If Pentagon budget cuts come as expected, the reduced funding could spell less testing for the U.S. ballistic missile defense system, despite outside criticism and congressional calls for even more, especially of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) element.
CHAIN GANG: Lockheed Martin opened a new command center last week to support the Fleet Automotive Support Initiative-Global (FASI-G) program. FASI-G is a Defense Logistics Agency program intended to provide automotive parts support for military vehicles. The new Global Sustainment Command Center will house inventory forecasting, order management and distribution operations. Lockheed Martin won the FASI-G contract to support land-based vehicle sustainment for all tactical and nontactical U.S. military land-based vehicles over the next 10 years.
NEAR PEER: The Pentagon’s 2009 report on China’s military power speculates that if Beijing continues its present rate of defense spending, it will be a military peer of the U.S. by “mid-century.” Specialists note that despite a new, less aggressive government in Taiwan, China continues to build up their arsenal along the nearby coast. Already, the island nation “no longer [enjoys] dominance of the airspace over the Taiwan Strait.
SpaceX has been selected for two new Falcon 9 missions, which would raise the number of launches for the company’s larger vehicle under contract to 21. CEO Elon Musk declines to identify the clients, but indicates “they are not U.S. government users” and predicts he will have “more commercial contracts by year’s end.”
NAVY SECRETARY: Choosing a skilled manager with some maritime experience, President Barack Obama picked former Mississippi Gov. Ray Mabus on March 27 to be the next Secretary of the Navy. Mabus, 60, served as an adviser and surrogate speaker for candidate Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign. Mabus also has served as chairman and CEO of Foamex, a large manufacturer he led out of bankruptcy and ambassador to Saudi Arabia in the Clinton administration. Mabus served two years in the Navy as a surface warfare officer.
Changing blobs photographed on a landing strut of the Phoenix Mars lander may be the first evidence of liquid water on the Red Planet. If true, the discovery could hold profound implications for habitability there, since liquid water is considered a prerequisite for life. Scientists believe the blobs may be brine too salty to freeze in the frigid atmosphere at the Phoenix landing site in the Martian arctic, where temperatures did not go above minus 5 degrees F., dipped as low as minus 140 F and averaged about minus 75 F during the mission.
RETURN TO SENDER: A congressionally-mandated study of the Missile Defense Agency’s long-term roles and missions recommends that it stick to being a research and development organization and leave procurement, sustainment and deployment issues to the individual armed services. The report, by the Institute for Defense Analyses, says services like the Navy, which developed the Aegis SM-3 interceptor, should take over responsibility for missile defense programs they originally handled. Retired Air Force Gen.
SATCOM LEASE: Astrium Services will lease UHF capacity on its U.K. Skynet 5 milsatcom network to the U.S. Navy under a recently concluded agreement. Like a previous X-band capacity arrangement through the joint DSTS-G program, the UHF capacity will be supplied via Intelsat. Separately, Intelsat said it had inked a multiyear agreement to supply up to 432 MHz. of bandwidth for UAV applications in Iraq and Afghanistan, using 12 Ku-band transponders on its Galaxy 26 satellite.
PATCH WORK: GKN Aerospace has teamed with Germany’s SCLR Lasertechnik to devise a method to fix composite structures using lasers. The partners expect lasers can be used to patch composites more quickly and at lower cost than existing techniques, which are considered more invasive. The first devices should be ready in about two years, the companies estimate. The laser is used to remove material without force or vibration, thereby maintaining the strength of the structure to be repaired, the companies say. The repair patch is then applied using a heating mat. The U.K.
SLIP SHOWING: President Barack Obama’s reworked defense budget for fiscal 2010 may not come out next month as promised. A missile defense advocate with good Pentagon contacts says he’s hearing the delivery date could slip to May. The Obama administration was expected to deliver its version of the Defense Dept. budget request on April 21, but there is starting to be some buzz that allocating the money may take longer than planned.
