The U.S. Navy’s Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (Uclass) effort may get lots of headlines for the innovative technology that it represents, but the armed service is trying to use the program to prod the acquisition world toward thinking of unmanned systems in terms of mission capability rather than units purchased.
LOS ANGELES — NASA has unveiled a new “strategic vision” for aeronautics that focuses civil-aviation research into six themes. But there is no new money, so work that does not align with the main thrusts will be reduced.
MOSCOW — Russian Helicopters and AgustaWestland are set to advance the development of their joint 2.5-ton light helicopter at the upcoming Moscow air show. The two companies will sign key documents relating to development and workshare of the new helicopter program, according to Russian Helicopters CEO Dmitry Petrov, speaking to journalists in Moscow on Aug. 13. Further signings will take place late this year.
PALM BEACH and PANAMA CITY, Fla. — The U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program will largely sink or succeed on the basis of how well its unmanned systems fare in upcoming tests and operations. While previous U.S. Navy ships went to sea with organic combat and operational systems aboard, the LCS vessels are outfitted with mission module packages allowing the ship to conduct surface warfare (SUW), mine countermeasures (MCM) or antisubmarine warfare (ASW) missions.
A debate over stealth is defining the future of the U.S. Navy’s Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (Uclass) program, as well as drawing battle lines among the four likely contenders, according to industry sources speaking at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International conference and show in Washington this week.
Despite the July 5 failure of the Ground-Based Missile Defense (GMD) system during an intercept test, Pentagon procurement chief Frank Kendall says the massive program is funded at an appropriate level. The recent test was intended to be a show of force in response to North Korea’s work in testing nuclear weapons. But it was the latest in a string of flight test failures for the program. The last successful GMD intercept was in December 2008, and the July test was designed as a repeat of that trail.
LOS ANGELES — Refinements to the Lockheed Martin F-35B’s integrated propulsion and flight control will be tested in a second series of sea trials with the short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing (Stovl) fighter beginning this week on the USS Wasp.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Sequestration is likely to cause the Pentagon to take a major near-term hit in its procurement and research and development accounts that will eventually taper off once force structure reductions are put into place, says Frank Kendall, the Defense Department’s acquisition czar. “If the overall sequestration cut is 10%, we can look at numbers about twice that for R&D and procurement,” he said during an Aug. 13 speech hosted by the 16th Annual Space and Missile Defense Conference here.
Click here to view the pdf U.S. Navy Procurement Funding Shifts:2013 Plan for Fiscal 2014 Compared to Actual 2014 Request (Losers) (Then-year dollars in millions) U.S.
A budget crunch brought on by sequestration has pressured the U.S. Air Force to discontinue operations of its Space Fence, which has been surveilling objects in space since 1961. The Air Force Space Surveillance System (AFSSS), dubbed the Space Fence (and formerly operated by the Navy), consists of three transmitters and six receivers designed to form a radar line, or fence, across the 33rd parallel along the southern U.S.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, says that the U.S. Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system’s failure to intercept its target during a July 5 test was “inevitable” due to “cuts so deep” in missile defense spending.
A new unmanned air systems (UAS) developer and integrator is making its U.S. debut at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International annual conference in Washington this week. Unmanned Systems Group (USG), headquartered in Switzerland with engineering facilities in Sweden and a large contingent of Saab veterans in its workforce, is presenting two fixed-wing UAS and a one-third-scale model of a rotary-wing system that revives and improves on a long-neglected propulsion technology.
Affordability will certainly be a guiding principle in the U.S. Army’s acquisition and operation of unmanned systems as the military pivots from recent wars, the armed service’s deputy chief of staff responsible for financial management told an industry audience Aug. 13. But just as important will be the need to integrate manned and unmanned systems across the U.S. military and with certain allies, too, as well as training with and supporting them.
NEW DELHI — India’s defense ministry says the Indian air force (IAF) has not yet made any formal request to buy more Swiss-made Pilatus PC-7 MK2 trainers instead of waiting for the country’s indigenous basic trainer aircraft (BTA) project to deliver. “As far as the ministry of defense is concerned, that project [the Indian-made BTA] is still on,” Defense Minister A.K. Antony says.
NEW DELHI — India has activated the atomic reactor on board its first indigenous nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine, the INS Arihant, enabling it to undergo sea trials. A defense ministry official says the 83 megawatt pressurized water reactor on Arihant has been started. “Now the submarine will undergo extensive sea trials before being made operational,” the official says. INS Arihant has been undergoing trials at the Indian navy’s submarine base in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, in southern India.
LACKING MOTIVATION: Analyst Byron Callan of Capital Alpha Partners doubts that recent U.S. embassy closings and the disclosure of an al Qaeda plot in Yemen will be enough to compel Capitol Hill lawmakers to find a political solution to sequestration. “We don’t see the latest threat as catalytic,” Callan says. “Terrorist actions and threats have become part of the security landscape.” As proof, he noted that defense company stocks did not see perceptible changes after the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S.
PALM BEACH, Fla. — As with UAV programs, unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) require a strong foundation of modeling and testing to make them operate safely and efficiently. The maritime environment offers some benefits and presents some challenges for monitoring unmanned systems. For example, unlike UAV testing in the continental U.S., which has sparked some controversy and often requires special FAA permits and approvals, coastal U.S. UUV testing is much more flexible.
NAVY The Boeing Co., Mesa, Ariz., was awarded a $92,278,416 modification (P00025) to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price, option-filled, foreign military sales (FMS) contract (W58RGZ-09-C-0147) for the procurement of Block III AH-64D helicopters and associated support. This FMS contract is in support of Taiwan. The cumulative total face value of this contract is $716,740,952. Fiscal 2009 procurement funds are being obligated on this award. The Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity.
NEW DELHI — India’s 45,000-ton Vikrant aircraft carrier was floated out of its building bay at the state-owned Cochin shipyard in the southern state of Kerala Aug. 12, marking the end of the initial phase of construction on India’s first homegrown carrier.
