The head of the U.S. Navy's directed energy weapons programs said he hopes to secure hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funding in the coming years to develop ship-based laser weapons to counter cruise missiles and other threats.
WARNING SYSTEMS: Alliant Techsystems (ATK) has received a $15.4 million contract from the Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., for full-rate production of AN/AAR-47 Missile Warning System sensor upgrade kits and systems. The electro-optical systems will be delivered to U.S. Navy and Air Force aircraft, the company said July 7.
The U.S. Navy has exercised an option to buy the first 42 production AGM-154C Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW-C) munitions in fiscal 2003 by postponing orders for some AGM-154As (JSOW-As). The reallocated $26 million clears the way for Raytheon to begin low-rate initial production (LRIP) this year on the JSOW-C. The program passed its Milestone B review last month, said Steve Larson, Raytheon's business development manger for the JSOW family of weapons.
NEW OFFICE: Information technology company NCI Information Systems (NCI) of McLean, Va., has opened a regional office in Colorado Springs to continue its work with the U.S. Department of Defense create "new business opportunities in the military and aerospace industries that call Colorado Springs home," the company said July 7. The company will target the area's military complex that includes Peterson Air Force Base, the U.S. Air Force Academy, the North American Aerospace Defense Command and others, NCI said.
General Electric and Pratt & Whitney will continue work on more powerful engines for the F-16 no matter who wins Singapore's competition for a new fighter, representatives of both companies said. Singapore is evaluating six fighters and has been expected to narrow the field to three by September. A winner would be chosen next year.
NEW DELHI -- A week after Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee traveled to China, the largest Chinese military delegation to visit India has arrived in New Delhi to discuss proposed joint air force exercises. The 50-member Chinese delegation's weeklong trip will include discussions on future exercises of the country's air forces, which could include fighter exercises between Chinese Sukhoi Su-27s and Indian Sukhoi Su-30 MKIs.
The U.S. Defense Department lacks a focused strategy to reduce an annual loss of billions of dollars caused by corrosive damage to military weapons, equipment and facilities, says a General Accounting Office (GAO) report posted July 7.
FALCONS GROUNDED: The U.S. Air Force has grounded part of its F-16 fleet after a preliminary engineering analysis warned that a blade in the Pratt and Whitney F100-220/220E could fail, according to a statement from Tinker Air Force Base, Okla. The potential defect was detected during an investigation of an F-16 crash on June 10 in the Arizona desert near Luke Air Force Base. The pilot, Capt. David O'Malley, ejected from the aircraft and was not injured. The grounding order does not restrict deployed aircraft, the Air Force says.
FINAL DSCS: Boeing is set to launch the U.S. Defense Department's last Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS) satellite on July 23 from Cape Canaveral, Fla., according to Boeing spokesman Robert Villanueva. The launch of the Delta IV Medium will be the second mission in the Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program. The original launch date of July 11 was pushed back to allow more time for preparation of the rocket, Villanueva said. Boeing conducted the first EELV launch, also of a DSCS satellite, in March (DAILY, March 12).
The first sign of trouble before NASA's Helios solar-electric unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) crashed into the ocean off Kauai, Hawaii, June 26 was a "severe" oscillation in pitch that had never been observed before, according to Helios Program Manager John Del Frate. "We see little minor oscillations, but nothing that's undamped," Del Frate told The DAILY in a telephone interview. "It sustained some pretty severe damage." All other indications up to that point had been nominal, he said.
T-38 WORK: Boeing Integrated Defense Systems is in line for an additional contract in the Air Force's T-38 Avionics Upgrade Program. About 140 T-38s have been through the program, which began in November 2000. Now, the Air Force is ready to award another contract in the effort to upgrade more than 500 of the advanced-jet trainers. Boeing would receive a sole-source solicitation for the work in the fourth quarter of fiscal '03 for a fiscal '05 contract that would have options through FY '10.
