INSIDE INFORMATION: Raytheon will license the DOD to use a program called the Insider Threat Focused Observation Tool (InTFOT) under a contract with the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). According to Raytheon, the technology comes at the behest of the U.S.
THINK GREEN: The Brookings Institution is calling on the Department of Defense to take a hard look at its energy policy in the upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review, due next year. “The DOD should set a clear and measurable target to reduce the baseline total consumption of energy in the Department of Defense by 20 percent by 2025 and to be a net-zero energy consumer at its bases and facilities by 2030,” Brookings analysts P.W. Singer and Jerry Warner say in their report.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates may be losing the reality battle with elements in Congress and even some military acquisition officials over the F136 alternative engine program for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). In an Aug. 13 press conference, Gates was asked if the large cost growth in the F-35’s Pratt & Whitney F135 baseline engine had undercut his case for abandoning the alternative General Electric/Rolls-Royce F136, as the George W. Bush administration sought to do as well.
By early October, the U.S. Army will have a new program executive office (PEO) in charge of its Brigade Combat Team Modernization (BCTM), a sweeping effort to restructure its controversial Future Combat Systems (FCS) program.
NEW DELHI — Lockheed Martin soon will begin flight trials for the aerospace industry’s largest fighter jet procurement battle: India’s competition for 126 Medium Multi-role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA). After Boeing’s F/A-18 completes its trials, Lockheed is slated to start flight evaluation trials this week in Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore). Its three twin-seat F-16s, loaned from the United Arab Emirates air force, arrive in Bengaluru Aug. 31.
ANOTHER TRY: Allliant Techsystems engineers tentatively plan another attempt to test the first Ares I developmental five-segment solid-fuel rocket motor on Sept. 1. The first try at the potentially historic static test at the company’s Promontory, Utah, ground test facility was scrubbed 20 seconds before ignition Aug. 27 when test conductors received an indication an auxiliary power system fuel valve had failed to open (Aerospace DAILY, Aug. 28).
Senator Jim Webb (D-Va.) announced Aug. 28 that the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has agreed to his request to investigate conditions at the U.S. Navy’s four shipyards. The Navy is following in the footsteps of private shipyards, which have come under fire from key lawmakers like Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) — who chairs the House Armed Services subcommittee on seapower and expeditionary forces — for schedule and cost delays and accusations of shoddy workmanship (Aerospace DAILY, April 21).
FUELING UP: NASA began fueling space shuttle Discovery at 2:45 p.m. EDT at Launch Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., in anticipation of launching mission STS-128 at 11:59 p.m. that evening. Earlier that day, shuttle managers decided they had enough confidence in Discovery’s inboard liquid hydrogen fill-and-drain valve to allow the three-hour tanking process to begin. The decision followed two days of testing and analysis after confusing valve readings scuttled a launch attempt set for early Aug. 25 (Aerospace DAILY, Aug. 26).
SHUT DOWN: Rockwell Collins is closing its military displays plant in San Jose, Calif., with the loss of 600 jobs, citing termination of F-22 production and an earlier decision by Lockheed Martin to change technology and supplier for the F-35 cockpit display as factors in declining business for the plant, which was acquired with the takeover of Kaiser Aerospace & Electronics in 2000. Display work will be moved to other locations.
Proxy Aviation will demonstrate its ability to command multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) next spring for U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) at an exercise called Trident Spectre. Proxy’s Universal Distributed Management System (UDMS), also called the Virtual Pilot, allows “collaborative flight of multiple UAVs,” explained Pat Moneymaker, the company’s new president and CEO. “SOCOM has a laundry list of UAVs they’re trying to optimize.”
AVIONICS IMPROVEMENT: Nine new projects will receive $4.7 million in funding for fiscal 2010 under U.S. Naval Air Systems Command’s Avionics Component Improvement Program. Projects range from a cockpit overhead lights controller and an emergency escape hatch lighting sensor on the E-2C to an autopilot system upgrade on the EP-3. In December, the call will go out for projects for FY ’11, and those submissions will be evaluated for an allocation of nearly $5 million.
