REVIEW TARGETS: The Yugoslavia after-action report underway in the Pentagon will be reviewing the combat debut of a number of systems, including the B-2 bomber, the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) and new unmanned aerial vehicles. "We introduced systems and used systems in manners and techniques never done before," says Vice Adm. Vern Clark, director of the Pentagon's Joint Staff. The review will include analysis of the tactics, techniques and procedures used with these new systems to see how the information can be made more available for the users.
Lockheed Martin Ocean, Radar and Sensor Systems (OR&SS) delivered the first complete shipset of the U.S. Navy's AN/SQQ-89(V) Undersea Warfare Combat System and won two other contracts for sea systems in the past week, the company reported. The AN/SQQ-89, made under a 1996 contract, will be installed in the USS Howard (DDG-83), which is currently being built at General Dynamics/Bath Iron Works. The system is the first of 20 to be delivered by 2004.
ALL WET: U.S. Air Force managers plan to ship a Global Positioning System satellite back to the factory before the end of the month so it can be disassembled and tested for damage it might have suffered in a heavy rainstorm at Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., in May.
Planar Systems Inc. said that dpiX Holding Co. LLC has completed its acquisition of dpiX Inc. The former Xerox subsidiary makes amorphous silicon thin-film transistor (TFT) arrays used in Planar's color display components and display sub-systems. dpiX Holding Co. LLC is owned by Planar Systems, Varian Medical Systems, and a joint venture of the U.S. affiliates of Philips Medical Systems, Siemens A.G., and Thompson-CSF. Xerox Corp. retains a 20% ownership interest in dpiX (DAILY, May 19).
After flying more than 30,000 hours in support of Operation Allied Force and committing hundreds of airplanes to the campaign, and continuing to support NATO peacekeepers in Kosovo, U.S. Air Mobility Command can't say what impact the high operational tempo effort has had on its fleet, but is confident that forces remain adequate to meet the demands of two theaters of war.
Teledesic has signed contracts with Motorola and Lockheed Martin to develop and launch its low-Earth orbit Internet-in-the-sky broadband satellite constellation, although details of the constellation design won't be set until the private startup and Motorola complete a three-month technical review period. As part of the system agreement with prime contractor Motorola, Teledesic made a down payment of $250 million for system development.
SEATTLE PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING ASSOCIATION last week won an election to represent 456 Facility Engineers and Safety Health&Environmental Affairs Workers at Boeing.
EXPORT CONTROLS: The House Armed Services Committee intends to consider a bill this month that would lift export controls on encryption technologies. The bill faces several hurdles and is opposed by the U.S. defense and intelligence communities. National Security Agency Deputy Director Barbara McNamara says the bill will "greatly complicate our exploitation targets" and make NSA's job "difficult if not impossible."
...GOOD REPORT: Despite the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, national reconnaissance assets are expected to receive a better grade on their Kosovo report card than they got after Desert Storm. The inability to relay information from spy satellites and airborne platforms to battlefield commanders was a leading military complaint following the Gulf War and has received a lot of attention since then, says Deputy Secretary of Defense John J. Hamre, who is co-chairing the review with Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Fairchild said its 328JET has been certificated by the European Joint Airworthiness Authorities. Four aircraft were used during flight testing, accumulating 1,100 hours. Type certification by the FAA is expected soon for the 32-seat regional jet, which Fairchild says has the "widest and tallest passenger cabin in the industry." It has a Honeywell Primus 2000 avionics suite and twin Pratt&Whitney Canada PW306B turbofans. Skyway Airlines of Milwaukee is the launch customer.
Kazakhstan blocked a planned Russian satellite launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on its territory July 8 in the wake of the July 5 Proton launch failure, but the Russian military was able to launch a communications satellite from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia.
APACHE TALK: "Everywhere I go people want to talk Apache," says Maj. Gen. Larry G. Smith, head of the Army's foreign military sales program. Allied nations, he says, are interested in the "latest version," the AH-64D, not the A model. International sales of the Boeing attack helicopter constitute one of the largest programs that Smith's office oversees.
The Dept. of Defense has begun an internal review of U.S. participation in the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia, according to Deputy Secretary of Defense John J. Hamre. The review board, headed by Hamre and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Ralston of the Air Force, will look at three areas: The ability of U.S. forces to get to the fight and sustain themselves; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations, and alliance and coalition warfare.