Private contractors involved with the space shuttle program are likely to receive additional scrutiny from recently appointed NASA officials, according to space analysts. The additional scrutiny, as well as several personnel changes announced July 2, are necessary if NASA is to change the way the shuttle program is managed following the Columbia shuttle disaster, said Charles Vick, senior fellow at GlobalSecurity.org. "We're dealing with an entire attitude through NASA and industry in the way this thing has been handled," Vick said.
Eleven venerable twin-turboprop Royal Air Force Jetstream T.1s are to be replaced by seven Raytheon Beech King Air B200s under the United Kingdom's military multi-engine pilot training (MEPT) program. The Jetstreams have been operated since 1973 by the No. 3 Flying Training School, now located at the RAF College at Cranwell. The King Airs will start replacing them in February.
CORRECTION: A story in the July 2 issue of The DAILY should have said that Northrop Grumman and Boeing still are competing for the prime contract in the U.S. Navy's Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) program.
T-6A MILESTONE: The first group of naval flight officer students to train with the T-6A Texan II began class June 30 at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla., according to Naval Air Systems Command. NAVAIR accepted the first two T-6As in November 2002 and has been accepting one or two a month since, with the total inventory now at 15. Three T-6A simulators are at Pensacola, with two more slated to arrive in November 2004. The NFOs will begin flying in the T-6 in August, by which time the Navy should have 19 of the planes. The service ultimately wants to buy 328 T-6s.
July 8 - 9 -- Fuze IPT APBI & Industrial Base Workshop, Crystal City Marriott, Crystal City, Va. Contact Christy O'Hara at (703) 247-2586, or email [email protected] or go to www.ndia.org. July 10 -- Joint National Training Capability (JNTC) "Briefing to Industry," Hilton Alexandria Mark Center, Alexandria, Va. For more information call (703) 247-9471, fax (703) 243-1659, or go to www.trainingsystems.org/events.
France's Sagem and Germany's STN Atlas Elektronik have signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The companies plan to develop full interoperability between their UAV systems, particularly Sagem's Sperwer and STN Atlas' KZO/Taifun, Sagem and Rheinmetall DeTec AG, the holding group that includes STN Atlas, said July 2.
A U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory effort to develop and demonstrate a conformal antenna array for unmanned aerial vehicles (DAILY, June 27) is part of a program to improve the performance and lower the support costs of existing and future aerospace vehicles, both manned and unmanned, Air Force budget materials show.
IRAQI PEACEKEEPING: U.S. spending to maintain a peacekeeping force in Iraq could compete with spending for defense products and services, according to senior aerospace and defense analyst Byron Callan of Merrill Lynch. Given historical peacekeeping operations, the U.S and United Kingdom may need to maintain a force of more than 200,000 troops in Iraq. The costs of maintaining such a force could exceed $3 billion a month, he says.
SPACE POWER: Boeing will lead a team creating next-generation radioisotope power systems for future NASA Mars rover and deep space missions. Multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generators (MMRTGs), which generate electricity from the heat of radioactive decay, are being developed for missions such as the Mars Science Laboratory rover, an outer planets probe set for launch in 2011, and the Mars Sample Return mission, according to Boeing.
SUB EXPERIMENT: Lockheed Martin and the Navy will conduct an experiment by year's end aimed at reducing the maintenance cycle for submarines, says Richard Udicious, vice president of submarine programs for Lockheed Martin. The experiment will consist of placing spare parts for hardware repairs inside the processing equipment used to power a submarine's combat system. A software program installed on the ship will record hardware or software problems while the sub is at sea and make recommendations to the operator, Udicious says.
The U.S. Air Force is in the early stages of reviewing a proposal that could roughly double the B-52H's engine power, Boeing officials told The DAILY. The Air Force has asked Boeing to greatly expand an ongoing study on the feasibility of re-engining the B-52H fleet. A six-month study contract had called for Boeing to deliver an analysis in July of a proposal to replace the B-52's eight 1950s-era Pratt & Whitney TF-33 engines with four modern and more efficient propulsion systems.
SPACE TOURISM: Russia's Aviation and Space Agency is considering building a six-seat aircraft that could take paying passengers to the edge of space to experience reduced gravity, agency official Valery Voskoboinikov said July 3. The project is in the business planning stages, he said.
