NEW DELHI - The Indian Air Force has decided to ground at least 20 Type 69 MiG-21 trainer aircraft following a MiG-21 crash last week in which both crewmembers were killed. The service has lost more than 220 aircraft in the last ten years, the majority of which were MiGs. An Air Force source confirmed that the trainer has been grounded, adding that these aircraft were bought from Ukraine in the last six to seven years. He also disclosed that the aircraft in which the two crewmembers were killed was bought second-hand from Ukraine three years ago.
The Block 4 Tactical Tomahawk is moving into operational testing this fall after completing a government technical flight test evaluation period, the U.S. Navy announced July 21. A July 20 flight test using the first missile configured with a live warhead completes an 11-month-long series of developmental tests on the Raytheon Tactical Tomahawk.
STREAKER: SpaceDev of Poway, Calif., will design and begin developing Streaker, a small launch vehicle, under a U.S. Air Force small business innovative research contract, the company said July 18. Streaker will be designed to affordably launch up to 1,000 pounds to low-earth orbit, the company said.
NEW DELHI - Sri Lanka and Israel have signed a defense agreement under which Sri Lanka will receive arms and equipment from Israel worth $20 million. The agreement was signed during a recent visit of Sri Lankan Defense Minister Thilak Marapana to Israel. Without giving details of the deal, a diplomat of the Sri Lankan Embassy in New Delhi said that Israel would provide arms and equipment for the Sri Lankan navy. Sri Lanka has also sought assistance from Israel for upgrading its patrol boats.
Efforts to ease export restrictions on U.S. satellites suffered a double blow last week during the House's consideration of a foreign relations authorization bill.
A bipartisan group of representatives introduced a bill last week in the House designed to improve federal oversight of private contractors convicted of violating federal contract regulations. The bill, called the Contractor Accountability Act of 2003, calls for the creation of a central database of legal actions taken by the government against federal contractors "to provide debarring officials with the information they need to protect the business interests of the United States," according to a joint statement released by the representatives.
CAE will upgrade two combat mission simulators for the U.S. Army's AH-64A attack helicopters under a $9.5 million contract the company announced July 21. The upgrade includes the CAE Medallion-S visual system and new instructor operator stations, the company said. One simulator, at the Western Army Aviation Training Center, Marana, Ariz., is scheduled to be ready in September 2004. The other, at Fort Campbell, Ky., is set to be operational for training in January 2005.
The Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) has awarded a $288 million contract modification to the National Steel and Shipbuilding Co. (NASSCO) to design and build a fourth ship in the Dry Cargo/Ammunition Ship (T-AKE) class. NASSCO is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Dynamics Corp. Work will be performed at NASSCO's facility in San Diego and is expected to be completed by December 2006. The award is an option on a $709 million contract awarded to NASSCO in October 2001 for the design and construction of the first two ships in the class.
A July 21 panel of space industry experts agreed that NASA's Orbital Space Plane (OSP) must be capable of evolving beyond only serving the needs of the International Space Station (ISS) if it is to be a worthwhile and sustainable investment. The OSP is intended to provide crew return from the ISS as early as 2008, and crew transfer up to orbit shortly thereafter. NASA has offered an OSP cost estimate of $2.4 billion for FY '03 to FY '07, although the agency has said that number is a placeholder and will be revised as development progresses.
The Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) has validated a recent claim by the F/A-22 Raptor's contractor that the program's avionics stability record is greatly improving, a Pentagon memo released July 18 says. The board, now headed by Michael Wynne, acting undersecretary of acquisition, technology and logistics, plans to review the program again in September before the F/A-22 enters initial operational test and evaluation (IOT&E).
MOSCOW - Russia's aviation and space agency, Rosaviakosmos, needs funding to complete Khrunichev Center's research module for the International Space Station, an agency official said last week. Cash flow problems have delayed work on the module, a problem made worse by the need to support the station while NASA's shuttle fleet remains grounded, said Alexander Kuznetsov, Rosaviakosmos' deputy general director.
ARMY ROADMAP: The Army's evolving Future Combat Systems (FCS) program is spurring the service to revise its unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) roadmap, according to Lt. Gen. John Riggs, director of the Objective Force Task Force at Army headquarters. "The Army put together a UAV roadmap, submitted it to Congress in April '03, and it's currently under revision," Riggs says. "The reason it's under revision is I don't think we took fully into consideration the impact that Future Combat Systems would have on the Army's total unmanned systems programs.
