The U.S. Navy likely will have to alter vessel configurations to support some of its long-term shipboard laser programs, a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report reiterates. “The Navy in coming years could face significant ship-design constraints in its ability to install shipboard lasers,” CRS says in its recent update on laser programs. Of particular concern are fiber solid-state lasers (SSLs) above 100 kw, and free electron lasers (FELs), CRS notes.
SAN FRANCISCO — Flying 1,800 mi. to glimpse its target, NASA’s Strategic Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (Sofia) used an extremely fast and accurate light meter to capture an occultation of a star by Pluto for the first time on a nighttime flight June 23. The sighting was made with the High-Speed Imaging Photometer for Occultation (HIPO) sensor by a team led by Ted Dunham of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz., and gives scientists pressure, density and temperature profiles of Pluto’s atmosphere.
ARMY Oshkosh Corp., Oshkosh, Wis., was awarded on June 16 a $226,277,100 firm-fixed-price contract. The award will provide for the purchase of 5,131 underbody improvement kits for the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected All Terrain Vehicle in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. The work will be performed in Oshkosh, with an estimated completion date of June 30, 2012. One bid was solicited with one bid receive. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Warren, Wis., is the contracting activity (W56HZH-09-D-0111). NAVY
LONDON — The U.K. will create a Joint Forces Command and realign the power relationship between the Defense Ministry’s strategic Defense Board and military service chiefs. The steps flow out of a six-month study into needed defense reforms laid out by Lloyd’s Chairman Peter Levene. The report represents “a radical new approach to the management of defense,” Defense Secretary Liam Fox tells Parliament in unveiling the changes. The Levene review spells out 53 recommendations for change.
T-HAWK: Tokyo Electric Power resumed operations with the Honeywell T-Hawk unmanned aircraft over the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant on June 25, a day after one of the vertical-takeoff-and-landing micro air vehicles made an emergency landing on the roof of a damaged reactor building. Control was lost while the ducted-fan UAV was collecting dust samples around the building on June 24. Data was recovered from the vehicle and operations cleared to resume.
ARMY Torch Technologies, Huntsville, Ala., was awarded a $48,733,981 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to investigate, design, develop, and evaluate a scalable simulation enterprise for the Army’s Aviation and Missile Command Research, Development and Engineering Center. The location for work will be designated on a task order basis with an estimated completion date of June 17, 2016. One bid was solicited with one bid received. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (W31P4Q-11-D-0043).
AWARD WINNER: The P-3 Aircrew Tactical Team Trainer, developed with funding from the Office of Naval Research, received Naval Air System Command’s National Commander’s Award in the Science and Technology category for the accelerated development of an integrated anti-submarine warfare (ASW) trainer for deployed P-3 aircrews. The ASW-enhancement effort began with an April 2008 urgent-needs request from the Navy’s Commander Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Group for a means of bridging a critical training gap for forward-deployed P-3C crews.
The top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee voted for the panel’s version of a bill to authorize defense spending in fiscal 2012, but he just might vote “no” when the bill comes before the full Senate. In a statement included in a committee report on the Senate panel’s defense authorization bill, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) says the bill does not go far enough to stop cost overruns on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and contains “unrequested pork-barrel projects” totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.
Many of the capabilities NASA hopes to develop under its new open-ended technology push will serve the agency’s robotic space-science missions as well as human exploration beyond low Earth orbit, according to Administrator Charles Bolden’s top advisers on science and on technology.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems has been awarded an almost $40 million contract to build a high-power laser weapon demonstrator after the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) decided a rival design from Textron Defense Systems would not meet the demanding weight and volume requirements.
Any time a chief of naval operations (CNO) gets ready to leave, U.S. Navy shipbuilding programs on that CNO’s hit list look at the transition as a resurrection opportunity. And no vessel program would stand to benefit more from Adm. Gary Roughead’s departure this fall than the DDG-1000 Zumwalt destroyer.
On the battlefield, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) is becoming inextricably mixed with electronic and cyber-combat. While that digital melange offers the opportunity to share data at the speed of light, someone is going to have to develop a scheme for electromagnetic battle management (EMBM). The elements that need to be cataloged, routed and deconflicted include communications, active and passive sensors, directed-energy devices and jammers.
FALCO GROWS: Selex Galileo has upgraded its Falco unmanned aircraft, dubbed EVO, to boost its export potential. Falco is already in service in Pakistan and had been ordered by Libya as well. According to CEO Fabrizio Giulianini, EVO is going to fill a niche at the high end of the tactical unmanned aerial systems market. The EVO configuration also can be offered as an upgrade package to the basic Falco, because they have a common airframe.
BACKUP PLAN: Iridium Communications Inc. will use Russian Dnepr rockets as a “supplemental” launch option to backstop Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), which has the prime contract to loft the 66-satellite Iridium Next low-Earth-orbit communication satellite constellation. The McLean, Va.-based satellite operator has contracted with ISC Kosmotras to provide backup launch services for its next-generation constellation, which also includes six spares in orbit and nine more on the ground. Launches are scheduled to start in 2015.
Given the increased tempo of operations in Afghanistan and the constant need for more intelligence as troops push into new areas in the south, east, and north of the country, the U.S. Army is sending more hand-launched unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to theater this summer.
U.S. lawmakers are calling for independent testing of new plans by LightSquared to limit the launch of its wireless broadband network to the lower of its two 10 MHz blocks of L-band spectrum to mitigate concerns of interference with GPS signals.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) June 27 - 30 — 3rd AIAA Atmospheric Space Environments Conference, Sheraton Waikiki and the Hawaii Convention Center, Honolulu, Ha. For more information go to http://www.aiaa.org June 27 - 30 — 41st AIAA Fluid Dynamics Conference and Exhibit, Sheraton Waikiki and the Hawaii Convention Center, Honolulu, Ha. For more information go to http://www.aiaa.org
NAVY PARTNER: The Naval Surface Warfare Center Corona has entered into a partnership with the U.S. Coast Guard to provide performance assessment capability to the Coast Guard’s advanced National Security Cutter class through combat systems ship qualification trials, which verify that shipboard combat and weapon systems are installed properly and can be operated and maintained safely and effectively by the crew. The trials also validate developmental testing and tactics for the ships and crews.
A trio of missile defense programs has altered the psychological dynamic of warfare in the Middle East from “terror to entertainment,” says the former head of Israel’s missile defense organization. “That’s a game changer,” says Uzi Rubin, in describing the recent successes of missile defense systems including Rafael’s Iron Dome, the Arrow-2 made by Boeing and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), and David’s Sling, being developed by Raytheon and Rafael.
