A joint review of the Pentagon's mobility needs could help justify the U.S. Transportation Command's (TRANSCOM's) plan to buy at least 42 more C-17s and phase out the C-5A fleet, Gen. John W. Handy said June 25. "I'm right in the middle of discussions [with the joint staff] on how quickly it should be initiated," Handy, commander of TRANSCOM and the Air Force's Air Mobility Command, said at a Defense Writer's Group breakfast.
F-16 UPGRADES: Lockheed Matin will provide Common Configuration Implementation Program retrofit kits to upgrade 22 Block 40/42 F-16s under a $26.6 million contract option, the company said June 25. Follow-on options for nearly 400 more kits could bring the work's total value to $396 million, the company said.
The U.S. Air Force soon will begin the third in a series of major live exercises to test the vulnerability of GPS-dependent military systems to jamming, according to Charles South, vulnerabilities test manager with the 746th Test Squadron at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M. Because of the low power of the GPS signal, a one- or two-watt jammer can jam an "unsophisticated" GPS receiver within a few hundred feet, South said. According to press reports, several attempts to jam GPS took place during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
NASA and the European Space Agency have detected a problem with the pointing mechanism of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft's high-gain antenna, which is expected to lead to a data transmission blackout this week. The blackout could last for two to three weeks, the space agencies said. The high-gain antenna is used to transmit large amounts of data from SOHO's scientific observations, but it is no longer moving properly across its horizontal axis, probably due to a problem with the motor or gear assembly that steers it.
ANALYTICAL GRAPHICS, Malvern, Pa. Gen. Howell M. Estes III (USAF, ret.), president of Howell Estes & Associates, has joined the board of directors. INTERNATIONAL LAUNCH SERVICES, McLean, Va. Chuck Burch, Mesut Ciceker, Ted McFarland, Scott Sobhani and Robert Twining have joined the sales and marketing staff. ITT INDUSTRIES, White Plains, N.Y. Mark E. Lang has been appointed corporate controller.
NEW DELHI - India followed a successful June 22 test of its Trishul missile with another successful test on June 24. As in the earlier test (DAILY, June 24), the missile was fired from a test range at Chandipur, hit its target, according to an official with the Indian defense ministry. However, because of earlier test failures, the supersonic Trishul now is being tested only for research purposes and won't be inducted into the armed forces to combat aircraft and other missiles.
Australia's defense industry on June 24 kicked off a long-term effort to secure a share of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program and announced its first contract for work on the program. GKN Aerospace Services was selected by Northrop Grumman, one of Lockheed Martin's partners on JSF, to design and build metal and composite center fuselage components, Australia's Ministry of Defence (MOD) announced June 24.
LAUNCH CHANGE: NASA has rescheduled the launch of the second Mars Exploration Rover, "Opportunity," for no earlier than June 28 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. NASA and Boeing postponed the launch two days while technicians replace bands of cork insulation on the first stage of the rocket.
The U.S. Army plans to further develop the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) to incorporate more advanced warheads and propulsion systems, according to a program official. The APKWS, a successor to the Hydra 70mm rocket, has 10 variants depending on the type of warhead used. The block I variant of the APKWS incorporates a semi-active laser seeker with a 10-pound M151 high-explosive warhead.
Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems announced June 24 that they have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to explore opportunities for partnering on missile defense programs in the U.S., the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The two companies initially will focus their discussions on sea-based systems; systems integration; command and control, battle management and communications; early warning and sensor networking; interceptor concepts and systems; and targets and countermeasures.
An article in June 24 issue of The DAILY incorrectly described the role of two Boeing executives overseeing the Future Combat Systems program. While Boeing's Roger Krone and Jim Albaugh are privy to some administrative details on the subcontracting competition, neither is participating in the source selection process or developing Boeing's proposals for subcontracting work.
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. - Congress soon will hear details about the shootdown of two friendly jets by Patriot missiles during Operation Iraqi Freedom, according to Lt. Gen. Joseph M. Cosumano, head of Army Space and Missile Defense Command and Army Space Command. The testimony apparently will be given by Gen. Tommy R. Franks, who is slated to retire this summer as chief of U.S. Central Command.
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board's (CAIB) final report will contain a section in which board members will express "a sense of urgency" over NASA's need to develop a replacement for the space shuttle, according to CAIB Chairman Adm. Hal Gehman. "We have a section which we are writing right now, and I think the board is near agreement on this, in which we will express some concern about the stop/start, stop/start [nature] of replacement vehicles in the past," Gehman told The DAILY.
The House Appropriations Committee plans to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the Bush Administration's fiscal 2004 budget request for the Space Based Radar, the Advanced Wideband System, missile defense and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, according to documents obtained by The DAILY.
NEW DELHI - India has approved a plan for launching seven more Polar Satellite Launch Vehicles (PSLV) at a cost of $141 million, according to an official with the Indian Planning Commission. The official said flights C7 to C13 have been approved by the government and money will be provided by the Indian Ministry of Finance.
Any move to punish the Boeing Co. for an alleged pattern of ethical lapses in a 1998 launch vehicle competition must be "strong," yet stop short of barring the company from the space launch business, Air Force Undersecretary Peter Teets said June 24. "If there's been wrongdoing, I need to find a way to send a strong signal that wrongdoing will not be tolerated," Teets told reporters at the Pentagon. "We [would] need to take action, and I'd like to try to do so in a way that didn't set our national security space program back."
Disagreements and equipment problems have prevented the military services from implementing an effective doctrine of close air support, an Air Force official said June 24. In reviewing survey, test and demonstration data from the services, the Joint Close Air Support (JCAS)/Joint Test & Evaluation (JT&E) section of the Office of the Secretary of Defense have found three problem areas, according to Col. David Brown, joint test director for the JCAS/JT&E office.
As Congress gears up to debate the U.S. Air Force's proposed lease of 100 Boeing 767 refueling aircraft, lawmakers may want to consider whether other options are worth pursuing to meet the service's needs, according to a new report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). The Air Force hopes to lease the 767s to replace its aging fleet of 133 KC-135Es. Supporters of the proposed deal say it represents the only viable near-term option, partly because Boeing is the only U.S. company equipped to produce large tanker aircraft.
Boeing and the U.S. Air Force have completed a crucial review in the Air Force's effort to modernize the ground control segment for the Global Positioning System (GPS), the company announced June 23. The integrated baseline review (IBR) approved a restructuring of the next-generation control segment to make it more efficient, according to Boeing spokesman Erik Simonsen. Both the Air Force and Boeing "were quite pleased with [the] review," Simonsen said.
Three microsatellites are scheduled to fly inside Node 1 of the International Space Station (ISS) next year, as part of an effort by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to learn more about spacecraft docking and servicing. DARPA is providing most of the funding for the SPHERE (Synchronized Position Hold, Engage and Reorient Experimental Satellites) project through its Orbital Express program, which is pursuing technologies to enable on-orbit satellite servicing and repair.
NEW DELHI - India's short-range Trishul missile had a test flight June 22 from Chandipur. An official with the Indian defense ministry said the missile, which has a range of nine kilometers (5.6 miles), successfully hit a moving target. However, the missile's planned induction into the armed forces has been halted after a series of failed tests prompted the military to reject it. In March, the ministry said the missile program will continue as a research program only.
