MORE HELLFIRES: The Defense Department has invested additional funds in the AGM-114N Hellfire missile and will deliver more than 100 units to the Marine Corps and Special Operations Command by June 2005, according to Ronald M. Sega, director of defense research and engineering. Money came from fiscal 2002 Quick Reaction Munitions Funds, though Sega did not provide further details during a hearing last week of the Senate Armed Services Committee's emerging threats subcommittee.
MMA REVIEW: The U.S. Navy's Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft (MMA) is scheduled to undergo a system functional review in April to ensure the program is on track for its preliminary design review in September. The Navy says the program successfully completed February's integrated baseline review, which was designed to ensure funding is assigned to the right tasks. MMA, which the Navy is developing to replace the aging P-3, will use a modified 737-800ERX jet and perform anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface ship warfare and reconnaissance. Boeing is the prime contractor.
Armor Holdings Inc. of Jacksonville, Fla., has received a $35 million order to provide the U.S. Army with a new armoring system for M1151 and M1152 Humvees, the company said March 11. The order was issued under a teaming agreement by military parts supplier AM General of South Bend, Ind. The Humvees will be armored to specified levels during production and fitted so that additional add-on armor can be quickly installed in the field with limited tools and manpower, the company said.
The White House on March 11 announced the nomination of Johns Hopkins University physicist and former In-Q-Tel President Mike Griffin to be the next administrator of NASA. The nomination ends months of speculation over who would be chosen to fill the post vacated by former Administrator Sean O'Keefe, who announced his intention to leave NASA in mid-December and began serving as chancellor of Louisiana State University last month (DAILY, Dec. 14).
SECOND SOURCE: Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, says he wants a Pentagon review into Navy efforts to find a second industrial source of decoy flares for fighter aircraft. Weldon - who praised the current sole-source provider, Alloy Surfaces Company Inc. of Chester Township, Pa., for meeting demands - expressed concern on March 10 over potential patent infringement as part of the Navy's move.
JFK CONTRACTS: The U.S. Navy plans to award one or more contracts between June and September to mothball the USS John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier, with work starting around September, John J. Young Jr., assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, told reporters March 10. The move would leave the U.S. fleet with 11 aircraft carriers. The proposed decommissioning is controversial in Congress, with several lawmakers in both chambers pushing legislation that would require the Navy to maintain at least a dozen carriers (DAILY, Feb. 10).
HIGH THROUGHPUT: In its quest for a network-centric combat force structure, the Defense Department's "toughest challenge" is to find affordable, high-throughput (greater than 10 megabits per second) directional antennas. But the Army believes it has found a solution in distributed, multi-element antenna arrays that enable steerable beams, says Thomas H. Killion, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for research and technology.
PRAGUE - A new privately owned French aerospace, defense and telecommunications group has emerged after electronic equipment maker Sagem successfully bid to merge with state-run aerospace propulsion and equipment company Snecma. The two companies said March 9 that the merger would create a large international high technology group once formalities are completed. Sagem's successful offer for Snecma shares represented more than 83% of the state-owned company's capital and 94.4% of the shares which could be tendered, the companies announced.
Technologies developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are helping save the lives of troops in Iraq today, DARPA Director Tony Tether told lawmakers in a hearing on Capitol Hill March 10.
RADIOS CONTRACT: Harris Corp. of Rochester, N.Y., has been awarded a contract worth up to $75 million to supply the U.S. Marine Corps with Harris Falcon(R) II HF radios, spares and training, the company said. The AN/PRC-150(C) is the only HF radio with embedded communications security that has been certified for transmission of U.S. classified information, the company said.
Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee's homeland security subcommittee, on March 10 said that while the Bush Administration's $966 million fiscal 2006 budget request for the Coast Guard's Deepwater recapitalization program represents "significant growth, it is also accompanied by numerous questions and concerns."
