TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. - Changes to improve the U.S. Air Force F/A-22 Raptor's ability to withstand severe weather are planned or under consideration, its developer said.
The House approved a $422 billion Department of Defense fiscal 2005 authorization bill May 20. The bill, approved by a 391-34 vote, would include more than $2 billion in funding for force protection for troops, and would give the DOD until next year to resolve contract negotiations for new aerial refueling tankers for the U.S. Air Force.
LAUNCHED: An Orbital Sciences Corp. Taurus rocket launched ROCSAT-2, Taiwan's remote sensing satellite, from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on May 20, an OSC spokesman said. "Everything looks great," said Barry Beneski. "The launch was terrific, picture perfect, got it to the right orbit" of about 735 kilometers inclined at 99.1 degrees. "It went right at the opening of the window," 10:47 a.m. Pacific time, he said. Telemetry from the satellite was received by the McMurdo station at the South Pole.
Project Wedgetail, a program to develop a next-generation airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) system using a modified Boeing 737-700, conducted its first flight May 20 from Seattle, Wash. The jet, outfitted with a distinctive "Top Hat" radar antenna on its aft fuselage, took off from Boeing Field at 10:15 a.m. Pacific time (1:15 p.m. Eastern) and returned about two hours later, said a spokesman for Northrop Grumman, which is supplying the radar. The flight was "very exciting and an unqualified success," the spokesman told The DAILY.
PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Slovak defense officials have cleared BAE Systems to begin the second phase of a five-year program to install Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) systems in Slovak military hardware. The Slovak defense ministry said May 19 that BAE Systems had successfully completed phase one of the program after winning a tender last year. In 2003, BAE Systems installed the IFF system in an unspecified number of L-39 training aircraft, Mi-17 military transport helicopters and the Slovak army's RL MORAD radar system.
Thales Chairman and CEO Denis Ranque has named a new executive committee as part of a major reorganization of the company begun last December, the company announced last week.
AMC LAUNCH: International Launch Services sent the AMC-11 satellite into orbit on a Lockheed Martin Atlas IIAS rocket on May 19. The mission for SES Americom launched the A2100 satellite, also built by Lockheed Martin, from Cape Canaveral, Fla., Launch Complex 36B. The AMC-11 and the AMC-10, launched in February, form SES Americom's premier cable neighborhood and the platform of its HD-Prime service. ILS plans three more launches for Americom this year.
NEW YORK, N.Y. - Defense and aerospace contractors are beginning to reap the benefits of homeland security funding, according to company officials and industry analysts who spoke at the Aerospace and Defense Finance Conference here this week. "Defense companies are in the best position to take advantage of the homeland security market because they have the technical expertise, the clearances, and they are equipped [to cater to] the customer's mission," Dennis Kelly, senior vice president of corporate communications, Anteon International, told The DAILY.
Lockheed Martin's Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) Unitary rocket achieved all objectives in a recent test at White Sands Missile Range, the company said May 20. The GMLRS is an all-weather, precision-guided rocket that is more accurate and reduces by 80 percent the number of rockets needed to defeat a target, the company said.
NASA's chief financial officer defended the agency's ongoing financial reform effort before lawmakers at a hearing in Washington May 19, responding to questions arising from NASA's second troubled audit in the past three years. In January, independent auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers determined that it could not render an opinion on NASA's fiscal 2003 financial statements, citing insufficient documentation. NASA received a similar "disclaimed" audit for FY '01, although it received a clean audit for FY '02 (DAILY, March 21, 2002).
The prime contract to develop the Airborne Laser (ABL) - which may lack "military utility" - could cost $2.9 billion, nearly three times initial estimates, the General Accounting Office said in a highly critical report released May 19.
Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) is seeking to shift $37 million in funding for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) and related programs into efforts to improve conventional capabilities and intelligence. Tauscher wants to offer an amendment to the House version of the fiscal 2005 Department of Defense budget authorization bill, which is being considered by the full House.
JSF ASSEMBLY: Northrop Grumman has begun assembly of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter's center fuselage and delivered a software-defined radio to JSF prime contractor Lockheed Martin two weeks ahead of schedule, the company said May 19. The company began the fuselage work by installing a single-piece, composite air inlet duct for the JSF's engine in an assembly fixture at its Palmdale, Calif., facility.
As the House began consideration May 19 of the House Armed Services Committee's version of the fiscal 2005 Defense Department authorization bill, committee member Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) urged his colleagues to support it, saying it would add money for almost $300 million in military chiefs' unfunded program requirements.
The development of an instrumented boom for inspecting the space shuttle's leading edge panels in orbit continues to jeopardize NASA's goal of returning the shuttle to flight in March or April of next year, according to the Stafford-Covey Return to Flight Task Group.
PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Czech and U.S. officials are refusing to comment on reports that the United States is in talks over the purchase of a high-tech Czech passive radar system known as Vera. The Czech daily newspaper Lidove Noviny reported this week that U.S. defense officials are in advanced negotiations with the Czech arms company Thomas, which holds a license to export the system. The Czech defense ministry, which says Vera is capable of detecting even stealth aircraft, told The DAILY they had no official comment.
NEW YORK, N.Y. - Third- and fourth-tier companies will make up the next consolidation wave in the aerospace and defense industry, executives and industry analysts said this week at the Aerospace & Defense Finance Conference, sponsored by Aviation Week and Credit Suisse/First Boston.
MARIETTA, Ga. - The U.S. Air Force soon could be flooded with industry ideas for improving long-range strike. A recent request for information (RFI) is expected to generate as many as 200 responses describing interim steps the Air Force could take to enhance its global attack capabilities before a next-generation platform becomes available, according to J.R. McDonald, Lockheed Martin's director of Washington operations for the F/A-22 Raptor fighter. Replies to the RFI are due at the end of May.
AEROSPACE INTEGRATION CORP., Crestview, Fla. R. Stanley Shinkle has been named vice president, Airborne Systems Division. INTEGRATED NANO-TECHNOLOGIES, Rochester, N.Y. Gen. Dennis J. Reimer (USA, Ret.), former chief of staff of the U.S. Army, and Richard J. Whitley have been named to INT's Advisory Panel. LOCKHEED MARTIN MARITIME SYSTEMS & SENSORS TACTICAL SYSTEMS, Eagan, Minn.
Systems look good for a May 20 launch of the Republic of China's ROCSAT-2 satellite on a Taurus rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., according to Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Taurus program manager. "The weather looks good ... and we're in the final arming phases right now, so it appears we're going to be in good shape," said Bill Wrobel. ROCSAT-2, a 750-kilogram (1,653-pound) remote sensing satellite built for Taiwan's National Space Program Office (NSPO) by EADS/Astrium, was to have been launched in April.
Lockheed Martin Corp. is expected to announce May 19 that it will build the Loitering Attack Missile (LAM) at its Pike County Operations facility in Troy, Ala. The company plans to start creating a pilot production line at the facility in 2006. Full-rate production is slated to last through 2020.
MARIETTA, Ga. - Lockheed Martin Corp. expects to erase a production backlog for the F/A-22 Raptor by December, company officials said May 18. So far Lockheed Martin has delivered about seven aircraft fewer than planned. But during a press briefing at F/A-22 production facilities here, company officials said they are making significant progress in getting the program on schedule and expect to be caught up less than eight months from now.
