NEW DELHI – Dassault Aviation’s Rafale has been booted from competition for India’s 126 Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA). This leaves the Boeing F/A-18, Lockheed Martin F-16, Eurofighter Typhoon, RSK MiG-35 and Saab Gripen in the race. All the contenders were awaiting word from the Indian defense ministry on final dates for field trials, which they hoped would be this summer. Currently, officials seem to still disagree.
TRACKING MONEY: U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that while he is canceling the $87 billion manned ground vehicle program under the Army’s Future Combat Systems, he is keeping the $87 billion in the Army’s multiyear budget plan so the service can begin working on a new vehicle modernization program.
LOS ANGELES – Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has signed an agreement with Conae, Argentina’s National Commission on Space Activity, to launch two Earth observation satellites on the company’s Falcon 9.
GROUNDED: If there was any confusion about U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s position on the possibility of a split buy of Boeing and Northrop Grumman/EADS refueling tankers for the U.S. Air Force, he is taking pains to fix it. “I am laying my body down across the tracks” in opposition to it, he told an audience of officers at the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., on April 15. The response was vigorous applause.
FORT RUCKER, Ala. – U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is defending his plan to trim $1.4 billion in research projects from the Missile Defense Agency’s annual budget, in turn boosting spending for production of Raytheon SM-3 interceptors and the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.
DESTROYER POLICY: A U.S. Navy spokesperson said the service has “arrived at a plan that most affordably meets the requirements for Navy surface combatants…and provides significant stability for the industrial base.” The Navy is publicly declaring its support for Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s April 6 recommendations regarding the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) and the DDG-51 destroyer. Gates suggested all three DDG-1000 hulls be built at Bath Iron Works (BIW) in Maine and the DDG-51 production be restarted at Northrop Grumman’s Ingalls shipyard in Mississippi.
BRAZILIAN BOATS: Northrop Grumman’s Sperry Marine business unit was recently awarded a contract to supply navigation systems for two new 500-ton patrol boats for the Brazil navy. The navigation systems include a complete integrated bridge system tailored to the space constraints and operational requirements of the Brazilian coast patrol boats. The two NAPA 500-class patrol boats are scheduled for delivery in 2009. Four additional ships of the same class have already been approved, and the Brazil navy has plans to order a total of eight such vessels this year.
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PARIS – Airbus has completed the process of subsuming the Military Transport Aircraft Division of its parent EADS, thus giving the civilian aircraft maker oversight of the A330 tanker, A400M, C-295 and CN-235 airlifters. The creation of Airbus Military comes after an EADS board decision in December to try to improve management of its big military programs, particularly owing to continued problems on the A400M military transport.
FORT RUCKER, Ala. – U.S. Army officials are short of meeting their annual requirement to produce helicopter pilots by about 300, says Gen. Martin Dempsey, who oversees the service’s Training and Doctrine Command. The Pentagon requests 1,498 pilots annually to graduate from training here. However, the service is now producing about 1,200 pilots per year. The shortage is partly due to anemic funding for pilot training. Gates highlights importance
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems has quietly rolled out its new Avenger unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) – formerly known as the Predator C – and completed its first three flights on April 4, 13 and 14. While company officials are not calling it a stealthy aircraft, they will admit to a reduced radar signature. The 20-hour-endurance UCAV’s undeniably low-observable design offers clues about how it could be employed.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has named Betty Sapp as the new principal deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), according to defense and intelligence officials. Sapp is currently the acquisition and resource director for the under secretary of defense for intelligence. She has held that position while Gates has pushed for more fielding of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance resources to support operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The next “decadal” survey of the U.S. planetary-science community will consider the technical maturity and cost of space missions, as well as their scientific value in setting priorities, applying lessons learned from the delayed Mars Science Laboratory (MSL). Steve Squyres, principal investigator on the Mars Exploration Rovers and chairman of the 2009-2011 Planetary Science Decadal Survey, told prospective members of the panels that will set goals for the coming decade that the outcome “may be the most important one in decades for Mars exploration.”
ISOLATED ADVOCACY: Congressional auditors are again calling for the Pentagon to reinvigorate high-level leadership necessary to promote interagency coordination to build up Guam militarily and otherwise. Only the Defense Department can “marshal” the federal attention needed to provide the money, people, goods and services required to meet a military growth spurt there, the Government Accountability Office reported to lawmakers last week.
NASA has decided to call Node 3 on the International Space Station “Tranquility,” despite an outpouring of public support for naming the pressurized module after television comedian Steven Colbert. “Apollo 11 landed on the moon at the Sea of Tranquility 40 years ago this July,” said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for space operations. “We selected ‘Tranquility’ because it ties it to exploration and the moon and symbolizes the spirit of international cooperation embodied by the space station.”
FREE LASER: The U.S. Navy awarded Boeing and Raytheon contracts to develop the Free Electron Laser (FEL) weapon system. Under the $6.9 million task orders, within a contract valued at up to $163 million, they will each complete the preliminary design of a 100kw electric-powered FEL demonstrator. Boeing says it will partner with U.S. Department of Energy labs, academia and industry partners to design the eventual megawatt-class ship-based laser weapon. FELs can operate across a range of wavelengths, making them better suited to maritime environments.
Former U.S. Navy Secretary Donald Winter advised the international community not to rule out land strikes against so-called “supporting elements” in response to continued piracy in the Gulf of Aden. Winter was careful to characterize his advice when he addressed a group at the American Enterprise Institute on April 14.
SMART DEAL: A spin-off of the University of California’s Computer Science Department nurtured on contracts from the U.S. Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has landed a “strategic investment, technology development program and licensing agreement” with intelligence-firm incubator In-Q-Tel. Financial details were not provided. Under the deal, Geosemble Technologies will further develop its geospatial data integration and layering technology for both the government and commercial markets for users of aerial reconnaissance imagery.
ITALIAN JOB: Northrop Grumman has been selected by Alenia Aermacchi to supply a newly designed navigation system for the M-346 advanced fighter trainer aircraft. The M-346 was recently selected as the winner in a United Arab Emirates lead-in fighter trainer and light attack aircraft competition. Northrop Grumman Italia will supply the aircraft transducer unit that uses a quadruple redundant installation of the company’s LISA-200 fiber-optic gyro attitude and heading reference unit.
Lockheed Martin says the second Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite for the constellation to replace Milstar is on track following a 1.5-month systems-verification test in thermal vacuum conditions. The company now has four of the 9,200-pound AEHF spacecraft in process, including AEHF-1, which is due for its final thermal vacuum tests to begin April 30. Following that, it will undergo a final integrated systems test prior to shipment in the first quarter of 2010 to the U.S. Air Force for launch.
