PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Czech defense officials say talks with Sweden over the lease of 14 Gripen JAS-39 aircraft will not be affected by news that the Swedish air force is facing technical problems with the fighter. Swedish public radio reported Jan. 23 that early versions of the JAS-39 have experienced problems with pilot computer screens shutting down during flights. The Swedish air force has placed restrictions on advanced training flights during darkness and bad weather until manufacturer Saab Aerosystems resolves the issue.
DISPLAY: India displayed its short-range Agni-1 missile at the 55th Republic Day parade here Jan. 26, which a defense official said indicates that the nuclear-capable missile has been inducted into the Indian army. The 700-kilometer (435-mile) range missile fills the gap between the 150-kilometer (93-mile) range Prithvi and the 2000-kilometer (1,243-mile) range Agni-2, and can be launched from mobile launchers. The Agni-1 was designed and developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation and produced by Bharat Dynamics Ltd.
A program led by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory's (AFRL) Propulsion Directorate is developing technologies to one day enable new upper-stage rocket engines that would succeed Pratt & Whitney's RL10. Teams led by Aerojet and Northrop Grumman are competing in the nine-month first phase of the effort, dubbed the Upper Stage Engine Technology (USET) program. In this phase, the companies are developing software and modeling tools for the turbopump and thrust chamber assembly of the engine, which would be in the 40,000-pound thrust class.
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) "Opportunity" landed safely on Mars and is functioning normally, while the condition of its twin, "Spirit," has improved as engineers zero in on the problem that has rendered it incapable of normal communications since last week, according to NASA.
The U.S. Navy's Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) program is the first to be affected by an agreement to create joint battle management command and control links that would give military services the same picture of air activity in a theater of conflict, the Navy said Jan. 26. CEC, now in use by the fleet, was to have been followed by a more capable CEC Block 2, but plans changed last year, the service said in a response to questions from reporters.
The Bush Administration's fiscal 2005 defense budget request will include funding aimed at achieving better integration of intelligence capabilities, according to the Defense Department. Defense officials have said that the Iraq war showed the U.S. military still has significant shortfalls in its ability to share vital information (DAILY, Sept. 12, 2003; Nov. 24, 2003).
BREAKING IN: Arlington Capital Partners, a Washington, D.C.-based private equity fund, has acquired Science & Engineering Associates, Inc. (SEA) of New Orleans, which the company says will double its size and enable it to "break into the Department of Defense" information technology market. The acquisition was made by Arlington's ITS Services unit, which is headed by Phil Odeen, the former chairman of TRW Inc.
ASAP: NASA's revamped Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) will meet for the first time this week to begin the gradual process of taking over responsibility for safety oversight from the Stafford-Covey Task Group, which will dissolve after the shuttle returns to flight. The new panel is a "different cast of characters" with no prior background or association with NASA, according to NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe.
Jan. 28 - 29 -- Shephard's "Air Power 2004." Royal Lancaster Hotel, London. To register call +44 (162) 860-4311 or go to www.shephard.co.uk. Feb. 1 - 3 -- NDIA 2004 Tactical Wheeled Vehicles Conference, "Current Force to Future Force," DoubleTree Hotel & Monterey Conference Center, Calif. Contact Angie De Kleine, (703) 247-2599, email [email protected] or go to www.ndia.org.
The U.S. Air Force needs to get better at determining whether enemy weapon systems on a battlefield are truly a threat to U.S. forces, according to a service official. While a tank of an opposing force may appear to pose a danger, for instance, it may actually be the case that the vehicle will not fire on U.S. ground troops because the people who manned it ran away to escape an earlier American air assault, said Brig. Gen. Stephen Goldfein, director of operational capability requirements for the Air Force.
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) "Spirit" is stuck in a loop in which it periodically resets its computer as a result of a problem that may be hardware related, MER Project Manager Peter Theisinger said Jan. 23. Each time the flight software is reloaded, the computer discovers a condition requiring it to reset, Theisinger said, although that condition is not always the same. Spirit had attempted to reset itself over 60 times as of Jan. 23, he said.
Raytheon Co. will provide five Ship Self Defense Systems (SSDS) Mk 2 tactical ship sets under a $26 million contract from the Naval Sea Systems Command, the company said last week. The SSDS systems are being installed on all amphibious transport LPD-17 class warships, all amphibious assault LHD class warships and all CV/CVN aircraft carriers, including the Navy's newest carrier, the George H.W. Bush (CVN-77). Additional systems
Networked combat communications in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) created greater situational awareness than in any previous military operation, according to Col. Fred Stein (U.S. Army, ret.), a senior principal engineer at the MITRE Corp.
OVERRUNS: Twenty major United Kingdom defense equipment projects have been identified by Britain's National Audit Office as showing "substantial cost and time budget overruns." The office tracked the programs up through March 2003. Four of these - the Eurofighter Typhoon, BAE Systems' Nimrod MRA.3 and Astute submarines and MBDA's Brimstone development of the Hellfire missile - were responsible for 90 percent of the 3.1 billion pound ($5.7 billion) 2003 overrun, the audit office says.
CARGO HANDLING: AAR Cargo Systems will provide mechanical cargo handling systems for Lockheed Martin's C-130J under a four-year contract, the company said Jan. 23. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The cargo systems, designed exclusively for the C-130J, facilitating the loading and unloading of pallets and containers and enable airdrops, the company aid. AAR has been delivering cargo systems to Lockheed Martin since 1968.
NASA TOPLINE: NASA's topline budget request for fiscal year 2005 will be approximately $16.2 billion, according to Administrator Sean O'Keefe, which represents a 5.6 percent increase over the agency's FY '04 budget request of $15.4 billion. To help NASA fulfill the president's new vision for space exploration, the agency will receive roughly $1 billion in new funding over the next five years, and must reprogram $11 billion in existing programs (DAILY, Jan. 15).
The International Space Station (ISS) program is reviewing its procedures for detecting leaks in response to a small leak that required two passes by station astronauts to detect. Expedition 8 Commander Mike Foale and Flight Engineer Alexander Kaleri eventually traced the cause of the slow loss of cabin pressure, which had been occurring since December (DAILY, Jan. 7), to a braided flex hose adjacent to a window in the U.S. Destiny Laboratory.
SONAR ARRAYS: EDO Corp. will continue to produce SQS-53C sonar arrays for Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers and for foreign military sales, the company said Jan. 23. The work will be done under $7.6 million worth of contract options from the Naval Sea System Command. The sonars are used for detecting and classifying submarines.
ACQUISITION NOMINATION: President Bush says he plans to nominate Navy acquisition chief John Young to be the No. 2 acquisition official for the entire Defense Department. Young would succeed Michael Wynne, whose nomination to be the Pentagon's acquisition chief is pending before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
MOON/MARS HEARING: Congress is gearing up to formally examine President Bush's plan to return astronauts to the moon and extend human space exploration to Mars. The Senate Commerce Committee is scheduled to hold the first congressional hearing on the matter on Jan. 28. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the full committee, will preside at the hearing, whose witnesses have not yet been announced. The House Science Committee is expected to hold its first hearing on the moon/Mars proposal on Feb. 12.
NEW DELHI - India conducted a test of its Prithvi ("Earth") short-range missile on Jan. 23 to evaluate how quickly the missile's fuel can be loaded. "Today's [launch] also tested the newly acquired simulator to train the missile crew in the firing operation," a defense ministry official said. A version of the Prithvi, which has a range of up to 150 kilometers (93 miles) and can carry a one-ton warhead, was inducted into Indian army service in 2001.
