The International Space Station has a new entryway now that a Russian-built docking compartment has been added to the station. Pirs ("pier"), as the 16-foot, 8,000 pound module is named, docked automatically to a port on the Zvezda service module Sept. 16, as the station orbited 250 miles over Mongolia. "We really felt that," Expedition Three Commander Frank Culbertson said when the module docked. "It's wonderful to have one more module up here, and we're looking forward to using it."
Michelle Van Cleave will be nominated to be assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low intensity conflict, the White House announced Sept. 17. Van Cleave is currently president of National Security Concepts, a firm specializing in strategic planning and senior level policy analysis for government customers. During the 105th Congress, she was the staff director and chief counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on technology, terrorism and government information.
While air strikes will likely be a part of U.S. retaliation for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Defense Department could face shortages of precision guided weapons, according to a recent DOD report and analysts who have examined the issue. One of the military's most popular conversion kits used for precision guided weapons, the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM), will be unable to meet production surges, according to the report.
Although unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have long been predicted to be a booming industry, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington will likely accelerate their development and acceptance in a variety of missions, according to some analysts. "Even without this event, the prospects of the UAV industry getting more and more involved in military operations has been growing rapidly," Daryl Davidson, executive director of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), told The DAILY.
TERRORISM LAWMAKER: House Intelligence terrorism and homeland security subcommittee Chairman Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) has been chosen by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to lead the chamber's efforts to examine "all facets" of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and recommend "new countermeasures," according to a statement from Chambliss' office.
Amid a growing realization among officials that India is vulnerable to terrorist attacks, the Indian ministry of civil aviation has redrafted its contingency plan for dealing with hijacked passenger aircraft. The proposed plan, which will be placed before the cabinet for its approval, suggests using Indian air force fighters, employing unusual tactics, against hijackers.
Northrop Grumman Corp. recently took delivery of the first engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) RQ-8A Fire Scout Vertical Takeoff and Landing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle from Schweizer Aircraft Corp., which produced the airframe.
MYERS CONFIRMED: The Senate Sept. 14 confirmed Air Force Gen. Richard Myers to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The vote came less than a month after President George W. Bush tapped Myers for the post (DAILY, Aug. 27), reflecting widespread support for the nomination.
SPACE CADETS UNITE: "The Air Force's primary doctrine is one of 'aerospace power,' flowing from the premise that air and space are a single indivisible operational medium," says Pike.
SPACE VIEWS: Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, the Bush Administration's nominee for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says the U.S. should research and develop space-based offensive weapons in case they are needed someday. But in written answers to questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee, he says that deployment of those systems will "not necessarily" be needed in the future to control space. "The easiest way to ensure space control is to interdict satellite ground stations or their communications links," Myers asserts.
TROUBLE DOWN SOUTH: A recent agreement between Chile and Argentina to coordinate their defense budget expenditures could spell trouble for aviation modernization programs in Latin America. The agreement establishes common methods for measuring defense expenditures, with an eventual goal of reducing overall defense spending. Brazil and Peru also have expressed interest in joining the agreement. But several of these countries have current or pending aviation modernization programs that could get caught up in the negotiations over the agreement.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and ranking Republican John Warner (Va.) planned to work through the Sept. 15-16 weekend in hopes of resolving their differences over the missile defense provisions in the fiscal 2002 defense authorization bill, Warner told reporters Sept. 14. Warner also said that he was trying to add language to the bill to give Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld increased flexibility to transfer money between various accounts to respond to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
BMD DETAILS: The Senate Armed Services Committee's newly released version of the fiscal 2002 defense authorization bill endorses the Bush Administration's proposal to reorganize the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization's activities into six main program elements: Boost, Midcourse and Terminal Defense segments, Ballistic Missile Defense system, Sensors and Technology.
Travel restrictions and heightened security measures have not yet significantly impacted the business operations of U.S. aerospace and defense firms, company representatives said Sept. 14. Although air travel restrictions put in place after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and subsequent security measures have delayed transportation times, major companies report they have not experienced a slowdown in operations. "I don't think we've hit a shortage of F-16 parts at Fort Worth," said Hugh Burns, a spokesman for Lockheed Martin Corp.
NASA is developing cockpit display technology that will use digital terrain and elevation data to paint real-time pictures of the landscapes pilots are flying over. Limited terrain visibility, due to weather or other factors, is still a major element in most fatal aircraft accidents, according to NASA.
Even while the commercial satellite market remains flat, the Brazilian Congress is preparing to reject an agreement that would allow U.S. companies to launch satellites from the Alcantara launch center in Brazil. Alcantara's location on the coastline of northern Brazil in close proximity to the equator makes it a near ideal location for launching satellites into geostationary orbit, according to Marco Caceres, the director of Space Studies at the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va.
Three days after a terrorist-controlled plane slammed into the Pentagon, about two-thirds of the building is "operating in a normal matter," said John Irby, the federal facilities division director at the Pentagon. The Pentagon is approximately six million square feet, Irby estimated, so that would mean four million square feet is now open. It is difficult to say how long reconstruction of permanently damaged areas will take, according to Irby. "It will take more than a year, but certainly less than a decade."
Once the focus of many policy studies but few applications, homeland defense may emerge as a central focus in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist incidents. What the outcome of this focus will be, however, is far from clear. "After seven years [of study], I am a little bit frustrated that things have not moved forward," said retired Air Force Col. Randall Larsen, now the director of the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security. The U.S. needs to act quickly to establish a cabinet level official in charge of homeland defense matters, he said.
Hopes for unanimity among the four countries in the Nordic Standard Helicopter Program were dashed Sept. 13, when Denmark decided not to select the NH-90, which had been picked by Finland, Norway and Sweden. Finland plans to buy 20 NH-90s, Norway plans to buy 14 and Sweden plans to buy 18 - 52 maritime, coast guard and troop transport versions in all, worth about 1.4 billion euros (nearly $1.3 billion).
Lockheed Martin Information Systems has been awarded the U.S. Air Force's Theater Aerospace Command and Control Facility operations and maintenance contract, which is worth about $25 million over the next five years. The contract could grow to cover 10 years, according to the company. It covers operations and maintenance, hardware, software and systems development, as well as studies and analyses for the Air Force training facility at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M.
LOW-TECH TERROR: "Over the last decade there has obviously been a tendency to focus on the exciting, high-end threats, and the expensive solutions to them," says John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org. "I have been of the view all along that it's the technologically less sophisticated threats that are far more likely to actually confront us. Terrorist organizations are extraordinarily risk averse.
SPECTRUM STANCE: Myers says he agrees with a recent Defense Department report that concluded it would take at least $4.3 billion and 17 years for DOD to vacate the 1755-1850 megahertz (MHz) band of the radio frequency spectrum, which the private sector wants to use for third-generation wireless communications devices. Comparable replacement spectrum would have to be found, and DOD would have to receive full and timely reimbursement to relocate its systems, Myers adds in written answers to questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee.
