U.S. Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. John Corley stressed the service's urgent need to recapitalize its aircraft fleet and retire the oldest models during a speech on Capitol Hill June 13. In the early 1970s the fleet average age was eight years, Corley said during a breakfast sponsored by the Air Force Strategic Planning Directorate. Now the average is 24 years. While age may not be the only performance metric, it still represents "a trend we've got to turn around for this nation," he said.
Praising the continued moon-Mars initiative focus but lamenting budget cuts elsewhere to pay for it, the House Appropriations science subcommittee marked up fiscal 2007 spending legislation worth $16.7 billion for NASA, $462 million above the FY '06 level.
A working group comprised of the U.S. Coast Guard, its Lockheed Martin/Northrop Grumman-led Deepwater industry team and technical engineering-support contractors is expected later this summer to make a final assessment for acquiring existing patrol boats to help fill a yawning maritime patrol gap, according to the Coast Guard commandant.
SPACE COMMANDER: U.S. Air Force Space Command is getting its first leader who actually has been there. Gen. Kevin Chilton, a three-time space shuttle astronaut, is scheduled to take over the Colorado Springs-based command next week. Chilton is now the commander of 8th Air Force, which encompasses the Air Force's strategic intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance fleets as well as the nuclear bombers. Chilton will take over from acting commander Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz, who resumes his duties as vice commander.
APPROPRIATIONS: The House on June 13 approved congressional conferees' negotiated agreement for the second fiscal 2006 supplemental appropriations measure, and the Senate is expected do the same imminently. The House voted 351-67 in favor the $94.5 billion legislation, which follows $50 billion appropriated along with other FY '06 spending last December (DAILY, June 13).
TRIDENT WORK: Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co. and Northrop Grumman Marine Systems, both in Sunnyvale, Calif., have been awarded Trident II (D5) missile-related contracts, according to a June 12 announcement by the Defense Department. Lockheed Martin received a $17.19 million contract for the procurement of long-lead material required for the fiscal 2007 follow-on production of the D5 system. The contract runs through September 2010.
The U.S. Navy has awarded Lockheed Martin Corp. a one-year, $3 million contract for its High-Altitude Antisubmarine Warfare Weapons Concept (HAAWC), which will demonstrate delivery of the MK-54 lightweight torpedo from a P-3C aircraft operating at roughly 20,000 feet above surface level. Lockheed Martin's HAAWC, which uses the company's LongShot Wing Adapter Kit to allow launch of torpedoes from high altitudes and long standoff ranges, allows P-3C aircrews to attack from beyond enemy air defenses, the company said June 13.
Congressional negotiators who worked out a compromise over the $94.5 billion fiscal 2006 supplemental spending bill dropped Senate language from their agreement requiring Northrop Grumman Corp. to reimburse the government for at least $140 million in expected hurricane-related appropriations.
Democratic members of the House Armed Services Committee called for re-establishing a subcommittee on oversight and investigations. In a letter to Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), HASC chairman, minority members cited the Boeing-Air Force tanker scandal and ongoing security clearance issues as un-examined by the HASC. "This experiment, begun under Republican majority, to do away with this subcommittee has failed," the Democrats said late June 9.
NASA's largest labor union is calling on the agency to publicly promise not to lay off any employees and abandon the work force strategy under which it is trying to eliminate "excess capacity" at its field centers. NASA says it has identified roughly 1,000 full-time equivalent positions at its centers for which it currently has no productive work supporting the agency's vision for space exploration. This translates to more than 800 employees who could face layoffs if the agency is unable to switch them to other programs.
The Lockheed Martin external tank for the Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-115 mission is undergoing preliminary processing in the Kennedy Space Center Vehicle Assembly Building after arriving by barge June 9 from the Michoud Assembly Facility, New Orleans. Team members at Michoud continue to draw high praise for their extensive work to modify and build ETs in the wake of great personal hardship after Hurricane Katrina.
A yearlong RAND Corp. study of the reasons behind escalating shipbuilding costs has determined that a "series of tough choices" are ahead for the government and industry, including accepting a smaller naval fleet and further consolidation and profit squeezing in shipyards. "There is no magic bullet. It's a series of tough choices you're going to have to make," said Mark Arena, associate director of RAND's Acquisition and Technology Policy Center.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has chosen to postpone the expected downselect between the two industry teams competing in its Organic Air Vehicle II (OAV-II) program and is funding both to proceed into Phase III of the effort.
NASA will be more careful of the way it incorporates heritage hardware into new space vehicles - including the planned Crew Exploration Vehicle - after the September 2004 failure of the Genesis solar-sample-return capsule. Mary Cleave, associate administrator for science, and Bryan O'Connor, chief of the agency's safety and mission assurance organization, both cited the need for closer attention to heritage hardware in their responses to the formal mishap investigation board (MIB) report released June 13.
B-2 RADAR: Northrop Grumman has begun flight-testing the new radar antenna for its B-2 stealth bomber, the company announced June 13. The flights of the active electronically scanned array (AESA) antenna mark the first time that engineers have been able to test how the Raytheon-built radar works in flight, Northrop said.
NASA is issuing new contracts important for landing new space vehicles on both Earth and Mars. Irvin Aerospace of Santa Ana, Calif., has been awarded a five-year contract from the NASA Langley Research Center to help model landing airbags that could enable the crew module for the Crew Exploration Vehicle to touchdown on ground landing sites. Irvin has been designing parachutes and other landing systems for 85 years.
A new forecast by Futron Corp. predicts that demand for satellite capacity in the coming years will remain "strong and growing," increasing by more than 5 percent annually, which in turn will drive demand for more spacecraft as existing satellites are booked up.
House Republicans leaders are expected June 13 to get their chamber to pass the congressional conference agreement over the $94.5 billion fiscal 2006 supplemental appropriations measure, with the Senate expected to follow within days.
