As the U.S. Air Force begins assessing a bevy of ideas for improving its global strike capabilities, a new congressional report is raising questions about an aircraft concept that already has generated interest among service leaders. The Air Force recently issued a request for information (RFI) on interim steps the service could take to enhance its global attack capabilities before a next-generation platform becomes available. Responses, which were due at the end of May, are expected to total as many as 200 (DAILY, May 20).
MOSCOW - Yamal and Express satellites will be supported by the government for its civil communications needs, but competitors, including Khrunichev's Dialog and NPO Mashinostroeniya's Ruslan satellites, will have to compete in the open market, a Russian space official said May 31. Yamal satellites are built by RSC Energia and Express satellites are built by NPO PM.
NEW DELHI - Defense deals signed by India's former government could be investigated, according to the country's new defense minister, Pranab Mukherjee. While affirming that the new government supports the fast-track procurement of weapons systems, Mukherjee said that all deals, some of which are in the final stages of approval, would be examined again. He said the new government wants to ensure arms procurement is made transparent.
F/A-22 WORK: Lockheed Martin is being awarded a $492 million contract for the advanced procurement of 24 low-rate initial production Lot 5 F/A-22 Raptors, the U.S. Department of Defense said June 1. The work is to be completed by October 2004, and will be performed at company facilities in Marietta, Ga., Seattle and Fort Worth, Texas, the DOD said.
MISSION MANAGEMENT: Boeing's advanced unmanned systems division is developing new mission management software for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that will allow for different types of vehicles to be controlled from the same ground station, according to division director Kim Michel. The software will use the SOSCOE (System of Systems Common Operating Environment) information layer being developed for the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program, which allows for the network-centric sharing of information between different platforms, Michel says.
The U.S. Army is waiting for the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) to decide which passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to use before it invests hundreds of millions of dollars on tags and readers, said Brig. Gen. Charles Fletcher, assistant deputy chief of staff for logistics. Fletcher spoke last week at the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement's Tactical Ground Vehicles conference in Arlington, Va.
EXPANDING: The expansion of its Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) facility in Alabama will enable Lockheed Martin to increase production rates of the weapon to 40 missiles a month, the company says. The revamped Troy, Ala., facility also will enable the company to produce JASSM-Extended Range (ER) and JASSM preplanned product improvement versions without affecting regular JASSM production, according to Lockheed Martin. The 43,176-square-foot expansion doubles the current building size and quadruples its capacity.
THAAD MISSILE: Lockheed Martin is starting to manufacture the missile for the Missile Defense Agency's Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. Activation of the missile production plant in Troy, Ala., took place May 26. The first flight test of the missile is scheduled for the October-December quarter of 2004, and the first attempt to intercept a target is slated for mid- to late-2005.
BACKLOG: The U.S. Department of Defense should develop an integrated plan to reduce backlogs in granting security clearances, which contractors say delays filling positions and beginning work on government contracts, according to a new report from the General Accounting Office. As of the end of March, the DOD's security clearance backlog was about 188,000 applications, GAO says.
HOBBLED: The European defense industry is in trouble and won't be much of a player in the global defense market, according to a recent report from the RAND Corp. "The European defense industry is hobbled by accessible home markets that are mostly stagnant, with no harmonized procurement, making it a painfully slow and risky process to launch large new projects," says the report.
NO CHANGES: A recent report from the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) concludes that no changes are needed in existing laws that govern the use of military aircraft to fight forest fires, although some of the administrative procedures used by firefighting agencies to obtain them should be clarified to ensure efficient and quick response. "Existing authorities and policies for using military resources to fight wildland fires have generally worked well and continue to be appropriate," the report says.
PROGRESS: A new Russian Progress resupply vehicle has docked with the International Space Station, bringing equipment and supplies for station residents, including fuel for maintaining the station's altitude. The previous Progress has been undocked from the station, but will remain in orbit as late as June 3 to examine the feasibility for using spent cargo spacecraft as free-flying, unmanned research platforms.
