The U.S. Army's plans for transformation are necessary, but the transformation should be phased in over a long period, said Gen. Wesley Clark, the former military commander of NATO. "In the Future Combat Systems, there has to be a phased program, starting with technology that doesn't look too dissimilar to what we have now and moving out from there," he said in an Oct. 17 interview with The DAILY. The Army's attempt to develop an electric gun is one example of the difficulty in developing advanced technology, he said.
JSF WORK: Volvo Aero Norge of Norway will provide low-pressure turbine shafts for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter's F135 engine under a contract from Pratt & Whitney. The contract is the first issued to Norwegian industry for JSF work, Pratt & Whitney said Oct. 16. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The federal government should help shore up the nation's space transportation and remote sensing companies by becoming a more reliable customer of commercial space products and by curbing regulation of the industry, according to the Space Enterprise Council of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
NEW DELHI- India's state-owned aeronautics giant, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL), has forged a marketing partnership with Israeli Aircraft Industries (IAI) to market its Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) internationally. HAL officials here said several companies, including Eurocopter of France, Elbit Systems of Israel, Bell Helicopter of the United States, GKN Westlands of the United Kingdom and IAI submitted proposals to HAL to export the ALH to third countries.
NEW FACILITY: BAE Systems dedicated a new 130,000 square foot complex in Reston, Va., on Oct. 17. The complex is the headquarters for the company's Integrated Systems business, launched in December 2001. Integrated Systems provides systems engineering and integration support for intelligence agencies, homeland security programs and the Department of Defense.
NEW DELHI - Following India's move to pull back some of its troops from the border, Pakistan announced Oct. 17 it will withdraw troops from the disputed international border between the two hostile neighbors.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said Oct. 17 that State officials are moving ahead of schedule on a review of the munitions list, which governs the types of weapons that can be sold or transferred overseas. The first seven categories have been completed, he said. "We are now turning our attention to category eight, which is aircraft and aircraft parts," he said. "We plan to cut some of the red tape that is now tying up legitimate exports of aircraft parts by increasing the dollar maximum ... tenfold."
The Boeing Co.'s office for the Future Combat Systems program will announce within a week the companies that will receive study contracts under the second round of broad industry announcements, Boeing program officials said Oct. 17. Twenty-nine contracts will be awarded, program officials said. International companies will be among those awarded contracts, along with companies from across the United States. An additional 39 contracts will be awarded by mid-November.
A solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) successfully completed a NASA remote-sensing demonstration late last month, showing a coffee plantation in Hawaii where the coffee fields were ripest, NASA said. Aerovironment's Pathfinder Plus airplane loitered for more than four hours over Hawaii's largest coffee plantation, on the island of Kauai. This allowed it to create a digital mosaic of images of coffee fields with a clear sky, even though there was significant cloud cover that day.
More than 140 House members have signed or are expected to sign a letter urging Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to begin building the CVNX next-generation aircraft carrier in fiscal 2006.
Space Shuttle Atlantis undocked from the International Space Station Oct. 16 and its crew is preparing to return to Earth Oct. 18. During its stay, Atlantis crewmembers installed and activated the station's Starboard One truss, part of the station's external truss segment that will allow future station expansion. The station's Expedition Five crew is slated to return to Earth in November aboard the shuttle Endeavour, which NASA said is slated to launch Nov. 10 or later.
Authors of the fiscal 2003 defense appropriations conference report rejected or scaled back proposed funding cuts for several weapon systems, including the MK-54 Lightweight Hybrid Torpedo (LHT), the Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) and the Titan space booster, after receiving written appeals from the Defense Department to fully fund those programs.
ON HOLD?: The House was debating late Oct. 16 whether to leave town until after the fall elections, which would delay completion of the fiscal 2003 defense authorization bill, FY '03 NASA appropriations bill and FY '03 intelligence authorization bill until at least November. The defense and intelligence authorization bills are before House-Senate conference committees. The House and Senate still are working on separate versions of the NASA bill.
LAUREL, Md. - A lack of data system tools to support decision-making is preventing military planners from immediately thrusting the effects-based planning concept into operation, a top joint forces testing official said Oct. 16. Those findings are the result of the first few lessons provided by the Joint Forces Command's [JFFCOM's] massive Millenium Challenge 2002 experiment, held July 24-Aug. 15, said Russell Richard, director of JFFCOM's Project Alpha, which analyzes the joint potential of new operations concepts.
The Boeing Co. lowered its delivery estimate of commercial aircraft for 2003 and said that for the first time in the company's history, revenue from defense-related sales likely will exceed revenue from commercial sales next year. During an Oct. 16 conference call with investors and analysts, Boeing officials said net income for the third quarter fell nearly 43 percent from a year ago due to slower commercial aircraft sales.
SATELLITE SUPPORT: L-3 Communications' Telemetry-West division will provide high power amplifiers (HPAs) to Honeywell Technology Solutions to support the U.S. Air Force's Satellite Control Network (AFSCN), the company said Oct. 16. The value of the contract, including options, could be more than $25 million, according to L-3. The AFSCN is a network of two communications and operational control centers and satellite antennas located at nine sites worldwide. Honeywell is upgrading the system with improved components and antenna systems.
MOSCOW - An unmanned Russian Soyuz-U rocket exploded shortly after liftoff Oct. 15 due to a first-stage malfunction, dooming the Foton M-1 research satellite it was carrying. Both the 14,300-pound spacecraft and the Soyuz-U launcher were built by the TsSKB-Progress space center of Samara. News reports said one person was killed and eight were injured on the ground from the explosion. The Foton M-1 carried 44 international experiments supported by the European Space Agency, and was the latest research satellite in the Foton series.
DEFENSE INDUSTRIES INTERNATIONAL, Los Angeles John E. Krings has been named as lead U.S. defense industry consultant. EADS, Amsterdam Pierre de Bausset has been appointed senior vice president of investor relations and financial communication. Fabrice Bregier will become president and CEO of Eurocopter, as of April 1, 2003. He will succeed Jean-Francois Bigay. Bregier also will become deputy to the president of Eurocopter as of Jan. 1, 2003. Marwan Lahoud will become president and CEO of MBDA.
NEW DELHI - India unilaterally decided Oct. 16 to withdraw some troops from its border with Pakistan. Indian defense ministry spokesman Pradipto Bandyopadhyay told The DAILY that the withdrawal will not include troops along the Line of Control in the contested state of Jammu and Kashmir, claimed by both countries.
PRAGUE - BAE Systems reacted sharply Oct. 15 to Czech press reports that said the British company had investigated its own office in Prague over concerns that some managers were "too close" to representatives of a weapons company BAE Systems has expressed interest in buying. The Czech newspaper Lidove Noviny reported that the London headquarters of BAE Systems, which has carried out due diligence on weapons manufacturer Omnyx, "did not have full trust" in their Czech representatives.