FLY CASTING: Astronauts Eileen Collins and Jeffrey Ashby, commander and pilot respectively on the STS-93 Space Shuttle mission scheduled to lift off early next Tuesday (DAILY, July 9), will get a chance to do a little fly fishing once they get the Chandra Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF) deployed. As a secondary objective, Collins and Ashby will test a series of maneuvering-jet burns developed to help the next Shuttle crew damp the motion of the 60-meter boom that will be used during the STS-99 Shuttle Radar Topography Mission in September.
X-34 OPTIONS: NASA is studying whether it will be possible to eliminate Holloman AFB, N.M., from flight test plans for the X-34 reusable launch vehicle testbed rather than meet Air Force requirements to operate there. Gary Payton, head of RLV programs at NASA headquarters, says the agency is examining whether it would be possible to confine early flight testing, including drop tests and some unpowered flights, to White Sands Missile Range, N.M., and what it would take to move the early flight tests to Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB, Calif.
A Dept. of Labor official said he is "confident" that his agency and Boeing will resolve a dispute in which Boeing has declined to give DOL access to its facilities and records. In response, the agency filed three lawsuits against the company.
The U.S. Dept. of Defense is giving its foreign military sales and technology licensing programs a thorough shake-down, according to Pentagon leaders. The movement, part of an initiative by Defense Secretary William Cohen, has become the focus of top U.S. officials outside of the Pentagon following release of the Cox report which found that China has acquired U.S. secrets. Industry leaders and potential customers are pushing for a restructuring too. They want the U.S. to reduce the bureaucracy involved in international sales.
JSFs FOR F-22s: Jacques Gansler, under secretary of defense for acquisition and technology, is a firm believer in keeping options open. He says he is willing to buy Joint Strike Fighters instead of a third wing of F-22s, if the price tag on the Lockheed Martin Raptor climbs too high. The Dept. of Defense "always ought to have alternates," he says, including "keeping JSF as a viable alternate to the F-22. It keeps F-22 and JSF honest."
THAAD TEST SLIP: Ballistic Missile Defense Organization officials, providing more clarification on why they are delaying the next fight test in the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) program - it had been slated for last week - say they simply want more time to study data from the last test. THAAD, after six consecutive failures, hit a target for the first time in its June 10 test. BMDO officials are expected to complete their internal reviews by the end of the month clearing the way for the test.
Pentagon officials appear to have resolved issues concerning the acquisition strategy for the Space Based Infrared System Low (SBIRS Low), clearing the way for contract award this month. This week, Director of Defense Research and Engineering Hans Mark and other Office of the Secretary of Defense officials met with SBIRS Low program officials at the U.S. Air Force Space and Missiles Systems Center in Los Angeles to go over remaining questions and iron out the details, sources told The DAILY.
Veridian has signed an agreement to acquire MRJ Technology Solutions of Fairfax, Va., a move that Veridian said yesterday helps to establish it as a market leader in information security, information technology, and advanced engineering and analysis. The deal comes on the heels of Veridian's acquisitions of Trident Data Systems and ERIM International. All three acquisitions, Veridian said, are expected to be completed by early fall. With the closings, annual revenues of the Washington, D.C.-based Veridian will exceed $620 million.
NASA has returned its SR-71A research aircraft to flight at Dryden Flight Research Center after an eight-month standdown following the conclusion of the Linear Aerospike SR-71 Experiment (LASRE) for the X-33 program. The SR-71A reached Mach 2.25 at 55,000 feet on the return to flight June 30, Dryden said. That fight, and three more to follow, are designed to characterize the aircraft's performance and handling with the LASRE test fixture mounted atop the aft section.
Raytheon and Airbus said they have identified 10 potential markets so far for their joint Multi Role Tanker Transport (MRTT), to be based on the Airbus A310-300 aircraft. The German Air Force has issued a request for quotations for four tanker transports, and will hopefully be the launch customer for the type, Casey Cueto, Raytheon MRTT program manager, told reporters in Washington on Wednesday. Germany would reconfigure four A310s it already owns to transport status. Modifications would take 24-30 months.
NASA awarded two contracts yesterday for Phase 1 trade studies to lay the groundwork for the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) that would replace the Hubble Space Telescope after about 2008.
