SAN DIEGO - Although buying new aircraft and precision-guided munitions increases the U.S. Navy's lethality and decreases its vulnerability, the cost of modernization is a concern, according to Rear Adm. Thomas J. Kilcline Jr., the Navy's director of aviation plans and requirements.
After delaying the award of a prime contract for the GPS III until at least 2006, the Air Force plans to go back to the Department of Defense with a new acquisition plan and a concept for sustaining the industrial teams in the meantime, according to a Boeing official.
Orbital Imaging Inc. expects to be part of a new program that is intended to change the way the Pentagon buys commercial satellite images. The National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) last week awarded contracts to two Colorado companies, DigitalGlobe Inc. and Space Imaging Inc., to begin what the agency describes as "a new level of partnering between the U.S. government and the remote sensing industry."
BAE Systems said Jan. 21 it will cut more than 1,000 jobs from its Sea Systems business over the next few months. The cuts are necessary because of "the very significant drop in workload the shipyards are experiencing," the company said, "with no prospect of an increase on a scale large enough to compensate within at least the next four years. ..." The company's Underwater Systems business faces a similar, "but less severe," situation, the company said.
SAN DIEGO - Enabling military aircraft to operate in an integrated battle network is a major goal of U. S. industry, according to Patrick J. Finneran Jr., Boeing's vice president of naval aircraft programs. Faced with limited defense spending and increased weapon systems costs, Finneran said industry is "in an increasingly more productive partnership with the Department of Defense" that is focused on network environments, unmanned vehicles, open avionics architectures, and reducing the total ownership cost of aircraft.
SAN DIEGO - Marine aviation has become more lethal and effective by melding old and new capabilities and using existing resources in more innovative ways, according to the former commander of the 2nd Marine Air Wing. That new thinking already has produced positive results in deployment, logistics and fire support for troops in Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Dennis T. Krupp (USMC - ret.) said.
The Missile Defense Agency plans to launch several satellites near the end of the decade to develop a space-based interceptor test bed that could shoot down missiles in their boost phase, according to MDA. A competition for a concept design will take place in fiscal 2004, following a briefing for industry in December 2003, an MDA official said Jan. 21.
Northrop Grumman has conducted the first flight of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system, derived from the BQM-34 Firebee aerial target, that is designed to deliver payloads, the company announced Jan. 21. The 36-minute flight took place Dec. 20 at an undisclosed military test range as part of a classified test program. After taking off via rail launch, the Firebee flew autonomously through waypoints and successfully dropped multiple payloads, according to Northrop Grumman. The vehicle was recovered undamaged after a parachute landing.
PORTSMOUTH, Va. - More dangerous to the cohesion of NATO than a growing gap in comparable resources and technologies between the U.S. and its military partners are the resulting changes in culture and training, a senior NATO official said Jan. 21. German Gen. Harald Kujat spoke to about 300 military officers of NATO and allied countries attending a two-day conference here called "Open Road 2003."
TRAINING: CAE of Toronto will design additional C-130J training devices and provide training support services for the U.S. Air Force under a $15.6 million contract from Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, the company said Jan. 21. CAE will design and build a C-130J Integrated Cockpit Systems Trainer and C-130J Cockpit Procedures Trainer. The company also will provide training support at Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark.
EMS Technologies Inc. said its Space & Technology Group will supply advanced antenna technology to L-3 Communications West for use on the U.S. Air Force's Predator unmanned aerial vehicle. The company will develop a beam-switching network for a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program to demonstrate an advanced datalink for the Predator, the company said Jan. 21. L-3's Tactical Common Datalink, which will incorporate an EMS beam-switching network, is scheduled to be flight tested on a Predator this summer.
NEW DELHI - India's short-range air defense Akash missile, which is in the final stages of development, had another test firing on Jan. 20. A senior official with the Indian defense ministry said the Akash test was successful and the missile will be inducted into the military by the end of the year, after more test flights. The missile has achieved more than 80 percent of its test objectives, the official said.
January 13, 2003 NAVY Johnson Technology Inc., Muskegon, Mich., is being awarded a $5,044,761 fixed-price contract for procurement of high-pressure turbine nozzle segments used on the F404 engine for the F/A-18 aircraft. Work will be performed in Muskegon and is to be completed by September 2004. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Inventory Control Point Philadelphia is the contracting activity (N00383-03-C-M020). January 14, 2003 NAVY
The Senate has quietly added $3.9 billion to a fiscal 2003 omnibus appropriations package to fund intelligence activities, according to congressional sources. Much of the money would pay for operational needs. With the U.S. continuing a war on terrorism and preparing for a possible invasion of Iraq, intelligence agencies found themselves running low on funds, sources told The DAILY.
NEW DELHI - Defense policy officials from the U.S. and India have wrapped up two days of talks about U.S. missile defense plans and about the possibility of Israel selling its Arrow anti-missile system to India. Defense ministry officials here said India faces missile and nuclear threats from Pakistan and China and requires a missile defense system.
AIRLAND CHAIR: Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) is the frontrunner to become chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee's airland subcommittee in the new Congress, while Sen. James Talent (R-Mo.) is the leading candidate to head the seapower subcommittee, congressional sources say. A decision on the chairmanships is expected within the next week or so. The Senate Armed Services Committee is getting new subcommittee chairmen as part of the Republican takeover of the Senate.
EXPERTISE: The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DRTA) is seeking industry's help for a number of sensitive areas, including weapons and target technologies, hazard assessment technology and systems engineering, says a contract notice posted last week. DTRA plans to award multiple indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts for such expertise. The notice calls for contractors to conduct, implement and sustain DTRA's capabilities in those areas.
Two commercial satellite imaging companies have won Pentagon contracts totaling more than $200 million in a program that could be worth $1 billion over the next several years, and which changes the way the military does business with such companies.
NEW DELHI - Air Marshal Teja Mohan Asthana of the Indian air force has been named head of the country's new Strategic Forces Command (SFC). "The ... army, navy and the air force will transfer most of [their] nuclear assets to the newly created SFC," Indian Ministry of Defence spokesman Pradipto Bandyopadhyay said in a Jan 16 interview.
CONGRESSIONAL CLOUT: The recent decision by the House Armed Services Committee to make its subcommittee structure similar to that of the Senate Armed Services Committee (DAILY, Jan. 10) could boost the clout of both defense authorization committees, analysts say. The different subcommittee structures often have prevented the House-Senate defense authorization conference from finishing its annual funding recommendations in time to influence authors of the annual defense appropriations bill.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program office is close to hammering out an agreement with Israel and Singapore on a unique international sales strategy, a senior JSF official said Jan. 17.
Six Republican senators have picked up seats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for the new 108th Congress: Christopher "Kit" Bond (Mo.), Trent Lott (Miss.), Olympia Snowe (Maine), Chuck Hagel (Neb.), Saxby Chambliss (Ga.) and John Warner (Va.). Three Republicans - Sens. Pat Roberts (Kan.), Orrin Hatch (Utah) and Mike DeWine (Ohio) - are remaining on the committee, which Roberts will chair.
PRAGUE - NATO has agreed to provide more than $6 million for the construction of two huge aircraft fuel tanks at a storage facility at a Czech air force base in Hermanuv Mestec, east Bohemia. The money is part of a $1.5 billion fund set aside by NATO for its three 1999 entrants, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, to standardize equipment and systems and enhance interoperability.
KEEPING SPACE: Lockheed Martin Corp. won't shut down or sell its Commercial Space Systems business, the company said Jan. 17, but will seek to continue "improving efficiencies and focus on winning new business in 2003" for the unit.
