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Surveillance aircraft and systems are receiving big funding boosts from Congress to pay for advanced sensors, thanks to a one-item unfunded requirements list from U.S. Special Operations Command (Socom). House appropriators did it first: Big pluses for three aircraft that are platforms for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR): U-28, MQ-1 and MQ-9. Five supporting ground systems are also all on the receiving end. All the increases are for adding high-definition video sensors (Aerospace DAILY, June 1).
TEL AVIV — The increased use of UAVs and light aircraft is spurring development of smaller precision-attack weapons, designed to better meet payload limitations of the manned, light-strike aircraft and UAVs.
SINGAPORE — Japan intends to buy two ScanEagle UAVs for its army, a further sign the government recognizes the growing importance of unmanned aircraft. The funds for the purchase are part of the country’s third supplemental budget for post-tsunami disaster relief, according to a Boeing spokeswoman in Japan. Boeing subsidiary Insitu makes ScanEagle, which is launched via catapult. This is the first time Japan has ordered ScanEagle, the spokeswoman says, adding that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) is Insitu’s partner in this deal.
T-6 SUPPORT: U.S. Air Force Materiel Command has awarded DynCorp International a contract worth up to $432 million to provide support services for T-6A and T-6B trainer aircraft at various Air Force and Navy bases throughout the U.S. The contract has a base period of one year with four one-year options. The company will establish, operate and manage Contractor Operated and Maintained Base Supply facilities to provide spare parts and equipment to support the training aircraft.
Few attributes are more important to a U.S. Navy submarine than stealth. But U.S. Navy Seals also need to get to their job site from the subs undetected as well. And that is an increasingly difficult task as technology improves for active sonar, making good systems affordable in areas where Seals are likely to try to conduct missions.
The miniature hit-to-kill interceptor is being developed under the U.S. Army’s Extended Area Protection and Survivability (EAPS) integrated demonstration.
The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1) USS Freedom moved a step closer toward the U.S. Navy’s 2013 goal of a Singapore deployment by passing special operational tests that are atypical for a Navy warship. The Freedom — the first of the class for the new LCS fleet — in May passed a special trial (ST), which the Navy says is “basically a modified version of the final contract trials (FCT) that a ship undergoes prior to the end of the builder’s guarantee period.”
HOUSTON — NASA’s Science Mission Directorate is canceling the over-budget Gravity and Extreme Magnetism Small Explorer (GEMS) astrophysics mission, following the denial this week of an appeal from the Goddard Space Flight Center-led science team, the agency announced June 7. Congress is being formally notified that the 2009 mission selection, capped at $119 million, not counting launch costs, is being canceled, says Paul Hertz, NASA’s astrophysics division director.
Faced with a huge shortfall of anti-tank missiles and the delayed induction of the indigenous Nag missile, India has been scouting for adequate offensive systems.
So now everyone knows: the Pentagon war budget is not immune from sequester. So says a May 25 letter from the White House budget office to the House Budget Committee. However, even if funding in the Pentagon budget category known as Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) is not protected outright, the law still makes OCO a fiscal shield of sorts, according to the letter written by Jeffrey Zients, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), to Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.)
Other federal programs should fashion themselves after the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program run by the Small Business Administration (SBA), says Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), who sees SBIR as a template for fostering national technological advancement while promoting small businesses.
SINGAPORE — Japan’s government has appointed Satoshi Morimoto as defense minister, the first time since World War II that a Japanese defense minister has not been a member of parliament. Morimoto is Japan’s third defense minister in recent months. His immediate predecessor was Naoki Tanaka, who served from January to June. Before Tanaka, Yasuo Ichikawa held the post from September 2011 to January 2012. Tanaka and Ichikawa were both ousted following pressure from the opposition party.
The U.S. Navy is considering technology to make its submarines or other undersea vehicles more maneuverable by patterning parts of the platforms after whales. Using funding made available through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, Boston Engineering is developing the technology based on the shape and movement of humpback whale fins. “We’re taking lessons from nature,” says David Shane, the project engineer, noting that the leading edges of the fins of humpback whales are providing some valuable insights.
The financial belt-tightening is only going to get worse with the demands for U.S. Navy likely to grow greater, warns Adm. J.C. Harvey, Jr., commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command. But the past may hold some lessons learned. “We [are] headed for permanent white water; that is, an environment in which our overall defense budget would very likely decrease, while our costs to own and operate the fleet [increase],” Harvey says in a blog from earlier this month.
The U.S. Coast Guard’s proposed fleet plan could still cost far more than the service anticipates, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) says. The Coast Guard completed a two-phased Fleet Mix Analysis that intended to eliminate uncertainty surrounding the future mission performance of the service’s fleet and produce a baseline for the acquisition of a majority of its assets, the GAO notes in a May 31 report.
HOUSTON — A multinational crew of four is scheduled to evaluate a range of asteroid exploration strategies following a June 11 descent to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Aquarius Reef Base undersea habitat off Key Largo, Fla., for a 12-day stay.
