The Bush administration's recent update to the National Security Strategy downplays the harm the administration's policies have done to the aerospace and defense industrial base, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said. "The president fails to discuss the threats to U.S. security from the erosion of the domestic manufacturing base, our increasing reliance on foreign production to meet U.S. military needs, and our need to borrow massive amounts of money from foreign governments to prop up our current trade and economic policies," he said.
ST5 SLIP: NASA is now targeting March 22 to launch three ST5 spacecraft, hoping that will be enough time for engineers to figure out why a fin-locking pin didn't withdraw as planned shortly before the most recent launch attempt of its Orbital Sciences Corp. Pegasus vehicle on March 15 (DAILY, March 16). As of March 17, no clear cause had been found, and another launch readiness review was set at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., late March 20.
'IMPOSSIBLE' MARKUP: Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), chairman of the House Armed Services tactical air and land forces subcommittee, expects $5-$6 billion in plus-up requests for his panel alone from other lawmakers and the Defense Department. He also said he expects an "impossible" markup of the fiscal 2007 defense authorization bill in the House over the next three months since Congress won't have enough money to do what it wants already. He said industry was busy compiling its wish list and asked DOD officials for candor to help the process.
The Coast Guard is interested in the Navy's force protection-antiterrorism unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) under development for the Littoral Combat Ship mission modules, but nothing formal has been worked out, according to Navy Capt. Walt Wright, program manager for LCS mission modules. Wright, briefing reporters at the Washington Navy Yard on March 15, said he has briefed Coast Guard Adm. Patrick Stillman, program manager for the Homeland Security Department armed service's massive Deepwater recapitalization effort, on LCS modules.
ARM INVESTIGATION: NASA has formed a board that will investigate the March 4 accident that damaged the shuttle Discovery's robotic arm. Hugo Delgado, deputy director for the Office of the Chief Engineer at Kennedy Space Center, is chairman of the five-member panel. The group's report is expected this summer. During the accident, shuttle technicians accidentally bumped the 50-foot arm, creating two indentations in its protective outer layer and a small crack in the carbon-fiber composite underneath. The arm was removed March 14 and sent back to the vendor for repair.
EMALS CHANGES: The Navy has awarded $6 million more to General Atomics for two proposed changes to the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS), the Defense Department announced March 16. The work - for the Center Deck Display and a revision to the Launch Control System Motor Controller - should be finished in April 2009. EMALS, a state-of-the-art replacement for the current steam catapult system used to launch aircraft off Navy aircraft carriers, is envisioned for the CVN-21 flattop.
NUCLEAR USE: The White House's latest National Security Strategy strengthens the role of nuclear weapons in pre-emptive military strikes against terrorists and hostile states armed with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, according to the Federation of American Scientists. In stronger language than used in the 2002 strategy, the update speaks more directly about the importance of nuclear weapons and lumps them together with other military action in a pre-emption scenario.
UNRESTRAINED PLAN: Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.), chairman of the House Armed Services projection forces subcommittee, has asked for and expects the Navy to provide his panel with a long-term shipbuilding and force structure plan that is wholly unrestrained by current budget pressures. Bartlett's request echoes deep Capitol Hill concern that recent Defense Department budget plans include decisions based on reduced funding as much or more than military requirements.
March 24 - 25 -- Society of Experimental Test Pilots' 36th San Diego Symposium, Catamaran Resort Hotel, J.T. Daugherty Conference Center, Lexington Park, Md. 1 661-942-9574 or go to http://setp.org. March 28 - 30 -- Aerospace Corp.'s Spacecraft Ground System Architectures Workshop, Manhattan Beach Marriott, Calif., 310-336-6805, www.aero.org/conferences
RADAR WEAPONS: Boeing missile defense officials refuse to answer questions about whether they are developing techniques to produce high-energy weapon effects from their SBX sea-based radar. However, since large distributed-array devices can be focused to deliver large spikes of energy, powerful enough to disable electronic equipment, the potential is known to exist and is being fielded on a range of U.S., British and Australian aircraft.
The Pentagon announced its fiscal 2006 Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrations (ACTDs) as well as its first-ever Joint Capability Technology Demonstrations (JCTDs) on March 16. ACTDs exploit mature technologies to serve pressing military needs. In the coming years they will be supplanted entirely by JCTDs, which will move faster and be tailored specifically to needs identified by combatant commanders (DAILY, March 11, 2005). The projects were chosen from more than 100 proposals, according to DOD.
ODYSSEY IMAGES: Hundreds of images from NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter have gone into a new simulated flyover of the planet's huge Valles Marineris canyon produced by JPL and Arizona State University. Infrared daytime views from ASU's Thermal Emission Imaging System multiband camera on Odyssey, which show features as small as 1,000 feet across, were combined in the moving mosaic, along with false coloring to simulate what human eyes would see. A computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris, which has walls as tall as Mt.
The Navy's renewed riverine force will be equipped with several existing patrol boats already used by special forces and the Marine Corps, although defense officials are envisioning new boats for future acquisitions, admirals and a general have told lawmakers. The existing small boats are made by United States Marine Inc. (USMI), SeaArk Marine Inc. and Safe Boats International.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is recommending that the Department of Defense limit production of the Air Force's Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) until the program demonstrates an integrated system and develops a better business case to justify future investments. Because of cost and schedule problems, planned quantities of the Northrop Grumman-built UAV have decreased 19 percent and unit costs have increased 75 percent since the approved beginning of system development, according to GAO.
CANCELLATION REVIEW: Rex Geveden, who oversees all technical operations at NASA as associate administrator, expects to report this week on his review of the agency's March 2 decision to terminate the Dawn asteroid-exploration mission. Geveden, formerly NASA's chief engineer, has been evaluating new information provided by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the wake of the cancellation, as well as the work of the independent assessment team that triggered the cancellation.
HELP FROM ABOVE: In Poland, Alcatel and EADS Astrium have demonstrated the role that space-based systems can play in European crisis management. A 2 million euro ($2.4 million), 14-month project called Astro+ was funded as part of preparatory activities in anticipation of the EU's 7th Framework Research Program, intended to run from 2007 to 2013.
SMALL PRICE: House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) isn't buying industry complaints about overzealous Pentagon enforcement of the Berry Amendment, the decades-old law that requires metals in military hardware to be of U.S. origin. Contractors protest that government lawyers are holding them to an impossible standard by demanding verification of domestic metal in every component, right down to screws and bolts that literally cost pocket change. But Hunter, Congress' leading "Buy America" advocate, isn't swayed.
SUPPLEMENTAL: The House late March 16 passed its version of the second fiscal 2006 supplemental for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and for hurricane relief, including affected Gulf Coast shipbuilding. The final House version includes $67.6 billion for Defense Department operations and maintenance, personnel and procurement among other warfighting costs.
The Air Force has to convince a House subcommittee that Lockheed Martin Corp.'s F-22 Raptor design is stable, as well as provide other required analysis, before it will authorize a multiyear procurement deal requested by the Defense Department, the panel's vocal chairman said March 16.
The U.S. Joint Forces Command is trying to come up with a joint command and control system to replace about 150 systems now in use, as well as the "phraselator," a handheld translator device used by troops and Marines when there's no linguist around.
