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.
The Abrams tank is getting a tank urban survival kit (TUSK), a series of improvements that will increase the survivability of the vehicle in urban areas off the traditional battlefield. The Abrams, designed for the Cold War, "is still the most survivable weapon in the arsenal from the front," Lt. Col. Michael Flanagan, Army product manager for TUSK, said in an Army statement. "But today it's a 360-degree fight, and these systems are designed to improve survivability in that urban environment."
Progress on determining which of the U.S. military services are going to be in charge of which aspects of unmanned aerial vehicles, including development, has "started to take off" in joint service discussions in the past few weeks, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Jan C. Huly told reporters March 10.
NEW DEHLI - Seven of the Indian navy's diesel-electric patrol submarines have been retrofitted to carry Russian 3M-54E1 Klub-S submarine-launched cruise missiles, a navy defense official said. The work was done at Russia's Zvezdochka shipyard at Severodyinsk. Three more subs will be equipped within two years under the $78 million deal. The retrofits also involve building platforms to launch the undersea variant of the Indo-Russian supersonic BrahMos cruise missile.
OUTSIDE OPTIONS: Two aerospace and defense analysts say there is a good chance that Boeing Co. will go outside the company to find a new president and CEO to replace ousted head Harry Stonecipher. "Boeing would need to go outside to effect cultural changes," Herb Finster, senior partner and defense analyst at McKenna, Long and Aldridge, tells The DAILY.
An analysis of alternatives (AOA) review for implementing the next-generation Defense Department command and control system, Joint Command and Control (JC2), should be completed next month, an Army official told The DAILY. The JC2, the follow-on to the current Global Command and Control System (GCCS), still is in its infancy, said Col. Stuart Whitehead, director of the Training and Doctrine Command's Program Integration Office Battle Command.
March 17 - 18 -- Grid Networks, "Net-Centric Operations in the Emerging Global Information Grid," Sheraton National Hotel, Washington, D.C. For more information go to www.technologytraining.com. March 21 - 22 -- 13th Annual Conference on Quality in the Space and Defense Industries, "Strategies for Mission Success," Radisson At The Port Hotel & Conference Center, Cape Canaveral, Fla. For more information call (254) 776-3550, email [email protected] or go to http://www.asdnet.org/cqsdi.
C-130 AMP: By late April, the U.S. Air Force plans to finish studying whether it would be feasible to recompete the C-130 Avionics Modernization Program (AMP), a service spokesman says. The Government Accountability Office recently called for the study, saying the AMP competition, which Boeing won in 2001, was tainted by Darleen Druyun, who began talking with Boeing about a job while still serving as an Air Force acquisition official (DAILY, Feb. 25).
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.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is nearing completion of a review that will determine the "gaps" that exist in protecting North America against cruise missile attacks, a NORAD official said March 10. U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. William Hodgkins, NORAD's director of plans, said the Colorado-based command probably will send its findings to the Pentagon at the end of April. NORAD was directed by the Joint Requirements Oversight Council to conduct the review and write a "mission area initial capabilities document."
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency probably will cut or cancel the second interceptor booster it has been developing for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, according to a key official. While a final decision has not been made, Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry "Trey" Obering, MDA's director, said late March 9 that budget reductions and growing confidence in the main booster, made by Orbital Sciences, make it increasingly likely that the other booster, under development by Lockheed Martin, will be scaled back or axed.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - U.S. Northern Command is waiting for policy guidance on notifying Canada in the event that an attacking missile is shot down in Canadian airspace, a spokesman for the command said. Canada decided Feb. 24 that it wouldn't participate in a North American missile defense system, although it remains involved in the process of warning of such an attack.
PANEL CHAIR PICKED: Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) on March 9 was appointed to chair the House Democratic Caucus Task Force on Defense and Military, a group of 15 members of Congress that will liaison with the "defense community" and advise the House Democratic leadership on military policy. Among other issues, Israel - the only New York Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee - has championed improvements in professional military education and protecting commercial airline passengers from shoulder-fired missiles.
Boeing Co. has reached an agreement with Sweden's air force to modernize the avionics of the country's fleet of eight C-130E/H aircraft, the company said March 10. The Swedish air force has signed a letter of offer and acceptance that will lead to a foreign military sales contract between Boeing and the U.S. Air Force. Financial terms were not disclosed, but the contract would be the largest ever between the U.S. Air Force and Sweden's government, Boeing said. The contract is set to be completed by early summer.
The U.S. Navy official responsible for acquisition said on March 10 that he expects to recommend awarding DD(X) multimission destroyer work to just one shipyard. John J. Young Jr., assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, said he will make the recommendation to Michael W. Wynne, acting undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, around the time of the program's April 11 milestone review.
DAB POSTPONED: The U.S. Army is waiting on a decision by the Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) on whether it will approve an Army request to replace UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters rather than upgrade them. The DAB, scheduled for March 10, was postponed until the middle of March, an Army representative told The DAILY. The Army's replacement requirement is for 1,200 or more aircraft, he said.
As of the beginning of the year, NASA had implemented 18 out of 44 financial reform recommendations made by the NASA inspector general (IG) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO), according to a recent IG report. Some of the 26 open recommendations are more than a year old, the IG said. Although this is due in part to their complexity, the lack of an "organized tracking system" also was a factor, according to the report.
Piasecki Aircraft Corp. is offering the U.S. Army technology it says would increase the speed, range and altitude of existing Army helicopters, such as the Black Hawk and the Apache, company Vice President John Piasecki told the DAILY. The retrofit on each aircraft would be about half the cost of building a new helicopter, Piasecki said.
U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and congressional research officials agreed with some lawmakers on March 10 that alternative funding mechanisms for shipbuilding - such as advanced appropriations and multiyear procurement - would be helpful, but cautioned that they would not result in a significant increase in the size of the future fleet.
A consortium formed by Embraer and EADS has received approval to acquire Industria Aeronautica de Portugal (OGMA) from government commerce authorities in Portugal, Germany and Italy, Embraer said March 9. To acquire OGMA, Brazilian Embraer and EADS created Airholding SGPS, with Embraer holding a 99% stake and EADS holding a 1% stake. EADS' stakes are allowed to reach 30% in the future.
