BACK FROM COMANCHE: Paul Bogosian, program executive officer for Army Aviation, says the service has nearly made good on its plan to fund a variety of aviation programs following the termination of the Comanche armed scout helicopter. The remaining step is picking a contractor for the Joint Cargo Aircraft, which is expected soon. However, the post-Comanche plan lacked a clear way ahead for science and technology (S&T) spending, which funds basic research for systems that may be fielded decades later.
ViaSat Inc. is introducing the VDC-800 Data Controller to offer secure IP and USB connections to warfighters, the company said. The VDC-800 Data Controller uses the ViaSat Data Controller (VDC) products to create systems that help warfighters accomplish their missions by adding the high-speed, plug-and-play USB interface to the VDC product line. VDCs extend IP and TCP/IP networking to servicemembers on the leading edges of the battlespace.
RAILGUNS: The proliferation of weapons guidance, navigation and control systems should lead to smaller, more robust precision-guided projectiles at lower cost, the Naval Sea Systems Command says. In turn, affordable, hypersonic, guided projectiles for railguns could result. The Navy next year expects delivery of a 32 mega joules railgun built by BAE Systems. The size of an electromagnetic railgun facility at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Va., will be increased to accommodate the gun by fiscal 2009.
LANGUAGE IN ACTION: Overzealous security reviewers at the Defense Department have helped add a new word to the bureaucratic lexicon. It happened after the Pentagon redacted some charts that former Defense Secretary Melvin Laird used in a 1971 public report, and then reversed their decision and released unredacted versions after an administrative appeal. The charts included 35-year-old U.S. nuclear bomber and missile counts, and about a generation later, someone decided they needed reclassifying.
SECOND GENERATION: Alcatel Alenia Space could wind up building 48 new low-Earth orbit communications satellites for Globalstar Inc. if an initial agreement bears fruit. Under the new authorization to proceed, Alcatel Alenia will conduct a program readiness review and develop program milestones, and the manufacturer and the operator will try to negotiate a definitive contract for a Globalstar second-generation constellation by Nov. 15.
The U.S. Marine Corps recently conducted its second round of testing with a surveillance system that manages multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or other sensors to provide reconnaissance information directly to dismounted troops. Developed by Northrop Grumman and sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the system is known as the Heterogeneous Urban RSTA (reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition) Team, or HURT.
Lockheed Martin is developing a half-scale variant of its Multifunction Utility/Logistics & Equipment (MULE) unmanned ground vehicle that it hopes to have in limited testing by the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) in 2008. Known as the Squad Mission Support System (SMSS), the six-wheeled amphibious vehicle is based on the Land Tamer commercial chassis built by PFM Manufacturing Inc. of Montana. The SMSS is designed to carry one infantry squad's worth of equipment, or roughly 1,000 pounds of payload.
NASA wants to continue the barter approach originally pursued in the International Space Station (ISS) partnership as it joins with other countries to explore the moon. Administrator Michael Griffin tells the International Astronautical Congress in Valencia, Spain, that while he realizes not all potential partners share his view, a "no exchange of funds" approach to partnership will work best. With the exception of some direct purchases of goods and services from Russia, that is how all ISS cost-sharing deals are handled.
Deputy Attorney General Paul Mc-Nulty has unveiled a new national procurement fraud initiative within the Justice Department's Criminal Division to promote early detection, prevention and especially prosecution of procurement fraud in light of increased contracting for national security and other government programs.
DHS CONTRACTS: The Department of Homeland Security is about to award multiple contracts totaling up to $10 million to study alternatives to laser jammer countermeasures against shoulder-fired missile attacks on commercial aircraft. DHS is seeking either ground-based systems, airborne or a hybrid of the two. The department anticipates making an announcement "sometime soon" about the award of 18-month multiple contracts, a spokesman said.
With the ink still drying on the fiscal 2007 defense appropriations law, ruminations over the FY '08 budget request are expected to start preoccupying Wall Street and the Beltway, observers say. "With FY '07 budget signed, we expect outlook for FY '08 budget and benefit of recent supplemental to be focus during defense Q3 [conference] calls," said David Strauss of UBS Investment Research on the upcoming slew of quarterly financial updates from the aerospace and defense industry.
Contrary to what critics argue, the advanced modeling and simulation used to develop and build the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter reduce the risk to buy the aircraft before traditional flight-tests are done, says U.S. Marine Corps Brig. Gen. David Heinz, JSF deputy program executive officer.
Eutelsat engineers are attempting to sort out two in-orbit problems that have hampered operations on two different spacecraft, in one case permanently.
Leading Army aviation officials say they were unsure whether Pentagon officials can award a contract for the Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA) until they figure out the guiding law from fiscal 2007 legislation, although they still hope to choose an award winner by the end of February.
In response to North Korea's "provocation," the United States will increase defense cooperation with allies, including cooperation on ballistic missile defense, President Bush said Oct. 11. The president's announcement, during opening remarks of a White House press conference, is just the latest image boost this week for U.S. ballistic missile defense efforts after North Korean missile launch and supposed underground nuclear tests.
The Joint Precision Air Drop System (JPADS) is altering the way the U.S. Air Force looks at its air drop missions, said Gen. Duncan McNabb, commander of Air Mobility Command. The JPAD is becoming the Joint Direct Attack Munition of the precision vertical resupply realm, McNabb said Oct. 11 during a breakfast briefing. "This will change how we resupply the troops out there," he said, especially for ground forces and special operations.
Lt. Gen. Steven Boutelle, the U.S. Army's chief information officer, called upon service and industry personnel to "help us make the argument" to acquisition leaders about the importance of moving the military to Internet Protocol (IP)-based communications during a presentation in Washington Oct. 11. Boutelle said that outside the technical community, it's sometimes difficult to convince people of the value of IP, which is the telecommunication standard the Internet is built upon.
Lockheed Martin has begun delivering a second batch of Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) unitary rockets to the U.S. Army in response to a second urgent need statement from the theater, according to company officials.
FIGHTERS: The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) scrambled fighter combat jets on Oct. 11 after an aircraft crashed into a New York City building, a NORAD spokeswoman said. "NORAD fighters are airborne over numerous U.S. cities," Air Force Tech. Sgt. Claudette Hutchinson said shortly before 4 p.m. Eastern time. NORAD would not reveal the number of fighters or the names of the cities.
SOYUZ SHIFT: All three crewmen on the International Space Station are set to receive another load of supplies after suiting up and buckling in to move the Soyuz capsule that delivered two of them to space. Expedition 14 ISS Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and flight engineers Mikhail Tyurin and Thomas Reiter backed Soyuz TMA-9 away from the aft docking port on the Russian Zvezda service module Oct. 10 and spent 25 minutes moving it to the nadir port on the Zarya module. That clears the way for Progress 23P to dock on Oct.
