CANADIAN TOW: Raytheon said Nov. 14 it received a $17 million U.S. Army contract to build 462 TOW (Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided) Bunker Buster missiles for the Canadian Army. The Canadian contract is the first international sale of the TOW Bunker Buster missile, which employs a fragmenting, high-explosive warhead designed to breach or destroy numerous types of targets, especially in urban settings. Under this contract, Raytheon will deliver the new wireless radio frequency command data link version to Canada.
U.S. Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne says cyber security is one of the biggest problems facing the Air Force as it moves toward modernizing its logistics. "We're becoming very dependent on cyber...it's a vulnerability for us," Wynne said Nov. 14 at the Logistics Officer Association National Conference in Washington. "Cyber security is the cost of playing in this information age at the level we intend to play."
The successful relocation of a 17-ton pressurized module on the International Space Station (ISS) and a clean bill of health for space shuttle Atlantis have improved the chances that NASA will be able to launch Europe's Columbus laboratory before the end of the year. The technical flight readiness review at Kennedy Space Center recommended Nov. 13 that processing continue for the STS-122/1E assembly mission aboard Atlantis.
ELECTRO OPTICAL: Forecast International is projecting that an estimated $8.36 billion will be spent on the development and production of major land- and sea-based electro-optical (EO) systems over the next 10 years. "The pressing need for the all-important troop-level systems, such as night vision goggles and thermal viewing systems, will drive procurement in this market segment for the next few years," said Andrew Dardine, senior analyst.
In January Microsoft plans to release the first version of Microsoft ESP - a software package allowing developers to create their own immersive 3-D flight simulations that the company hopes will eventually become the standard package with which military, government and commercial users will develop training programs.
ROCKET TEST: Northrop Grumman has hot-fire tested its new TR408 rocket engine, which is specifically designed to use oxygen and methane propellants that range from all-gas to all-liquid at the inlet to the thruster. More than 50 separate tests demonstrated performance, stability and design margin for the 100-pounds-per-foot-thrust rocket, Northrop Grumman said.
The Pentagon Inspector General (IG) should investigate a major requirement change in the Air Force's acquisition of the combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) helicopter fleet, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) recommends in a new report.
Congressional auditors say the U.S. Navy has made progress developing individual mine countermeasures systems, but setbacks with the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) and other funding decisions could cut into the service's move toward ship-based anti-mine systems.
LITENING STRIKE: Northrop Grumman has received an $18 million contract to develop and deliver the next-generation of data links for its Litening Advanced Targeting (AT) pod. Starting in September 2008 and continuing through January 2010, the company will deliver more than 201 new data links to be fielded on a variety of aircraft.
Party and war policy politics are colliding inside Washington, with fiscal 2008 off-budget supplemental appropriations and regular defense authorization bills held hostage by a lack of consensus.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) may be the backbone of the aviation future for the U.S. Marine Corps and United Kingdom, but the program still requires some hard decisions from U.S. lawmakers about whether it is the Pentagon's panacea aircraft, according to a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report.
Boeing has completed a long-awaited demonstration heat shield for NASA's Lockheed Martin-built Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), designed to protect the vehicle from extreme heat during re-entry into Earth's atmosphere following lunar and low-Earth orbit missions.
The U.S. Air Force is not investing in the right systems in the right quantities at the right times in history, says Air Force Maj. Gen. Paul Selva, director of strategic planning.
Although Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England established a deputy's advisory working group (DAWG) in September in lieu of establishing an executive agent for unmanned aerial systems (UAS), the issue of an executive agency within the U.S. Air Force is still being discussed.
C-27J DELIVERED: Alenia Aeronautica delivered the first of five C-27J tactical transport aircraft to the Bulgarian air force Nov. 13. The C-27Js were ordered in 2006 by the Balkan country to replace its current transport fleet of Antonov An-26s. The Bulgarian C-27Js are equipped with the DASS (Defense Aids Sub System) self-defense system to protect against surface-to-air threats, as well as with ballistic protection and inert-gas fuel tank explosion protection systems. The C-27J recently won the U.S. military's Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA) competition.
SUB TEXT: Raytheon says the U.S. Navy has awarded it a $5.2 million development contract for better tactical paging for submarines. Subs now initiate communications routinely or adhere to previously established communication schedules to make contact with commanders, but the process also leads to operational time delays and cuts a sub's ability to participate in naval missions. "Submarine communication protocols are much the same as they were 60 years ago," said Jerry Powlen, Raytheon vice president for Network Centric Systems' Integrated Communications Systems.
President Bush signed the fiscal 2008 defense appropriations bill into law Nov. 13, even though the spending measure cuts $85 million from the Eastern European-based ballistic missile defense interceptor program. The $459.3 billion appropriations bill is $3.5 billion less than the White House requested and $39 billion less than was spent in FY '07. The $459.3 billion in discretionary spending does not include funding to prosecute the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That will come in a supplemental budget bill.
Apollo 9 astronaut Russell "Rusty" Schweickart criticized NASA's report to Congress on its search for potentially dangerous near-Earth objects (NEO) during testimony before a House Science subcommittee last week, and renewed his call for the U.S. government to assign responsibility for developing NEO deflection plans.
Increasingly concerned about the lack of integrated defense against cruise missiles, low-altitude aircraft and short-range missile attacks, Congress is telling the Pentagon to report in on its progress in protecting the homeland. In the regular fiscal 2008 defense spending bill enacted Nov. 13, appropriators have mandated both classified and unclassified reports over plans for the development of domestic cruise missile defense capabilities, their deployment and their integration into the ballistic missile defense system (BMDS).
Rand Corp. has been asked to take a year-long, in-depth look into the U.S. Air Force's logistics framework in a bid to create a leaner service structure. The goal, according to Air Force Lt. Gen. Kevin Sullivan, deputy logistics chief, is to take an "enterprise approach to change, to how we improve our business." Rand was asked to "take a broad look across the logistics enterprise" over the next year.