VIPER DEPLOYMENT: The U.S. Army is considering deploying the Viper Strike weapon system with its Hunter unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as soon as possible, according to John Sundberg, deputy project manager at the Army's UAV Systems Project Office. Viper is a modified Brilliant Anti-armor (BAT) submunition featuring a semi-active laser seeker. "You laze a target like you do for ... a guided missile like a Hellfire, drop the BAT, and the BAT will go right to that spot," Sundberg says.
Congressional proposals to transfer the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) system and the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) from the Army to the Missile Defense Agency would "significantly impact the technical performance, schedule and cost of both programs," the Defense Department is warning lawmakers. DOD recently transferred both anti-missile, anti-aircraft programs from MDA to the Army on the grounds that they are mature enough to be handled by the service that will operate them. But lawmakers disagree.
NUKE FUNDING: The Bush Administration's fiscal 2004 budget request for nuclear weapons research is getting a mixed reception from Congress. The House-passed version of the FY '04 energy and water appropriations bill cuts $10 million from the $15 million request for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator and denies the $6 million request for advanced concepts work. House members seem reluctant to put a lot of money into new nuclear weapons programs until the Energy Department revamps its Cold War-era nuclear weapons complex.
LEASE RESISTANCE: The U.S. Air Force's next attempt to lease equipment on a large scale isn't likely to be any easier than its controversial proposal to lease 100 Boeing 767-200 tankers, says Marvin Sambur, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition. It took 18 months to persuade senior Pentagon and White House officials that a lease's ability to deliver the tanker fleet five years sooner than a purchase outweighed the extra financing cost, estimated by the Pentagon to range from $150 million to $1.9 billion.
SUBCOMMITTEE APPROVAL: The House Appropriation's defense subcommittee approved a Defense Department plan to lease 100 Boeing 767-200 tankers, Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) said July 18. "I look forward to the prompt approval in the other [defense] committees so we can proceed with the production of these tankers," Dicks said.
Two weeks before bids are due to the U.S. Air Force, Boeing performed its "most complete test" yet in the competition to win the Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) competition, the company announced July 18. An F-15E dropped the 250-pound warhead, one of the Air Force's top munition development priorities, at the Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., test range in a successful flight, Boeing said.
EGYPT REQUESTS: Egypt has asked to buy two C-130 Hercules-based airborne electronic intelligence (ELINT) systems for about $60 million and 414 AIM-9M-1/2 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and related equipment for about $50 million, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said July 17. The ELINT systems would give Egypt's air force the ability to build, maintain and update threat radar data, DSCA said in a notification to Congress. Lockheed Martin ISR Systems, Plano Microwave Inc. and Mission Research Corp. would be the principal contractors for that sale.
SURFACE COMMUNICATIONS: Defense agencies around the world will spend an estimated $11 billion over the next decade to buy and upgrade some 57 surface communications systems, says Greg Giaquinto, research analyst with Forecast International/DMS. In a report entitled "The Market for Surface-based Communications Systems," Giaquinto says software applications are supplanting antennas and radio sets as the driving force of that market.
The joint investigation by DOD and the Air Force into alleged misconduct by Boeing during the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) competition has resulted in a criminal indictment against two former Boeing managers, DOD announced July 18. Kenneth Branch, 64, and William Erskine, 43, have been charged with conspiracy to conceal and possess trade secrets by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles, for the misuse of proprietary Lockheed Martin documents during bidding for Air Force EELV launch contracts.
MIG REVIEW: The crash of yet another Indian MiG-21 fighter has led the Indian defense ministry to begin reassessing the airworthiness of its MiG fleet. The July 15 crash, which killed the crew, has cast in doubt earlier military statements that the MiG-21 would remain a mainstay of India's air force (DAILY, June 27). The air force has lost six fighters in the last seven months to crashes, three of which were MiG-21s.
International Launch Services successfully launched the Rainbow 1 satellite from Cape Canaveral, Fla., July 17, marking the third flight for the Atlas V rocket since its debut last August. Liftoff took place at 7:45 p.m. EDT, with separation of the satellite occurring an hour and 40 minutes later. The Atlas V was fitted with two solid rocket motors and an enlarged five-meter-diameter fairing to accommodate Rainbow 1's antenna array.
