Within the next few years, military communications will shift to an Internet-like, "smart pull" system in which warfighters will request information from a global network only when they need it, according to John Stenbit, deputy assistant secretary of defense for command, control, and communications (C3).
The U.S. Coast Guard has agreed to spend millions of dollars to support upgrading Honeywell LTS-101 engines used on the Coast Guard's HH-65A short-range recovery helicopters, according to Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings (D-S.C.). Honeywell Corp. produces and maintains the engines in Hollings' home state.
EMS Technologies Inc. said its Space & Technology Group will supply advanced antenna technology to L-3 Communications West for use on the U.S. Air Force's Predator unmanned aerial vehicle. The company will develop a beam-switching network for a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program to demonstrate an advanced datalink for the Predator, the company said Jan. 21. L-3's Tactical Common Datalink, which will incorporate an EMS beam-switching network, is scheduled to be flight tested on a Predator this summer.
SAN DIEGO - Although buying new aircraft and precision-guided munitions increases the U.S. Navy's lethality and decreases its vulnerability, the cost of modernization is a concern, according to Rear Adm. Thomas J. Kilcline Jr., the Navy's director of aviation plans and requirements.
The Missile Defense Agency plans to launch several satellites near the end of the decade to develop a space-based interceptor test bed that could shoot down missiles in their boost phase, according to MDA. A competition for a concept design will take place in fiscal 2004, following a briefing for industry in December 2003, an MDA official said Jan. 21.
After delaying the award of a prime contract for the GPS III until at least 2006, the Air Force plans to go back to the Department of Defense with a new acquisition plan and a concept for sustaining the industrial teams in the meantime, according to a Boeing official.
India has agreed to participate in the research, development and manufacturing of Russia's fifth-generation fighter program, according to an intergovernmental protocol signed during Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes' visit to Russia, which ended Jan. 20.
BAE Systems said Jan. 21 it will cut more than 1,000 jobs from its Sea Systems business over the next few months. The cuts are necessary because of "the very significant drop in workload the shipyards are experiencing," the company said, "with no prospect of an increase on a scale large enough to compensate within at least the next four years. ..." The company's Underwater Systems business faces a similar, "but less severe," situation, the company said.
PORTSMOUTH, Va. - More dangerous to the cohesion of NATO than a growing gap in comparable resources and technologies between the U.S. and its military partners are the resulting changes in culture and training, a senior NATO official said Jan. 21. German Gen. Harald Kujat spoke to about 300 military officers of NATO and allied countries attending a two-day conference here called "Open Road 2003."
NEW DELHI - India's short-range air defense Akash missile, which is in the final stages of development, had another test firing on Jan. 20. A senior official with the Indian defense ministry said the Akash test was successful and the missile will be inducted into the military by the end of the year, after more test flights. The missile has achieved more than 80 percent of its test objectives, the official said.
TRAINING: CAE of Toronto will design additional C-130J training devices and provide training support services for the U.S. Air Force under a $15.6 million contract from Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, the company said Jan. 21. CAE will design and build a C-130J Integrated Cockpit Systems Trainer and C-130J Cockpit Procedures Trainer. The company also will provide training support at Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark.
SAN DIEGO - Marine aviation has become more lethal and effective by melding old and new capabilities and using existing resources in more innovative ways, according to the former commander of the 2nd Marine Air Wing. That new thinking already has produced positive results in deployment, logistics and fire support for troops in Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Dennis T. Krupp (USMC - ret.) said.
January 13, 2003 NAVY Johnson Technology Inc., Muskegon, Mich., is being awarded a $5,044,761 fixed-price contract for procurement of high-pressure turbine nozzle segments used on the F404 engine for the F/A-18 aircraft. Work will be performed in Muskegon and is to be completed by September 2004. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Inventory Control Point Philadelphia is the contracting activity (N00383-03-C-M020). January 14, 2003 NAVY
Orbital Imaging Inc. expects to be part of a new program that is intended to change the way the Pentagon buys commercial satellite images. The National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) last week awarded contracts to two Colorado companies, DigitalGlobe Inc. and Space Imaging Inc., to begin what the agency describes as "a new level of partnering between the U.S. government and the remote sensing industry."
