NO NEWS: Despite widespread speculation that President Bush will soon call for a return to the moon, White House spokesman Scott McClellan says patience is required until an interagency review of space exploration is complete. "There are no plans for any policy announcements in the immediate future, and that would include any upcoming speeches," McClellan says. "...
NOT READY: The U.S. Air Force is "not prepared" to make a decision on beginning the Transformational Satellite (TSAT) program this month, the General Accounting Office says. TSAT is expected to play a pivotal role in connecting communications networks on land or sea or in the air or space. However, "Air Force officials are not ready to initiate the TSAT program in December 2003 because they do not have the knowledge to reliably establish cost, schedule, and performance goals," GAO says in a letter to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
UNMANNED COUNCIL: Raytheon Co. has established a corporate-wide Unmanned Systems Leadership Council to provide netted ground systems for command and control and other purposes as well as "integrated sensors to meet the growing customer requirements for unmanned systems," the company said.
ISIS: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has just begun developing a new surveillance airship that uses the structure of the airship itself as its radar antenna, according to DARPA Director Tony Tether. Traditionally, "you build the airship and you say, 'OK, we've got to put a payload on this,'" Tether says. "And the payload never really is very much. So we said ... let's put the payload into the structure." The development program will be called the "Integrated Sensor is the System" (ISIS).
The Missile Defense Agency plans to conduct the next flight test of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (Aegis BMD) system near the end of the week of Dec. 7-13, according to Defense Department officials. Although MDA has not yet announced details about Flight Mission-6 (FM-6), the test is expected to occur in the Pacific. The last test, FM-5, ended in failure in June when the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptor's kinetic warhead failed to intercept a target missile (DAILY, June 20).
JASSM BOOST: The Defense Department plans to make $16.5 million available to the Air Force to buy an additional 50 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSMs). Undersecretary of Defense and Comptroller Dov Zakheim approved the reprogramming Nov. 25. "This purchase will add to the department's precision standoff weapons capability," the reprogramming document says. The Lockheed Martin missiles are in addition to the 200 JASSMs funded in the fiscal 2004 defense appropriations act (DAILY, Sept. 23).
NEW DELHI - BAE Systems has agreed to resume providing spares for Indian navy Sea Harriers. The company had halted spares deliveries after the United States applied sanctions to India following its nuclear tests in 1998, because some major Sea Harrier components, including its engines, radars and avionics, come from the United States.
PRAGUE, Czech Republic - The United States has not given up on its attempt to sell used F-16 fighters to the Czech Republic, despite finishing last in a review by a commission analyzing competing entries, according to U.S. sources. A nine-member technical commission voted unanimously Dec. 1 to recommend Sweden's offer of 14 new Jas-39 Gripen aircraft, leased for up to 10 years (DAILY, Dec. 2). The Czech government is to examine the recommendation before Christmas.
Lockheed Martin Corp. demonstrated an air battle management system at its Colorado Springs, Colo., facility Dec. 4 that it said would enable warfighters to react immediately to changing situations. The Total Integrated Warfare Capstone system combines proven systems with experimental technologies developed by the company that, it said, promises "unprecedented capabilities for real-time battle management and execution."
The GoldenEye unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) will conduct a flight demonstration for the Department of Energy (DOE) early next year equipped with a new radiation sensor, according to GoldenEye manufacturer Aurora Flight Sciences of Manassas, Va.
Pratt & Whitney is making solid progress in testing the F135 engine that will be used on the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), according to an official with the Defense Department's JSF program office. Navy Rear Adm. Steve Enewold, deputy program executive officer for JSF, said Dec. 3 at the 2003 Defense Manufacturing Conference that the engine has been tested for 72 hours and has not experienced a failure. "It seems to be operating basically the way we expected," Enewold said.
NEW DELHI - The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Russian aviation and space agency, Rosaviakosmos, have agreed to cooperate on a lunar probe and other space missions, an ISRO official said. "India and Russia will pool efforts for an unmanned space mission to the moon and also set up a space navigation system," the official said. India already has announced plans for an $80 million mission to place a spacecraft, Chandrayan-1, in lunar orbit within five years (DAILY, Sept. 18).
ALLIANT TECHSYTEMS (ATK) will improve the design of the Selectable Lightweight Attack Munition (SLAM) under a $4.2 million contract, the company said Dec. 2. The contract from the U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) at Picatinny Arsenal, N.J., calls for an improved user interface, more reliability and greater ease of production over previous M2 and M4 SLAM designs, the company said. Deliveries of the improved SLAM, which uses advanced passive infrared fusing and sighting instrumentation, will begin in 2005.
NAVAL IMPROVEMENTS: Australia plans to invest more than $555 million to improve its naval defense capabilities, defense minister Robert Hill said Dec. 4. It will spend $370 million to upgrade the anti-ship missile defenses in the navy's Anzac-class frigates and $185 million to buy new lightweight MU 90 Impact anti-submarine torpedoes for FFG and Anzac frigates, Seahawk and Sea Sprite helicopters and the AP-3C Orion patrol aircraft.
Northrop Grumman Corp., the newly announced prime contractor for the Missile Defense Agency's ground- and sea-based Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) program (DAILY, Dec. 4), plans to begin missile shoot-down tests in about 2009, according to company officials. Orbital Sciences Corp. will develop the interceptor's booster and Raytheon Co. will supply the kill vehicle. Raytheon also will handle interceptor integration.
JASSM LAUNCH: The launch of a Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) was the first launch of a conventional guided missile from a B-1B bomber, Lockheed Martin said Dec. 4. The launch took place Oct. 30 over China Lake, Calif. The B-1B is one of JASSM's intended platforms and could carry 24 of the weapons.
Combat experience has prompted the U.S. Air Force to discard its original concept of the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) as an autonomous platform, and instead operate it as a remotely piloted aircraft capable of rapidly responding to changes on the battlefield, according to Brig. Gen. Rudy Wright, commander of the Air Force's 9th Reconnaissance Wing. The Air Force began rethinking the concept of operations (CONOPS) for the Northrop Grumman-built high-altitude surveillance UAV during a deployment to Australia in 2001, Wright said.
PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Czech defense equipment trading company Omnipol is to be taken over by its parent company Omnyx at the end of this year in a move that Omnyx said would remove "an unnecessary interlink." BAE Systems, which bought Omnyx's estimated $28 million in debt from a Czech bank a year ago, said Dec. 4 that the move would not affect its long-standing relationship with the company.
