NEW DELHI - The United States has listed India as a "friendly" country for arms sales, an action that could expedite military exports to India. A senior official with the Indian Ministry of Defence said that under the agreement, congressional approval won't be needed for U.S. weapons purchases worth up to $40 million. A diplomat with the U.S. Embassy here said that, as a result, Indian requirements for military equipment such as ground sensors, thermal imagers and night-vision equipment could be approved on a fast-track basis.
BUMPER STICKER: The Space Launch Initiative (SLI) program's original goal of reducing launch costs by 90 percent was an unrealistic "bumper sticker" and is no longer one of NASA's near-term objectives, according to Administrator Sean O'Keefe. "I haven't found anybody who can attest to the fact that there is any technology that could achieve that," he says. NASA's amended fiscal year 2003 budget shifts $2.325 billion from SLI to fund development of an Orbital Space Plane (OSP) for ferrying crew to and from the International Space Station.
COBRA DEAL: Bell Helicopter's bid to sell 145 AH-1Z Cobras to the Turkish military is the focus of a senior Pentagon official's visit to Turkey this week, government and industry officials say. Lt. Gen. Tome Walters, head of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), which manages Foreign Military Sales (FMS), begins a series of meetings with Turkish government and military contacts starting Nov. 18. Walters will lobby on behalf of the Cobra, which is facing off against Israeli and Russian competitors.
Congress approved a fiscal 2003 intelligence authorization bill Nov. 15 that would set up a commission to review whether the nation's intelligence agencies could use their research and development funds more effectively.
ISS COSTS: NASA believes the International Space Station will cost the U.S. $15 billion to $18 billion from fiscal 2003 to FY '16, according to a congressional source. The estimate, which still is being fine-tuned, includes the cost to finish building, operate and ultimately decommission the station. It does not include the cost of flying the space shuttle to the station. The source says the figures are "in the ballpark" with those that have been mentioned in the past.
A hybrid-electric engine originally designed as an aircraft power supply device achieved a successful demonstration on a prototype manned ground vehicle for the U.S. Army, Honeywell announced Nov. 15. Honeywell is banking on the success of the demonstration to take an early lead in the engine competition for the new family of manned Army vehicles that use a common chassis and subsystems.
Deploying weapons in space would promote global instability and put critical space assets at greater risk than they currently face, according to a panel at Carnegie International's 2002 Non-Proliferation Conference in Washington Nov. 15.
MORE INFORMATION: As NATO prepares for a summit in the Czech Republic, a new General Accounting Office report criticizes the Bush Administration's effort to inform Congress about the nine candidates bidding for alliance membership. NATO's 19 members are expected to invite seven former communist countries to join at the Nov. 21-22 meeting in Prague. A White House report to Congress detailing the candidates' application status provided enough financial and military background, but failed to adequately address human rights issues, says the GAO report, published Nov. 15.
An increase in payload weight caused a nearly 3 percent jump in program costs for the $18.9 billion Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program, according to the U.S. Defense Department. Changes in the EELV's payload schedules also caused the program's schedule to slip 10 months to May 2004, making it one of four major acquisition programs to report a cost increase of at least 15 percent, or a schedule delay greater than six months, during the quarter that ended Sept. 30.
NEW DELHI - Another Indian air force MiG aircraft, a trainer variant of the MiG-21 fighter, crashed Nov. 14 near the Bagdogra air base. The crash comes less than a week after defense officials reviewed Indian aircraft safety in light of a Jaguar crash in Ambala early this month. George Fernandes, the Indian defense minister, told Agence France Presse that no technical faults have been found in the fleet. More than 220 air force aircraft have crashed over the last decade, most of them MiGs.
LOCKHEED UCAR: Lockheed Martin's Unmanned Combat Armed Rotorcraft (UCAR) team is meeting with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) this week to discuss its progress in Phase 1 of the program. "We started with a large number of potential configurations, and we're bringing that down to a more manageable set now," Lockheed UCAR Program Director Dan Rice says. Configuration choices included traditional helicopter, tiltrotor, and lift-fan designs. Lockheed's team members include Bell Helicopter Textron Inc.
