NEW U.K. HELOS: Three Agusta 109 helicopters joined the British air force's 32 (Royal) Squadron this month, replacing a trio of Twin Squirrel helos that served for eight years, Britain's defense ministry says. The A109 can cruise at 155 knots, cutting travel times by 20 percent over the Twin Squirrel. The aircraft carries six passengers, up from the Twin Squirrel's four, and also boasts leather seats, noise-reduction headsets, air conditioning, reading lights and a private intercom system. Two sliding doors allow passengers to enter from either side of the fuselage.
BENCHMARKING: NASA exploration managers are poised to incorporate lessons learned from last year's failure of the Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology (DART) mission, largely because they are no further along than a "benchmarking mode" that by definition looks for what actually works.
The U.S. Justice Department has cleared the proposed merger of satellite operators Intelsat and PanAmSat, leaving only the Federal Communications Commission to sign off before the $3.2 billion deal can go through. Intelsat Ltd. announced its intention to acquire long-time competitor PanAmSat last August. The company said May 26 that the Justice Department had closed its antitrust investigation of the proposed merger and is not seeking any conditions or making any comments on it. FCC's review still is under way.
COMFORT LEVEL: Israel may have started to cut back on military assistance it provides to China last year, but the U.S. Defense Department still isn't satisfied that everything is in order. Last year, the Pentagon temporarily cut off Israel from access to technology information, ostensibly because of a spat over Israel's sale in 2001 of Harpy unmanned aircraft to China and the maintenance of parts for the system in 2003-04. Israel responded by vowing to improve oversight of arms sales to China, which the Pentagon says happened and at which point the sanctions were lifted.
UH-60M DAB: Pentagon acquisition chief Kenneth Krieg signed an acquisition decision memorandum (ADM) on May 24 approving the Army's plans for the UH-60M Black Hawk Upgrade program. The ADM approves detailed Army plans to develop and test pre-planned product improvements on the Sikorsky-built UH-60M, authorizes the expenditure of fiscal 2007 and 2008 funding for development and testing of the upgrades, and establishes entrance criteria for the introduction of the upgrades into Black Hawk production lines.
Contractors that do not pay tax debts have an unfair competitive advantage because they may have lower costs than tax compliant contractors on government contracts, according to Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa).
JOINT DOC: Defense Department officials are weighing the potential benefits of merging the three military medical commands into one unified command that would oversee all military health care as well as the training of military medical professionals. The concept, if adopted, would bring together the Army, Air Force and Navy medical commands, ostensibly allowing the DOD to provide better care while keeping costs in check, according to Dr. David Tornberg, deputy assistant secretary of defense for clinical and program policy.
While NASA's field centers work on in-house concepts for lunar landers, the agency's Johnson Space Center (JSC) has released a request for information (RFI) to industry calling for its ideas as well.
The primary engine for the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter is running 190 degrees Fahrenheit "above our desired temperature" as Pratt & Whitney specialists work to squeeze more power out of the design during its test program.
President Bush and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair announced May 26 that the two countries agree Britain will have "the ability to successfully operate, upgrade, employ and maintain the Joint Strike Fighter such that the U.K. retains operational sovereignty over the aircraft."
LOBBYING CONGRESS: The Planetary Society is mounting an extensive lobbying effort to convince budget appropriators in Congress to reverse the Bush administration's proposed cuts to science in its fiscal 2007 NASA budget request. "We stand at a crossroads with planetary exploration," Planetary Society Director Louis Freedman says.
CHINA RISING: China's army is in the process of a long-term transformation from a mass force designed for protracted wars of attrition on its territory to a more modern force capable of fighting short, high-intensity conflicts, according to the Pentagon's latest alarm-raising report on the Asian giant. Near term, China's buildup appears focused on preparing for operations in the Taiwan Strait, including against U.S.
VEHICLE GPS PRICES: Gartner Inc. says growing competition for vehicle navigation systems using Global Positioning System in autos will drive down prices and turn the products into a commodity if manufactures don't enhance their units. Nearly 40 percent of vehicle owners in the U.S. and Europe want to buy such systems versus the 8 percent of U.S. and 20 percent of European drivers who own them now.
COMPUTING SOLUTIONS: Many companies are investing in enterprise-wide computing solutions that are outdated, overengineered, overpriced and underperforming, according to Gartner Inc. Businesses are expected to waste $10 billion procuring Gigabit Ethernet for their local area networks by 2008, not counting the cost of related phones, power supplies, upgraded facilities and other requirements. Network designers still think they should invest in bigger and faster networking technology even though these improvements often don't serve the needs of users in the company.
June 1 -- Bank of America's Aerospace and Defense Supplier Conference, supported by McAleese & Associates, P.C., Four Seasons Hotel, Boston, Mass. For more information or live webcast information call Katie Weisgerber at (646) 366-4800. June 4 - 6 -- ACI-NA Business Information Technologies Committee Meeting, Hyatt Regency Montreal Centre-Ville, Montreal, PQ, 202-293-3029, email [email protected].
The U.S. Navy and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) said they conducted a successful ballistic missile defense (BMD) test May 24 of the intercept of a target missile in the last few seconds of flight. The Pearl Harbor-based cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG 70), outfitted with a modified Aegis Weapon System, launched a modified Block IV Standard Missile-2 (SM-2) for what was the first sea-based intercept of a ballistic missile in its terminal phase.
NATO, which is trying to transform to a post-Cold War world, is hampered by the paradox that its member nations seem increasingly willing to take on anti-terrorist and anti-insurgency missions such as in Afghanistan while they are less willing to fund the alliance's needs, according to the NATO military commander. "Those two are polar opposites in terms of where we want to get to," said U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, head of U.S. European Command and the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe.
The NOAA/Boeing GOES-N satellite is being maneuvered into its operational slot following a successful May 24 launch from Cape Canaveral on board a Boeing Delta IV. It was only the second flight for the Delta IV Medium Plus configuration, with two ATK 250,000-pound thrust solid rocket boosters in addition to the Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne RS-68 oxygen hydrogen engine. It was the fifth Delta IV flight overall.
Honeywell Defense & Space Electronic Systems has won a $61 million contract to develop the Class I Unmanned Aerial Vehicle System (UAVS) for the U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems program. The contract's awarding was announced May 24 by Boeing Co. and its partner, Science Applications International Corp., which are the lead systems integrator for the FCS. The Class I UAVS is the smallest of four FCS UAV classes. It will give soldiers battlefield reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition.
