The Latest Word On Trends And Developments In Aerospace And Defense
Cyber Caution. National Security Agency Director Army Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the new Cyber Command, has had his long-stalled SASC confirmation hearing. Committee chairman Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) says on April 15 the committee delayed the hearing because “careful scrutiny” of the new command was needed. He notes that while combatant commanders usually respond to attacks that affect their forces in theater, “responses and initiatives in cyberspace could have extremely broad and damaging consequences, and in the future may require rapid decision-making.” In this context, he adds, “some have expressed concern about an officer without strong career experience in commanding combat forces serving as a sub-unified combatant commander. Faced with that complex situation, the committee proceeded methodically to gain an understanding of what the Congress is being asked to approve and what the key cyberspace issues are that need to be addressed.”
…Appropriate Proceeding. SASC staff held “numerous” meetings with Pentagon officials on “a host of policy and operational issues associated with Cyber Com and military and intelligence operations in cyberspace,” Levin says. The panel has been assured the Obama administration “is committed to rapidly closing the cyberspace policy gap” and the Pentagon “is proceeding with appropriate caution and care regarding military operations in cyberspace,” he adds. SASC Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.) says since Cyber Command was created last year he also has had concerns “about ensuring that the role, mission, legal authorities and rules of engagement that Cyber Command will employ are well thought out and understood.” McCain says the SASC has “made progress in achieving greater clarity in this regard” and Alexander is “well-qualified for this new assignment.”
LHD Escalation. A March 30 Pentagon internal reprogramming shifts $6 million within the Navy’s shipbuilding account to cover escalation charges with the USS Makin Island (LHD-8) amphibious ship, which Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding built in Pascagoula, Miss. “In accordance with the terms of the LHD-8 construction contract, the Navy is responsible to pay contract escalation incurred through the month that the contract reaches contract ceiling price,” the Navy says in a statement. “Because of a recent indices revision by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, our liability increased to pay for an additional two months of contract escalation. Shipbuilder escalation costs are attributed to Hurricane Katrina because of the associated schedule impact.” The $6 million was initially intended for DDG-51 destroyer construction that was impacted by the hurricane. “Actual DDG-51 Program Hurricane Katrina impacts were less than initial estimates,” the Navy says.
No New Ice. The Coast Guard will call for rehabbing existing Great Lakes icebreakers in a forthcoming report to Congress, outgoing Commandant Adm. Thad Allen tells the SAC-HS April 14. “Our position is that rather than go for single additional icebreaker, (we want) to be able to take the five 140-foot icebreaking tugs that are on the Great Lakes and bring those up so they can operate another 10 years while we assess what we need to do, (that) probably is the way forward,” he says. “We’re finalizing those recommendations right now, but that looks where that study is going.” Approximately $131 million over five years would be needed to extend the service lives of the five Great Lakes icebreakers for 10 years, he says. That money would be requested in the fiscal year 2012 budget or later.
Security Leaders. Retired Navy Adm. William Fallon and former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine now serve on the board of directors of the American Security Project, a non-profit bipartisan public policy and research organization focused on national-security issues. Former Democratic Senator Gary Hart chairs ASP’s board and retired Vice Adm. Lee Gunn is its president. Hart says Augustine throughout his career “has distinguished himself with his intelligence, integrity, and sound judgment on tremendously complicated issues.” Gunn says Fallon has “honed a clear-eyed view of America’s role in the world, the need to balance all the elements of our nation’s power, and the importance of ensuring an honest discussion at home.”
More Strykers For Guard. The National Guard would “love” to have another brigade of Strykers, according to its Acting Director. In response to a question from HAC-D Chairman Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) during a hearing last week, Maj. Gen. Raymond Carpenter says he would put the additional brigade on the West Coast.
B-2 Radar Upgrades. Northrop Grumman has completed the system development and demonstration (SDD) phase of the B-2 Radar Modernization Program (RMP), the company says. SDD includes the design, development, test and installation of the new radar system in a B-2 test aircraft plus several operational bombers. Installation of the new radar in this first group of B-2s was completed Nov. 30 at Whiteman AFB, Mo., according to a statement released by the company. Final spares were delivered last month. Northrop Grumman and its subcontractors are producing the radar units authorized under the low-rate initial production phase (LRIP) of the RMP program, which began in December 2008, as well as the full- rate production phase, which began in November 2009. Installation of the LRIP radar units is expected to begin in the coming weeks, with completion of all radar installations expected in 2012. The effort replaces the aircraft’s original radar system with one that incorporates technology improvements that have occurred since its original design in the early 1980s. Raytheon developed a significant portion of the new radar hardware. The units include a new advanced electronically scanned array antenna, a power supply and a modified receiver/exciter. Other key RMP subcontractors include Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems. The 20-aircraft operational fleet of B-2s is headquartered at Whiteman with the 509th Bomb Wing.
