The U.S. Marine Corps still plans to buy 79 KC-130Js despite a congressionally approved cut in its fiscal 2002 budget request for the tanker aircraft, a USMC spokesman said Jan. 14.
El Al Israel Airlines has selected Sanctum Inc.'s AppShield 3.1 firewall software to enhance the security of the company's Internet-based data and operations, Sanctum announced Jan. 14. Particularly since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, El Al is taking very seriously any illegal access to data or transactions through the company's website, according to David Yaacobi, the airline's manager of information systems security.
MOSCOW - Russia's federal budget for 2002 includes about $745 million for space research, the Russian Aviation and Space Agency and for work on the Global Navigation Space System (Glonass), according to the newly published document, which President Vladimir Putin signed late last month. The portion of the budget document related to space doesn't include data about particular projects, but includes some general figures on total spending.
Officials with Denver-based Lockheed Martin Astronautics, a division of Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Space Systems, announced Jan. 10 the division will lay off about 700 employees by the end of 2002. The layoffs are occurring because work on three programs is coming to an end, Lockheed Martin spokeswoman Joan Underwood told The DAILY Jan. 11.
GASL, an engineering services organization that is a division of Allied Aerospace Industries, has signed an agreement with the Space Alliance Outreach Program (SATOP) to provide small business owners with free technical engineering assistance for problems they face in the workplace. "Joining SATOP gives GASL the chance to help small businesses as well as assist with the spread of NASA technology," said Bob Bakos, the vice president for engineering at Allied Aerospace.
Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), a member of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, is urging President Bush to increase procurement spending in the fiscal 2003 defense budget by at least $30 billion to overcome "serious" modernization shortfalls.
NASA Dryden Flight Research Center will be proposing a follow-on program to the Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology (ERAST) program, the unmanned aerial vehicle development work that has resulted in the Helios and Pathfinder UAVs, among others. Currently, ERAST is "pretty much scheduled to end at the end of fiscal year 2003," John Del Frate, Helios project manager at Dryden, told The DAILY. "We're right now trying to see if it makes sense to do a follow-on program, but of course we'll propose it, and then the powers that be will decide."
An Air National Guard pilot says the most daunting part about flying over Afghanistan is the possibility of a mid-air collision with other U.S. aircraft operating in the area. "The possibility of mid-air collision is seen as greater [in Afghanistan] than in previous wars," says Lt. Col. Gerald Otterbein, an EC-130 pilot. "There's more of a concentration of aircraft in certain places, and you have to be more aware of what's going on," says Otterbein, a member of the 193d Special Operations Wing that operates the Commando Solo broadcasting mission.
The U.S. Army has executed Letters of Agreement for the sale of Javelin anti-tank missile systems to Lithuania and Jordan, the Raytheon-Lockheed Martin Javelin Joint Venture announced Jan. 11. The letters, signed in December, mark the first European and Middle East sales for Javelin, according to the companies.
Although President Bush signed the fiscal 2002 defense appropriations bill into law on Jan. 10 (DAILY, Jan. 11), he predicts it will not meet all of the military's budget needs. Since the measure provides about $2 billion less than his $319.4 billion request, it "does not adequately fund all my critical priorities, specifically the readiness of our forces," Bush says in a statement.
The MV-22 Osprey program is the subject of a new probe by the U.S. Defense Department's Inspector General after the U.S. Marine Corps Commandant last month received a letter alleging "irregularities" by two previous crash investigations. Pentagon auditors earlier this month opened the second department-level investigation of the Osprey program this year, DOD spokeswoman Susan Hansen told Aerospace Daily affiliate AviationNow.com.
NASA Dryden Flight Research Center will be proposing a follow-on program to the Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology (ERAST) program, the unmanned aerial vehicle development work that has resulted in the Helios and Pathfinder UAVs, among others.
Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), a member of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, is urging President Bush to increase procurement spending in the fiscal 2003 defense budget by at least $30 billion to overcome "serious" modernization shortfalls.
After supplying hundreds of shoulder-mounted Stinger surface-to-air missiles in the 1980s to Afghans fighting the Soviets, the U.S. is now involved in a "buy-back" scheme to reacquire the missiles. "With respect to Afghanistan, there have been two pieces to the arms buyback," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says.
