The Bush Administration is analyzing the possibility of combining supplemental requests to cover war-related costs in the war on terrorism and a potential war against Iraq. The Pentagon has identified a growing $20 billion gap in its operations and maintenance accounts for fiscal 2003 - the result of actions against terrorist groups in Afghanistan and elsewhere. The shortfall is growing at a rate of up to $1.5 billion a month, Defense Department Comptroller Dov Zakheim said in a Pentagon news briefing Feb. 3.
NASA's fiscal year 2004 budget request emphasizes scientific research and enabling technologies, and would add $686 million to the agency's science, aeronautics, and exploration budgets while cutting space flight-related funding by $218 million. According to budget documents released Feb. 3, NASA's overall budget for space flight is down to $6.11 billion in FY'04, from $6.13 billion in FY'03. The total includes $1.7 billion for the International Space Station (ISS), $3.97 billion for the space shuttle, and $434 million for space and flight support.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Military satellites could help trace the field of debris left by the Space Shuttle Columbia as it broke up over Texas Feb. 1, killing all seven astronauts, a spokesman for U.S. Northern Command said Feb. 3. There have been "cooperative efforts ... to assist in charting the debris field" among Northern Command, North American Aerospace Defense Command, Strategic Command and Air Force Space Command "using satellites" and other techniques, such as computer modeling and visual identification from aircraft, said Maj. Ed Thomas.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is expected to join the airland subcommittee for the first time in his congressional career to ensure adequate oversight of military aviation programs, especially those of the Air Force. McCain has questioned whether an Air Force proposal to lease 100 Boeing 767 air refuelers is the most cost-effective way to acquire new tankers.
Confirming rumors that the Air Force and Navy unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) programs would be merged, the Air Force is requesting $4.8 million in fiscal year 2004 to establish a joint UCAV program office. The Department of Defense (DOD) has been pushing for closer collaboration between the two programs as a means of controlling costs and leveraging overlapping work (DAILY, Dec. 12, 2002). DOD plans to spend $275 million on UCAV programs in FY'04, and eventually may decide to produce only one aircraft that would fulfill the needs of both services.
The acquisition strategy for the $4.4 billion Space Based Radar (SBR) program should be prepared later this month, but the Air Force already knows the competition will be open to companies outside the traditional space market, two senior defense officials said Jan. 31.
The Army and its defense contractors face challenges in designing a command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance system (C4ISR) system to meet the needs of the Objective Force, according to a consultant working on the Army Intelligence Transformation Campaign plan. The first challenge is designing a system that provides battlefield commanders with the data they need for their mission, said Collin Agee, an associate with Booz Allen Hamilton who is working with the industry team on the program.
LONG HAUL: Boeing and the Insitu Group plan to demonstrate 60-hour endurance with their small ScanEagle unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) later this year, according to Charlie Guthrie, director of rapid prototyping and advanced concepts for Boeing's unmanned systems division. With its current engine, ScanEagle's endurance is roughly 20 hours, Guthrie says. "With the development engine that we're putting on it in the next several months, the endurance will be around 60 hours," he says.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Air Force Space Command this year will begin a study of a follow-on ICBM, according to Gen. Lance Lord, who heads the command. "We've done some preliminary work and we'll start later this year," Lord told reporters at a conference here Jan. 30. AFSPC, he said, has "a JROC [Joint Requirements Oversight Council] MENS [Mission Essential Needs Statement] approved for a follow-on to the land-based ICBM capability, and we're starting an analysis of alternatives, and we're looking at a whole lot of things over the next year."
The Department of Defense's six-year spending plan, sent to Congress Feb. 3, projects a 32 percent budget increase from fiscal 2003 to 2009 and would shift billions of dollars next year to shipbuilding, special operations forces, space and communications networks.
Modernizing its fleet and aircraft are the goals of the U.S. Navy's $114.7 billion fiscal year 2004 budget request, which is $3.5 billion higher than the service's FY '03 budget. But the modernization comes at a cost, according to a senior budget spokesman. The fleet will slip below the 300-ship minimum that the Navy has said it needs to meet commitments. The spokesman said the Navy "consciously took the operational risk to retire older ships and aircraft to use those funds for recapitalization and transformation."