1,000 and Counting. Lockheed Martin has delivered its 1,000th Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) to the Air Force, the company says. The stealthy missile was completed as part of the seventh production lot at the Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control facility in Troy, Ala. The eighth production lot is now under contract toward a total objective of 4,900 JASSM and JASSM-ER (Extended Range) missiles. The baseline JASSM is also produced for foreign customers for the weapon. JASSM can be integrated on multiple aircraft and have been successfully demonstrated on the B-1, B-2, B-52 and F-16 aircraft. Future platforms include the F-15E, F/A-18 and F-35.
Rotorcraft Protection. Northrop Grumman announces the successful integration of the company’s infrared self-protection system developed for the Army Common Infrared Countermeasures (CIRCM) program with a mid-infrared transport fiber laser coupling, demonstrating the systems’ enhanced Modular Open System Architecture (MOSA). “The fiber coupling of laser jamming energy into our jam head demonstrates how this approach supports both direct coupled and remote laser sources,” says Carl Smith, vice president of Infrared Countermeasures for Northrop Grumman’s Land and Self Protection Systems Division. “As new threats evolve, our CIRCM system is ready to take advantage of advancing laser technology to counter emerging threats.” The company’s multi-band Viper laser, currently in full-rate production, and a small jam head were used during this demonstration. The continued development of a common fiber interface will greatly facilitate future laser or jam head upgrades as technology evolves, according to the company. Northrop Grumman has delivered over 2,000 IRCM transmitters and its directional infrared countermeasures system is the only such aircraft protection system currently in full-scale production and installed on over 500 hundred military aircraft to protect approximately 50 different types of rotary-wing platforms and large fixed-wing transports from heat seeking missile attacks. The system functions by automatically detecting a missile launch, determining if it is a threat to the aircraft and activating a high-intensity laser-based countermeasure system to track and defeat the missile.
Parachute Test. ATK, along with NASA, the Army and United Space Alliance, broke the record for the largest single load extracted out of a C-17 aircraft as they successfully conducted an Ares I drogue parachute drop-test, ATK says. The test was conducted at the Army’s Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz., as the team deployed a record-breaking weight of 77,000 pounds of payload from a C-17 aircraft flying at 25,000 feet. The previous record was 72,000 pounds. Following release, the test article was allowed to accelerate to a pre- determined velocity before the 68-foot diameter drogue parachute was deployed. The drogue parachute is designed to reorient and decelerate the first stage booster to an acceptable speed and condition before the three main parachutes are deployed. This test exercised the drogue parachute to its intended 450,000-pound design load for the Ares I first stage. Initial data indicate the test met all objectives. This test was the third in a series of four planned drogue parachute drop tests. The final test will be an overload test, testing the parachute beyond the load expected for normal operations, according to ATK.
Tanking Drones. Northrop Grumman’s navigation products provided robust performance during recent flight tests for the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Automated Aerial Refueling (AAR) program, the company says. The purpose of the AAR program is to develop the capability of refueling unmanned aircraft with the existing Air Force tanker fleet. Employing a Learjet as a surrogate for an unmanned aircraft and a modified refueling tanker, Northrop Grumman’s relative navigation software and LN-251 embedded global positioning system (GPS)/fiber-optic inertial navigation system (INS) provided the precise positioning information required in support of the simulated aerial refueling mission. A series of 10 flight tests, which concluded on March 18, demonstrated that Northrop Grumman’s relative navigation software could be successfully hosted in the LN-251. The test also exercised the LN-251’s new Ethernet interface as well as its embedded 24-channel GPS receiver with enhanced tracking capabilities.
Support From Afar. The Navy is developing the ability to link distant support through satellites so the service can actually do remote monitoring of radar from ashore, Rear Adm. James McManamon, deputy commander for surface warfare, SEA 21, NAVESA, tells Defense Daily. The Navy is using experts ashore from Port Hueneme, he adds. “It’s not a program of record. [We’re] still having challenges coming from in-service support and some of the PEO support,” McManamon says. “We have tested that on one of the Trident Warriors and we’ve had some pretty good usefulness in being able to troubleshoot because we can actually…get a whole level of expertise in there.” The surface Navy is working to make that a program of record because of the benefits the service has seen, McManamon adds. “It allows us to [bring] experts right into a complex system and that’s proven extremely beneficial.”
