American military and Iraqi security forces have been using helicopters and boats to disrupt smuggling and other insurgent efforts in and around the Euphrates and along Iraq's southern border with Syria and Jordan, says U.S. Marine Corps Col. William B. Crowe, commander of 7th Regional Combat Team and the American officer responsible for operations there.
DEJA VU: With widespread skepticism, if not criticism, of President Bush's surge announcement regarding U.S. forces in Iraq pervading Capitol Hill, lawmakers are already talking about the legislative branch's ability to affect presidential policy through appropriations. Discussion of congressional limitations that were slapped down late in the Vietnam conflict has begun seeping around the campus.
SILENT KNIGHT: Raytheon Co. has won a $135.4 million contract to develop a new tactical radar for MH-60M, MC-130H and CV-22 Block 30 aircraft for the U.S. Special Operations Command. The Silent Knight system will serve as a common, multimode terrain following and avoidance radar and is headed for the MH-47G helo as the lead aircraft for the program. The contract, signed Dec. 12, 2006, has options for building six low-rate initial production units. Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems is performing the work in Dallas and McKinney, Texas.
KEI CONSIDERED: The Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) - a missile being developed by the Missile Defense Agency - is being studied for deployment on the futuristic CG(X) cruiser, says Rear Adm. Barry J. McCullough III, Navy program executive officer for ships. McCullough spoke last week at the Surface Navy Association symposium in Alexandria, Va. The missile weighs about 44,000 pounds and can be used for intercontinental ballistic missile defense. "But there are some huge technical difficulties," he said.
MARS SPACECRAFT: NASA has selected two ideas for spacecraft to study the atmosphere of Mars using the 2011 planetary launch window, and funded each at about $2 million for feasibility studies. One, called Maven for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, would take "first-of-its-kind measurements" on the planet's upper atmosphere and ionosphere. It would be run out of Goddard Space Flight Center, with the University of Colorado's Bruce Jakosky as principal investigator.
The U.S. Army is reconsidering planned unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) under its massive, embattled Future Combat Systems (FCS) program after it recently cut the types of unmanned aircraft vehicles (UAVs), according to Gen. William Wallace, head of the Army Training and Doctrine Command.
SPACE STRATEGY: The British government has issued a survey to determine which civil space strategy the U.K. should pursue over the last four years of the decade. The survey, to be published in the fall, will canvass government agencies, academic and research institutions, industry and the general public.
Jan. 22 - 24 -- Institute for Defense and Government Advancement 5th Annual Conference Image Fusion 2007: Improving Visualization for Better Situational Awareness, Hilton Old Town, Alexandria, Va. For more information call (800) 882-8684 or (973) 256-0211, fax: (973) 256-0205, www.idga.org. Jan. 24 -- AHS Federal City Chaper Dinner Meeting Chapter, "The Military Helicopter Industrial Base," Army/Navy Country Club, Arlington, Va. For more information call (703) 684-6777.
Open architecture (OA) and common core combat system development will become part of the Navy mantra, service officers said Jan. 11. What the Navy needs as part of its OA development is more interoperability between platforms and equipment, said Rear Adm. Michael Frick, Navy program executive officer for Integrated Warfare Systems. Frick spoke during the Surface Navy Association Nineteenth National Symposium in Alexandria, Va.
In the opening days of the 110th Congress and weeks before an expected record White House request, leading senators from both sides of the political aisle are lambasting supplemental spending requests as harmful to budgets, federal processes and outfitting the military. "I think this notion that we're somehow dealing with an unanticipated expenditure in the fourth year of this war is a charade," Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Jan. 10. 'Budgets don't matter'
Lockheed Martin Corp. declared Jan. 10 that it has completed a successful at-sea demonstration of a new Fast Inshore Attack Craft (FIAC) defense system, which the company is shopping as "an innovative and cost-effective way" to quickly extend the defensive perimeter of most U.S. naval vessels out to five miles.
Top Bush administration officials defending the president's plan for an increase of 21,500 troops in Iraq met a wave of skepticism and - in some cases - hostility on Capitol Hill Jan. 11. "I cannot continue to support the administration's position," Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, adding, "I have not been told the truth and I have not been told the truth repeatedly."
OSD JOINT SUPPORT: Pentagon officials will turn to several contractors under a potential $930 million, 10-year contract to help develop tactics, techniques and procedures for how the services can work more efficiently together, as well as address problems encountered by warfighters, according to one of the competing companies. Wyle Laboratories Inc. and others would provide engineering support to Joint Test and Evaluation programs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD).
NEW DELHI - Indian controllers established contact with four satellites, including a new Earth-mapping platform and a recoverable microgravity-science capsule, following their launch Jan. 9 on a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).
In observance of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report will not publish January 15. The next issue will be dated January 16.
AIR FORCE Boeing Co., Seattle, Wash., is being awarded a $29,054,669 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract modification to provide funding for the design and installation of Large Aircraft Infrared Countermeasures (LAIRCM) on three C-40B aircraft. Total funds have been obligated. The work will be complete by December 2008. Headquarters Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (F33657-01-D-0013/No modification number at this time). NAVY
ARMY AM General L.L.C., South Bend, Ind., was awarded on Jan. 8, 2007, a $17,201,184 modification to a firm-fixed-price contract for additional M1152A1 vehicles. The work will be performed in South Bend, Ind., and is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2007. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This was a sole source contract initiated on July 17, 2000. The U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (DAAE07-01-C-S001).
The U.S. Air Force will give Northrop Grumman "one more pass" at negotiations on how the service will retool its $200 billion refueling tanker competition to avoid the company's withdrawal from the duel with Boeing, according to industry insiders.
There is a seam that can be exploited by those battling U.S. military forces - the regions where rivers or other waterways meet the sea, says Rear Adm. Donald K. Bullard, commander of the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command (NECC). "Today we have a gap," Bullard said Jan. 10 at the Surface Navy Association Nineteenth National Symposium in Arlington, Va. The NECC is meant to be that gap filler. The NECC mans, trains and equips Navy expeditionary forces supporting maritime security and joint operations around the globe.
The U.S. Coast Guard plans to create a deputy commandant for mission support that will unify the acquisition authority within the service and allow for better interaction with Deepwater prime contractor Integrated Coast Guard Systems (ICGS), according to Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen.
AIR FORCE Lockheed Martin Corp., Fort Worth, Texas, is being awarded a $255,000,000 firm fixed price contract modification. This action provides for an F-22 multiyear economic order quantity procurement. To date all funds have been obligated. The work will be complete by December 2011. Headquarters Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8611-06-C-2899/No Modification number at this time).