CHINOOKS: The Boeing Co. has received the first low-rate initial production contract from the U.S. Army for remanufacturing seven CH-47 Chinooks to the new CH-47F and MH-47G special operations configurations, the company said Jan. 31. The contract is valued at $140 million, including options, and covers the first production lot of a modernization program expected to include at least 300 Chinooks over 13 years, Boeing said.
The industry teams competing for the prime contract on the Missile Defense Agency's (MDA) High Altitude Airship (HAA) program are meeting with program officials in Washington this week to discuss the program's future, which could include scaling back some of its original goals.
BUDGET HEARINGS: Two days after the Defense Department releases its fiscal 2004 budget request Feb. 3, Pentagon officials will begin their annual trek to Capitol Hill to testify about their spending plans. The initial round of hearings will include appearances by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld before the House Armed Services Committee Feb. 5 and the Senate Armed Services Committee Feb. 6. The Air Force, Army and Navy secretaries are scheduled to testify before Senate Armed Services Feb. 13.
PREPARING FOR CHINA: China could one day pose challenges that could best be met by adopting the weapon systems and force structure needed to carry out the strategies laid out in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), says Michael Vickers, director of strategic studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Many of the strategic goals in the QDR were written with China in mind, Vickers says. "The things we worry about with China are not a cross-border invasion [or] a million-man swim over to Taiwan.
EKV ENDORSEMENT: Although the General Accounting Office is raising questions about the way the Raytheon exoatmospheric kill vehicle (EKV) was chosen for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) program, the Missile Defense Agency is pleased with the EKV's performance and sees no reason to reconsider the selection of the kill vehicle, according to an MDA spokesman, Air Force Lt. Col. Rick Lehner. The EKV has "worked fine," Lehner says. Lehner's comments are in response to a new GAO report that says Raytheon won the contract by default. The Boeing Co. and the Raytheon Co.
NEW DELHI - India's coast guard wants to acquire medium-range surveillance aircraft on the international market instead of buying more shorter-range Dornier 228s built by the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd., according to the agency's head. Coast Guard Director General Rear Adm. Sureesh Mehta told The Daily Jan. 31 that the decision was made because of the extension of India's sea borders from 2.1 million square kilometers (1.3 million square miles) to 2.6 million square kilometers (1.6 million square miles).
SERIOUS STUFF: President Bush is paying close personal attention to U.S. Strategic Command, says Owen Wormser, principal director for spectrum, space, sensors and C3 in the office of the assistant secretary of defense for C3I. Wormser says his boss, John Stenbit, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Bush himself "are directly involved" in making sure everything is done right with the new command. "This is serious stuff." But there are some "massive problems" and industry can help, Wormser says.
Feb. 3 - 4 -- AIAA 2003 Defense Excellence Conference. Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, Washington, D.C. For more information go to www.aiaa.org/events/defense2003. Feb. 5 - 9 -- Aero India 2003 - Fourth International Aerospace Exposition, Air Force Station Yelahanka, Bangalore and Defense Pavilion, Pragati Maidan, New Dehli. For more information call +91 (11) 337-1509.
ROTORCRAFT INTEGRATION: First, there was the Navy-Marine Corps tactical air fleet integration. Now, the Air Force and Army special operations commands (AFSOC and USASOC) are planning a more modest rotorcraft integration by the end of the decade. AFSOC is planning to borrow USASOC crews to continue helicopter training for foreign pilots, AFSOC chief Lt. Gen. Paul V. Hester says. "I'll be out of the helicopter business by the end of the decade," he says, courtesy of scheduled delivery of the CV-22 tiltrotor.
The Army is requesting a $3 billion increase in its budget for fiscal year 2004, from $90.9 billion in FY '03 to $93.9 billion. Despite the overall increase, the Army proposes to cut its procurement budget for 2004 by about $1.7 billion. Most of that money would be taken from legacy weapons programs and transferred to research, development, testing and evaluation for programs related to the Objective Force.
LINGERING CONCERNS: Fitch Ratings says it still may lower the credit ratings for BAE Systems despite the 2.9 billion pound ($4.7 billion) award last week to build two aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy. "Although Fitch considers the contact award to be positive for BAE over the long term, the agency continues to have concerns about the cost overruns on the Nimrod [maritime patrol aircraft] and Astute [attack submarine] contracts announced in December 2002 and the impact that these will have on the company's cash flow generation capacity," agency credit analysts say.
