The Senate briefly resumed debate Nov. 4 on its fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill, but left more work for this week when the chamber could finally pass the measure. No votes were taken in the more than three hours that the Senate deliberated over more amendment proposals to the bill, which has run a start-and-stop legislative path since it was passed out of the Senate Armed Services Committee in mid-May (DAILY, Oct. 7). The Senate is scheduled to start voting on further amendments at 5:30 p.m. on Nov. 7.
CONFIRMED: The Senate confirmed Shana Dale as deputy administrator of NASA on Nov. 4. Dale most recently served as deputy director for homeland and national security at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. She succeeds former shuttle astronaut Frederick Gregory.
NASA BUDGET: House and Senate conferees agreed Nov. 4 to provide NASA with $16.5 billion for fiscal 2006, $260.3 million above the FY '05 level and $1 million above the Bush administration's request. Details of the NASA part of the $51.8 billion FY '06 Science, State, Justice and Commerce appropriations agreement were not immediately available.
U.S. defense officials and industry executives involved in the Future Combat Systems last week hosted a quarterly meeting on the program, which is "on track," an Army official told members of Congress. Claude Bolton Jr., assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, told the House Armed Services Committee Nov. 2 that the group hashes out hard questions, such as "what can we do that's timely, what can we do that's affordable, and that's off the table now?"
On Nov. 7, Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev will perform a five-and-a-half hour spacewalk to install a camera on the port side of the International Space Station's horizontal truss and remove a broken experiment from the solar array truss, according to NASA.
PROMETHEUS DEFERRED: NASA's Prometheus space nuclear power and propulsion program is being deferred and the $76 million budgeted for the effort in fiscal 2006 is being diverted to speed development of the Crew Exploration and Crew Launch Vehicle. Before the NASA's Exploration Systems Architecture Study, the agency had planned to restructure Prometheus to focus on surface power for a lunar outpost, following the cancellation of the costly Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter nuclear-enabled mission.
FOREIGN SATELLITES: James Lewis, senior fellow and director of technology and public policy programs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says the United States should consider contracting out more of its national security satellite needs to international providers. While that entails obvious data assurance issues, it also would expand the number of satellites that could be tapped for such services and provides another barrier to adversaries considering combating U.S. satellite capabilities. "Attacking U.S.
SEE THROUGH WALLS: With an eye toward urban operations in Iraq, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is embarking on a new program to develop technology for sensing people and objects inside buildings. The VisiBuilding program will place special emphasis on "how to make the technology operationally useful" at all stages of a mission, DARPA says, from planning to live scans of buildings during raids to post-raid sweeps to find hidden people and objects. DARPA released a broad agency announcement on Oct.
SEPARATE CYBER: Researchers are recommending that Bush administration officials and lawmakers consider a unique, new cyber-architecture for U.S. national security that would be separate from the commercial world. Ed Taylor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies say cyber attacks, such as attacks on computer networks, are prolific and can be effective. Moreover, the United States has far less of a lead in the online domain than it does in other defense capabilities, such as stealth.
IED EFFORTS: The U.S. Defense Department is considering putting a higher-level officer in charge of developing equipment to defeat improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Under the proposal, a three-star general would replace the current one-star overseer, providing "additional organizational emphasis," a DOD spokesman says. Despite sizable spending on the IED problem, including almost $1.5 billion this year alone, the devices remain a major killer of U.S. troops in Iraq.
WEBB UNDERBID: After commissioning two independent cost assessments of the troubled James Webb Space Telescope Program, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin is convinced the program "was not overrun, it was underbid." The two reviews agreed the program has performed well, but had been underfunded by roughly $1.5 billion. To address the shortfall, NASA has chosen to slip the launch of the observatory from 2011 to 2013 rather than scale back its capabilities. The program also was delayed as it awaited final approval to launch on a European Ariane 5 rocket (DAILY, Sept. 26).
USAF SECRETARY: The U.S. Air Force officially has a new leader. Former acting Pentagon acquisition chief Michael Wynne was sworn in Nov. 3 as Air Force secretary during a ceremony at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. Wynne, who was confirmed by the Senate Oct. 28 (DAILY, Oct. 31), replaces Pete Geren, who served as acting Air Force secretary since July 29.
