Boeing has unveiled details of its X-45D Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstrator (UCAS-D) design, which is vying with a Northrop Grumman design in the U.S. Navy's effort to put a long-range unmanned recce/bomber on carrier decks by 2025. Visually, it will look much like a larger version of the X-45C, which was built for high-stealth attack missions. Internally it has been strengthened to survive operations at sea and enlarged to carry larger weapons and a battery of forward-looking sensors for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR).
NMT AWARD: The U.S. Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) has selected Raytheon over Harris Corp. for the Navy Multiband Terminal, awarding a $20.6 million Raytheon that could be worth $960 million eventually. The Pentagon said May 31 that the deal combines purchases for the U.S. Navy (94 percent), Canada (3.54 percent), the United Kingdom (1.68 percent) and the Netherlands (.78 percent). Most of Raytheon's work will occur in Largo, Fla., but some work will take place in Marlborough, Mass. (17 percent).
LOS ANGELES AFB and SUNNYVALE, CALIF. - Pentagon acquisition chief Kenneth Krieg plans to review the status of the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) June 14.
RESTARTING BELL: U.S. Army acquisition executive Claude Bolton has given the nod for the service to negotiate with officials at Bell Helicopter on a get-well plan for the Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH). Paul Bogosian, program executive officer for aviation, says he has until the end of June to report back to Bolton with a final restructuring proposal. He predicts an 18-month slip, until April 2010, for the first unit to be equipped with the modified 407 airframe. Cost hasn't yet been ironed out.
ROBOTIC ROLL CALL: The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is calling on Japanese industry to offer current terrestrial robotic technology for present and future space missions. JAXA thinks robotic technologies already used in factories and micro-robots could be adapted for satellites, rovers and equipment for supporting human life in space. Robotics is deemed essential in space, particularly because of the time limits on astronauts working outside of spacecraft.
Astronaut Navy Cdr. William Oefelein, the man at the center of a love triangle involving former astronaut Navy Lt. Cdr. Lisa Nowak, has been fired from the NASA astronaut office and is returning to a Navy assignment. Oefelein, who was the co-pilot on a space shuttle Discovery mission to the International Space Station last December, is being reassigned to a Navy space planning facility in Virginia.
Space shuttle managers expressed continued confidence in repairs made to Atlantis' external tank following a day-and-a-half review that formally green-lit the shuttle to launch on mission STS-117 on the evening of June 8. "We are extremely confident we have done perfectly good repairs and we will have a tank that is safe to fly," Space Shuttle Program Manager Wayne Hale said during a news conference May 31 following the flight readiness review (FRR).
Lockheed Martin should receive the third HC-144A Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA) made by EADS CASA in Spain by the middle of June, an industry representative said. Under a revised schedule for installing C4ISR systems and testing them, the first MPA should be delivered to the Coast Guard in early fall, while all three are to be handed over to the service by the end of the year.
The U.S. Navy said May 31 that it finished production of the Vehicle Tethered Dual Mounted Stinger to help qualify Lithuania for NATO membership. The air defense system is supposed to arrive there in late summer. "Air defense is critical for Lithuania as the political climate in Eastern Europe changes," said a Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) statement.
The companies competing for the U.S. Air Force's combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) helicopter replacement fleet have adopted a mostly wait-and-see public posture following this week's release of the revised request for proposals (RFP). But losing bidder Sikorsky had some stronger remarks. "We are extremely disappointed," company spokesman Paul Jackson said. "The Air Force has been largely unresponsive to our questions and concerns."
Over the course of May 25-31, the DAILY ran several stories about the U.S. Air Force's acquisition and deployment of Thales Raytheon Systems' (TRS) Battle Control System-Fixed (BCS-F), an upgraded and modernized command-and-control system meant to help marry FAA and NORAD radars for the defense of North America. This integration is intended to help prevent further terrorist attacks with hijacked civilian jets.
The U.S. Coast Guard's 12th and final HH-65 helicopter re-engined through the embattled Deepwater program at American Eurocopter in Columbus, Miss., has been delivered as expected to the U.S. Coast Guard Aircraft Repair and Supply Center in Elizabeth City, N.C., Deepwater prime contractor Integrated Coast Guard Systems (ICGS) announced May 31.
CHINA LAUNCHES: A Chinese Long March 2B launched the Yaogan 2 reconnaissance/remote sensing spacecraft into a polar sun-synchronous orbit May 25 from the Jiuquan launch site in the Gobi desert. The flight also carried a small micro-electronics research satellite.
After a near-death experience last December when it lost two of its reaction control wheels, the Goddard Space Flight Center/Johns Hopkins University's Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) satellite has come back to life. In April its five-year mission was extended and it recently returned spectacular images from the Large Magellanic Cloud, including one of what astronomers call an "O" star -- the hottest, most luminous and massive of normal stars.
China is making military advances on technological and geographical fronts and is working towards the ability to mount an "information blockade," the recent annual Pentagon report on the Asian powerhouse says. "China is pursuing this ability by improving information and operational security, developing electronic warfare and information warfare capabilities, and denial and deception," according to the Pentagon.
DIRCM SEA KNIGHT: U.S. Naval Air Systems Command is awarding Northrop Grumman $10.8 million to engineer Directed Infrared Countermeasures Systems (DIRCM) onto CH-46E Sea Knight helicopters. The work will be performed in Rolling Meadows, Ill., and is expected to be completed in August 2008, the Defense Department said May 30. The contract was not competitively procured. Employed during the Vietnam War, Boeing's Sea Knight is the oldest-type helicopter currently flying in front-line U.S. military service, Boeing says.
As expected, the amended U.S. Air Force request for proposals (RFP) for its combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) helicopter released May 29 was narrow in scope, focusing only on certain lifecycle costs issues identified by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) when it sustained the protests of losing bidders Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky against Boeing's win.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command and the U.S. Air Force will greatly step up combat air patrols around Kennedy Space Center in the days leading up to the countdown and planned launch of the space shuttle Atlantis on the STS-117 mission June 8. A mix of F-15s and F-16s from several Air National Guard units assigned to the First Air Force are to be on patrol early next week to thwart any airborne terrorist attack against the shuttle.
The rapid deployment of Solipsys' NORAD Contingency Suite (NCS) air defense command and control (C2) system following the 9/11 attacks created a rift between the U.S. Air Force's Air Combat Command (ACC) and Electronic Systems Command (ECS) that persists to this day, sources tell the DAILY. The hijacked civilian airliners of 9/11 took advantage of a vulnerability - the inability to integrate NORAD and FAA radars to track aircraft across national airspace - that the Air Force needed to address immediately.
