Technologies developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are helping save the lives of troops in Iraq today, DARPA Director Tony Tether told lawmakers in a hearing on Capitol Hill March 10.
The U.S. Navy's practices for estimating shipbuilding costs, contracting and budgeting have resulted in "unrealistic funding of programs, increasing the likelihood of cost growth," the Government Accountability Office said in a new study.
JFK CONTRACTS: The U.S. Navy plans to award one or more contracts between June and September to mothball the USS John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier, with work starting around September, John J. Young Jr., assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, told reporters March 10. The move would leave the U.S. fleet with 11 aircraft carriers. The proposed decommissioning is controversial in Congress, with several lawmakers in both chambers pushing legislation that would require the Navy to maintain at least a dozen carriers (DAILY, Feb. 10).
SECOND SOURCE: Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, says he wants a Pentagon review into Navy efforts to find a second industrial source of decoy flares for fighter aircraft. Weldon - who praised the current sole-source provider, Alloy Surfaces Company Inc. of Chester Township, Pa., for meeting demands - expressed concern on March 10 over potential patent infringement as part of the Navy's move.
COMBAT SKYSAT: The Air Force Space Battlelab plans another near-space demonstration on March 16 using free-floating balloons carrying inexpensive two-way radios in Chandler, Ariz. The "Combat Skysat" demo will feature near-space operations technology developed by Space Data Corp. and PRC-148 two-way radios manufactured by Thales Communications Inc. The system will demonstrate beyond line-of-sight communications in support of Air Force tactical air controllers.
HIGH THROUGHPUT: In its quest for a network-centric combat force structure, the Defense Department's "toughest challenge" is to find affordable, high-throughput (greater than 10 megabits per second) directional antennas. But the Army believes it has found a solution in distributed, multi-element antenna arrays that enable steerable beams, says Thomas H. Killion, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for research and technology.
Beginning in fiscal 2006, if Congress approves, the Defense Department would slice part of the Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD) program for new Joint Capability Technology Demonstrations (JCTDs), said Ronald Sega, director of Defense Research and Engineering.
DAB POSTPONED: The U.S. Army is waiting on a decision by the Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) on whether it will approve an Army request to replace UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters rather than upgrade them. The DAB, scheduled for March 10, was postponed until the middle of March, an Army representative told The DAILY. The Army's replacement requirement is for 1,200 or more aircraft, he said.
NASA has identified a total of 2,680 full-time equivalent positions throughout the agency for which it will have no work starting in fiscal year 2007, although it hopes ultimately to avoid layoffs through buyouts, reassignments and other measures. The positions are funded through FY '05 and FY '06, according to James Jennings, NASA's deputy associate administrator for institutions and asset management. If enough personnel can't be bought out or transferred to other work by late summer 2006, then layoffs may be required.
Piasecki Aircraft Corp. is offering the U.S. Army technology it says would increase the speed, range and altitude of existing Army helicopters, such as the Black Hawk and the Apache, company Vice President John Piasecki told the DAILY. The retrofit on each aircraft would be about half the cost of building a new helicopter, Piasecki said.
LONDON - Although the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence (MOD) recently capped a year of negotiations with the EADS-led AirTanker consortium by naming AirTanker as the preferred supplier of tanker/transport aircraft, there are still hurdles to overcome, a consortium official said. AirTanker noted that the final contracts for the Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) program have yet to be signed.
U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and congressional research officials agreed with some lawmakers on March 10 that alternative funding mechanisms for shipbuilding - such as advanced appropriations and multiyear procurement - would be helpful, but cautioned that they would not result in a significant increase in the size of the future fleet.
As of the beginning of the year, NASA had implemented 18 out of 44 financial reform recommendations made by the NASA inspector general (IG) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO), according to a recent IG report. Some of the 26 open recommendations are more than a year old, the IG said. Although this is due in part to their complexity, the lack of an "organized tracking system" also was a factor, according to the report.
The U.S. Navy official responsible for acquisition said on March 10 that he expects to recommend awarding DD(X) multimission destroyer work to just one shipyard. John J. Young Jr., assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, said he will make the recommendation to Michael W. Wynne, acting undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, around the time of the program's April 11 milestone review.
Boeing Co. has reached an agreement with Sweden's air force to modernize the avionics of the country's fleet of eight C-130E/H aircraft, the company said March 10. The Swedish air force has signed a letter of offer and acceptance that will lead to a foreign military sales contract between Boeing and the U.S. Air Force. Financial terms were not disclosed, but the contract would be the largest ever between the U.S. Air Force and Sweden's government, Boeing said. The contract is set to be completed by early summer.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is nearing completion of a review that will determine the "gaps" that exist in protecting North America against cruise missile attacks, a NORAD official said March 10. U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. William Hodgkins, NORAD's director of plans, said the Colorado-based command probably will send its findings to the Pentagon at the end of April. NORAD was directed by the Joint Requirements Oversight Council to conduct the review and write a "mission area initial capabilities document."
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency probably will cut or cancel the second interceptor booster it has been developing for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, according to a key official. While a final decision has not been made, Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry "Trey" Obering, MDA's director, said late March 9 that budget reductions and growing confidence in the main booster, made by Orbital Sciences, make it increasingly likely that the other booster, under development by Lockheed Martin, will be scaled back or axed.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - U.S. Northern Command is waiting for policy guidance on notifying Canada in the event that an attacking missile is shot down in Canadian airspace, a spokesman for the command said. Canada decided Feb. 24 that it wouldn't participate in a North American missile defense system, although it remains involved in the process of warning of such an attack.
PANEL CHAIR PICKED: Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) on March 9 was appointed to chair the House Democratic Caucus Task Force on Defense and Military, a group of 15 members of Congress that will liaison with the "defense community" and advise the House Democratic leadership on military policy. Among other issues, Israel - the only New York Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee - has championed improvements in professional military education and protecting commercial airline passengers from shoulder-fired missiles.
A consortium formed by Embraer and EADS has received approval to acquire Industria Aeronautica de Portugal (OGMA) from government commerce authorities in Portugal, Germany and Italy, Embraer said March 9. To acquire OGMA, Brazilian Embraer and EADS created Airholding SGPS, with Embraer holding a 99% stake and EADS holding a 1% stake. EADS' stakes are allowed to reach 30% in the future.
The Israeli air force (IAF) plans to pursue several technologies to improve its ability to use air power to kill terrorists, especially in urban settings where targets have many places to hide, a senior IAF official said March 9.
