In what could be another setback for Poland's already drawn-out competition to upgrade its Soviet-era aircraft, Polish Defense Minster Jerzy Szmajdzinski has cancelled a $20 million tender seeking legal support services for the aircraft modernization process.
The newly enacted aviation security act authorizes $50 million a year for research, development, testing and evaluation of various aviation security technologies, including "aircraft hardening materials." The funding, which is authorized from fiscal year 2002 to 2006, will be channeled through the Transportation Security Administration, a new agency that the law sets up within the Transportation Department. Congress will still have to pass an annual appropriation to provide the money.
The next target in the war on terrorism should be Iraq, says Richard Perle, the outspoken chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board and the former assistant secretary of defense for international security policy under the Reagan Administration.
Efforts by the Department of Defense to simplify its procurement practices and reduce costs are leading some companies to propose e-commerce solutions using the Internet. Last August, DOD awarded a 5-year, $600 million contract to TestMart Inc., a San Bruno, Calif.-based IT company, to design, build and manage an e-commerce portal site to sell electronic test and measurement equipment to DOD agencies and other government entities at drastically reduced prices.
The Tactical Aircraft Directable Infrared Countermeasure System (TADIRCM) successfully defeated an infrared surface-to-air missile in a live fire test earlier this month, BAE Systems announced Nov. 20. The company, which is developing the system with the U.S. Navy, said the test marked the first time a modern infrared missile fired at a tactical aircraft was defeated by an on-board laser-based directional infrared countermeasure system. TADIRCM employs BAE Systems' Agile-Eye infrared jamming head and laser.
Mexico might someday work with the North American Aerospace Defense Command to help guard against the possibility of an airborne terrorist threat from south of the border. NORAD, a joint command of the U.S. and Canada, has shifted its focus to interior airspace since the attacks of Sept. 11, but an air defense relationship with Mexico could allow earlier detection of an attack from that direction.
NASA is preparing to launch two earth science satellites - the joint U.S./French oceanography satellite Jason-1, as well as the TIMED (Thermosphere, Ionosphere, Mesosphere, Energetics and Dynamics) satellite - from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. aboard a Delta II rocket Dec. 7. Jason 1, which was designed as a follow-on to the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite, will monitor world ocean circulation, study the interaction of the oceans with the atmosphere, improve climate predictions, and observe events like El Nino.
The chief executives of the five equal equity shareholding companies making up AirTanker, which is bidding for the United Kingdom's Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) program, met Nov. 19 to review their progress as the evaluation nears its final stages.
CNES, the French space agency, planned to test-fire an Ariane 5 solid rocket motor Nov. 20 at Europe's spaceport in French Guiana. The test was intended to qualify new procurement sources for part of the motor's propellant, involving the use of ammonium perchlorate produced by the U.S. company Wecco.
The U.S. Army is in a "holding pattern" as it waits for Congress to decide whether to provide funding needed to finish a side-by-side test of the Starstreak and Stinger air-to-air missiles, according to an Army official.
Any agreement the Bush Administration reaches to amend the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia should be put in writing and submitted to the Senate for approval, according to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden (D-Del.) and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.).
Aerospace and defense analysts with Standard&Poor's have assigned a preliminary A rating to Rockwell Collins Inc.'s $750 million worth of senior unsecured debt securities. The action follows the company's Nov. 7 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission requesting approval to offer the securities to investors periodically.
Denying recent news reports claiming that bureaucratic red-tape was interfering with strikes against time-critical targets in Afghanistan, Rumsfeld said that "targeting has gotten very good" and that he is satisfied with how Central Command in Florida is handling the current campaign. It is the Commander-in-Chief of Central Command, Gen. Tommy Franks, who ultimately has to make decisions on whether to strike a target, Rumsfeld said at the Pentagon Nov. 19.
With four C-17s delivered to the United Kingdom's Royal Air Force (RAF), Boeing and the U.S. Air Force confirmed that other countries are beginning to express interest in the transport aircraft. The RAF received its first C-17 airlift aircraft in May and has already used them in test flights and operational missions.
The first EA-6B Prowler equipped with the Increased Capability III (ICAP III) jamming system made a one-hour, 45-minute first flight on Nov. 16, Northrop Grumman Corp. announced Nov. 19. The aircraft is one of two prototypes being developed by the company's Integrated Systems Sector under a $200 million development program for the Navy. ICAP III focuses electronic signals on specific radar frequencies. It can change its jamming frequency as quickly as modern radars change theirs in an attempt to avoid jamming, according to the company.
Plans to achieve initial service clearance of the Eurofighter in the coming year are being expedited by the recent return of the DA4 development aircraft to the flight-test program at Warton, after an extensive lay-up for inspections and modifications. One of two United Kingdom development aircraft, DA4 was the first two-seat Eurofighter and also the first to incorporate a full avionics installation, including the new ECR 90 Captor fire-control radar.
PRATT&WHITNEY CANADA CORP. completed the first flight test of a UH-1 Huey helicopter equipped with a PT6C-67D engine, part of an engine upgrade development program.
Six European Union defense ministers signed a declaration in Brussels, Belgium, on Nov. 19 to develop and sustain combat air systems over the next two decades. Military officials from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom agreed to launch the European Technology Acquisition Program (ETAP). This is a follow-on to their earlier accord on the European requirement for an efficient and globally competitive aerospace and defense electronics industry.