UNDERFUNDED DEFENSE: Although President Bush signed the fiscal 2002 defense appropriations bill into law on Jan. 10 (DAILY, Jan. 11), he predicts it will not meet all of the military's budget needs. Since the measure provides about $2 billion less than his $319.4 billion request, it "does not adequately fund all my critical priorities, specifically the readiness of our forces," Bush says in a statement.
COM DEV International Ltd.'s operating division will supply waveguide switches to Boeing Satellite Systems under a three-year agreement the company said could result in $4.5 million of annual business. The switches are used to route signals on communications satellites and to connect backup equipment in place of a system failure. Boeing placed an initial order worth $760,000 to support the engineering and initial production phase.
TRW Inc. is continuing with the design and development of an AstroMesh reflector for Mobile Broadcasting Corp. of Japan's MBSAT geostationary satellite. The work is being done under a contract from Space Systems/Loral. Reflectors, a key antenna component, reflect radio frequency energy and focus it into a pattern on the ground. MBSAT is intended to provide digital multimedia services, including audio, video and data to mobile users throughout Japan and Korea.
SPECTRUM ASTRO said construction has begun on its new satellite manufacturing facility, which it calls the "factory of the future." Completion of the new factory in Gilbert is slated for December 2002. The initial construction is of the company's phase one plan, which will provide the manufacturing and test capacity for the company's product base. It includes three buildings with a combined square footage of 270,000 square feet of engineering, manufacturing, test, office and support space.
The cancellation of the Defense Department's Joint Signals Avionics Family (JSAF) program has left TRW holding half of a signals intelligence (SIGINT) package, which was intended to provide advanced electronic intelligence capable of picking up some of the most advanced surface-to-air-missile threats. Designed to provide a single SIGINT payload to multiple aircraft, JSAF was cancelled Dec. 20 when Congress eliminated funding for the program, citing concerns about the Pentagon's approach to common sensors (DAILY, Jan. 8).
NEW JOBS FOR UAVS: In the coming years, "I think you're going to see more [use of unmanned aerial vehicles] in law enforcement," says Daryl Davidson, executive director of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI). "We've typically seen that the most natural migration beyond the military goes into law enforcement, or the paramilitary side.
The MV-22 Osprey program is the subject of a new probe by the U.S. Defense Department's Inspector General after the U.S. Marine Corps Commandant last month received a letter alleging "irregularities" by two previous crash investigations. Pentagon auditors earlier this month opened the second department-level investigation of the Osprey program this year, DOD spokeswoman Susan Hansen told Aerospace Daily affiliate AviationNow.com.
The General Accounting Office has recommended the State Department change its procedures for reviewing export license applications for defense-related items and services after finding it has "no guidelines on the length of time a review should take, no requirements to justify a lengthy review and no systematic checks on the progress of applications." Although the State Department has hired additional officers to review the applications, it still "lacks procedures to control the flow of license applications through the review process," the report says.
DOWN, MAYBE NOT OUT: Start-up satellite ventures like Astrolink International may have suffered from the fallout of dotcom and telecommunications companies in the late 1990s, but Astrolink's fate is not sealed, say some satellite industry observers. Astrolink was created in 1999 by Lockheed Martin Corp., TRW Inc., Telespazio SPA, and Liberty Media Group to provide global broadband satellite service, but has suffered a number of recent setbacks.
COMSAT MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS, a business unit of Lockheed Martin Corp., has launched its Mobile Packet Data Service (MPDS), which provides remote users with access to Internet applications such as web access, file transfer and electronic mail. MPDS is the most recent offering via Inmarsat's Global Area Network. It uses laptop-sized Inmarsat M4 terminals. "GAN technology provides industry and professional leaders with the global communications bandwidth and speed they require to extend their enterprise networks into their field operations," said Kathryn Y.
SPECTRUM ASTRO has validated the flight structure of its developmental test vehicle (DTV) for the Swift Gamma Ray Burst Explorer and is ready to build the Swift's flight structure at its Integration and Test facility in Gilbert, Ariz., the company announced Jan. 9. The DTV went through flight testing from Oct. 15 to Nov. 15 2001. The DTV consisted of a flight structure and mass models that simulated the Swift spacecraft and its payload components.
