The Japan Defense Agency (JDA) has picked GE Aircraft Engines' CF6-80C2 engine for its next-generation military cargo aircraft, the C-X, GEAE said Aug. 12. The defense agency is scheduled to take delivery of the first engine in 2006. The contract could be worth $1 billion over the program's 30-year life, GEAE said. The engine already has been picked for Japan's E-767 AWACS early warning aircraft, the KC-767 tanker/transport and the B-747 executive transport.
DEMONSTRATOR: United Defense Industries has built a concept demonstrator for the U.S. Army's Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon (NLOS-C) and will begin firing assessments of it at Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz., late this month. The self-propelled, 155mm howitzer demonstrator is to serve as a testbed for the Army and its industry partners as they develop a technical approach for NLOS-C, the company said. The demonstrator is a modified BAE XM777 towed howitzer mounted on a platform developed by the company's Ground Systems Division, of San Jose, Calif.
The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory is taking the Lego toy concept to orbit, asking industry to explore the idea of using a relatively small family of building blocks to quickly construct nearly any kind of complex structure in space.
The U.S. Department of Defense should take several steps to collect and update information needed for the review process for releasing advanced weapons and technologies to foreign countries, the General Accounting Office (GAO) says in a new report. The reviews are complex and each military department has its own process for reviewing transfer requests from other governments, the report says (see chart).
U.S. Air Force leaders are close to a decision on a sweeping, short-term upgrade to the smart bomb inventory that would equip the weapons with simple data links to allow them to track moving targets. Northrop Grumman's Affordable Moving Surface Target Engagement (AMSTE) effort, a nearly $50 million program led by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in Rome, N.Y., is nearing the end of a three-year demonstration phase.
A Volna launch vehicle has passed a launch-sequence test, demonstrating its readiness to launch the Cosmos 1 solar sail mission, the Planetary Society of Pasadena, Calif., said. The Volna, a converted ICBM, is scheduled to launch the Cosmos 1 in the "next several months," according to the society, which is sponsoring the mission.
NEW DELHI - U.S. officials have "no objection" to Israel's sale of the Phalcon airborne early warning system to India, State Department deputy spokesman Philip T. Reeker said Aug. 11. "... We have been discussing this potential sale with Israel for several years," he said at a Washington briefing. "And in the past, we have expressed concern that heightened tensions between India and Pakistan made the transfer inadvisable. It was really an issue of timing. But we feel that recent developments in the South Asia region have eased some of those concerns.
As the U.S. Air Force nears a decision on the Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) competition, Lockheed Martin on Aug. 12 disclosed details of the latest test of its design. SDB is the Air Force's first 250-pound-class smart weapon and is designed to multiply the number of targets each warplane can engage. The F/A-22's internal weapons bay, for example, can store either two 2,000-pound bombs or eight SDBs.
The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Applications Center at NASA Research Park plans a test flight Aug. 18 that will serve as a prelude to a mission next spring in which a UAV will help winegrowers prevent frost damage in the largest vineyard in the U.S. The test flight will feature a gas-powered APV-3 UAV with a 12-foot wingspan flying above the 5,000-acre San Bernabe Vineyard in Monterey County, Calif. Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems is providing the UAV in partnership with California-based companies RnR Products and MLB.
The Royal Australian Navy has awarded Raytheon Co. the second in a series of contracts to upgrade the electronic warfare systems aboard its Collins-class diesel-electric submarines. The contract, valued at $54 million, calls for the production of hardware and software components to support the installation of five Combat Control System (CCS) Mk 2 weapons control systems aboard the submarines. The work will be performed by Raytheon Australia Pty Ltd., a subsidiary based in Canberra.
PROWLER TRAINER: Lockheed Martin will provide the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps a two-seat EA-6B Operational Flight and Navigational Trainer under a $16 million contract, the company said Aug. 12. The Prowler trainer will use some of the design the company is developing for the aircraft's weapons system trainer, which it is developing under a contract awarded in 2000.
The first test trials of the M777E1 155mm lightweight howitzer using the Global Positioning System-guided XM 982 Excalibur projectile have been completed, BAE Systems said. The test trials, at the Yuma Proving Grounds near Yuma, Ariz., involved the firing of seven XM 982 instrumented test projectiles under three temperatures using the Modular Artillery Charge System (MACS). MACS is a new, solid-propellant charge designed to replace the currently fielded M3A1 (green bag), M4A2 (white bag), M119A2 (red bag) and M203A1 charges.
On Aug. 11, NASA dedicated its new unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) applications center at NASA Research Park next to the agency's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. A collaborative venture of NASA, Clark University of Worcester, Mass., and the Girvan Institute of Technology, the center will work to enhance the scientific and commercial use of UAVs for high-resolution imaging in the national airspace (DAILY, May 31, 2002).
Boosting the V-22 Osprey's interoperability emerged as a key theme of a Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) review two weeks ago, a Pentagon memo released Aug. 11 shows. On July 31, the DAB pushed interoperability into the V-22 program's short- and long-term planning. The DAB was led by Michael W. Wynne, acting undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) of El Segundo, Calif., has conducted a successful test firing of its Falcon rocket's upper stage engine, the Kestrel, the company said Aug. 11. The liquid oxygen and rocket-grade kerosene engine achieved reliable ignition and stable combustion, the company said. The fuel-efficient, lightweight Kestrel is capable of multiple restarts for precise placement of one or more satellites, the company said.
The U.K. Ministry of Defence (MOD) has chosen Lockheed Martin as the prime contractor for Project Soothsayer, which is to deliver the next-generation electronic warfare (EW) system to British land forces. Worth more than 130 million pounds ($200 million), the 10-year program will provide integrated Electronic Support Measures (ESM) and Electronic Countermeasures (ECM) capability for the British Army and the Royal Marines. Lockheed Martin and Thales had been competing for the prime contract (DAILY, Aug. 23, 2000).
Not all of the "Buy American" provisions in the House 2004 defense authorization bill are opposed by aerospace and defense trade industry groups. The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) supports some Buy American provisions regarding the amount of U.S. titanium in weapons and aircraft. Those provisions relate to the "Specialty Metals Clause" of the Berry Amendment, a pre-World War II amendment to Title 10 of the United States Code.
Lockheed Martin recently took its new Marine Corps Aviation Simulator Master Plan F/A-18D simulator on a "first flight," the company said Aug. 11. The simulator uses a PC-driven image generator and has distributed mission training capability and networked systems to allow pilots to "see" and react to other simulators, Lockheed Martin said. It has an open architecture to allow for easy upgrades.
VERIDIAN: General Dynamics completed its $1.5 billion acquisition of information technology provider Veridian Corp., the company said Aug. 11. Veridian's four divisions will become part of two businesses within General Dynamics Information Systems and Technology group. The buy will give the company a "stronger base" in network security, information systems and other areas, General Dynamics said.
The development of a family of software-defined radios costing billions of dollars is slowed, funding commitments by services are withdrawn and some technologies are rushed into production before they're ready: That's a worst-case scenario portrayed by a General Accounting Office (GAO) study issued Aug. 11. The study described the effects of what the GAO called a "fragmented" management structure in place for the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS), one of the keys to the Pentagon's transformation effort.
Four or five unmanned aerial vehicle companies will be asked to demonstrate their UAVs in coming weeks to the Department of Homeland Security's Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, a Customs official said Aug. 11.
