A string of failed flight tests earlier this year for the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) interceptor missile were the result of "extremely annoying" glitches that are being solved as Pentagon leaders look to accelerate the missile defense program, the Missile Defense Agency's top official said Oct. 31. "We got a briefing from the technical teams a couple weeks ago that gives me great confidence that we found the root cause of those problems," MDA chief Lt. Gen. Ron Kadish said.
The Department of Defense is waiting for Congress to act on a proposal for a new slot, assistant secretary of defense for homeland security. "We haven't got that authorization yet, unfortunately," Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said last week. But, he said, "the idea is that that person would be the assistant secretary level point of contact with Gen. [Ed] Eberhard, [commander of U.S. Northern Command,] and with civilian authorities here in the United States."
LONDON - Difficulties with crew training, due mainly to delays in the development and availability of a Full Mission Simulator, are expected to prevent Britain's 67 AgustaWestland WAH-64 Longbow Apache attack helicopters from providing a brigade-level capability until February 2007, according to a report published on Thursday by the National Audit Office (NAO). NAO head Sir John Bourn told Parliament that the Ministry of Defence (MOD) is making progress toward delivering an initial operating capability for the Apache helicopter in August 2004.
NEW DELHI - India and France plan to complete plans for Indian production of Mirage 2000-5 aircraft, and joint production of France's Scorpene submarine, during the visit of an Indian delegation to Paris this week. Defence Secretary Subir Dutta is leading a delegation to France this week that includes the vice chiefs of the Indian military services and submarine experts from the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO).
A team led by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics has established a new avionics hardware and software integration laboratory in Marietta, Ga., for the F/A-22 fighter program, the company said Oct. 29. The Raptor Avionics Integration Laboratory (RAIL), will test F/A-22 avionics systems under simulated operational conditions, the company said. During recent developmental test flights at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., the F/A-22 team determined that more laboratory-based avionics testing was needed to ensure avionics stability, the company said.
The Army and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) plan to ask overseas defense contractors to help develop the communications infrastructure for the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program to ensure interoperability, according to a senior Army official. "We're very serious about this coalition part," DARPA's program manager for the Objective Force, Col. William Johnson, said Oct. 30.
Investors should not read too much into a recent public opinion poll citing a drop in public support for increased defense spending, according to an Oct. 29 report from Merrill Lynch. Also, investors should not conclude that the likelihood of military action against Iraq has diminished, based on recent statements by the Administration supporting the role of United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq, according to senior aerospace and defense analyst Byron Callan.
LICENSED: The State Depart-ment's Office of Defense Trade Controls issued a license Oct. 25 that will allow Lockheed Martin Corp. to share technical information with its foreign partners in the U.S.-led F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, a department spokes-man said Oct. 30. The license is the first use of the Global Project Authorization (GPA), which combines many technical licenses into a single package (DAILY, Oct. 18).
NEW DELHI - The Indian government has rejected bids from Russia and Poland to upgrade its Pechora air defense systems. The Indian defense ministry has decided to re-tender the competition to upgrade 60 Indian air force Pechora-1 systems, even though the government has been negotiating with Russia and Poland for the last three years, a senior ministry official said.
The Boeing Co. and CAE of Canada announced an agreement to work together on ballistic missile defense issues. Boeing, a prime U.S. government contractor on missile defense systems, announced similar agreements in July with Alenia Spazio of Italy, the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. (EADS), and BAE Systems of the United Kingdom (DAILY, July 24).
LONDON - The United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence announced the selection of preferred bidders for the first phase of its defense technology center (DTC) program on Oct. 29. Selected bidders for the first three DTCs are consortia led by BAE Systems, for electro-magnetic remote sensing; General Dynamics, for data and information fusion; and Aerosystems International, for human factors integration. Each DTC will have a customized structure and funding arrangements, to undertake one or more defense science and technology work packages.
