An unmanned bomber could offer advantages over manned aircraft for long-range strike missions, Boeing's chairman suggested Feb. 6 in an interview. Boeing, in conjunction with the U.S. Air Force and the Defense Advanced Projects Agency, is developing the X-45 Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle technology demonstration system. The X-45A demonstrator aircraft first flew May 22, 2002.
The U.S. Army has awarded General Dynamics Corp. three contracts that could be worth more than $250 million if all options are exercised. The Army Communications-Electronics Command, based at Fort Monmouth, N.J., awarded General Dynamics Decision Systems a $59.9 million contract for the systems integration work on the Army's Land Warrior system.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The architecture for the Defense Department's emerging transformational communications system is slated to go through the approval process this spring and summer, after which decisions will be made on relevant acquisition programs, according to Rear Adm. Rand H. Fisher.
EDO BUY: EDO Corp. said it has acquired Advanced Engineering and Research Associates, Inc., for $38 million in cash. The Alexandria-based company provides information technology, engineering and logistics support to several military programs, including the U.S. Marine Corps' Commercial Enterprise Omnibus Support Services and the Coast Guard's Deepwater program. The company will become part of EDO's Systems and Analysis Group. EDO said last year the company planned to become "substantially larger" through acquisitions (DAILY, Aug. 7, 2002).
Northrop Grumman is being awarded a $185 million contract to prepare its Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to participate in a maritime demonstration in 2006 that will be a crucial step in the Navy's effort to develop a high-altitude maritime surveillance UAV.
DEFENSE CONFIRMATIONS: The Senate Feb. 4 confirmed former Rep. Paul McHale (D-Pa.) to be assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and industry executive Christopher Ryan Henry to be deputy undersecretary of defense for policy.
After being rolled out in a ceremony earlier this year, Lockheed Martin's Unmanned Ground Combat Vehicle (UGCV) prototype is gearing up for three months of testing at Sandia National Laboratories' Robotic Vehicle Range in New Mexico.
Despite the U.S. military's growing need for bandwidth, the likelihood that it will turn increasingly to the commercial satellite industry to fulfill that need remains remote, according to some industry analysts. The military always will depend on the commercial sector for some of its communications needs, such as casual communication, analysts say, but budget issues and the military's unique needs may make longer-term relationships difficult.
The V-22 Osprey will not get another chance to prove itself if the current round of testing for the Bell-Boeing tilt-rotor aircraft is not successful, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Feb. 5. "In the event it proves not to be a successful test, obviously, it would be terminated," Rumsfeld testified before the House Armed Services Committee during a hearing on the Bush Administration's fiscal 2004 budget request. "To the extent it proves successful and everyone is persuaded that it brings value, then we would intend to go forward."
NASA is convinced that the piece of foam debris shed by the shuttle Columbia's external tank that apparently hit the left wing during launch Jan. 16 could not have resulted in the loss of the orbiter, according to Shuttle Program Manager Ron Dittemore. During an assessment of the damage, performed while Columbia was still in orbit, NASA engineers deliberately overestimated the weight of the debris, its speed, and the possible impact damage, Dittemore said.
The Navy's larger defense contractors must do a better job of incorporating new ideas into their designs and allowing small contractors to play a bigger role in the acquisitions process, according to the chief of naval research. Unlike military aviation, which has been transformed over the last 30 years through the use of composite technologies, shipbuilding remains tied to the "iron age," Rear Adm. Jay Cohen said Feb. 4 at the 2003 Defense Excellence conference in Washington, sponsored by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Pentagon auditors say halting a $100 million acquisition program four years into its development was a prudent move by Army officials. The Defense Department's Office of Inspector General (OIG) last fall opened a review of the development and acquisition of aerial Sythentic Aperture Radar/Moving Target Indicator (SAR/MTI) sensors.
In an attempt to avoid misunderstandings about nuclear-sized explosions, the military should tap its classified streams of data on near-Earth objects and incoming asteroids, national security analyst Randall Correll said in a Feb. 5 interview. Some countries lack the sensors to distinguish between Hiroshima-sized nuclear explosions and asteroid impacts of equal size, a possible security risk as more nations get nuclear weapons, said Correll, a consultant to Science Applications International Company and former Air Force researcher.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The Pentagon office charged with developing a military network that ultimately would allow any user to get only the information required, and at just the right time, has three goals, an official of the office said. Owen Wormser of the office of the assistant secretary of defense for C3I said the goals are removing bandwidth as a constraint to military operations; posting information before processing it; and protecting the information infrastructure.
AEHF WORK: Titan Corp. will develop "a significant portion" of the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) Mission Planning Element software, and provide systems engineering support, the company said Feb. 4. The work will be done under a contract from Lockheed Martin's Management and Data Systems, which has a value of $29 million through March 2008, the company said. Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space is the prime contractor for the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Center's AEHF program.
The Bush Administration is threatening to veto legislation containing the fiscal 2003 NASA appropriations bill if Congress approves non-defense spending that exceeds a previously agreed upon level.
The U.S. market for defense electronics is expected to grow to more than $181 billion over the next 10 years, according to a study by Forecast International/DMS. Much of that market growth will be related to the war on terrorism, senior military electronics analyst Richard Sterk says in the report, entitled "Overview of the U.S. Defense Market."
BANGALORE, India - The Indian air force's much-delayed buy of an advanced jet trainer (AJT) will be cleared by the country's cabinet soon, Defence Minister George Fernandes said Feb. 5. A new tender is expected soon. "We are on the threshold" of making a decision on the AJT, Fernandes told The DAILY after inaugurating the fourth Aero Expo 2003 here.
Raytheon Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. are teaming to compete for the contract to upgrade the Navy's Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) system, the companies said Feb. 5. The CEC system fuses tracking data from sensors installed on multiple ships and aircraft and distributes that data in the form of a single, common air picture. The system can then feed the data to a combat system like Lockheed Martin's Aegis Combat System, where weapon system operators can use it to engage threats.
To reduce the problem of defeating mobile targets, the Air Force is calling for proposals to develop the first of a new family of near-autonomous munitions that can loiter in an area and strike when a target is detected. Dubbed the "Dominator," the proposed weapon is the product of the Area Dominance Program (ADM) at Air Force Research Laboratory's (AFRL's) Munitions Directorate at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said Feb. 5 that her proposal to require military-style anti-missile systems for commercial aircraft would rule out using flare systems, which she considers dangerous to people on the ground. The legislation instead favors laser-based or lamp-based systems, which use energy to defeat missiles, she said.
After being delayed, the blade-stopping X-50A Dragonfly unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is nearing a first flight in late March, and could become the first helicopter to deliberately stop its rotor in flight by June. The unique hybrid UAV has an unusually wide rotor that can be slowed down and stopped in flight, becoming a fixed wing, and allowing the aircraft to fly as a jet (DAILY, April 12, 2002). The fuselage, tail, and canards on the nose provide additional lift in fixed-wing mode.
