The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization will brief industry this summer on future theater and national missile defense threats before it kicks off a technology development program to counter the threats, a May 14 Commerce Business Daily notice said. The briefing, slated for July 9 in Arlington, Va., will address a variety of threat categories including maneuvering, time-critical, penetration-aided, signature-masked, and high clutter (cruise missile) targets, BMDO said. The classified briefing will be open to U.S. nationals only.
Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole's unanticipated early departure from the Senate to give full attention to his race for the presidency could delay, but won't impede, plans of Senate Republicans to push for early deployment of a national missile defense (NMD) system. Dole is the chief sponsor of the GOP's Defend America Act, which calls for deployment by 2003 of an NMD to protect the U.S. from limited missile attack.
Northrop Grumman Corp. and Daimler-Benz Aerospace (DASA) of Germany have teamed to compete for NATO's Airborne Ground Surveillance (AGS) program. Northrop Grumman said yesterday that if its Joint STARS aircraft is selected for the job, the companies would produce it together. Also understood to be competing are the U.K.'s Astor, France's Horizon helicopter system, and Italy's Cresa, also a heliborne system (DAILY, Oct. 26, 1995). Responses to a NATO request for information on AGS are due next month.
The House yesterday approved a $266.7 billion fiscal 1997 defense authorization after a brief debate that lasted little more than a day and involved few major issues. The vote was 272-153. Before passage, the House endorsed an amendment prohibiting the use of Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction funds to promote defense conversion. The vote on the amendment sponsored by House International Relations Chairman Benjamin Gilman (R-N.Y.) was 249-171.
The U.S. Air Force is still mulling its options on how to buy interim Global Positioning Systems for its non-GPS equipped passenger aircraft following the crash of a T-43 VIP transport in Croatia that killed Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and all others onboard (DAILY, April 29).
The U.S. could successfully cooperate with European allies to develop a follow-on to the Milstar satellites, the Pentagon's top space official said. Timelines for development of a European satellite for secure military communications and a U.S. plan to replace Milstar coincide around the year 2005, said Robert Davis, deputy under secretary of defense for space, said Tuesday at a space symposium in Arlington, Va.
Seeking to reduce cost and redundancy between NASA and Defense Dept. space programs, the White House has tasked the two agencies to find ways to make control of satellites more interoperable.
Lockheed Martin Federal Systems' win of the U.S. Navy's competition to provide the command, control, communications and intelligence (C31) system for the New Attack Submarine (NSSN) is potentially worth $1 billion, the company said. The program was bid by Loral Federal Systems of Manassas, Va., which became Lockheed Martin Federal Systems Manassas just before the contract was awarded on April 24. Competing against Loral Federal Systems was Lockheed Martin Syracuse, so, in effect, Lockheed Martin beat Lockheed Martin.
The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization is still waiting for Russia to agree to cooperate on two missile defense experiments that could provide information on tracking missile launches, Lt. Gen. Malcolm O'Neill, director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, said yesterday.
The national missile defense debate isn't paying enough attention to the cruise missile threat, an area in which the U.S. faces serious shortcomings, a senior Army officer said. Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, director of the U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense Command, told military and industry representatives in a speech to "think about defending a nation against cruise missiles. If you want a problem, think about that."
The House National Security Committee has directed the Army to analyze competing systems, including the Nautilus laser, to counter the 122mm rocket and mortar threats. It also encourages the Secretary of Defense to request authorization to develop Nautilus as agreed to by Secretary William J. Perry and Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres during an April 28 meeting at the Pentagon. HNSC makes the recommendations in its report on the fiscal year 1997 defense authorization.
After a 45-day check-out period, CTA Space Systems has turned over ground control of the Radiation Experiment Satellite (REX-II) to the U.S. Air Force, which will use the satellite to test the effects of atmospheric anomalies on radio transmissions. Built for the AF Space Test Program and the Rome Laboratory, REX-II, the 26th small satellite designed and built by CTA Space Systems, is the first satellite to use global positioning system (GPS) technology for attitude determination and control, CTA said this week.
