The Senate shot down another attempt to shore up the nation’s cyber defenses legislatively this week. Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, and others insisted that the bill included important information sharing provisions that went beyond what the Obama administration could do through executive order that is likely to move in the bill’s absence.
BOMB RACKS: Marvin Engineering Co. of Inglewood, Calif., has been awarded a $17,929,710 contract to provide 420 BRU-32 B/A bomb racks for U.S. Navy F/A-18E/F and EA-18G aircraft, the Pentagon announced Nov. 15. The work will be performed in Inglewood and is expected to be completed by December 2015. The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity (N00421-13-C-0002).
Hard on the heels of a presidential policy directive that is to lay down the rules for offensive cyberwar, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) has transferred responsibility for a nascent National Cyber Range to the Pentagon.
UHAI, China – Bell Helicopter is appealing an FAA ruling against a higher gross weight for the Bell 429 helicopter. The FAA has approved the Bell 429 at 7,000 lb. maximum gross weight, but the manufacturer sought FAA approval to increase it to 7,500 lb. The higher gross weight would allow operators to either carry more equipment or more fuel. Twelve countries, including Canada and China, already have approved the helo at 7,500 lb.
STRENGTHENING METALS: Precision Castparts Corp. (PCP) is strengthening its market position by acquiring Titanium Metals Corp. (Timet), the largest independent manufacturer in the U.S. of titanium billets used in aerospace structures. “This addition allows PCP to become better vertically integrated, so there should be considerable cost savings,” analyst Robert Stallard of RBC Capital Markets says of the acquisition. At an offered price of $16.50 per share, the cash purchase is valued at about $2.9 billion.
There is a new, secret White House document that may finally start codifying what an offensive cyber weapon is, who can generate it, what its legitimate targets are and who can authorize its use. The document, Presidential Policy Directive 20, signed in October, establishes a set of standards to guide the military and other federal agencies in responding to or perhaps pre-empting cyberattacks on U.S. military and commercial networks. To active cyber warriors and aerospace industry officials, it comes as a bit of a disappointment.
Ground control stations and the Fury tactical unmanned aircraft are the key reasons behind Lockheed Martin’s acquisition of small Huntsville, Ala.-based defense company Chandler/May. Chandler/May manufactures the OneSystem ground control station (GCS) for AAI Corp., which is used with the U.S. Army’s AAI RQ-7B Shadow tactical UAV and General Atomics MQ-1C Grey Eagle medium-range UAV.
The abrupt departure of CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus due to an extramarital affair and a war on Capitol Hill over the Obama administration’s performance in Benghazi, Libya, over the summer are overshadowing President Barack Obama’s efforts to replenish his national security team for a second term. Asked this week whether he will stay on as defense secretary for another four years, Leon Panetta quipped to reporters: “Who the hell knows?”
GILLIAM COUNTY, Ore. — The U.S. Navy is wrapping up the land-based portion of developmental testing of the Insitu Integrator unmanned air system (UAS) and preparing to shift to shipboard testing as company officials begin to look at new payload options for the platform.
The U.S. and Australian militaries have agreed to place two key U.S. space systems in Australia. A U.S. Air Force C-band space-surveillance radar – which can track up to 200 objects a day and can help identify satellites, their orbits and potential anomalies – will move from Antigua to Western Australia in 2014 and will increase coverage of space objects in the Southern Hemisphere, the Pentagon says. It will be the first low Earth orbit space surveillance network sensor in that hemisphere and will help track “high-interest” launches from Asia.
The U.S. Navy is so confident that it is on track with repairs necessary to deploy the first Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1), the USS Freedom, to Singapore next year that the service has already begun to focus more on honing the overall LCS program and the development of the ship’s mission modules, says the admiral in charge of the effort.
Örnsköldsvik, Sweden — The CV90 tracked infantry fighting vehicle, which is in service with six nations and produced here by BAE Systems Hägglunds, is about to be delivered in a range of new variants that include medical evacuation, mortar carrier and cargo transport.
The defense authorization bill could be debated on the Senate floor just after Thanksgiving, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee told reporters Nov. 13. “I would like to lay it down this Friday,” says Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.). “But the leaders assured me it would be the first thing after Thanksgiving.”
LOS ANGELES — A two-seat production derivative of Northrop Grumman’s secretly developed Firebird medium-altitude optionally piloted vehicle (OPV) demonstrator has begun test flights for an unidentified customer. Flown by two Northrop test pilots, the OPV made its first flight from Mojave, Calif., on Nov. 12. Powered by a single Lycoming TEO-540E piston engine, the twin-boom configured aircraft climbed to 3,880 ft. and reached a maximum speed of 100 kt. during a short, 6-min. circuit.
Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) appears to have found the best defense against the looming specter of sequestration feared by other major prime defense contractors — multiyear shipbuilding programs favored and nurtured by the U.S. Navy. Those programs are also helping shield the shipbuilder, too, from some of the Pentagon budget-busting, although HII is a bit concerned about the current financial climate on its suppliers.
As it lays out plans to demonstrate technology for the Future Vertical Lift Medium (FVL-M) rotorcraft to replace the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk after 2030, the U.S. Army has decided not to fly advanced mission systems in the planned demonstrator aircraft. The Army’s Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (AATD) plans to award contracts to begin design of demonstrator rotorcraft in September 2013 under the Joint Multi Role Technology Demonstrator (JMR TD) program.
KLEINE-BROGEL, Belgium — The European Defense Agency (EDA) has been organizing a series of multinational helicopter exercises and instructional courses to increase the number of interoperable crews available for operations. The latest training event, Exercise Green Blade 2012, was held in eastern Belgium from Sept. 18 to Oct. 5. The exercise was hosted by the Belgian defense ministry at Kleine-Brogel air base, together with the Special Operations Forces Exercise Pegasus 2012, organized by the Belgian Special Forces Group.
Örnsköldsvik, Sweden — Now entering its 20th year of service, the CV90 tracked infantry fighting vehicle is at the heart of BAE Systems’ ambitious program to develop a multiuse adaptive camouflage system. The CV90, which is in service with six nations and produced here by BAE Systems Hägglunds, is about to be delivered in a range of new variants that include medical evacuation, mortar carrier and cargo transport.
DOD ON AMOS: The U.S. Defense Department will use leased communications capacity on two Israeli Amos satellites under a pair of contracts awarded to Amos operator Spacecom by DRS Technical Services Inc. The U.S. military will use Ku-band capacity from Spacecom’s Amos-3, located at 4 deg. W., and C-band capacity on Amos-5, positioned at 17 deg. E. The capacity enables reliable two-way communications with U.S. armed forces stationed in Europe who are training for missions in the Middle East, according to the companies.
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