REINCARNATION: When the Army and the Navy both backed out of the Aerial Common Sensor intelligence gathering aircraft program, it was a big blow to the signals and communications intercept community. However, there seems to be no end of ways to reconstitute the program. A scheme currently making the rounds in the Pentagon is to divide the mission between manned and unmanned systems. The Air Force would control manned aircraft, supplemented by the high-flying Global Hawk UAV.
The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee is suggesting NATO take over the USS John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier, which the U.S. Navy and the Bush administration want to retire early for budget reasons. The move would keep the flattop active to some degree while providing an incentive for NATO allies to further fund and develop their own defense capabilities, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) told Capitol Hill reporters May 11.
DATA SHARING: The U.S. and Australia are set later this month to renew a data-sharing agreement for work on over-the-horizon radar. The agreement coincides with renewed emphasis in the Pentagon on the technology, which can be used to help detect threats from the air and sea, as well as ballistic missiles. Australia has long been a leader in over-the-horizon radar, but the U.S. is now also looking to ramp up work in this area. U.S.
May 17 -- Homeland Defense Journal Training Conference (R) Maritime Security: A Look Ahead, NRECA Hq Building, Executive Conference Center, Arlington, Va. 22203. For more information call (201) 592-6477 or [email protected]. May 17 - 18 -- MRO Military Europe, Berlin. "Held in Conjunction with the Berlin Airshow," For information call Lydia Janow at 212-904-3225 or 1-800-240-7645 ext. 5 or go to http://www.aviationnow.com/conferences.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) is brushing off a White House veto threat over Buy American provisions in the recently passed fiscal 2007 House defense authorization bill. A jovial Hunter, briefing Capitol Hill reporters late May 11 moments after the House overwhelmingly passed the committee's $513 billion policy bill with relatively few amendments, expressed no concern over the Office of Management and Budget's statement of administration policy (DAILY, May 12). 'Not a rubber stamp'
STILL GOING: NASA has decided to continue funding the Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey, and the Mars Exploration Rovers, all of which are well past their originally planned duration and have been funded with periodic mission extensions. Continued operations are expected to cost $47 million in fiscal 2007. The MER rovers, which landed on Mars in early 2004, have lasted nearly 10 times their original 90-day design life.
MACHINE TO MACHINE: The biannual Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment held at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., focused on networking and rapid targeting for manned aircraft, but saw only limited participation by unmanned systems. But in the 2008 edition, look for those machine-to-machine networks to start controlling dozens of swarming real and virtual unmanned aerial vehicles cooperating in networks that can find and destroy targets in under two minutes. "We certainly will submit UAV solutions," says George Muellner, Boeing's president of Advanced Systems.
The shuttle orbiter Discovery is being mated to its external tank and solid rocket boosters in the Kennedy Space Center Vehicle assembly building following its move May 12 from Orbiter Processing Facility Bay 3. The rollover had been planned for May 11, but the need to replace a bolt in the harness used to lift Discovery in the VAB forced a one-day delay.
The Defense and State departments should conduct an assessment of U.S. foreign aid to Egypt to determine the impact it is having on equipment modernization and interoperability - among other things - the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a May 12 report.
CONSERVATIVE CHOICE: Boeing turns to a high-profile federal judge, J. Michael Luttig, to replace its general counsel, 57-year-old Douglas Bain, who will retire July 1. (DAILY, May 11). Luttig, 51, brings a considerable political pedigree to the world's largest aerospace company - service in the Reagan White House, a counselor's post at the Justice Department, before appointment as a federal appeals court judge by President George H.W. Bush in 1991.
Democratic leaders of the House Science Committee are urging the chairman and ranking member of the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees NASA to increase the agency's fiscal 2007 funding to the level recommended in the NASA authorization act of 2005.
FERRY BOATS: The U.S. Navy in August plans to release procurement information and an initial request for quotations to General Services Administration vendors for replacement ferry boats for the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The new boats will be made of fiberglass and have a maximum length of 78 feet. They will accommodate up to 149 passengers and three crew members, including people with disabilities. The boats will comply with federal accessibility standards and the Coast Guard's safety requirements.
CORRECTION: The May 10 story "Air Force completes restructuring of SBSS Pathfinder program" contained an error. Northrop Grumman remains the Air Force's Mission Area Prime Integrator Contractor (MAPIC) for counter-space, and has only been relieved of its management responsibilities on the Space Based Surveillance System Pathfinder.
CVN BUSH: Northrop Grumman Corp. said May 12 it finished installing the propellers on the 10th and final Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, George H.W. Bush (CVN 77). The new propellers also will go on the planned CVN 21 class, as well as the USS Carl Vinson, now in the Newport News, Va., shipyard undergoing a refueling and complex overhaul. The ship's keel was laid Sept. 6, 2003. The christening will occur in October, with delivery to the Navy in late 2008.
The U.S. Naval Air Systems Command announced May 10 that two successful shots of the thermobaric shaped-trajectory Hellfire missile were completed at the Navair land test ranges in China Lake, Calif. Both air launches, 30 minutes apart, were executed from an AH-1W test squadron helicopter based there. Navair said the successes mean the new Hellfire missile's product team is closer to fielding the technology.
The U.S. and Canada on May 12 took the final step toward extending and expanding the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), exchanging diplomatic notes that renew the long-standing defense agreement, make the command permanent, and expand its purview to the seas. The new agreement adds maritime warning and surveillance to the command, which currently covers aerospace; it also makes NORAD permanent, subject only to a review every four years. Plans to add a maritime component to NORAD had been under discussion for several years.
NIP AND TUCK: Pentagon bean counters already are looking for places to nip and tuck in preparation for the fiscal 2008 budget proposal, which isn't due to Congress until next February. Officials in each service and the major commands are drawing their battle lines. Some programs already in the crosshairs are the Special Operations MH-60 multimission helicopter; the Navy's EA-18G Growler, which is being developed for electronic attack; and the Navy's E-2D Hawkeye aircraft. Although these are early budget deliberations, they portend a rough road ahead for the Pentagon.
Albert E. Smith has been named to the board of directors. Smith is currently chairman of Tetra Tech Inc., a Pasadena, Calif., resource management company.
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) bid goodbye to members of the Washington space community at a Space Transportation Association breakfast on Capitol Hill May 11, as he prepares to depart Congress next month. "One of the things I'm going to miss most about serving in the House, I think, is the opportunity to represent so many members of the American space community," said DeLay, whose district includes Johnson Space Center in Houston.
AEHF CCS-C: Integral Systems Inc. announced May 10 that the U.S. Air Force awarded it a $21.5 million contract modification for the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) program's Command and Control System-Consolidated (CCS-C) effort. This consolidates all C2 for AEHF Satellite Vehicles 1, 2, and 3 as a cost saving measure and accommodates the current AEHF launch schedule, the company said.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the tri-agency committee charged with overseeing the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) were not hands-on enough and ignored signs that the program was spiraling out of control, according to the Commerce Department's inspector general.
