NEW DELHI – India has delayed plans to loft Nirbhay, its first subsonic cruise missile, until early 2013. Nirbhay’s launch was to take place in November from Wheeler Island off the Odisha coast in eastern India. “It will now be done in January 2013,” a senior scientist at the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) says. He blamed the holdup on launcher modifications.
Jeffery L. Turner, the CEO who transformed Wichita-based Spirit AeroSystems from a former Boeing subsidiary into the industry’s largest independent airframe maker, will step down early in 2013. Turner, who is 60, was a VP and general manager for Boeing when the company sold his division in 2005 to Onex Corp., cutting lose its biggest division for manufacturing structural assemblies, including the entire 737 fuselage and the nose of the 787, that aircraft’s most complex composite section.
The performance of Iron Dome in Israel can only add to congressional support for co-production of the rocket-defense system in the U.S. In its version of the fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill, the House requires the U.S. Missile Defense Agency to establish an Iron Dome program office, calls on the MDA director to negotiate for data rights to the technology and to explore co-production of the system. The Senate has not yet passed its version of the bill , which also must be reconciled with the House version.
London – The U.K. Royal Air Force ( RAF ) will soon deploy the first of its upgraded Chinook helicopters to Afghanistan. Two Boeing CH-47 Chinook HC4s were ready to go at the RAF’s main transport base at Brize Norton on Nov. 19, and are likely to begin operational flying in theater from the main British base at Camp Bastion, Helmand Province, in December. The two aircraft will join the Joint Helicopter Force ( Afghanistan ) supporting the International Security and Assistance Force troops.
New Delhi – India’s state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) has opened an electronics facility in the southern state of Kerala to produce advanced avionics for aircraft and helicopters. The $12 million factory is located in the Kasaragod district and will make airborne special purpose systems such as mission computers, display processors, and radar computers for Sukhoi Su-30s , MiG-27s and Light Combat Aircraft.
WASHINGTON – Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Carderock received a patent earlier this month for its discovery and development of a new smart material called Galfenol. The new material could, among other things, lead to quieter machinery operations in submarines and other platforms. Galfenol is a magnetostrictive smart material that can be used in sensors, actuators and structural supports, the Navy says.
In the sometimes cutthroat world of defense contracts, a small mistake can cause a major headache. In this case, a wording error buried in a lengthy report on boost-phase missile defense caused reports to overstate the sustainment cost of the Army’s Patriot program by more than $11 billion, adding fuel to a long-simmering battle between Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.
During the 2006 conflict in southern Lebanon, about 25% of the Hezbollah-fired missiles struck populated areas in northern Israel. While Israeli security keeps a lid on where the latest Hamas and Jihadist missiles fired into southern Israel from Gaza are striking, the very few deaths reported in Israel – in the single digits so far – indicates that the first five batteries of the short-range Iron Dome missile defense system are being surprisingly efficient.
NEW DELHI – India’s defense research agency is preparing to test its ballistic interceptor missile this week, the country’s top scientist says. The Advanced Air Defense (AAD) interceptor, capable of destroying any hostile ballistic missile at low altitude, will blast off from Wheeler Island in India’s eastern state of Odisha, says Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) Director General V.K. Saraswat.
WASHINGTON – While the Pentagon has done well in making sure it bought and received Defense Advanced Global Positioning System (GPS) Receivers (DAGR), the military has lost track of how it stored and moved some of those DADRs, a recent Defense Department Inspector General (IG) report says.
Washington – As of Nov. 19, 877 Hamas rockets had been fired into Israel, according to Israeli Defense Forces count. Of those, 570 landed in Israel and 307 were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system. However, the 570 that hit Israel and were not intercepted does not mean that Tel Aviv’s prize new Iron Dome short-range missile defenses failed. It means the system’s ability to determine which missiles are headed toward populated areas – and which are not – is working as designed.
NAVY Bechtel Plant Machinery Inc., Monroeville, Pa., is being awarded a $355,877,746 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for naval nuclear propulsion components. The work will be performed in Monroeville (68.75%), and Schenectady, N.Y. (31.25%). Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. No completion date or additional information is provided on naval nuclear propulsion program contracts. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (N00024-13-C-2121).
NEW YORK – The state-of-the-art in military energetics is HMX, a powerful material that is dense, thermodynamically stable and low in sensitivity — in other words, a devastating explosive that is safe to handle. Research by the University of Michigan and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) indicates that the explosiveness of HMX can be increased with no trade-off in sensitivity, by combining it with an energetic known as CL-20, which while powerful, is by itself too sensitive for use.
WASHINGTON – Over the next month, the White House and congressional leaders will continue the seesaw of negotiations to avert damage to the nation’s economy. If they fail to agree on how to handle expiring tax cuts and nearly $1 trillion in government budget cuts by January, the nation could fall back into a recession, the Congressional Budget Office has warned.
ARLINGTON, VA. – While the U.S. Navy wants to field a fleet that can do battle today, it needs forces that stick around for the long haul , says Vice Adm. Richard Hunt, service staff chief.
The Air Force is proposing to dramatically scale back cuts to the Air National Guard that were included its original fiscal 2013 budget request, cutting its original reduction to personnel by 40%, according to a draft slide from the service. The Air Force is not commenting publicly on its draft proposal for an Air Guard end strength of 105,300, which could also curb by 60% its planned reduction to aircraft.
The San Diego-based General Dynamics Nassco shipyard this month launched the U.S. Navy’s first Mobile Landing Platform (MLP)-class ship, less than two years after the start of fabrication. Designed to provide logistics movement from sea to shore, the future USNS Montford Point (MLP-1) will be the lead vessel for a new class of ships providing the Navy with a dedicated seabasing capability.