PUSHING NANOSATS: Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne is investigating a small, liquid propellant vehicle for nanosatellite launches, President Jim Maser says. The company will turn to ARDE of Carlstadt, N.J., a pressure vessel and propellant tank specialist that it acquired last November, for help in the research and development effort. Maser characterized the effort as part of a growth-through-innovation drive, but said it is too preliminary to describe in detail. He indicated it would apply generally to small satellites.
FUEL DROP: An inquiry board is investigating what prompted a U.S. Air Force F-16 pilot to drop fuel tanks while flying over the Italian countryside March 24 before attempting a successful emergency landing at the Aviano Air Force Base in northeastern Italy. The pilot apparently experienced engine troubles almost immediately after takeoff, which occurred at 2:57 p.m. local time. The pilot decided to lighten the aircraft and jettisoned the fuel tanks. The Falcon was flying over the village of Tamai Brugnera, 15 miles south of Aviano.
ACTIVE AGREEMENT: Saab and Selex Galileo have signed a heads of agreement covering the integration of an active electronically-scanned array (AESA) radar for the Gripen NG, aimed initially at the bid for Brazil’s fighter program. The radar will be based on Selex Galileo’s Vixen AESA family. A Selex radar could also be put forward as part of Saab’s bid for India’s fighter procurement. Described as the “beginning of a long-term collaboration,” the agreement with Selex involves Saab Aerosystems and Saab Microwave Systems.
The Defense Department is facing critical gaps in its acquisition work force, potentially affecting its national security mission, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).
SEATTLE Boeing’s P-8A Poseidon is to make its first flight in the second quarter of this year. Four aircraft are on the assembly line, and three of those will ramp up the test flight program in 2009-’10. One of the aircraft will move to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., in the fall. The first unit is to be operational in 2013.
NEW DELHI The Indian air force is submitting its Flight Evaluation report on the candidate aircraft for its Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) to the Indian defense ministry, as the 126-aircraft acquisition nears its field trial phase. After the ministry gives its blessing, the air force will invite vendors to start field trials in India, which are expected to begin at the end of June or beginning of July, and should take eight-nine months.
THE SHOW: The U.S. Air Force has cleared the F-22 Raptor to fly daily during flight demonstrations at the Paris Air Show this June. Show organizers revealed in a briefing in Washington that two F-22s will take part in the international showcase of the defense and aerospace industry. One of the two aircraft will be maintained on static display. Other U.S. military aircraft confirmed to fly at the event include the F-18, F-16, C-130 and the C-17. The Paris Air Show, which started 100 years ago, has once again sold out its chalets and exhibition space.
The U.S. Army’s top acquisition officer and the program manager for its most ambitious modernization program — the $160 billion Future Combat Systems — pulled out of a scheduled House Armed Services Committee hearing appearance March 26.
Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee threw their support behind Christopher Hill, who currently serves as the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, as the Obama administration’s nominee to be the next American ambassador to Iraq during a hearing on Capitol Hill March 25.
CUBE SATS: Lockheed Martin will fund $450,000 in research and development projects at the University of Florida this year to develop and launch five miniature satellites. The satellites will be used to investigate technological advances such as miniaturized, space-hardened GPS electronics and state-of-the-art intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. Lockheed Martin will also perform payload data analysis for these satellite missions. The CubeSats, built in the shape of a cube with four-inch sides, will operate on power equivalent to a cell phone.
China’s conventional and nuclear missile arsenal continues to grow in quality and quantity, according to the Pentagon’s latest assessment of Beijing’s military developments.
The U.S. Army improperly moved billions of dollars to help pay for security force operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, possibly wasting money, a recent Pentagon Inspector General (IG) report says. The Army’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) improperly transferred appropriated funds from the Army’s accounts into the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) Trust Fund, the IG says in its March 24 report.
PARIS Iraq has signed a deal with the French government to buy 24 Eurocopter EC635 transport helicopters. The €360 million deal was inked March 26 between French Defense Minister Herve Morin and Iraq Defense Minister Abdul Qader Obeidi during his visit here.
The next likely Pentagon acquisition chief offered no proverbial fireworks at his Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) nomination hearing March 26, but Ashton Carter’s appearance served to underpin what has become a reinvigorated acquisition reform movement in the Defense Department.
