The Boeing Co. received a $21.4 million contract for "initial low-rate ... production activities to protect the delivery schedule" for advanced mission computers and displays for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet Lot 27 aircraft, the Department of Defense said Feb. 3. Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., awarded the contract.
The Missile Defense Agency plans to begin developing a new radar in fiscal 2004 to improve its ability to track enemy missiles, according to a senior budget official at the Defense Department. MDA has not determined the radar type and platform, but one possibility under consideration is putting the radar on a ship, the official said during a Jan. 31 briefing on DOD's FY '04 budget request.
BUDGET HEARINGS: Two days after the Defense Department releases its fiscal 2004 budget request Feb. 3, Pentagon officials will begin their annual trek to Capitol Hill to testify about their spending plans. The initial round of hearings will include appearances by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld before the House Armed Services Committee Feb. 5 and the Senate Armed Services Committee Feb. 6. The Air Force, Army and Navy secretaries are scheduled to testify before Senate Armed Services Feb. 13.
Modernizing its fleet and aircraft are the goals of the U.S. Navy's $114.7 billion fiscal year 2004 budget request, which is $3.5 billion higher than the service's FY '03 budget. But the modernization comes at a cost, according to a senior budget spokesman. The fleet will slip below the 300-ship minimum that the Navy has said it needs to meet commitments. The spokesman said the Navy "consciously took the operational risk to retire older ships and aircraft to use those funds for recapitalization and transformation."
NEW DELHI - India's coast guard wants to acquire medium-range surveillance aircraft on the international market instead of buying more shorter-range Dornier 228s built by the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd., according to the agency's head. Coast Guard Director General Rear Adm. Sureesh Mehta told The Daily Jan. 31 that the decision was made because of the extension of India's sea borders from 2.1 million square kilometers (1.3 million square miles) to 2.6 million square kilometers (1.6 million square miles).
The industry teams competing for the prime contract on the Missile Defense Agency's (MDA) High Altitude Airship (HAA) program are meeting with program officials in Washington this week to discuss the program's future, which could include scaling back some of its original goals.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - President Bush's fiscal year 2004 budget includes "a significant plus-up" for space programs, an Air Force Space Command general said. Brig. Gen. William L. Shelton, the command's director of operations, said that "... in the president's budget, there was a significant plus-up to the space business, and you'll see that rolled out here shortly."
UNFUNDED NO MORE: Unfunded priorities lists - annual wish-lists compiled by the services after each budgeting process - are no longer welcome inside the Pentagon, Defense Department Comptroller Dov Zakheim says. Recent budget hikes, including a boost of at least $55 billion in fiscal 2003, should "obviate" the need for compiling unfunded priorities, he says.
ROTORCRAFT INTEGRATION: First, there was the Navy-Marine Corps tactical air fleet integration. Now, the Air Force and Army special operations commands (AFSOC and USASOC) are planning a more modest rotorcraft integration by the end of the decade. AFSOC is planning to borrow USASOC crews to continue helicopter training for foreign pilots, AFSOC chief Lt. Gen. Paul V. Hester says. "I'll be out of the helicopter business by the end of the decade," he says, courtesy of scheduled delivery of the CV-22 tiltrotor.
SERIOUS STUFF: President Bush is paying close personal attention to U.S. Strategic Command, says Owen Wormser, principal director for spectrum, space, sensors and C3 in the office of the assistant secretary of defense for C3I. Wormser says his boss, John Stenbit, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Bush himself "are directly involved" in making sure everything is done right with the new command. "This is serious stuff." But there are some "massive problems" and industry can help, Wormser says.
Feb. 3 - 4 -- AIAA 2003 Defense Excellence Conference. Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, Washington, D.C. For more information go to www.aiaa.org/events/defense2003. Feb. 5 - 9 -- Aero India 2003 - Fourth International Aerospace Exposition, Air Force Station Yelahanka, Bangalore and Defense Pavilion, Pragati Maidan, New Dehli. For more information call +91 (11) 337-1509.
The Department of Defense's six-year spending plan, sent to Congress Feb. 3, projects a 32 percent budget increase from fiscal 2003 to 2009 and would shift billions of dollars next year to shipbuilding, special operations forces, space and communications networks.
ORBITAL WINS: For a 10-year period beginning next year, Orbital Sciences will provide the Air Force with space launch and missile defense target vehicles using deactivated Peacekeeper missile rocket motors as part of the Orbital/Suborbital Program-2 (OSP-2). The Air Force announced the contract award Jan. 29. The company also will provide space and target launch vehicles using deactivated Minuteman missile motors, similar to the work the company has been performing for the Air Force under the OSP-1 contract.
LONG HAUL: Boeing and the Insitu Group plan to demonstrate 60-hour endurance with their small ScanEagle unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) later this year, according to Charlie Guthrie, director of rapid prototyping and advanced concepts for Boeing's unmanned systems division. With its current engine, ScanEagle's endurance is roughly 20 hours, Guthrie says. "With the development engine that we're putting on it in the next several months, the endurance will be around 60 hours," he says.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is expected to join the airland subcommittee for the first time in his congressional career to ensure adequate oversight of military aviation programs, especially those of the Air Force. McCain has questioned whether an Air Force proposal to lease 100 Boeing 767 air refuelers is the most cost-effective way to acquire new tankers.
NASA has requested $15.5 billion for fiscal year 2004, an increase of 3.1 percent over fiscal 2003. The aerospace agency plans to add $2 billion over five years to its $1 billion initiative to develop nuclear power for space propulsion and onboard systems.
Confirming rumors that the Air Force and Navy unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) programs would be merged, the Air Force is requesting $4.8 million in fiscal year 2004 to establish a joint UCAV program office. The Department of Defense (DOD) has been pushing for closer collaboration between the two programs as a means of controlling costs and leveraging overlapping work (DAILY, Dec. 12, 2002). DOD plans to spend $275 million on UCAV programs in FY'04, and eventually may decide to produce only one aircraft that would fulfill the needs of both services.
LINGERING CONCERNS: Fitch Ratings says it still may lower the credit ratings for BAE Systems despite the 2.9 billion pound ($4.7 billion) award last week to build two aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy. "Although Fitch considers the contact award to be positive for BAE over the long term, the agency continues to have concerns about the cost overruns on the Nimrod [maritime patrol aircraft] and Astute [attack submarine] contracts announced in December 2002 and the impact that these will have on the company's cash flow generation capacity," agency credit analysts say.
CHINOOKS: The Boeing Co. has received the first low-rate initial production contract from the U.S. Army for remanufacturing seven CH-47 Chinooks to the new CH-47F and MH-47G special operations configurations, the company said Jan. 31. The contract is valued at $140 million, including options, and covers the first production lot of a modernization program expected to include at least 300 Chinooks over 13 years, Boeing said.
PREPARING FOR CHINA: China could one day pose challenges that could best be met by adopting the weapon systems and force structure needed to carry out the strategies laid out in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), says Michael Vickers, director of strategic studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Many of the strategic goals in the QDR were written with China in mind, Vickers says. "The things we worry about with China are not a cross-border invasion [or] a million-man swim over to Taiwan.
