COAST GUARD: Congressional auditors expect to issue their report on the Coast Guard’s newest vessel, the National Security Cutter (NSC), later this summer. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is studying the development and procurement of the NSC at the behest of the homeland security panels of both the House and Senate Appropriations committees. Delivery of the first NSC, USCG Bertholf, was delayed by design changes after 9/11 and hurricane damage to the shipyard in 2008.
DINGING DENEL: South Africa’s new defense minister, Lindiwe Sisulu, wants to make changes at Denel, bringing the arms maker under closer government control due to some unhappiness over how the business has performed. In her first address to parliament, she signaled changes at Armscor, the country’s official arms procurement agency. Industry officials suggest that at this point there are no immediate changes looming, and that Denel’s strategic industrial relationships with Saab, Rheinmetall and Carl Zeiss are not at risk.
New restrictions on funding military equipment recapitalization have lawmakers concerned the services will not receive critical upgrades. “At just the time we need more money because of reset [demands], now we have less money,” said Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.), ranking member of the House Air and Land Forces Subcommittee.
JTRS AWARD: ITT has been awarded a $22.9 million contract for Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio Systems (SINCGARS) Software In-Service Support (SwISS) by the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) Joint Program Executive Office. The work will include technical support, enhancements, maintenance and upgrades to the JTRS SINCGARS waveform. The total program value could reach $62 million if all options are exercised. ITT has partnered with Thales Communications Inc. of Clarksburg, Md., to perform the work.
General Electric has initiated the first bench tests of the GE38 turboshaft engine it is developing for the U.S. Marine Corps/Sikorsky CH-53K heavy-lift helicopter at the company’s development center in Lynn, Mass. The engine is expected to lower fuel burn by 20 percent while producing more than 7,500 shaft horsepower, a jump in current engine outputs that will give the upgraded twin-engine CH-53 better hot-and-high performance and longer range/higher payload potential.
Northrop Grumman will use data from a thermal vacuum test of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) engineering mockup to validate sophisticated thermal designs for the huge infrared observatory. The company had to use its largest thermal vacuum chamber in Redondo Beach, Calif., to chill the mockup down to temperatures as low as 13K (minus 435 F), simulating the operating environment engineers hope will exist behind the telescope’s sunscreen when it is deployed at the Sun-Earth second Lagrange point (L2).
A chorus of U.S., Japanese and Israeli officials believe that China, Russia and Iran present common problems that more F-22 Raptors could help solve. Japan’s F-15J force, once top of the line, is now “outclassed by the new generation of Chinese fighters” such as the Su-30MKK, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff U.S. Air Force Gen. Richard Myers (ret.), tells Aviation Week.
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A new Rand study distills 40 “unwieldy mission sets” for unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV), as identified in a 2004 U.S. Navy master plan, down to seven high-priority mission categories. A number of factors influenced Rand’s reorganization of priorities for the Navy, including evaluating operational need, vehicle size and sensor capability requirements and differing levels of UUV autonomy on given missions.
LOW BAND: The U.S. Navy has awarded Cobham a $32 million contract modification to provide 37 additional AN/ALQ-99 Low Band Transmitters (LBT) under Lot 2 of the program’s full rate production phase. Deliveries are scheduled to begin in March 2011 and continue through November 2011. The award is a modification to the existing Lot 1 contract, bringing the total number of LBTs ordered by the Navy to 157, reflecting $217 million in total contracts. The Navy intends to buy a total of 292 LBTs. To date, 46 systems have been delivered.
Boeing Co. and VSMPO-Avisma, a Russian titanium producer, launched production July 6 of semi-finished titanium products for the Boeing 787 as part of a joint venture formed in 2007 called Ural Boeing Manufacturing (UBM). VSMPO-Avisma already has been exporting almost 70 percent of its products to Airbus and Boeing, as well as other aerospace companies. In 2007, VSMPO produced 27,500 metric tons of titanium.
MOSCOW – Three new Russian military satellites are in orbit following launch on a Rockot booster from northern Plesetsk Cosmodrome on July 7. The three spacecraft — officially identified as Kosmos 2451, 2452 and 2453 and thought to be communication satellites — separated from the Briz-KM upper stage successfully and have taken their position at a circular 1,500-kilometer (930-mile) high orbit with an inclination of 82.5 degrees.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen says that in Afghanistan there is a critical “need to turn the tide in the next 12-18 months” with the new strategy of a regional approach that includes cooperation with and support of Pakistan. What the conflict will require in U.S. troops levels is currently being calculated — based on the first 60 days of the surge in Afghanistan — by U.S. planners there.
STEM THE TIDE: Raytheon and the Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF) unveiled a simulation and modeling tool for the U.S. STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education system on July 8 in Washington. Raytheon gave BHEF the program as a gift to help researchers, policy makers and educators explore policy scenarios that may help strengthen STEM education and the STEM work force in the U.S.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Air and Marine says it achieved several agency firsts using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to patrol the land and water border between Canada and New York State. CBP Air and Marine demonstrated the capability to fly and operate three UAVs simultaneously via satellite in the National Airspace System. The agency, a unit of the Department of Homeland Security, also completed its longest UAV flight, 20 hours, during the deployment, a multiagency effort called Operation Empire Shield, officials said July 7.
The denial-of-services cyber attack — attributed to North Korea — that disabled at least three Washington, D.C.-based U.S. government agencies, and is still being cleaned up, appears to have had minor technological effects, but major implications for long-term policy, economics and military training.
With the growing use of King Air twin-turboprops for surveillance, a new venture is offering to deliver outfitted platforms on short notice by having a pipeline of aircraft in modification. Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Aerial Surveillance Systems Inc. (ASSI) has selected modification specialist Stevens Aviation to install an adapted cargo pod, sensor, operator’s console, avionics and other mission hardware on low-time used King Air 350s.
NASA Administrator-designate Charles Bolden on July 8 called for revitalization of basic research, including aeronautics research, at the agency he will take over after his formal Senate confirmation, but offered few specifics on the path he will take in pursuing applied technology programs already under way there.
NASA has flight-tested an alternate system for astronauts to escape future launch vehicles in the event of an emergency on the launch pad or during ascent.
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