Northrop Grumman has conducted the first flight of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system, derived from the BQM-34 Firebee aerial target, that is designed to deliver payloads, the company announced Jan. 21. The 36-minute flight took place Dec. 20 at an undisclosed military test range as part of a classified test program. After taking off via rail launch, the Firebee flew autonomously through waypoints and successfully dropped multiple payloads, according to Northrop Grumman. The vehicle was recovered undamaged after a parachute landing.
SAN DIEGO - Enabling military aircraft to operate in an integrated battle network is a major goal of U. S. industry, according to Patrick J. Finneran Jr., Boeing's vice president of naval aircraft programs. Faced with limited defense spending and increased weapon systems costs, Finneran said industry is "in an increasingly more productive partnership with the Department of Defense" that is focused on network environments, unmanned vehicles, open avionics architectures, and reducing the total ownership cost of aircraft.
OUTLOOK CLOUDY: Recent statements by Geoffrey Hoon, the United Kingdom's defense minister, have clouded predictions about whether BAE Systems is likely to win a competition to build two aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy, a report from Merrill Lynch says. Hoon said last week that BAE Systems could no longer be considered a British company because the majority of its investors reside outside the U.K. The company is competing with the Thales Group of France for the $4.7 billion Future Carrier (CVF) contract, expected to be awarded later this month.
EXPERTISE: The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DRTA) is seeking industry's help for a number of sensitive areas, including weapons and target technologies, hazard assessment technology and systems engineering, says a contract notice posted last week. DTRA plans to award multiple indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts for such expertise. The notice calls for contractors to conduct, implement and sustain DTRA's capabilities in those areas.
SAN DIEGO - The United States military cannot rely on the script that succeeded a decade ago in Desert Storm, because most potential adversaries learned from that conflict what not to do when challenging it, according to Rear Adm. Doug Crowder, who heads the Navy's Deep Blue think tank. The number one lesson from Desert Storm was, "You can't give America time to mass forces, because we will kick your butt if you do that," Crowder said at the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association and U.S. Naval Institute West 2003 Conference here.
Two commercial satellite imaging companies have won Pentagon contracts totaling more than $200 million in a program that could be worth $1 billion over the next several years, and which changes the way the military does business with such companies.
The Defense Department is ramping up research and development support for the struggling munitions technology sector, forming a DOD-wide consortium for launching new R&D projects with industry and academia. The freshly minted Defense Ordnance Technology Consortium's (DOTC) charter was approved Dec. 20 by E.C. "Pete" Aldridge Jr., undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics (AT&L). It replaces and enlarges the Army's four-year-old Warheads and Energetics Technology Center at the Picatinny Arsenal, N.J.
'OUT OF NOWHERE': The Navy's Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program could run into trouble down the road because it was created without a great deal of analysis, says naval analyst Ronald O'Rourke of the Congressional Research Service. "That [LCS] program basically came out of nowhere in November '01 and it did so following months and even a couple of years of time during which the Navy steadfastly resisted concepts of that type ... "O'Rourke says. The concept of LCS was drafted without the usual analysis of whether such a ship could perform the stated mission, he says.
Six Republican senators have picked up seats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for the new 108th Congress: Christopher "Kit" Bond (Mo.), Trent Lott (Miss.), Olympia Snowe (Maine), Chuck Hagel (Neb.), Saxby Chambliss (Ga.) and John Warner (Va.). Three Republicans - Sens. Pat Roberts (Kan.), Orrin Hatch (Utah) and Mike DeWine (Ohio) - are remaining on the committee, which Roberts will chair.
CONGRESSIONAL CLOUT: The recent decision by the House Armed Services Committee to make its subcommittee structure similar to that of the Senate Armed Services Committee (DAILY, Jan. 10) could boost the clout of both defense authorization committees, analysts say. The different subcommittee structures often have prevented the House-Senate defense authorization conference from finishing its annual funding recommendations in time to influence authors of the annual defense appropriations bill.
