The U.S. Marine Corps' UH-1Y utility helicopter completed testing of its Special Warfare Kit Nov. 21 at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., according to Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). The 10-day evaluation tested the helicopter's ability to insert Marines into special warfare situations where landing the helicopter would be impossible. During the tests, Marines deployed from the aircraft via rappelling, fast rope and parachute from altitudes up to 10,000 feet.
Alliant Techsystems (ATK) announced Nov. 24. it is buying two hypersonic flight businesses in a bid to expand into hypersonic flight and propulsion. The businesses are GASL, of Ronkonkoma, N.Y., and Micro Craft, of Tullahoma, Tenn., which are both owned by Allied Aerospace. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but an ATK spokesman said the company paid "in the neighborhood of around $40 million cash" for GASL and Micro Craft.
LAW: President Bush signed the $401 billion fiscal 2004 defense authorization bill on Nov. 24. The bill includes $9.1 billion for ballistic missile defense, $74 billion for procurement, $63 billion for research and development, and approves the U.S. Air Force plan to acquire 100 Boeing KC-767A tanker aircraft by leasing 20 and buying the rest.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - City officials and civic planners here like the idea of the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) moving to nearby Peterson Air Force Base if Los Angeles Air Force Base closes - but an Air Force spokesman said that's a big if.
Two senior officials with the Boeing Co. were dismissed Nov. 24 after an internal investigation revealed they had acted improperly, Boeing said. The company's board of directors recommended that Chief Financial Officer Mike Sears and Darleen Druyun, a former Air Force acquisitions official serving as general manager of Missile Defense Systems, be dismissed.
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. - The U.S. Air Force is pondering what could replace the QF-4 as the next aerial target for testing and fighter pilot training, a service official said at the National Defense Industrial Association's Targets, UAVs and Range Operations Symposium here last week.
MIDEAST SPENDING: Military spending by countries in the Middle East is expected to rise from about $52 billion in 2003 to $55 billion by 2007, according to a report by Forecast International/DMS. Saudi Arabia, which is expected to spend $18 billion annually through 2007, will lead the region, the report says. Israel is expected to spend $9 billion annually, followed by Iran at $4.5 billion. "The Middle East, which is one of the world's largest single regional arms buyers, will continue to dominate the market," according to the report's author, Thalif Deen.
SOLD: BAE Systems North America on Nov. 21 completed the sale of its Ocean Systems acoustics systems facility in Braintree, Mass., for $10 million to Ultra Electronics Holdings of the United Kingdom. The company produces acoustic and radio frequency devices for submarines, surface ships and acoustic test ranges.
A $200 million cut in the International Space Station's (ISS) fiscal 2004 budget would deplete funding margins and leave little room for error as NASA prepares to resume station assembly following the return of the space shuttle, according to Administrator Sean O'Keefe. According to congressional sources, a House-Senate conference committee has agreed to cut $200 million from the Bush Administration's $1.7 billion FY '04 budget request for the ISS on the assumption that the program can afford the loss while assembly is on hold (DAILY, Nov. 21).
ROUGHING IT: NASA astronauts are willing to go without a number of amenities on the Orbital Space Plane (OSP) to keep the vehicle as simple and lightweight as possible, according to Mike Coats, a former shuttle astronaut and current vice president of advanced space transportation for Lockheed Martin. "What the crew has told me is we can rough it," Coats says. "They say, 'Look, we don't need a galley, we don't need a toilet. We don't need food.
A closed Nov. 20 meeting in Washington on unmanned aerial vehicles in the national airspace system (NAS) successfully made the case for routine commercial operations of UAVs in the next five or six years, industry and government officials said. The idea "was well received" by a standing-room-only audience at FAA headquarters, said Chuck Johnson of NASA, who told the meeting how UAVs would be introduced to the NAS.
Lockheed Martin has reorganized its newly formed Integrated Systems and Solutions unit to better "address customer needs for horizontally integrated, net-centric solutions," the company said Nov. 21. When Lockheed Martin announced formation of IS&S last June, it said the new business area would leverage "existing and emerging capabilities to address customers' growing need for highly integrated systems and solutions."
ON THE FLY: In addition to transforming the military, the Pentagon should transform its acquisition processes to allow for more innovation, according to Ashton Carter, former assistant secretary of defense for International Security Policy. "In addition to 'big T' transformation, there needs to be a 'little t' transformation that works inside cycle times and gives people the latitude and resources ... to do innovation on the fly as the need requires," he says. As it is now, service members in the theater almost have to innovate covertly, according to Carter.
SHIELD WORK: The homeland security market is a "growing opportunity for Thales" that has led it to create a "security board" to coordinate activities across its defense, aerospace and commercial information technology business areas, a company official says. Tim Robinson, senior vice president of Thales' Secure Operations Business Group, says Thales is proposing the Strategic Homeland Intelligence and Electronic Deterrence (SHIELD) system, which he says is broader and more complete than systems offered by competitors (DAILY, Nov. 20).
(The following is excerpted from the written responses by Michael W. Wynne, who has been nominated to be undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, to written questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee. Wynne testified Nov. 18.)
SUCCESSFUL ACQUISITION: The Defense Department's new acquisition policies, which emphasize accurate budgeting and adequate reserves, are "very consistent" with commercial acquisition models "because they require technologies to be demonstrated in a relevant environment before a program is initiated," says Michael W. Wynne. He has been nominated to be undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics (see Senate Armed Services Committee testimony excerpts on Page 7).
NEW DELHI - India and the United States have reached an agreement that would allow New Delhi to obtain dual-use technology from U.S. companies for aerospace and defense use. Indian officials said the decision came at the third Indo-U.S. High Technology Cooperation Group meeting, held here Nov. 20 and co-chaired by Indian foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal and Kenneth Juster, U.S. undersecretary of commerce for industry and security.
The U.S. Air Force has certified the 21,700-pound GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) for use on the MC-130E Combat Talon I aircraft following the second live test of the bomb. The aircraft dropped the MOAB, the largest conventional bomb in the U.S. inventory, on a test range at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., Nov. 21. The first live test of the MOAB took place March 11 from a Combat Talon II (DAILY, March 12). The bomb was developed for the Iraq war but was not used.
NEW ASAP: With a new staff and a new charter, NASA's revamped Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) plans to hold its first meeting shortly, according to the agency. The previous membership of the ASAP resigned following the Columbia Accident Investigation Board's (CAIB) assessment that the panel was "not very influential" within NASA (DAILY, Sept. 24). "We spent a lot of time over the last few weeks recruiting the right kinds of people," NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe says. "Not one of the new members ...
PRAGUE, Czech Republic - The Czech ministry of defense is to start work on an installation for a $19 million Fixed Air Defense Radar (FADR) system in eastern Bohemia within the next two weeks, according to the ministry. NATO is paying for the RAT 31DL 3D long-range FADR system under its security investment program. The system was to have been the second of two installed, but it was moved to the head of the line after plans to build a FADR system at Slavkov, south Moravia, were halted by objections from local villages.
Dec. 1 - 2 -- Shephard's Heli-Security 2003, "Helicopters in the War on Terrorism," Crystal Gateway Marriott Hotel, Washington, D.C. For more information go to www.heli-security.com. Dec. 1-4 -- I/ITSEC 2004 (Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation & Education Conference), Orange County Convention Center, Orlando, Fla. For more information contact Patrick T. Rowe at (703) 247-9471, email [email protected] or go to www.itsec.org.
