which led to some confusion among space analysts here because the designation already had been applied to a Raduga-1 military communications satellite launched in March. However, the Space Forces later changed that spacecraft's designation back to Raduga.
ACTIVE PROTECTION: The U.S. Army's Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) is conducting a market survey to determine the current availability of active protection systems for ground combat vehicles. Active protection systems such as United Defense's Active Defense System (ADS) sense incoming projectiles such as rocket-propelled grenades and fire a countermeasure to intercept or otherwise disable them (DAILY, March 23). Responses to the survey are due by June 25.
