The U.S. Air Force might someday reconsider its decision to split off from the Navy in developing a Joint Unmanned Combat Air System (J-UCAS), Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne indicated March 15.
Astronomers are coming to believe that different types of stars form different types of solar systems, based in part on the discovery of a large rocky planet orbiting a distant red dwarf star at about the same position that the gas giant Jupiter occupies in our Solar System.
Louis Chenevert has been elected president and chief operating officer and a director. Steve Finger has been appointed president of Pratt & Whitney. Jeff Pico has been named president of Sikorsky Aircraft. VERSAR INC., Springfield, Va. Gina Foringer has been appointed senior vice president. VIRTRA SYSTEMS INC., Arlington, Texas J. David Rogers has been named chief financial officer.
NASA has given up on making the space shuttle's May launch window and is focused now on launching Discovery in July, Program Manager Wayne Hale announced March 14. The decision to shoot for the July 1-19 window for mission STS-121 followed a two-day meeting on the external fuel tank's engine cutoff (ECO) sensors, one of which is showing warning signs that it may be developing a problem (DAILY, March 9).
Alliant Techsystems has announced the resignation of its CFO and said it will re-align its business into three core units. The weapons and space systems contractor said March 14 that it will re-align its operations on April 1 under three groups: Mission Systems, Launch Systems and Ammunition Systems. The company, which has 15,000 employees and more than $3 billion in annual revenues, said the move is aimed at improving operating efficiencies and more closely aligning its businesses with markets.
F-22 WORK: Lockheed Martin Corp. has been awarded a $383.5 million contract modification to perform long lead, logistics support, and aircraft structural integrity work for the U.S. Air Force in the production of F-22 Raptors, the Defense Department said March 14. The work is set to be completed in December 2006. The contract was awarded by the Headquarters Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
Britain has raised the stakes on Joint Strike Fighter participation, issuing a stark warning on March 14 that unless its technology access needs are met, it will quit the program. British Minister for Defense Procurement Paul Drayson, appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee in his first visit to Washington, said the U.K. must be provided with "operational sovereignty" on its JSF aircraft or London would pull out.
The industry teams competing for the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) II effort expect the winner to be chosen in mid- to late April, kicking off a program whose total lifetime value is estimated at $2 billion. Teams led by Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and BAE Systems/Northrop Grumman are vying for APKWS II, a revamped version of the canceled APKWS program led by General Dynamics. APKWS II is adding a laser seeker to the unguided Hydra 70mm (2.75-inch) rocket for use against lightly armored vehicles and buildings.
The Navy's priorities in rebalancing its air forces will start with building up its Boeing P-8A Multimission Aircraft (MMA) fleet and retiring its aging P-3s, as well as getting the Lockheed Martin-led Joint Strike Fighter program "on line," according to the chief of naval operations. The CNO, speaking to defense reporters in Washington, said the age of naval air forces is the service's primary aircraft challenge. Meanwhile, maritime patrol requirements are significant, which is why the MMA is so important, Adm. Mike Mullen said.
U.S. Northern Command's missile defense is "robust and significant" Northcom commander Adm. Timothy Keating told Congress March 14, but he conceded there hasn't been a successful test of the entire system yet. At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) asked Keating to characterize the efficacy of the missile defense system in terms of the success rate for taking down a single ballistic missile launched against the Western U.S. The Pentagon estimates 26 countries have some form of ballistic missile capability (DAILY, March 13).
BRADLEY REPAIRS: The U.S. Army's Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) has awarded BAE Systems a $227 million contract modification to repair and overhaul 361 Bradley Fighting Vehicles returning from Iraq, the company announced March 14. Disassembly and component overhaul work will be performed at Red River Army Depot, Texas, and BAE Systems in Fayette County, Pa. Final assembly, integration and test will be conducted at the company's York, Pa., facility
NASA is reconsidering its plan to use a new version of the space shuttle main engine (SSME) for the larger of two launch vehicles to send human explorers beyond low-Earth orbit to the moon and beyond.
The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee has announced he will try to reign in the Bush administration's supplemental defense budget requests that he calls a "shadow budget." "We are seeing basically a process where emergency spending has become what I call a shadow budget, but at a minimum, it is an alternative budgeting process where you essentially have two budgets around here," Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) said March 13. 'No controls at all'
A heavy-lift Ariane 5 ECA sent a pair of satellites weighing 7,778 kilograms (17,112 pounds) toward their geostationary transfer orbits March 11, following a series of technical delays that held the mission at Europe's launch facility near Kourou, French Guiana, more than two weeks longer than planned.
The next likely commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard has identified special operations capabilities as one growth area under his administration, and told senators that such investments would help align the Homeland Security Department's armed service with the Defense Department. Indeed, the Bush administration's fiscal 2007 budget request would provide $4.7 million for the Coast Guard to work with the Defense and Justice departments to transform the prototype Enhanced Maritime Safety and Security Team (E-MSST) into a Maritime Security Response Team (MSRT).
Leading Senate Democrats, backed by a lobbyist for police, correctional officers and emergency medical providers, accused the Bush administration of underfunding homeland security needs in light of growing warfighting spending abroad. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (Conn.), ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said they will advocate for more money for first responders. Neither proposed changing nor reducing defense spending.
LONDON - Britain will cut its military presence in Iraq by just more than 10 percent in May, with its next rotation of forces in and around Basra in southern Iraq. The number of British service personnel deployed as part of the Multi-National Division South East will be cut by 800, bringing the number of British military deployed in the operation down to 7,000. At the height of operations the U.K. had 10,000 personnel in Iraq.
AIR FORCES: The Defense Department has been drawing down its air forces since 1990 and by 2024 will have reduced them by 42 percent, said Air Force Maj. Gen. Ronald Bath, special assistant to the service's vice chief. What's left will be completely embedded in a single, more advanced weapons system. "We're trying to get smaller while we have more capability," he told the Pacific Northwest National Security Forum.
IT SPURRED: When a war comes along, there are a lot of bills to pay, and it eats into the operations and maintenance accounts where many information technology projects get funded, says Ray Bjorklund, Federal Sources Inc. senior vice president and chief knowledge officer. Warfighting has delayed some IT efforts, but then again, a new environment for information sharing has been created at the same time. "It's tending to accelerate that transformation," he said. The trend is spreading to other federal agencies, starting with the Homeland Security Department.
