SAY WHAT: Boeing and the Joint Program Executive Office in charge of the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) have demonstrated how software-defined Ground Mobile Radios (GMRs) are able to operate with one another in a tactical environment. The month-long demonstration concluded Oct. 3 and included a 12-node, secure, self-healing, multichannel network operating in the field at the Electronic Proving Grounds at Ft. Huachuca, Ariz. The test verified the evolving maturity of the GMR system in preparing for a government-run system integration test in late 2009.
AIR FORCE Applied Research Associates Inc., Albuquerque, N.M., is being awarded a cost plus fixed fee contract for $10,883,932. This action will develop an advanced system that will give each member of a dispersed unit the actionable combat information needed to increase awareness and enable dismounted units to be more effective in a distributed battlespace. At this point, $8,645,412 has been obligated. AFRL/PKDP, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8650-09-C-7909). ARMY
Critics of a perceived Pentagon maneuver to delay funding of 16 F-22s in defiance of some congressional wishes vow that their debate with the Office of the Secretary of Defense “is not over yet.”
Reps. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) and Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) will retain their committee chairmanships when the 111th Congress convenes in January, but veteran lawmaker John Dingell (D-Mich.) lost his attempt to keep his post. The House Democratic Caucus on Nov. 20 chose Skelton to serve a second term as chair of the Armed Services Committee and Gordon for a second term at the helm of the Science and Technology Committee, which oversees NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Lockheed Martin will apply its P-3 Aircraft Service Life Extension Program (ASLEP) to Canada’s fleet of CP-140 Aurora aircraft under a newly announced $156 million contract. Ten Canadian CP-140 Aurora aircraft will receive Life Extension Kits consisting of all-new outer wings, center wing lower surface assemblies, horizontal stabilizers, wing and horizontal stabilizer leading edges, and various other items to be installed as needed, Lockheed said in its Nov. 19 announcement.
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed vast Martian glaciers of water ice under protective blankets of rocky debris at much lower latitudes than any ice previously identified on the red planet. Scientists analyzed data from the spacecraft’s ground-penetrating radar and report in the Nov. 21 issue of the journal Science that buried glaciers extend for dozens of miles from edges of mountains or cliffs.
RESCUE ME: The U.S. Air Force may not need its own set of assets to perform “single digit” personnel rescues, which would obviate the need for a Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR-X) aircraft replacement, Pentagon acquisition chief John Young says. “We have to question the requirement from the beginning,” Young said of CSAR-X and other programs, including a Navy request for two new command ships. “I’m not sure buying [the ships] because we had them in the past is the right thing to do.”
PROWLER REPAIR: The U.S. Navy’s new EA-6B Prowler Improved Capabilities Systems III (ICAP-III) aircraft’s Weapons Replaceable Assemblies (WRAs) will benefit from a new repair capability available at Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Crane, Ind. Engineers unveiled the new capability for the aircraft’s ALQ-218 (V) 1 Electronic Warfare (EW) suite, on which ten unique WRAs and several unique antenna arrays are installed. NSWC Crane engineers are now capable of repairing five unique WRAs and four unique antenna arrays of the system for the fleet.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicated new calendar listing.) Dec. 2 — Information Sharing Federations, “Trusted Domains, Partnerships and Relationships,” The Ronald Reagan Building, Washington, D.C. For more information go to www.afei.org Dec. 2 - 3 — Microelectronics Reliability and Qualification Workshop, Manhattan Beach Marriott, Manhattan Beach, Calif. For more information go to http://www.aero.org/conferences/
Pentagon acquisition czar John Young would like the U.S. Navy and Army to reconsider collaborating on what has so far failed to succeed as a joint program — the Navy’s EP-3 replacement, called EP-X, and the Army’s Aerial Common Sensor (ACS).
Boeing has warned its employees to expect job cuts beginning early in 2009, citing challenges across its commercial and defense businesses including delayed programs and contract awards, expected slower military spending and the impact of a global recession on airlines.
WIDE OPEN: In the high tech arena, the ability for someone to attack the U.S. information technology infrastructure is greater that the ability to defend it, says Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence. In fact, the U.S. is the most vulnerable nation on Earth to cyber attack, he says. And the greatest threat from cyber attack is data destruction that can destroy, for instance, the banking industry. “So, the things we have left yet to do include causing the nation to be prepared for a cyber attack,” McConnell says.