NAVAL RESEARCH: The U.S. Naval Research Advisory Committee (NRAC) will unveil the results of two recent studies Sept. 24 on issues facing the Navy and its use of commercial off-the-shelf networking and Marine Corps small unit training. “Future Naval Use of COTS Networking Infrastructure” examines networking in the commercial world and its applicability to the Navy. “Immersive Simulation for Marine Corps Small Unit Training” studies training concepts of immersive training simulation in helping Marines develop complex and intuitive decision skills.
A U.S. Army-operated unmanned aerial system (UAS) operating under Task Force ODIN-Afghanistan fired the first missile from an Army unmanned aircraft in Afghanistan on Aug. 14, according to a service source. No more details were forthcoming, but the active-duty officer said that the Army is “now providing armed, lethal reconnaissance on an Army UAS platform in Afghanistan with demonstrated lethality.” Neither U.S. Forces-Afghanistan nor the Army’s UAS command would comment on ongoing operations.
Shuttle managers have decided they need more time to fully understand the valve problem that forced a launch scrub Aug. 25, and are skipping over the next launch window to set their sights on a liftoff just before midnight Aug. 28. The skipped launch attempt would have taken place at 12:22 a.m. Aug. 28. Instead, the shuttle’s Mission Management Team (MMT) will reconvene Friday afternoon to decide whether to begin fueling the orbiter for a launch attempt at 11:59 p.m. that evening.
As the U.S. Air Force prepares for a critical set of flight-tests to gauge the reliability of retrofits on the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM), production on the Lockheed Martin assembly line is hampered.
NASA has extended Lockheed Martin’s contract to prepare cargo for delivery to the International Space Station (ISS) for another year, to Sept. 30, 2010. The value of the one-year contract extension to Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems is $33 million. The Houston-based unit has held the contract since January 2004, and the extension brings its total value to $381 million, NASA said.
Harris Corporation demonstrated the Wideband Network Waveform (WNW) for the first time on a platform other than a Ground Mobile Radio engineering model platform, according to company officials, with full Internet protocol running on Harris’s own portable AN/PRC-117G radio.
Sikorsky is whirl testing a helicopter rotor system with active blade flaps as the Pentagon’s research arm prepares to launch a program to flight-demonstrate an adaptive rotor offering dramatic improvements in performance, noise and vibration. The active flaps are being tested on a Schweizer S-434 four-blade rotor mounted on a whirl stand simulating hover flight. Wind tunnel tests simulating forward flight are planned for mid-2010 in the 40 x 80-foot tunnel at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California, says Jim Kagdis, Sikorsky’s advanced programs manager.
Germany’s Rheinmetall Nitrochemie Group has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Alliant Techsystems (ATK), building on the relationship the two forged in 2005. At the time, ATK became the exclusive sales agent for Rheinmetall Nitrochemie products. Now the U.S. company will produce, under license, relevant technologies for the U.S. market in the areas of ammunition powder and propellant to both the government and other contractors.
A thrust vector control fuel-valve anomaly forced a last-minute scrub Aug. 27 in the first test of the solid-fuel rocket motor developed for NASA’s planned Ares I crew launch vehicle. Test directors stopped the countdown only 20 seconds before ignition of the full-scale static test at Alliant Techsystems’ facility in Promontory, Utah. The motor, positioned on its side for the ground test, was secured without incident.
The return of the U.S. Congress next month will reignite smoldering defense budget battles, and one new target of the budgeter’s ax could be upgrade packages for the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) The ground surveillance aircraft is slated to start flying out of Afghanistan next summer in response to an urgent need request for a dynamically-tasked, real-time airborne surveillance system that can track people in rough terrain.
AVIONICS IMPROVEMENT: Nine new projects will receive $4.7 million in funding for fiscal 2010 under U.S. Naval Air Systems’ (NAVAIR) Avionics Component Improvement Program (AvCIP). Projects range from a cockpit overhead lights controller and an emergency escape hatch lighting sensor on the E-2C to an autopilot system upgrade on the EP-3. In December, the call will go out for projects for FY ’11, and those submissions will be evaluated for an allocation of nearly $5 million.
