The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) is calling on the government to reverse the recent decline in aeronautics research and development (R&D) funding at the FAA and NASA to preserve U.S. competitiveness and avoid possible negative effects on the economy as air traffic levels rise.
LIVE FIRE: Metal Storm Ltd. plans to live-fire its 40mm electronic weapon system on a DP-4X UAV from Dragonfly Pictures Inc., the Australian company said Feb. 25. The UAV is in Australia for weapons integration, and the demonstration will be held in the U.S. in the second quarter of this year, the company said.
On March 1, the U.S. Navy will submit a comprehensive report to Congress on the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), which is to include a refined concept of operations, an acquisition strategy, a spiral development strategy and updated requirements for how the ship will be built, a Navy spokeswoman told The DAILY.
U.S. Army officials sought to assure House Armed Service Committee members on Feb. 25 that its plan to cancel the RAH-66 Comanche helicopter will lead to new spending for aircraft and other equipment. Rep. Terry Everett (R-Ala.), expressed concern that canceling the Comanche program would be a step back for military aviation safety.
BOEING INTEGRATED DEFENSE SYSTEMS, St. Louis Norma Clayton has been appointed vice president of supplier management and procurement, replacing Bill Stowers, who will retire May 1. Pat Finneran has been appointed vice president and general manager of aerospace support, replacing David Spong, who will retire April 1. John Tracy has been appointed vice president of engineering, replacing Thad Sanford, who will retire April 1. EDO CORP., New York Frank W. Otto has been appointed executive vice president and chief operating officer.
The U.S. Navy is on track in implementing new business practices known as Sea Enterprise, Vice Adm. Charles Moore, deputy chief of naval operations for fleet readiness and logistics, said Feb. 24 at a Defense Writers Group breakfast. Sea Enterprise is part of the strategic triad in the chief of naval operations' Sea Power 21 vision, which seeks to improve organizational alignment, refine requirements, and reinvest savings to buy the platforms and systems needed to transform the Navy and deliver increased combat capability.
The already-delayed Space Based Infrared-High (SBIRS-High) program won't launch its first satellite until 2007, Peter Teets, the Air Force undersecretary for space, told a House Armed Forces Committee panel on strategic forces Feb. 25. The Bush Administration is seeking $12.4 billion for unclassified military space programs in fiscal 2005, up $1 billion from FY '04. The Air Force's share is about $9.1 billion for FY '05, an increase of about $500 million from FY '04.
Lockheed Martin has formed a new organization to manage the company's efforts in service of NASA's new space exploration agenda, the company announced this week. John C. Karas will lead the new organization, which will be headquartered in Denver, Colo., as part of Lockheed Martin's Space Systems company. Karas will report to G. Thomas Marsh, executive vice president for Lockheed Martin Space Systems. Jay Honeycutt, vice president and special assistant for human spaceflight, will support Karas.
ROSETTA PREPARES: Launch of the Flight 158 mission of an Ariane 5 carrying the European Space Agency's Rosetta comet rendezvous spacecraft is on schedule for Feb. 26, Arianespace said. The Ariane 5 was rolled out Feb. 24 for the launch at the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. After being delayed by earlier problems with the heavier-lift Ariane 5 (DAILY, Jan. 15, 2003) that forced ESA to find a new target comet, Rosetta is scheduled to rendezvous with Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014.
SINGAPORE - Weight is an issue for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, but Lockheed Martin doesn't have a weight requirement as such, according to Orville Prins, vice president business of development for the company's aeronautics unit.
The Defense Department does not know yet whether international participants in the U.S.-led F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program will help pay for recent cost increases for the next-generation fighter aircraft, a program official said Feb. 25.
Nearly 3,000 combat aircraft worth $142.4 billion will be built worldwide between 2004 and 2013, according to a Teal Group world fighter/attack aircraft production forecast released Feb. 24. The market for combat planes is making a recovery since 2002, its lowest point, when 159 aircraft worth $6.7 billion were delivered, the report says. In 2003, 246 planes worth $10.7 billion were delivered.
The cancellation of the U.S. Army's RAH-66 Comanche helicopter actually could be a boon for the Defense Department's Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS), program representatives said Feb. 24. The Boeing-Sikorsky Comanche, whose termination was announced Feb. 23 (DAILY, Feb. 24) was designed to use Northrop Grumman's Integrated Communications, Navigation and Identification Avionics (ICNIA) system for its radio communications. Comanche was conceived long before JTRS, a family of communications radios, emerged as one of DOD's key interoperability initiatives.
JHMCS WORK: Boeing will produce the fourth low-rate initial production lot of the Joint Helmet-Mounted Cueing System (JHMCS) for U.S. Air Force F-15s and F-16s and U.S. Navy F/A-18E/Fs under a $66 million contract, the company said Feb. 24. The program is moving into full-rate production and Boeing anticipates U.S. military orders for more than 1,500 systems.
Next month, the U.S. Navy will complete its preliminary design for the DD(X) surface destroyer, according to Rear Adm. Charles Hamilton, the Navy's program executive officer for ships. The DD(X) program is serving as a testbed for advanced technologies for future naval vessels, including autonomous fire suppression, integrated power systems and an advanced gun system capable of firing projectiles to a range of 100 miles.
SINGAPORE - Northrop Grumman CEO and President Ronald Sugar said he sees a continued U.S. investment of more than $10 billion a year in network-centric warfare programs. "The United States demonstrated in Afghanistan and Iraq that this concept ... is the future, and I think we saw enormous progress, but we do not have yet, even in the United States, a perfectly internetted, joint system of operation which we could use," Sugar told reporters Feb. 23 at the Asia-Pacific Security Conference, held in conjunction with the Singapore air show here.
A U.S. Navy-Coast Guard working group is studying whether an overlap exists between Navy and Coast Guard procurement as the services provide homeland security and defense to the United States. Rear Admiral Carl V. Mauney, director of strategy and policy, anti-terrorism force protection, told The DAILY that the group is conducting an informal look at programs to identify any duplication in procurement and acquisition. A final report to commanders is due in the next few months, Mauney said.
The U.S. Navy's proposal for a 375-ship Navy won't happen, according to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) naval analyst. "We will see a larger fleet than we have today if the Littoral Combat Ship program [which calls for 56 ships] goes through, but we won't see 375," Eric Labs, CBO's principal analyst for naval forces and weapons, said Feb. 24 at an Institute for Defense and Government Advancement (IGDA) conference in Arlington, Va.
The U.S. Army plans to develop three new aircraft as part of the comprehensive aviation restructuring that prompted the cancellation of the RAH-66 Comanche helicopter, according to Gen. Richard Cody, the Army's deputy chief of staff, G-3. The Army had planned to spend approximately $14.6 billion developing and procuring 121 Comanches from fiscal year 2004 through FY '11. With that money freed up, the service now plans to buy 796 other aircraft and an additional 801 aircraft upgrades (DAILY, Feb. 24).