LUNAR DUST-UP: The Planetary Society’s call for manned asteroid missions to replace a return to the moon as the prelude to manned exploration of Mars (Aerospace DAILY, Nov. 14). is drawing criticism in some quarters. Apollo 17 geologist and former Sen. Harrison Schmitt (R-N.M.) is so angry at the alternative vision that he resigned from the society. “Having led several objective studies related [to the topic], it is clear … that returning to the moon is the fastest and most cost effective path to Mars,” says Schmitt, who recently headed the NASA Advisory Council.
LONDON — The British Defense Ministry is studying the implications of a further life-extension of its ballistic missile submarine fleet, as it attempts to manage an already demanding schedule for a Vanguard-class successor. The Royal Navy’s Trident D5-equipped Vanguard boats were introduced into service beginning in 1994. The original 25-year life has been pushed to 30 years, with a projected out-of-service date of 2023. The follow-on class of submarine would need to enter service in 2024.
TAKE TWO: Without any new snags, the U.S. Air Force hopes to issue a request for proposals for a new KC-135 replacement competition by next summer. This is likely if the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama supports the push for up to 179 new refueling tankers, according to Lt. Gen. Mark Shackelford, the military deputy to the Air Force acquisition chief. A new program to develop a Core Component Jammer (CCJ), a standoff electronic jamming system likely for the B-52 bomber, could get a new breath of life in the fiscal 2012 budget, Shackelford says.
NASHUA, N.H. – U.S. Navy ships suffer constant probing by and exposure to sophisticated signals and, in some cases, electronic attack (EA) that have progressed from just electronic jamming into the esoteric world of cyber attack. That means they are also vulnerable to fast, stealthy new families of cruise missiles. The sea service wants to protect itself by equipping warships with a combination of electronic surveillance, attack and protection capabilities, and industry researchers here are eagerly pursuing the business opportunities.
NAVY SAVE: The U.S. Navy is hoping to reprogram about $40 million in its fiscal 2009 budget to provide advance procurement funding for three F-35 carrier variant aircraft, according to a senior defense official. The funding was stripped from the budget by Congress earlier this year. Without it, Joint Strike Fighter program officials say they will have to either extend the initial operational test and evaluation period or split it into two segments — one for the Air Force and Marine Corps versions and a separate test period for the carrier version.
STENNIS CHIEF: NASA has named Arthur “Gene” Goldman the new director of Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. Goldman has served as deputy director since October 2006. He replaces Bob Cabana, who left last month to take the reins at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Prior to that, Goldman served as manager of the space shuttle main engine project at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., from March 2004 until he moved to Stennis in 2006.
WHAT FLIES HEAR: The hearing mechanism of flies is being used as a model for miniature acoustic sensors and sound localization techniques by mechanical engineering researchers at the University of Maryland. The work is expected to benefit the U.S. Air Force in its development of an artificial fly unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that would use both hearing and vision to navigate to inaccessible locations. Scaled up, the technology also would be available for micro aerial vehicles and UAVs to improve homing capabilities.
GLOBAL BANDWIDTH: Raytheon Company will restore the available bandwidth of the Global Broadcast Service (GBS) satellite communications system over the Atlantic Ocean to support naval vessels and operations as part of the Advanced Technology Support Program III. The company will complete the integration of the Satellite Broadcast Manager facility in Norfolk, Va., with the U.S. Naval Station uplink in Rota, Spain, to provide GBS broadcast coverage. GBS is a worldwide mission support system for military forces on post, in transit and in theater.
Problems with the International Space Station’s new liquid-waste recycling system could send the space shuttle Endeavour home without a sample of processed water for evaluation on the ground, complicating plans to expand the station crew from three to six.
HERMES 450: Senior Thales executives say the company remains bullish about proposals for a quick deployment of its Watchkeeper Hermes 450 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to support French troops in Afghanistan, despite the recent arrival in the theater of a batch of SDTI tactical UAVs, based on the Sagem Sperwer. Executives point to the Hermes 450’s extensive Afghan flight experience — more than 30,000 hours — high survivability and features such as auto-cueing capability, which enables rapid detection and suppression of enemy fire.
ENVIRONMENTAL STANDARDS: Boeing is working toward certification of all its major manufacturing facilities to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14001 standard by the end of this year. Its Rotorcraft Systems facility in Mesa, Ariz., earned its ISO 14001 after a late-September audit by independent auditors from DNV, an accredited certification body of quality, environmental and safety management systems.
Citing low mission-capable rates and a shortfall in meeting key performance parameters, U.S. Defense Department acquisitions chief John Young continued his vocal disapproval of the U.S. Air Force’s F-22 program with reporters Nov. 20.
