Northrop Grumman is kicking off an effort to convince military leaders and lawmakers of the value of laser weapons, armed with a new study touting their value that recommends fielding a variant of the company's Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL).
Singapore's military is conducting its first live-firing of a light-weight howitzer called Pegasus during Exercise Thunder Warrior, an annual artillery training exercise in New Zealand Jan. 12-24, the country's defense ministry said. The Pegasus, the world's first self-propelled and heli-portable 155mm lightweight howitzer, was commissioned in Singapore last October, the defense ministry said.
The Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) has become too cumbersome and isn't doing the job Congress intended for it to do, say several defense analysts, who suggest it may be time to drop the massive study of Pentagon assets, needs and strategies.
TANKER AOA: Pentagon acquisition czar Ken Krieg formally received and approved the RAND Corp.'s analysis of alternatives for the Air Force KC-135 tanker replacement program during a Defense Acquisition Board meeting Jan. 18. A decision on how to proceed will be made after the AOA is "digested," according to a Pentagon spokeswoman.
Astronomers using a Dutch radio telescope have found more evidence that a cloud of hydrogen in the Virgo Cluster is actually a galaxy made up of mysterious dark matter. Radio imagery of the feature known as VIRGOH1 21 shows that it appears to be spinning, which suggests that it is a dark galaxy with an estimated mass 10 billion times the mass of the sun. Although only 1 percent of that mass shows up in radio images as neutral hydrogen, indirect evidence seems to show the effect of the remaining unseen dark matter in VIRGOH1 21 on another galaxy nearby.
The White House announced Jan. 17 that President Bush will nominate Preston Geren, currently special assistant to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, to be undersecretary of the Army. Geren, a former congressman, was once acting secretary of the Air Force. Bush also has nominated David Norquist to be the chief financial officer of the Homeland Security Department. Norquist currently is deputy undersecretary of defense for budget and appropriations affairs.
The Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium has added five new members, and four of them are from outside the United States, the organization said Jan. 17. The new members are Instrumentointi Oy of Finland; International Data Links Society of the United States; Maritime Technical Centre R&D Institute of Poland; Military Communication Institute of Poland; and OrderOne Networks of Canada. The NCOIC now has member organizations from 16 countries.
The Defense and Homeland Security departments want to make flight restrictions over the Washington, D.C., area permanent, despite strong opposition from suburban airports, general aviation businesses and pilots.
The Naval Air Systems Command said Jan. 18 that it demonstrated the potential for an aerial refueling capability with Northrop Grumman Corp.'s aging E-2C Hawkeye command-and-control aircraft.
Cybersecurity for the Global Information Grid, the U.S. military's own Internet-like network, "needs to be better than commercial best practices," according to Linton Wells II, principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for networks and information integration. "We can't just go buy what's out there in the market, we have to find a way to make it better," he said at WEST 2006, a technology, communication and national security conference co-sponsored by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association and the U.S. Naval Institute.
Lockheed Martin will provide Israel with a Flight and Systems Trainer (FST) for Israeli F-16I pilot training under an $18 million contract, the company said Jan. 18. The FST will train Israeli aircrews in flight and emergency procedures, as well as aircraft, tactical and weapon systems operations. Lockheed Martin hardware and software will simulate F-16I aircraft systems, sensors, weapons and flight dynamics. The company will also provide an Instructor Operator Station, debrief capability and synthetic environment.
The launch of NASA's Pluto New Horizons mission from Cape Canaveral was scrubbed for the second straight day Jan. 18, this time due to a power outage at a critical mission operations center in Maryland. The facility is located at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. The first launch attempt Jan. 17 was scrubbed due to high winds. NASA plans to try again Jan. 19, during a two-hour window opening at 1:08 p.m. Eastern time.
The arrival on Jan. 16 of a Boeing 737-700 aircraft in Australia marked what the company and the Australian government called the beginning of the next phase of the $450 million, six-plane Wedgetail airborne early warning and control program.
ARMY Simula Aerospace and Defense Group Inc., Phoenix, Ariz., was awarded on Jan. 9, 2006, a $22,799,403 modification to a firm-fixed-price contract for M915 Crew Protection Kits for the M915 series of trucks. The work will be performed in Phoenix, Ariz. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This was a sole source contract initiated on Dec. 16, 2004. The U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (W56HZV-04-C-0259).
The Army's total expenditure on the aborted Aerial Common Sensor spy plane program is expected to be roughly $200 million, including money already paid to prime contractor Lockheed Martin as well as tens of millions of dollars in termination costs.
NASA's Stardust mission successfully returned a capsule containing comet and interstellar dust samples on Jan. 15, marking the end of a 2.88 billion round trip since the spacecraft's launch in 1999. Stardust collected dust samples from the nucleus of comet Wild 2 in 2004, as well as samples of interstellar dust, which scientists believe can help answer questions about the origin of the solar system (DAILY, Dec. 22, 2005).
Gen. James R. Clapper, Jr. (USAF Ret.) will give up his post as head of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in June instead of September, when he would have completed an initial three-year stint and two extensions. He was rumored to have clashed with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over the need for more Pentagon control of NGA. Long-time associates of Clapper said that he had indeed become very independent in his thinking after retiring from the Air Force.
