The Army plans to change the leadership of its new Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM) every two years to ensure that research and development programs are consistent with the service's transformation objectives. "RDE Command is about a new way of doing business, implementing a system-of-systems approach to traditional research and development," RDECOM spokesman Mickey Morales said.
The military services have told Congress that they could use hundreds of millions of dollars more than the Bush Administration's fiscal 2004 budget requests to buy aircraft, aircraft parts, missiles and other weapon systems. The services said the budget request goes a long way toward meeting their needs but that dozens of programs are still underfunded.
MILITARY BALANCE: Responding to military threats from adversaries using non-conventional tactics and weapons could result in a more balanced military fielded by the U.S., according to senior aerospace and defense analyst Byron Callan of Merrill Lynch. "The 1990s were viewed as the triumph of airpower. We believe this could prove transitory," he says.
Computer Sciences Corporation, which announced March 7 that its acquisition of DynCorp is complete, says the purchase strengthens CSC's position in the federal market, including the defense and homeland security segments.
The V-22 program has put a critical series of flight tests on hold replacement of German-made hydraulic tubes that program officials say are defective. The move grounds the program's five operating aircraft while two new suppliers are certified and 20 tubes in each aircraft are replaced. The final series of high-rate-of-descent tests, which could determine whether the program survives, should resume after March 20, officials said.
The likelihood the U.S. Coast Guard will select an aircraft other than the EADS-CASA CN-235ER to serve as its new maritime patrol aircraft is remote, according to naval aircraft analysts. Although the CN-235ER does have competitors, most are either not tailored for the maritime patrol mission or have not passed the design phase.
SOURCING AGREEMENT: The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. (EADS) and the Snecma Group signed a long-term sourcing agreement March 7 to better meet end-customer needs, the companies said. Snecma is the most profitable of EADS suppliers, accounting for revenues of nearly 500 million euros ($550 million) in 2002.
INTERNAL MISUNDERSTANDING: Northrop Grumman's announcement last week that it would have to pay an additional $100 million in interest payments and prepayment penalties on debt associated with TRW Automotive appears to be the result of an "internal misunderstanding" and not lax oversight, according to aerospace and defense analyst Byron Callan of Merrill Lynch. The announcement marks the second time in six months that accounting-related issues have resulted in changed projections for the company.
SPACE REVIEW: More than two years after it was published, the U.S. Air Force is making plans to review the implementation of the Space Commission report chaired by Donald Rumsfeld, who currently is the Secretary of Defense. "It's probably time to circle back and make sure we've implemented the things that we said we wanted to do," Gen. Robert H. "Doc" Foglesong, the Air Force Vice Chief of Staff, said March 6 during a Pentagon town hall meeting, which included Rumsfeld.
QUESTIONING: Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) member Roger Tetrault thinks certain areas of NASA's human space flight program may not have the appropriate "questioning attitude" with regard to safety. The former president of Electric Boat and former chairman of McDermott International, Inc., Tetrault comes from a nuclear Navy background. In the nuclear Navy, "they've had to adopt certain attitudes and qualities over the years, particularly a questioning attitude about, 'Prove to me that it's right,'" Tetrault says. "I know ...
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JASSM TESTING: The schedule for recertification of the Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) for flight tests has slipped by a month due to scheduling conflicts at the missile range in White Sands, N.M., sources close to the program say. A month ago, development test 12, or DT-12, was set for late February, and operational testing was to begin in early March. But program officials have pushed back the schedule four weeks, the sources say. JASSM was decertified for flight-testing in November after two test failures in October.
The U.S. Air Force is demonstrating a 21,000-pound bomb armed with conventional explosives that would do massive damage and creative a mushroom-shaped cloud, sources said March 6. An even larger bomb, weighing 30,000 pounds, apparently also is being considered. The larger bomb projects follow development of the 15,000-pound "Daisy Cutter" bomb, which was used in Afghanistan.
The Pentagon's air warfare strategy for Iraq has all but ruled out the use of the military's new arsenal of warheads that are designed to destroy chemical and biological agents, according to statements by military officials during the last week.
The field of companies vying to be prime contractor for the Missile Defense Agency's new ground-based interceptor program narrowed from three to two late March 5, as Lockheed Martin Corp. and the Boeing Co. announced they will team up rather than compete separately. Lockheed Martin will lead the team and Boeing will be the main teammate. MDA is developing the interceptor to shoot down missiles in their boost phase.
The Air Force is close to refining a design and migration strategy for a secure new communications gateway system programmed to replace almost its entire inventory of 124 radios over the next decade. The airborne cluster of the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) is shaping into a family of 10-20 radio sets relying on commercial off the shelf hardware components and software-defined programming.
NASA's ICESat (Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite) and CHIPS (Cosmic Hot Interstellar Plasma Spectrometer) spacecraft, which were dual-launched on a Boeing Delta II booster from Vandenberg Air Force Base Jan. 12, have been checked out and are beginning to return science data.
NEW DELHI - All guided missiles being developed under India's Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP) have gone through successful flight trials, Defense Minister George Fernandes told Parliament March 5. The short-range Prithvi I missile has been inducted in the Indian army while the short-range Prithvi II and Dhanush missiles are being fielded in the air force and navy. Fernandes said the Akash short-range air defense system and Nag anti-tank missile have gone through successful flight tests recently. Agni on track
NEW DELHI - India and Afghanistan are expected to formalize agreement on the supply of aircraft and other military hardware during the current visit of Afghanistan President Hameed Karzai to India. The two countries will formalize how India can revive Afghanistan's air force by offering to maintain its MiG-21 fighter aircraft, according to an official of the Indian Ministry of Defense. India will discuss the possibility of training Afghan troops inside Afghanistan by Indian military officials, he said.
House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.) and NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe appeared before a Senate Government Affairs subcommittee March 6 to present their plan for helping NASA overcome its workforce challenges.
The weapon system for the Missile Defense Agency's Airborne Laser is proving to be about 30,000 pounds heavier than expected a few years ago, but the extra weight is not expected to affect plans to attempt the program's first ballistic missile shootdown in December 2004, the ABL program director said late March 5.
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, predicted March 6 that there will be "a real battle" in Congress over the Bush Administration's proposal to waive operational testing requirements for a planned missile defense deployment. "That is going to be a very contentious issue," Levin told the Defense Writers Group.