Alliant Techsystems (ATK) predicted May 28 that it will be reaffirmed as the prime contractor for the Precision Guided Mortar Munition (PGMM), despite the U.S. Army's recent decision to reopen the competition for the laser-guided weapon. "I remain fully confident in the superiority of ATK's PGMM proposal," said ATK CEO Dan Murphy. "I expect ATK will be awarded the contract upon completion of this process."
CONTRACTORS IN THEATER: Contractor support on the battlefield is "the most economical way to keep up the operational readiness rate [ORR], and it's even cost-efficient in peacetime," says a spokesman for General Dynamics Land Systems, which builds the Army Stryker vehicles deployed in Iraq and has 56 contractors currently in theater. Lt. Col.
ABL UPGRADES: Although the Airborne Laser (ABL) program is not expected to attempt its first missile shoot-down until 2005 at the earliest, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency already anticipates it will want to make changes to the first ABL aircraft based on lessons learned from the intercept test. As a result, MDA has awarded the Boeing Co. a contract worth up to $500 million for future, still-to-be-determined improvements to the first aircraft, a Boeing 747-400 freighter modified to carry a chemical kill laser.
June 2 - 3 - Aviation Week presents NetCentric Conference & Exhibition, "Creating a Knowledge Industry to Support Global Security," Washington Convention Center, Washington, D.C. To register go to http://www.aviationweek.com/conferences. June 2 - 3 -- 80th Anniversary Symposium, "Celebrating the Heritage and Future of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces," Washington, D.C. For information contact Carole Berke at (703) 714-2362 or email [email protected].
Italian defense company Finmeccanica S.p.A. is developing a long-range projectile for 76-millimeter naval guns capable of precisely striking and disabling boats without injuring crew onboard.
The Senate returns to Capitol Hill June 1 to resume debate on the fiscal year 2005 defense authorization bill, including a provision for an advanced aviation technology test bed. The Senate Armed Services Committee voted May 7 to authorize $422.2 billion in budget authority for defense programs, $20.5 billion above President Bush's $401.7 billion request.
PRACTICE: Although it is not due to rendezvous with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko until 2014, the European Space Agency spacecraft Rosetta already has observed one comet, Comet C/2002 T7, or Linear. Rosetta launched March 2 and has begun the first phase of commissioning, or activating its instruments. In late April, Rosetta's camera system took images of Linear, and other instruments took measurements of it. Data from the observations shows the instruments are working well, ESA says.
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said the plan to equip the U.S. Air Force with 100 KC-767A tanker program should continue. "I support an analysis of alternatives to determine a cost-effective recapitalization program beyond the first 100 KC-767 aircraft," Hunter said in a statement. "However, we need to move ahead quickly with the first 100 KC-767s before further jeopardizing our refueling capabilties."
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) on May 27 marked the shift from the obsolete Granite Sentry aircraft tracking system to the new Air Migration Evolution (AME) system. "We actually had the cutoff on the 19th of May, but today [May 27] was the ceremony," said Maj. Dave Patterson, spokesman for Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station here.
NASA's solar-powered Mars Exploration Rover (MER) "Opportunity" has begun periodically entering a power-saving "deep sleep" mode overnight to allow more operations during the day. Opportunity entered deep sleep on May 27, after a trial run on May 6. The new sleep mode is enabled by a software upgrade transmitted to both rovers in April. Opportunity has managed only one to two hours of activity on many recent days while examining the stadium-sized "Endurance" crater.
A U.S. Navy independent test agency has given the service the go-ahead to begin fielding Raytheon's Tactical Tomahawk (TacTom) cruise missile. The agency, formally the Commander Operational Test and Evaluation Force, approved TacTom's fleet introduction in a recent report. The report has not been publicly released, according to the Navy's Program Executive Office for Strike Weapons and Unmanned Aviation, or PEO (W), which manages the missile program.
