The Iraq war underscored the U.S. military's increasing difficulty in getting access to overseas bases and its need for more long-range platforms to address that problem, according to a new report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA).
Northrop Grumman said Sept. 15 it has successfully tested the U.S. Air Force's Multi-platform Radar Technology Insertion Program (MP-RTIP) during a five-day simulation exercise in July. The test, hosted on Northrop Grumman's Cyber Warfare Integration Network (CWIN), involved three virtual MP-RTIP-configured wide-area surveillance (WAS) aircraft and one virtual MP-RTIP-equipped Global Hawk unmanned aerial surveillance aircraft.
Officials with the Boeing Co. and the Insitu Group said Sept. 15 that one their ScanEagle unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) flew more than 15 hours during a test flight at the end of August. After taking off from the Boeing Boardman test facility in eastern Oregon, ScanEagle A flew through a series of test points at altitudes ranging from 900 to 2,000 feet, officials said.
UPGRADED HORNET: The Royal Australian Air Force received the last F/A-18 Hornet upgraded with Raytheon's APG-73 radar system, the company said last week. Raytheon delivered 71 APG-73 systems to Australia as part of the Hornet upgrade (HUG) program. As part of the HUG program, RAAF Hornets have been progressively upgraded to a standard similar to the U.S. Navy's F/A-18C/D, the company said. The HUG program marks the first upgrade of any international F/A-18 Hornet, Raytheon said.
All three bidders for a $400 million contract to develop the back-end system for the U.S. Air Force's E-10A Multi-sensor Command and Control Aircraft (MC2A) were selected to advance to the next stage of the competition, the Defense Department announced Sept. 15. Competing teams led by Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Boeing were awarded $4 million contracts in the Battle Management Command and Control (BMC2) program's initial downselect decision.
MOSCOW - Leadership of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center has changed, with the retirement of commander Col. Gen. Pyotr Klimuk and the appointment of Maj. Gen. Vasily Tsibliyev, his deputy, to head the center. Klimuk needed Russian President Vladimir Putin's approval to continue as head of the center, but Putin issued a decree that retired him.
Raytheon Co. has successfully completed factory acceptance tests of its Eclipse telemetry, command and control software for the U.S. Air Force's Wideband Gapfiller Satellite (WGS) program, the company said Sept. 15. Raytheon is providing the software under a contract from the Boeing Co. The WGS program will include up to six satellites. The first two satellites are scheduled to launch in 2005, the third in 2006.
FIRST ENGINE: Pratt & Whitney has completed the assembly of the first production-configuration F135 engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, less than two years after the initial contract award, the company said. The company will test the engine at its West Palm Beach, Fla., facilities, the company said.
CLARIFICATION: A story in The DAILY Sept. 8 on the fuze system for the Boeing Small Diameter Bomb should have reported that all development and qualification testing required by the military standards on fuzes are completed and the fuze is fully qualified for use.
The MARS network-centric warfare (NCW) portal, which the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) tested during the Quantum Leap 1 demonstration last month, will be used by troops in Iraq "in the very near future," according to Marian Cherry, manager of DOD's Horizontal Fusion portfolio. "We've been asked to look at how quickly we could in fact make this available in Iraq," Cherry told The DAILY. "We're having those discussions right now."
Energized by glowing reports of the Sensor Fuzed Weapon's (SFW's) battlefield debut in Iraq, Textron Systems is planning a major push for technology upgrades and international customers. The CBU-97 SFW is a precision cluster bomb designed to eject 10 anti-armor BLU-108 submunitions, each containing four skeet warheads equipped with heat-seeking sensors and small rocket motors. When mated to the CBU-105 Wind-Corrected Munitions Dispenser (WCMD), the SFW can be released at high altitudes and strike targets within a 30-acre area.
September 8, 2003 NAVY Raytheon Co., Tucson, Ariz., is being awarded a $250,000,000 cost-plus-award-fee modification to a previously awarded contract (N00024-00-C-5390) to provide engineering and technical services in support of standard missile Navy research and development programs. Work will be performed in Tucson, Ariz., and is expected to be completed by February 2005. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.
Military aerospace featured more prominently than ever at Europe's biggest defense exhibition, Defence Systems & Equipment International (DSEi), held last week in London. Organizers said the aerospace industry is gaining ground at the show. They added that the display of a Eurofighter Typhoon and an AH-64 Apache helicopter at the exhibition in east London's Docklands emphasized DSEi's importance as a tri-service show.
Northrop Grumman has begun developing the next-generation of the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), which will have longer wings and 50 percent more payload capacity than the current aircraft, the company announced Sept. 15. The company is scheduled to deliver the first three next-generation Global Hawks, designated RQ-4B, between 2004 and 2005. Work began following a recent $30.1 million award by the Air Force for advanced procurement activities and long-lead hardware (DAILY, July 1).
PUMA DELIVERY: Romania's IAR Brasov will supply the ministry of defense six Puma helicopters equipped with the SOCAT anti-tank search and combat system, the Romanian Mediafax news agency said last week. The systems are due by the end of the year.
NEW DELHI - Israel plans to mount an ultraviolet telescope on India's GSAT-4 satellite, Indian and Israeli officials said last week during Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's visit here. The telescope would be launched by a version of India's Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle in 2005. The telescope was scheduled to be carried by a Russian satellite, but those negotiations were not concluded.
Six companies are working under five-year contracts, with a potential total value of $252 million, to support the Air Force Information Warfare Center (AFIWC) at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas. The companies will provide offensive and defensive information warfare capabilities to support a range of activities, including operations, acquisition and testing, according to a recent Pentagon announcement.
U.S. Navy and industry officials said Sept. 12 they have successfully tested a prototype enterprise architecture that could be used to share intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance data around the world. The system, called the Enterprise Expeditionary Strike Warfare Architecture (eESWA) was tested successfully during a laboratory simulation exercise in July at the Navy's Precision Engagement Center at China Lake, Calif.
Last-minute requirements changes forced the U.S. Air Force to delay the bidding deadline for two pre-development contracts for the Airborne Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) by nine days. The Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., which is managing the program, planned to close a request for proposals period Sept. 10. At stake in the competition are two, nine-month studies that will complete the baseline design of the $500 million airborne JTRS system development and demonstration (SDD) phase.
SAGEM has provided the first of four Sperwer unmanned aerial vehicles for the Canadian army, which plans to use the vehicles for target acquisition and surveillance in Afghanistan. The UAV is launched by catapult and recovered by parachute. The army also bought ground data and launching equipment and simulators for the UAV systems, the Canadian Department of National Defence said.