A network of unmanned, lighter-than-air airships flying at 70,000 feet for several months at a time as communication platforms is being proposed by two companies bidding to offer low cost regional telecommunications and broadcast services. Skysat Communications Network Corp. of New York and Av-Intel Inc. of Washington, D.C., said yesterday that they will work over the next three months "to develop a cost-effective design and expect to work toward developing a telecommunications prototype during the following year."
McDonnell Douglas says it can easily use its Joint Direct Attack Munition concept to give the B-1B bomber a precision guided munition before JDAM becomes operational, if the U.S. Air Force goes ahead with the effort. Charles Dillow, MDC's JDAM program manager, said in an interview that the job of transitioning the JDAM tail kit from 1,000- and 2,000-pound bombs, its primary application, to the B-1B's 500-pound Mk. 82 bomb "will be very smooth." He said "our JDAM was designed right from the beginning to be compatible with the 500-pound bomb."
Rep. Douglas (Pete) Peterson (D-Fla.), a second term member on the House National Security Committee, said yesterday during House debate on the fiscal 1997 defense authorization bill that he expects the bill's prohibition on using any of the $581.8 million authorization for the Joint Strike Fighter on an Advanced STOVL (ASTOVL) variant to be dropped in conference. Peterson said he has been assured of this by senior members of the committee. The Senate Armed Services bill does not contain an ASTOVL prohibition.
The House National Security Committee wants to improve the aging U-2 sensor suite and has directed the Air Force to ensure the reconnaissance aircraft can simultaneously carry the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar System (ASARS) and the Senior Year Electro-optical Reconnaissance System (SYERS).
The U.S. Air Force stood down its fleet of Northrop Grumman B-2 bombers because of a recurring problem with a clamp connecting the bomber's internally mounted General Electric F101 engines to the exhaust ducts, the service said yesterday. "The B-2 bomber fleet is currently under a precautionary stand-down of routine training missions," Pentagon spokesman Capt. Michael Doubleday told reporters yesterday during a regularly scheduled briefing.
Blasting Defense Secretary William Perry for not testifying at an April 24 Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, the Republican chairman of the committee, Arlen Specter, warned in a letter to Perry yesterday that important intelligence reform legislation continues to be held up because of what he said was the Pentagon leadership's lack of cooperation.
Saying the SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft "has outlived its affordability," the House National Security Committee has written into its fiscal 1997 defense authorization a prohibition against the Defense Dept. operating the Mach 3 plane during fiscal 1997. The panel, in its report on the FY 1997 defense authorization, said that while the SR-71 continues to provide "a unique capability," it has become "an unaffordable intelligence collection program."
Pentagon and Air Force officials say they see no need to withhold funds for the B-1B bomber's interim precision munition and that the money will be released in the coming weeks.
Budget-driven slips in the service entry of Dassault's Rafale fighter could go even farther to the right than portrayed in initial French budget documents, threatening the plane's export potential, according to a French parliament official. A draft defense budget okayed by the French cabinet Monday that cuts spending between 1997 and 2002 delays entry into service of the air force Rafale by two years to 2005, and the navy Rafale by one year, to 2000.
Bankrupt airframer Fokker's court-appointed receivers are looking hopefully this week to three potential rescuers - including Dutch corporate raider Jaap Rosen Jacobson - but impatient major suppliers say they'll wait only two weeks before starting to take down their assembly lines.
Top managers at the four Airbus Industrie partner companies are already at work on a report on how the consortium might re-emerge as a single company, and should have an answer in July, say European government officials and company executives.
The House National Security Committee doesn't think the U.S. Navy is ready for engineering and manufacturing development of an Arsenal ship, which would combine the massive firepower and virtual unsinkability of battleships with the very small crew of modern commercial tankers and cargo ships. The Administration's fiscal 1997 defense budget request includes $25 million for the Navy to initiate development of such a vessel,
The Royal Australian Air Force plans to buy the AGM-142 air-to-ground stand-off weapon for its fleet of F-111s, a move that would make it the first country other than the U.S. and Israel to use the weapon. Lockheed Martin Electronics and Missiles, Orlando, Fla., the U.S. manufacturer of the missile developed by the Israel's Rafael, said Monday that in addition to the missile buy, Australia is asking for training, support and other services related to the AGM-142. The scope of the program will be announced upon contract award, Lockheed Martin said.