European and U.S. defense contractors are likely to enter into more joint agreements and partnerships over the next decade, according to two industry observers. Those agreements could turn into long-term strategic relationships where companies cooperate in developing a complete line of weapon systems and defense products.
The top Democrat on the House Science Committee says he will push the Republican-led panel to conduct a "serious review" of NASA's new space transportation plan when Congress reconvenes in early 2003.
CHASING A DREAM: Investors selling large-cap defense stocks to buy technology and telecom stocks are chasing a dream, according to senior aerospace and defense analyst Paul Nisbet of JSA Research. Since the Standard & Poor's 500 hit its six-year low on Oct. 16, Northrop Grumman stock has declined 21 percent, Lockheed Martin 15 percent, Raytheon 6 percent and General Dynamics 1 percent. But over the next five years, the top-line growth of defense stocks in general likely will grow by 6-7 percent, while earnings per share will likely grow by 10-12 percent, Nisbet says.
Nov. 18 -- Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs presents the 20th Annual Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson Distinguished Service Award Dinner, honoring Dr. Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense. For more information please call JINSA at (202) 833-0020 or email [email protected]. Nov. 18 - 21 -- National Defense Industrial Association presents Aircraft Survivability 2002 - Combat Survivability: UAVs and Unmanned Aircraft. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, Calif. For more information contact Jerry Wallick at (703) 845-2353 or email [email protected].
THROUGH A MAZE: Despite the need for a small, fast ship for littoral operations, the Navy has not clearly defined the requirements for a 2,000-3,000-ton Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), according to naval author and historian Norman Polmar. "We're wandering through a maze without any idea of where we're going," he says. The lack of requirements also raises questions about whether the Navy will buy the 60 LCS ships as proposed, he says. What the Navy should do is look at the Israeli success with the 1,200-ton class Sa'ar 5 stealth corvettes, according to Polmar.
LAUNCH DELAY: The first launch of Boeing's Delta IV booster has been delayed from Nov. 15 to Nov. 19 at the earliest, Boeing said. The booster is scheduled to deploy by the W5 satellite, built by Alcatel Space for Eutelsat. The first Delta IV to fly is a medium configuration of the Delta IV family of rockets.
General Dynamics United Kingdom Ltd. has completed the systems integration work for the Bowman tactical radio communications program and has begun installing the initial low-rate production radios in British armed forces combat vehicles, senior company officials said Nov. 15. "It's been a remarkably fast program for something this size," said Michael Turley, vice president for business development of General Dynamics U.K.
READINESS POST: Charles Abell is cleared to become deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, having received Senate approval of his nomination Nov. 12. Abell has been assistant secretary of defense for force management policy.
UAV RELIANCE: The Indian air force plans to rely heavily on unmanned aerial vehicles and aerostat radars because they proved useful during an eight-month deployment of defenses along the nation's border with Pakistan. Indian forces used Israeli Heron and Searcher UAVs and U.S. aerostat radars during the deployment, says a senior Indian air force official. The air force was instructed to prepare to strike terrorist targets within Pakistan based on intelligence from the aircraft, the official says.
MARINE CORPS AIR STATION NEW RIVER, N.C. - The squadron flying the MV-22 Osprey is beginning a one-year effort to return to operational status after two fatal crashes and an unrelated maintenance investigation mothballed the unit nearly two years ago. The precise role VMMT-204 will play if the Osprey program is approved beyond its extended development phase in 2004 is unclear, but the V-22 Transition Board is set to meet here next week to start the process of making those decisions.
The Missile Defense Agency conducted the rare launch of an actual Scud missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., Nov. 14 to learn more about the performance of a missile that U.S. troops could confront on the battlefield.