A test spacecraft for the federal government's next generation of polar-orbiting weather satellites will undergo a major design review in about five weeks, a program official said Oct. 30. The test spacecraft is part of the NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP), the precursor to the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). NPP plans to conduct a March 2006 launch aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.
Boeing and Lockheed Martin will conduct feasibility studies for NASA on the possibility of launching future crews to the International Space Station (ISS) atop the heavy-lift variants of Boeing's Delta IV or Lockheed Martin's Atlas V expendable rockets, the companies said.
WHITEMAN AIR FORCE BASE, Mo. - Thirteen months after the Air Force ordered five deployable shelters for the B-2 Spirit fleet, that fleet is ready to be stationed at forward bases, the commander of 509th Bomb Group said Oct. 30. "We are going to forward-deploy this airplane," Col. Doug Raaberg, who also is a B-2 pilot, told reporters here. "That's what I want to give Gen. [Tommy] Franks, the joint forces commander."
WHITEMAN AIR FORCE BASE, Mo. - The U.S. Air Force has awarded the first contract for a $1.2 billion program to upgrade the B-2 Spirit fleet's radar antennas over the next seven years, a B-2 program official told The DAILY Oct. 30. A roughly $35 million contract was awarded to Northrop Grumman in early October for design work leading to the installation of Raytheon's Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) antennas on the B-2 fleet, said Lt. Col. John Kusnierek, an acquisition program manager for the B-2 and the F-117A Nighthawk.
A Soyuz TMA-1 spacecraft successfully launched late Oct. 29 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, carrying a fresh crew return vehicle to the International Space Station. The spacecraft, an updated version of the TM-34 Soyuz capsule currently attached to the station, features new flight computers, rearranged displays, new software and bigger seats (DAILY, July 31).
ATK, Minneapolis William G. Van Dyke, the chairman, president and CEO of Donaldson Co., was elected to the board of directors. AVIALL, Dallas Colin M. Cohen has been appointed vice president and chief financial officer. EXCALIBUR INDUSTRIES, Houston Vernon A. Dyer has been named president of Excalibur Aerospace. ITT INDUSTRIES, White Plains, N.Y. Scott A. Crum has been elected senior vice president, director of human resources. HONEYWELL, Morris Township, N.J.
A new congressional ban on developing nuclear-armed interceptors for missile defense will not affect the completion of a Defense Science Board (DSB) study that is expected to examine the nuclear interceptor concept, according to a Defense Department official.
ORBITAL SCIENCES CORP. will build a communications satellite for Indonesia's state-owned telecommunications company, PT Telkomunikasi Indonesia Tbk (TELKOM). The satellite will be based on the company's STAR-2 platform and will carry 24 CV-band transponders. The satellite, with a planned 15-year lifetime, is scheduled for launch in late 2004. Ali Atia, head of Orbital's geostationary communications satellite unit, said the company's small satellite design is useful for companies like TELKOM, who don't need a large, expensive spacecraft.
The Bush Administration will not be able to sustain projected levels of defense spending while simultaneously working toward a balanced budget by 2005, according to defense industry analysts. James McAleese, principal attorney of McAleese & Associates, said the Administration's plan to return to a balanced budget by the end of fiscal year 2005, combined with lower capital gains taxes and pressure to increase social spending, will compete with spending for the war on terrorism.
The first deployable command and control headquarters for a joint forces commander is slated to receive its most realistic tryout to date in early December, including a personal encounter with Central Command chief Tommy Franks. Scrutinizing the performance of the Deployable Joint Command and Control (DJC2) capability is at the heart of Central Command's biennial Internal Look exercise, which will be based in Qatar this year and involve several Persian Gulf countries and at least 600 U.S. troops.
TRW Inc., the prime contractor for the planned National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), plans to build a network of ground systems that will get weather data to civilian and military users in a fraction of the time it takes to supply information from existing polar-orbiting satellites, government and industry officials said Oct. 29.
