An autonomous attack technology program has emerged this month as the top armament development priority for the U.S. Air Force, yet its future may hinge on the insertion of a "man-in-the-loop" capability. Although Air Force support is growing for a new cruise missile capable of autonomous attack, the operations command may demand a dual-mode system that can switch between autonomous and "man-in-the-loop" targeting, said Randy Bigum, vice president for strike weapons at Lockheed Martin Missiles & Fire Control.
NEW DELHI - A report from parliament has criticized aircraft builder Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) for its failure to put the Pilotless Target Aircraft (PTA) into regular production. The March 25 report from parliament's Public Accounts Committee said the problem "causes serious misgivings about the expertise of HAL in fructifying vital defense projects within a reasonable timeframe."
NASA plans an April 18 launch of the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), which will study the oldest, coldest and most dust-obscured objects in the universe, or what NASA scientists have dubbed "the old, the cold and the dirty." "I believe SIRTF will significantly increase our understanding of the universe," Lia La Piana, the SIRTF program executive, said March 25 at a NASA headquarters briefing.
AMPLIFIER TESTS: Northrop Grumman Corp. has developed and successfully tested a solid-state power amplifier for use in the communications payloads of Advanced EHF satellites, the company said March 25. The company is providing payloads for the U.S. Defense Department's AEHF system under a $1.3 billion subcontract to program prime contractor Lockheed Martin. In tests, power output from a prototype amplifier exceeded design requirements by more than a third, the company said.
The Bush Administration's fiscal 2003 supplemental appropriations request contains $3.7 billion for munitions, $1.1 billion for military procurement and research and development, and $1.7 billion for classified defense programs, according to documents sent to Congress March 25.
The Senate Banking Committee hopes to hold a hearing sometime after the April 14-25 congressional recess to examine the Bush Administration's request to reauthorize the Defense Production Act (DPA), a committee spokesman said late March 24. The DPA authorizes financial incentives and other tools to ensure the private sector produces adequate supplies of vital equipment and materials for the Pentagon, but key parts of the law will expire Sept. 30 unless they are renewed. The DPA was first enacted in 1950 and has been regularly reauthorized by Congress.
After a five-month testing delay, the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff (JASSM) missile faces a critical flight demonstration within the next few days, a Lockheed Martin executive said March 25. The first demonstration phase flight test of the advanced cruise missile since late October could come as early as this week, Randy Bigum, vice president for strike weapons and Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, told The Daily.
Echoing Republican Sen. John Warner's goal for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee's military procurement subcommittee, said Congress intends to make a third of America's deep-strike tactical aircraft be unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) within 10 years.
The loss of a NASA contract and delays in the assembly of the International Space Station are expected to have a modest short-term impact on the revenues of Spacehab Inc., according to a senior company official. The assembly delays are the result of the Feb. 1 loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia. Columbia had been carrying Spacehab's recently completed Research Double Module (RDM), destined for the International Space Station (ISS).
A roughly $500 million competition to develop the "back end" of the future Multi-sensor Command and Control Aircraft (MC2A) could remain up for grabs for about six months after an initial downselect in August, an Air Force official said March 24.
International Launch Services (ILS) has chosen April 29 as the date to launch SES Americom's AMC-9 communications satellite from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the company announced April 29. The Proton K launch vehicle will use a Breeze M upper stage, rather than a Block DM as was originally planned. The switch is the result of the Block DM failure during a Proton launch last November that left the Astra 1K satellite stranded in the wrong orbit (DAILY, Nov. 27, 2002).
A House panel has approved legislation to reauthorize the Defense Production Act (DPA) for four years, kicking off congressional efforts to extend a law aimed at ensuring the Pentagon has adequate production of vital equipment and materials. The House Financial Services technology subcommittee approved the reauthorization bill March 20, and the full committee is expected to take up the measure within the next few weeks. The Senate Banking Committee has not yet announced its plans for renewing DPA.
Pledging to seek "prompt and full congressional passage," the U.S. Defense Department unveiled late March 24 an emergency supplement request for $62.6 billion. The funds would pay the Pentagon's estimated costs for the war with Iraq and a range of other missions, including the war on terrorism and counter-drug operations, a senior defense official said in a Pentagon news briefing.
DRS Technologies said March 24 it has been awarded several contracts for the electric drive system of the U.S. Navy's next-generation DD(X) destroyer. Under one contract, the company's Power & Control Technologies unit will design the electrical plant equipment for the DD(X) destroyer and CVN-21 aircraft carrier, formerly known as the CVN(X).
Members of the Rosetta Science Working Team have picked three potential targets for the European Space Agency's Rosetta comet rendezvous mission, which was forced to miss its launch date due to problems with Arianespace's new heavier-lift Ariane 5.
A Lockheed Martin miniature cruise missile has completed the first successful flight test of a fully autonomous attack system, identifying and destroying a dummy target. The Low Cost Autonomous Attack System (LOCAAS), an 89-pound munition, was able to discriminate between a non-military vehicle and a viable target during a flight test March 21, a critical step in the fledgling development of autonomous strike vehicles.
The U.S. Air Force expects to receive a unique certificate from the FAA later this year that will authorize high-altitude flights of the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) anywhere in the country. Based at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., the Global Hawk currently operates under an FAA certificate of authorization (COA) that applies only to the FAA's Western-Pacific region. Each of the FAA's nine regions has a somewhat different COA process, and obtaining a COA can take 30-60 days.
The Global Positioning System (GPS), the linchpin of the U.S. military's all-weather, precision-bombing capability, is functioning despite possible jamming attempts by the Iraqi military, a Pentagon official said March 24. Efforts to jam the satellite-based navigation system's signal, widely acknowledged as vulnerable, has not affected the U.S. air campaign, Maj. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the Army's vice director for operations, said in a Pentagon news briefing.
A British general is defending the Patriot system's performance in Operation Iraqi Freedom despite the inadvertent shootdown of a Royal Air Force jet by a Patriot missile. Two crewmembers on a Tornado GR-4 fighter were killed when their aircraft was downed accidentally on March 23 by a U.S. Patriot battery. But British Maj. Gen. Peter Wall said later in the day at a briefing on Operation Iraqi Freedom that the Patriot system may also have prevented many deaths, having intercepted several missiles that Iraq has launched at coalition forces and at Kuwait.
SAIC C4I WORK: Science Applications International Corp. will provide technical support for network-centric warfare, infrastructure protection and other areas to the Joint Chiefs of Staff's C4 Systems Directorate, the company said March 24. The work will be done under a $50 million contract, SAIC said.
Citing continued concerns about pension deficits and weak earnings, credit analysts with Standard & Poor's on March 24 lowered the long-term credit rating for BAE Systems. Analysts lowered the company's "A-" corporate credit rating to "BBB" but removed the company from CreditWatch, where it was placed on Dec. 12, 2002. "The downgrade reflects BAE Systems' poor profitability, weak cash flow generation, a decline in historically strong liquidity and a sizeable pension deficit," credit analyst Roman Szuper said in a March 24 report.