…Developing CBM. Recently NAVSEA has tasked a working group with identifying processes and infrastructure required to institute a true Condition Based Maintenance (CBM) philosophy, McManamon says. “Distance support, especially in the role of remote monitoring of shipboard equipment, will be crucial to the success of CBM,” he adds. “The Navy has had pieces of CBM available for some time and I believe that distance support will be a major enabler to this process that can ultimately help focus our maintenance efforts and funding. This is but one of many examples where distant support can provide a vital role to support another process.”
Plays Well with Others. There is nothing unique about USS Freedom (LCS-1) that would be considered a disability of the ship in its ability to interact and operate with other ships, Cmdr. Randy Garner, commanding officer of the Gold Team, tells reporters. “Like any ship, one of the principle things you need to do operations with another ship or multiple ships is to have reliable communications, and we have had that,” he says. “Each ship has its own unique communications capabilities; Freedom has its own communications capabilities. We were able to flex communications capability with the Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group.” Freedom also operated with the USS McIneney (FRG-8) for a brief period while Freedom was in the Pacific conducting counter-narcotics. “I didn’t find anything specifically notable about Freedom as far as disabilities or weakness in that regard.”
Afghanistan Network. U.S. Commander in Afghanistan Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal has reached out to work with other COCOMs and the NSA in building an Afghan mission network and ensuring that that network is secure, Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the NSA, tells the SASC, during his confirmation hearing to head up USCYBERCOM. The Afghanistan mission network will not only be for the U.S. but for the other coalition partners there, Alexander adds. “There are a lot of issues in developing that. We are working through [them] as a joint team,” he says. “Those communications bring in our intelligence, our operations, our logistics and [McChrystal’s] ability to command and control all those forces across more than 40 countries. He has to ensure that those communications are reliable and protected–a huge issues and one of the key ones we are working right now.”
Ultrasonic Weld Inspections. The Navy begins a new pipe-weld inspection technique expected to save the service millions of dollars, NAVSEA says. The ultrasonic testing (UT) practices were developed by engineers and inspectors at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility (PSNS & IMF). One UT technique being tested is phased array UT, or PAUT. The PAUT generates images similar to a sonogram. The system includes a wheeled scanning unit that attaches to a circular track that wraps like a bracelet around a pipe’s weld section. This enables the unit to be moved in a straight line around the pipe, taking ultrasonic readings from multiple angles. The result is a two-dimensional image of the weld, NAVSEA adds.
Extending A Contract. Oshkosh Defense says it has received a purchase order for more than $11 million from Force Protection Industries (FPII) to extend an existing contract and retain approximately 100 Oshkosh field service representatives in Kuwait for an additional four months. The FSRs will continue support of FPII and the military with installation of the Oshkosh TAK-4 independent suspension systems on FPII Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, known as Cougars, which started in July 2009. The extension will allow Oshkosh FSRs to continue work in Kuwait through June of this year. Oshkosh is working with multiple manufacturers of legacy MRAPs and has received orders to retrofit more than 2,500 vehicles with the TAK-4 independent suspension systems.
First Deliveries. Lockheed Martin delivers the first two of seven operational Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTV), and one companion trailer, to the Army and Marine Corps for Technology Development (TD) phase testing. The vehicles, two JLTV Category B Infantry Carriers, feature a curb weight of 15,500 pounds and were signed over to DoD ahead of schedule in an acceptance ceremony late last week. Within days, Lockheed Martin plans to deliver two JLTV Category A General Purpose vehicles, each weighing in at less than 13,000 pounds (curb weight), one more Category B Infantry Carrier, one Category B Command and Control On-The-Move vehicle, one Category C Utility Carrier, and three more companion trailers. These vehicles are undergoing final acceptance preparation and will be delivered next week, also ahead of schedule. The military will conduct a 12-month test and evaluation effort at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., and Yuma Proving Ground in Yuma, Ariz., as part of the 27-month JLTV TD phase.
New Display. The Army G-4 unveils the Pentagon’s newest display, “Army Logistics Around the World,” last week. On the first floor of the Pentagon at the A ring of the fourth corridor, the new display emphasizes the work Army logisticians are doing worldwide. Hosting the event is Lt. Gen. Mitchell Stevenson, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army, G-4. Working around the clock in 80 countries, Army logisticians provide soldiers with everything they need to survive and succeed–food, water, equipment, ammunition, fuel, transportation, and mail. Through video and digital images, the new display will showcase those logisticians whose efforts are crucial to the Army’s success.