TANKER RFI: The Air Force's long-awaited request for information to recapitalize its aerial refueling fleet should be issued April 25, and is expected to include the option of buying tanking services as well. Boeing and Northrop Grumman, teamed with EADS, are vying to replace about 500 KC-135s. If requirements include major cargo lift, Boeing may have to consider a tanker version of the 777.
The Navy and Air Force will finally be forced to decide who gets the key missions of electronic warfare and signals intelligence due to planning for the 2008 defense budget, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley says. But this doesn't reflect current realities, top aerospace industry officials say.
DRS Technologies said April 24 that it has been awarded a $34 million contract, including options, to deliver embedded diagnostics systems for the U.S. Army's M2A3 Bradley Fighting Vehicles. DRS will manufacture Chassis Modernization and Embedded Diagnostics (CMED) Retrofit Kits under an initial $24 million award.
Until the U.S. and China come to terms on weapons-proliferation issues, closer space cooperation won't be possible, top NASA officials say. But that doesn't mean a charge in a white paper by the Center for Strategic and International Studies is true that a "Cold War mentality" on space has been adopted by the Bush administration.
JCM MEETING SET: The Defense Department's Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) is expected to meet later this month to discuss the fate of the Joint Common Missile (JCM) program. Senior Pentagon officials terminated the Army-led effort in December 2004 over the objections of some military leaders and members of Congress. Lawmakers since have inserted money into annual budgets to keep the program alive, including $30 million for fiscal 2006, but the Army has not requested any JCM funding in FY '07 (DAILY, March 29).
NEW DIRECTOR: Simon P. (Pete) Worden was named director of NASA's Ames Research Center on April 21. The retired Air Force brigadier general, who has wide experience in military space, will replace Scott Hubbard, who left office in January (DAILY, Jan. 26).
NASA's aeronautics mission directorate is reviewing an integrated proposal for continuing the agency's work in hypersonics that was crafted jointly by its Dryden, Langley, Glenn, and Ames research centers.
PRECISION ARTILLERY: The U.S. military is on the verge of having a precise, ground-based small artillery capability that could be used in urban combat, says Maj. Gen. David Ralston, chief of the Army Field Artillery Center. One system, the Precision Strike Suite for Special Operations Forces, will become a program of record for all services. Ground troops could deliver a 200-pound warhead within 10 meters accuracy against mostly permanent structures - such as buildings that insurgents have run into - as mapped by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
WAR SUPPLEMENTAL: The Senate will debate the latest fiscal 2006 supplemental spending request for up to two weeks after reconvening April 24 from its Easter break. In their committee markup of the bill, Senate appropriators boosted funding for C-17 and V-22 aircraft (DAILY, April 5). But debate, which Republican leaders had hoped to keep to a week, could be prolonged with internal-GOP arguments over nonmilitary earmarks, as well as Democratic efforts to use the bill to highlight election-year claims.
Wind tunnel tests at the U.S. Air Force Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) are beginning to show that potential new foam problem areas on the shuttle external tank can be corrected with minor changes and minimal risk to a July launch schedule. The new concerns arose this month when modified tank foam components blew off an external tank mockup undergoing wind tunnel tests at AEDC.
Input, a federal information technology consulting agency, expects a draft or even formal request for proposals for the U.S. Navy's Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) unmanned aerial system in October or November, said Brian Haney, director of member services. Haney, at an Input conference April 20 featuring the Navy's chief information officer (CIO), said the total program could be worth $2 billion. The Naval Air Systems Command should conduct a full and open competition for the BAMS UAS, he said.
Heightened concern over the threat of micrometeoroid or space debris damage to the space shuttle's re-entry thermal protection system will force the crew of the next space shuttle mission to make extra inspections of Discovery's wings and belly in orbit. Those inspections, to be made from inside the shuttle and International Space Station vehicles, will add to the workload of the STS-121 mission plan.
NOT WAITING: National Intelligence Director John Negroponte says he isn't waiting until fiscal 2008 to exercise the budget authority congressional reform legislation gave him. "My first major programmatic decision was based on an in-depth analysis of present and future imagery capabilities and requirements, and the technical risks associated with acquisition strategy to meet those requirements," Negroponte said April 20 in a speech at the National Press Club. "I decided that we were on the wrong track.
MSX ANNIVERSARY: On April 24 Air Force Space Command will mark the 10th anniversary of the Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) satellite built by Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory. MSX originally was a missile defense experiment with a design life of five years. The Space Based Visible (SBV) sensor aboard MSX is a crucial element of the Air Force's space surveillance network, which also includes ground-based radars and optical telescopes. The MSX/SBV currently supports U.S.
Gen. Bernard P. Randolph (USAF Ret.) has been elected to the boardTaji1234567 of directors. Randolph is a former executive at the TRW Space and Electronics Group.
AIRCRAFT SUPPORT: France is outsourcing support for aircraft used for basic training of all pilots in its military. The aircraft are based at a facility in Cognac. A 10-year deal valued at about 75 million euros ($92.5 million) was inked recently between the government and an EADS team involving its subsidiaries Socata and EADS Services. Socata originally built the single-engine TB-30 Epsilon trainers. Military personnel reductions at the facility are being offset by a decision to base unmanned aircraft there starting next year.
