Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he will try again this month to pass a supplemental defense spending bill that includes a timeline for the start of U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq. The Nevada Democrat also told reporters Dec. 3 that he does not want to keep funding the government with a third continuing resolution (CR), which keeps most government spending - except for the Defense and Homeland Security departments - at fiscal 2006 levels.
The U.S. Navy has awarded General Dynamics Electric Boat a $270 million contract modification to buy long-lead-time material for the fiscal 2009 Virginia-class submarine SSN-784. The contract being modified was initially awarded in August 2003 and will be worth $8.8 billion. Eyeing China and a planned gap in U.S. attack subs, lawmakers of all political leanings are pushing the Navy to build more multibillion-dollar Virginias more quickly than the service planned (DAILY, Nov. 20).
PARIS - Engineers have successfully tested deployment of the giant solar arrays on Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), a major step forward in preparing the freighter for launch to the International Space Station (ISS).
NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) has been diverted to the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington for thermal-vacuum testing after being bumped by a classified spacecraft also under development by manufacturer General Dynamics in Gilbert, Ariz.
A second spot inspection of the damaged solar alpha rotary joint (SARJ) on the starboard side of the International Space Station (ISS) truss produced some better photographs of the situation, but didn't really move engineers toward a better understanding of the source of the trouble.
JSF TESTING: A senior Air Force official says that two F-35 aircraft pulled out of the flight-test program will likely be purchased later and used for follow-on test and evaluation, and possibly operations thereafter. Senior Pentagon leadership gave the nod to reducing the 19-aircraft test program recently. This reduction gives "balance" to the program, says the senior Air Force official.
CRUISE MISSILE DEFENSE: The Missile Defense Advisory Committee, an advisory group to the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), will meet Dec. 19-20 at the Pentagon to hear from the Defense Department, the armed services and industry on the "appropriate" role for MDA in cruise missile defense (CMD). The panel has been meeting this year to mull over MDA and CMD, which increasingly are gaining attention inside Washington (DAILY, Sept. 4).
A New National Intelligence Estimate from the U.S. intelligence community reports that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003 and likely would not be successful until at least six years from now.
U.S. Army plans to modernize or replace its aging helicopter fleet from now through 2030 could run into a money crunch as the service simultaneously invests heavily in the Future Combat Systems (FCS) program, according to a new congressional study.
PARIS - The French government has given the go-ahead to its first purchase of NH90 helicopters for its army. The deal for up to 68 of the Tactical Transport Helicopter version brings the total order book to 507 rotorcraft for NHIndustries (the joint venture of Eurocopter, AgustaWestland, and Stork Fokker).
FLYING AGAIN: Lockheed Martin's AA1 F-35 risk-reduction aircraft is expected to return to flight Dec. 4. The aircraft has been on the ground since an in-flight anomaly in May that forced engineers to redesign the aircraft's electricity distribution system. Also expected this week is a return to flight for the Combined Avionics Testbed, a 737-based test platform for the F-35's sophisticated avionics suite. The first short-takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft, designated BF-1, also is expected to roll off the production line Dec. 18.
Airspace issues, whether access to domestic skies or control over a combat arena, is the next big focus for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and needs to be worked out imminently, according to a panel of one-star U.S. military leaders.
The White House may be trying to downplay the flap over China's last-minute rejection of a U.S. Navy visit to Hong Kong, but the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee says it's time to prepare for a more aggressive China. 'Buy America' advocate and Republican presidential hopeful Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) wants President Bush to meet with the leaders of several key House committees to discuss "an adjustment of U.S. policy towards China."
AUGCOG: As part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Augmented Cognition (AugCog) program, a Honeywell-led team is measuring the workload, stress and cognitive capability of infantry soldiers during training exercises. The company and its partners, including several universities, have mounted sensors in helmets, including EEGs (electroencephalograms) to measure cognitive brain activity and an electrocardiogram to measure heart rate.
PERIMETER SECURITY: The U.S. Navy and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are partnering to test an airport perimeter security system at Florida's Panama City-Bay County International Airport. The Navy has been working on its virtual perimeter monitoring system for three years, says Michael Adams, program manager at the Naval Surface Warfare Center. Following successful Navy testing this summer, "TSA heard about our work and became interested in using it to leverage on things that the Dept. of Defense had already done," Adams says.
PARIS - Prospects for an alliance between aerospace and defense contractors Thales and Safran have been cut short by opposition from private shareholders, top management and the French government, which fears such a deal could add to the difficulties of stumbling EADS.
SIGNED UP: On Dec. 6 at the Space Investment Summit in San Jose, Calif., the first team to complete registration for the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize will unveil details of its plans to rove the surface of the moon. Representatives of the "Odyssey Moon" team will discuss their small robotic lander designed to deliver scientific, exploratory and commercial payloads to the lunar surface.
ETHICS CODIFIED: A new federal acquisition rule requiring that contractors promulgate a code of ethics and establish internal controls to combat procurement fraud will take effect Dec. 24. Small businesses will be exempt from formal training programs and internal controls after industry voiced concerns about burdensome costs, according to the notice in the Federal Register.