COMPETING LASERS: Military officials expect "in the next few months" to see three competing systems under the Joint High Power Solid State Laser program demonstrate close to 25 kilowatts of power "with the potential of good beam quality over relevant shot times," according to James B. Engle, Air Force deputy assistant secretary for science, technology and engineering. The Air Force, the High Energy Laser Joint Technology Office and the Army jointly fund the laser program.
BEHIND THE WALL: In fiscal 2006, the U.S. Air Force will continue working on a low-collateral-damage warhead, seeking a so-called "behind-the-wall" weapon with a "highly localized lethal footprint," says James B. Engle, the Air Force deputy assistant secretary for science, technology and engineering. The warhead case is a low-density, wrapped carbon fiber/epoxy structure in a steel nose and base. It can survive penetration into a one-foot hardened concrete wall, Engle says.
COMBAT SKYSAT: The Air Force Space Battlelab plans another near-space demonstration on March 16 using free-floating balloons carrying inexpensive two-way radios in Chandler, Ariz. The "Combat Skysat" demo will feature near-space operations technology developed by Space Data Corp. and PRC-148 two-way radios manufactured by Thales Communications Inc. The system will demonstrate beyond line-of-sight communications in support of Air Force tactical air controllers.
The U.S. Navy's practices for estimating shipbuilding costs, contracting and budgeting have resulted in "unrealistic funding of programs, increasing the likelihood of cost growth," the Government Accountability Office said in a new study.
A U.S. Air Force industry day slated this month on the broad mission of airborne electronic attack reflects recent Defense Department emphasis on the importance of electronic warfare, according to one analyst. At the March 22 event in Arlington, Va., Air Force officials will outline an effort to identify technology gaps in current airborne electronic attack plans and speed solutions to fill them.
The U.S. Defense Department's chief weapons tester has given the U.S. Air Force's F/A-22 Raptor a mixed review, finding that the stealthy fighter performs well but has problems being sustained in the field, sources said March 11. The rating of operationally "effective" but "not suitable" is contained in a report that DOD's Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) recently submitted to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Congress, sources told The DAILY.
LET THEM KNOW: Industry teams vying to build NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) have until March 15 to notify NASA centers in writing if they would like to partner with them on CEV work. The agency has decided that NASA centers can work with CEV contractors, but only on a nonexclusive basis. NASA released the final request for proposals for the CEV on March 1, and the deadline for submissions is May 2. The agency plans to award two three-year CEV contracts by September and downselect to a single prime contractor in late 2008.
TOMAHAWK: A U.S. Navy Tomahawk cruise missile was launched March 9 from the USS Minneapolis-Saint Paul (SSN 708) - a Los Angeles-class submarine now stationed in the Atlantic Ocean off Jacksonville, Fla. - and recovered 825 nautical miles away on the Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., test range, the Navy said. The Navy has awarded Raytheon Missile Systems a $1.6 billion contract for up to 2,200 Tomahawk block IV missiles for the Navy's surface and submarine strike warfare fleets.
NASA has identified a total of 2,680 full-time equivalent positions throughout the agency for which it will have no work starting in fiscal year 2007, although it hopes ultimately to avoid layoffs through buyouts, reassignments and other measures. The positions are funded through FY '05 and FY '06, according to James Jennings, NASA's deputy associate administrator for institutions and asset management. If enough personnel can't be bought out or transferred to other work by late summer 2006, then layoffs may be required.
LONDON - Although the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence (MOD) recently capped a year of negotiations with the EADS-led AirTanker consortium by naming AirTanker as the preferred supplier of tanker/transport aircraft, there are still hurdles to overcome, a consortium official said. AirTanker noted that the final contracts for the Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) program have yet to be signed.
Beginning in fiscal 2006, if Congress approves, the Defense Department would slice part of the Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD) program for new Joint Capability Technology Demonstrations (JCTDs), said Ronald Sega, director of Defense Research and Engineering.