NASA's aeronautics program is being refocused on "core competencies" as the agency crafts a new strategic vision for aeronautics in partnership with FAA and the Defense Department, according to Administrator Michael Griffin. "We, NASA, do not see ourselves being the only stakeholders in aeronautics in this country and seek very definitely to find a partnership of people who can help us say what is it that needs to be done and what is no longer required," Griffin told lawmakers during a hearing in Washington Nov. 3.
The third and final round of multinational negotiations for F-35 Joint Strike Fighter production has been scheduled for the first week in December in Baltimore, according to a program spokeswoman. The first two rounds of talks have already been held. The first session took place in May in Virginia (DAILY, May 17), and the second one occurred in September in Italy (DAILY, Sept. 23).
The Pentagon has asked the military services and defense agencies to cut planned spending by $32 billion over the next five years to help ease a money crunch. The reductions are outlined in an Oct. 19 memorandum from acting Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England to service leaders and other military officials, sources said Nov. 4. The memo calls for decreasing previously planned spending by $7.5 billion in fiscal 2007, $8.7 billion in FY '08, $2.1 billion in FY '09, $3.7 billion in FY '10 and $10.1 billion in FY '11.
Australia will deploy miniature unmanned aerial vehicles to Iraq to help protect its troops and aid in operational missions, the country's defense ministry said Nov. 3. Four Skylark miniature UAVs will be deployed with the Al Muthanna Task Group in southern Iraq, while two others will remain in Australia for training. Israel-based Elbit Systems built the Skylarks. The UAVs will be used for reconnaissance and surveillance missions and to provide real-time data on activities and terrain, Defense Minister Robert Hill said in a statement.
COMPROMISES: The House on Nov. 2 disagreed with a Senate bill that funds NASA and agreed to a conference. The procedural move allows negotiators to meet formally to work out their compromise for the fiscal 2006 appropriations bill for the year that started Oct. 1. Meanwhile, a similar vote to go to conference over the FY '06 defense spending bill did not take place as planned (DAILY, Nov. 1), likely pushing that conference to the week of Nov. 7.
New developments have extended the distance at which the U.S. Navy's premier fighter-attack aircraft, the F/A-18F Super Hornet, can fire air-to-air missiles and drop bombs, according to the Naval Air Systems Command. An Oct. 19 test shoot over Point Mugu Naval Air Station, Calif., showed an Active Electronically Scanned Array-equipped radar can "greatly" improve the aircraft's missile targeting range, Navair said Nov. 1. The precise distance of the advantage was not released.
Net sales jumped 28 percent and net income grew 20.7 percent for United Industrial Corp. in the third quarter of 2005, while net sales in the company's defense segment soared 29.6 percent, the company said Nov. 3.
CPI Aerostructures has received a new U.S. Air Force order for 71 ship sets of structural inlets for the T-38 Talon trainer aircraft propulsion modernization program. The $6.6 million order comes under a contract awarded in 2001, and the Edgewood, N.Y-based company expects an additional $27.2 million in orders over the next five years. Orders have totaled $33.8 million so far.
GETTING CLOSE: Global Military Aircraft Systems will open an office in Huntsville, Ala., to serve as the program office for the C-27J aircraft it is offering for the U.S. Army's Future Cargo Aircraft program. GMAS is a joint venture of L-3 Communications' Integrated Systems subsidiary and Alenia North America. Huntsville is home to the Army Program Executive Office for Aviation.
EDO Corp. of New York will design and develop pneumatic ejector bomb rack units for the U.S. Navy's P-8A Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft under a contract from P-8A builder Boeing. EDO has received a letter contract from Boeing while the final contract is being negotiated. The contract is expected to be worth up to $7.2 million and will include system design and development, qualification testing, documentation and training. The company already is under contract for the P-8A's sonobuoy-launching system (DAILY, Aug. 9).
PATUXENT RIVER, Md. - Construction of a major support facility for the U.S. Navy's VH-71A presidential helicopter program is under way at Naval Air Station Patuxent River. The 202,000-square foot building, which will have room for up to eight aircraft parked side by side, will be a center of test activity after it opens next year. It will later house repair and other support work. The program's offices, now located in a temporary structure at Pax River, also are scheduled to move into the new facility.
