U.S. officials continue to demonstrate a balancing act between creating a closer, more interactive relationship with China — particularly its military — and expressing disapproval over a steady stream of cyber intrusions and increasing hostility in the South and East China seas with Washington’s allies. “The context in Asia is changing, [but] America’s interests in Asia have not,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in a May 14 address to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “
Against the wishes of the U.S. Air Force, House lawmakers recommend continuing to buy three additional Northrop Grumman Global Hawk aircraft and 17 Alenia Spartan aircraft.
The U.S. Navy will rely heavily on air components — including those of the Air Force — in the Air-Sea Battle (ASB) construct, according to Adm. Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations (CNO).
Industry organizations disagree on who should manage and operate unmanned aircraft system (UAS) test sites, but they all believe a test program should be used to gather critical safety data, develop certification and training standards and ensure sense-and-avoid capabilities.
ARMY General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., Poway, Calif., was awarded a $141,832,994 cost-plus-incentive-fee contract. The award will provide for the services in support of the MQ-1C Gray Eagle unmanned aircraft systems. The work will be performed in Poway, with an estimated completion date of May 7, 2013. One bid was solicited, with one bid received. The U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (W58RGZ-12-C-0075).
GENEVA — The U.K. will spend around £160 billion ($260 billion) on defense equipment and services in the next decade, which includes more than £4 billion set aside as a “contingency reserve,” Defense Secretary Philip Hammond told Parliament May 14.
Rockwell Collins France is demonstrating a radar-based helicopter obstacle detection system to the French army as it talks to manufacturers about a related system to warn of rotor strikes when landing in confined spaces. Both systems use the same 13-ghz, Ku-band electronically scanned radar technology developed by the company’s French operation.
DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY Telephonics Corp., Farmingdale, N.Y., was awarded a firm-fixed-price, sole-source contract with a maximum $47,099,407 for interface control units and equipment. There are no other locations of performance. Using service is Army. Type of appropriation is Army Working Capital Funds. There was one proposal with one response. The date of performance completion is May 6, 2017. The Defense Logistics Agency Aviation, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (SPRRA1-12-D-0104).
SAN DIEGO — The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1) USS Freedom is plagued by extensive corrosion and manufacturing issues more recent and serious than anything the Pentagon or prime contractor Lockheed Martin has publicly acknowledged thus far. This is based on a guided tour of the ship in dry dock, as well as sources intimately familiar with Freedom’s design, repairs and operations, U.S. Navy documents and defense analysts.
SINGAPORE — Belgium will be able to take advantage of some of Luxembourg’s allocation in the U.S. military’s Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) constellation.
Pakistan on May 10 successfully test-fired a short-range nuclear-capable ballistic missile, the country’s military says. The Hatf-III, known as Ghaznavi, has a range of up to 290 km (180 mi.) and can also carry conventional warheads. The test-fire “was conducted at the conclusion of the annual field training exercise of Army Strategic Force Command,” Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) department says.
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency is seeking bids to provide four small satellites to demonstrate its fractionated spacecraft architecture in orbit.
New Delhi – India has approved the purchase of 145 ultralight M777 howitzers from the U.S., the first major artillery buy since it inducted howitzer guns from Switzerland-based AB Bofors in 1987. “The purchase of the 155 mm lightweight towed howitzers with Laser Inertial Artillery Pointing Systems [Linaps] will be made through the U.S. government’s foreign military sales program,” a senior defense ministry official says. The M777 is manufactured by BAE Systems ’ Global Combat Systems division.
VIDEO RADAR: A synthetic-aperture radar small enough to fit inside an electro-optical/infrared sensor ball and which can provide high-resolution video in all weather – that’s the goal of a new U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program. The Video Synthetic-Aperture Radar (ViSAR) program plans to develop an extremely high-frequency radar that will allow a gunship to target moving people and vehicles through clouds and other obscurants that degrade infrared.
The U.S. Army plans to award Boeing a contract to support development of a package of upgrades to its CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopters. The CH-47 Block II Aircraft Component Improvement Program (ACIP) will integrate three separate developments : the Advanced Concept Rotor Blade (ACRB), active parallel actuator system and improved-performance (IP) engine.
R&D organization Battelle has completed preliminary design of an improved icing spray system to replace equipment now used by the U.S. Army to perform icing certification on military and civil helicopters and smaller fixed-wing aircraft.
While the U.S. Defense Department is becoming more effective in the way it estimates costs for certain studies and reports, it still needs to do a better job of making those assessments, asserts a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. Cutting down on those costs, and obtaining a clearer picture of cost estimates, has become a Pentagon priority, GAO notes.
Limited numbers of expensive unmanned aircraft—each with its own massive intelligence-gathering capabilities—have been a U.S. Air Force staple for years. Now the service is eyeing redirection of its investment dollars into smaller platforms that can function as one huge network that ignores losses to air or cyberattack.
Three Apollo commanders put their weight behind legislation that would force NASA to move quickly to choose a single commercial crew vehicle to elicit public support. Neil Armstrong, Eugene Cernan and James Lovell, commanders of Apollo 11, 17 and 13, respectively, told Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee that funds the space agency, that they endorse his panel's approach to commercial crew vehicle development that passed the House last week.
