BACK EAST: Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael "Buzz" Moseley has his eyes on the Middle East. Industry sources say Moseley was offered command of U.S. European Command, replacing Marine Corps Gen. James Jones. Moseley declined and, instead, proposed to replace Army Gen. John Abizaid at U.S. Central Command, which includes Iraq and Afghanistan. Moseley commanded air forces during the air war in Iraq, and his re-entry into the theater could give political cover to the Bush administration, which is hard-pressed to begin withdrawing ground forces.
Ken Beedle has been appointed director of international communications. Ed Halibozek has been named vice president of corporate security. Tim McKnight has been appointed vice president of information security.
Joseph Carleone has been appointed to the board of directors. Carleone has been serving as senior vice president and chief product officer of Irvine Sensors Corp.
The Bush administration has given the green light for Pakistan's long-delayed purchase of F-16 fighters, but some in Congress think the new $5 billion deal may need another look.
FCS COSTS: The recent Pentagon Cost Analysis Improvement Group (CAIG) report to Congress on the U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program that pegs the total lifecycle cost of the effort as having soared to $300 billion "really doesn't tell the story of FCS," says Army Secretary Francis Harvey. "The facts are that the Future Combat Systems Brigade Combat Team has 650 less people in it than a heavy brigade combat team," he says. "The single biggest element of cost in the Army is manpower...
NASA's space shuttle Discovery was due to land as early as 9:07 a.m. Eastern time July 17 at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., weather permitting. But controllers were keeping a close eye on two of the orbiter's three hydrazine-fueled auxiliary power units (APUs) after they displayed off-nominal conditions late last week.
Frank Hoffmann has been named vice president of engineering. Gary Moore has been appointed vice president of international operations and government sales.
ON-TIME SELECTION: NASA is closing in on a prime contractor for the Crew Exploration Vehicle. Project Manager Caris "Skip" Hatfield says the source selection board has wrapped up its final round of questions to teams headed by Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman/Boeing, and the teams are updating their final submittals in response. After that the board will complete its final report for Exploration Systems Deputy Associate Administrator Doug Cooke, who will make the final decision based on the report and advice from a separate team of experts that he's assembled.
WEBB: The Government Accountability Office (GAO) thinks NASA needs to fully implement a "knowledge-based acquisition approach" for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) program. According to GAO's definition, knowledge-based acquisition allows developers to be reasonably certain, at critical junctures, that their products will perform up to expectations. "If [JWST] program officials follow the current plan, the maturity of key technologies may not be adequately tested prior to program start," GAO says.
U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker said he is "very concerned" about the service's fiscal 2007 budget during a speech on Capitol Hill July 14, given the mounting costs of resetting equipment after it returns from theater. In June, Schoomaker told the House Armed Services Committee that the Army's reset requirement for FY '07 will be $17.1 billion, which includes nearly $5 billion deferred from the service's FY '06 request.
DROPPING THE HAMMER: Former four-term Texas Democratic Rep. Nick Lampson says he's confident he'll return to Congress in the fall, regardless of whether former Rep. Tom "The Hammer" DeLay succeeds in getting off the November ballot. A U.S. District Court has ruled DeLay is the Republican candidate, even though he's resigned from Congress to face state money-laundering charges. A decision on DeLay's appeal is expected in two or three weeks, and Lampson says the issue might be presented to, if not accepted by, the Supreme Court.
Peter Gyenes and Russell R. MacDonnell have been named to the board of advisors. Dieter Kondek has been appointed president and chief executive officer. Gadi Talmon has been named executive vice president of business development and general manager of the company's research and development facility in Tel Aviv.
HQJOC CONTRACT: Australia has picked five teams to vie for the $300 million Australian dollars ($226 million) Headquarters Joint Operations Command (HQJOC) systems integration contract. The facility, to be built near Bungendore, is supposed to give the Australian military a state-of-the-art command center with connectivity to deployed forces. Australian troops, including its special operations units, have been heavily deployed in recent years to East Timor, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
The U.S. Coast Guard is hoping unmanned aerial systems (UASs) will help close the operational gap in its maritime air patrols, a top agency official says. Current Coast Guard legacy aircraft fly 44,400 marine patrol aircraft (MPA) flight hours per year, well short of the agency's target of 61,600 MPA flight hours, says Rear Adm. Wayne Justice, the Coast Guard's Assistant Commandant for Response.
SAT LAUNCH: South Korea plans to launch a multipurpose Arirang 2 satellite from a Russian spaceport on July 28, the Korea Overseas Information Service says. The satellite will provide environmental observation, natural resource searches, and geographical updates. It will be launched from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, about 800 kilometers (497 miles) northeast of Moscow, the country's Ministry of Science and Technology said. Technical problems delayed the spacecraft's earlier scheduled November launch. The satellite is equipped with a high-resolution multispectral camera.
FAST TRACK: Not all Pentagon programs need to move at the glacial speed of the biggest-ticket items, says John Young, Jr., the Pentagon's director of defense research and engineering. Young allows that "some degree of program process and rigor" is appropriate for high-end acquisitions.
BAE Systems is reorganizing its Technology Solutions and Services business based in Rockville, Md., to capitalize on growing opportunities not only with the Defense Department but other federal agencies.
