UK Air Force Starts Post-Repair Sentry AWACS Flight Tests
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UK Air Force Starts Post-Repair Sentry AWACS Flight Tests


UK Air Force Starts Post-Repair Sentry AWACS Flight TestsThe Royal Air Force has commenced test flights of the military branch’s Sentry E-3D aircraft following completion of repairs to the system’s electrical wiring, Defense News reported Monday.

Andrew Chuter writes the airborne warning-and-control system aircraft could return to service in January if the unit performs well during the tests.

“This work continues and a return to the normal level of aircraft availability is forecast early in 2017,” the Royal Air Force said.

The U.K’s E-3D fleet ceased operations in October after the service branch discovered electrical wiring and cabin conditioning problems, according to the report.

RAF led the remedial team that includes Northrop Grumman, which secured a nine-year contract extension to support the aircraft, Chuter reports.

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NASA Renames SSCO as Satellite Servicing Projects Division; Ben Reed Comments
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NASA Renames SSCO as Satellite Servicing Projects Division; Ben Reed Comments


NASA Renames SSCO as Satellite Servicing Projects Division; Ben Reed CommentsNASA has turned the Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office into a division in response to the growth in satellite servicing demonstrations and projects as well as the need to coordinate servicing missions and implement technology development programs.

The renamed Satellite Servicing Projects Division will be composed of three offices that include the satellite servicing enabling technologies, satellite servicing advanced concepts and the International Space Station payloads office, NASA said Monday.

The SSET office will oversee the development of technology platforms for in-space robotic servicing missions, while SSAC will manage the creation of technologies designed to meet in-space servicing requirements.

IPO will handle in-space servicing hardware development projects on the ISS that include the ISS Robotic External Leak Locator, Raven demonstration, Robotic Refueling Mission and Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer platforms.

SSCO “was the foundation that will allow us as a division to expand our technologies for multiple stakeholders – from on-orbit refueling to large aperture telescope assembly in space, and NASA’s Journey to Mars,” said Ben Reed, deputy division director for SSPD.

The division will also oversee the Restore-L Project that is responsible for the development of robotic platforms for the Restore-L mission, as well as the Asteroid Redirect Mission Capture Module Project that will manage the robotic spacecraft’s front end.

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Marine Corps to Acquire Smartphones for Mobility and Tactical Capacity Boost Effort
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Marine Corps to Acquire Smartphones for Mobility and Tactical Capacity Boost Effort


Marine Corps to Acquire Smartphones for Mobility and Tactical Capacity Boost EffortThe U.S. Marine Corps will acquire smartphones for fiscal year 2017 in a push to update the service branch’s capacity for fire support in support of efforts to bolster mobility and tactical capacity to address threats, C4ISR & Networks reported Monday.

Mark Pomerleau writes air controllers, forward observers and joint terminal attack controllers will be given an updated portable system called the Target Handoff System designed to help dismounted Marines call for close-air support, locate targets and pinpoint GPS coordinates.

“With the new version, Marines will obtain a lightweight device equipped to provide immediate situational awareness on where friendly and enemy locations are, and the ability to hand off target data to fire support,” said Jesse Hume, Marine Corps Systems Command project officer for THS version 2.

THS version 2 will utilize commercial off-the-shelf smartphones which will reduce the acquisition time for the new technology as well as the entire system weight to approximately 10 pounds.

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NASA Develops Tracking System for Firefighters Inside Buildings
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NASA Develops Tracking System for Firefighters Inside Buildings


NASA Develops Tracking System for Firefighters Inside BuildingsNASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has created a tracking system that works to provide firefighters’ locations inside buildings.

The agency said Tuesday the Precision Outdoor and Indoor Navigation and Tracking for Emergency Responders system works to address tracking problems which occur when firefighters enter buildings that block radio signals.

“To this day, the ability to track and locate first responders is a number one priority for disaster agencies across the country,” said Greg Price, director of the Department of Homeland Security‘ first responder technologies division.

POINTER has been demonstrated for leaders at DHS’ science and technology directorate which provided funds to develop the tracking system.

Representatives from fire departments across the U.S. participated in a demonstration of POINTER at JPL in September, NASA said.

JPL employee Darmindra Arumugam developed POINTER through quasistatic fields that work to get around walls and provide non-line-of-sight functions.

Arumugam’s team works to miniaturize the backpack-sized device so it could fit into pocket or on a belt buckle and become commercialized.

The technology behind POINTER can also be used for industrial, military and space applications, NASA noted.

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Naval Research Lab Flies UAV With Custom-Built Hydrogen Fuel Cell
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Naval Research Lab Flies UAV With Custom-Built Hydrogen Fuel Cell


Naval Research Lab Flies UAV With Custom-Built Hydrogen Fuel CellThe U.S. Naval Research Laboratory’s chemistry and tactical warfare division has commenced the first flight of an unmanned air vehicle that uses an in-house built custom hydrogen-powered fuel cell.

NRL said Monday the team built and designed the fuel system for the Ion Tiger UAV with a capacity of up to 5,000 watts with the use of formed metal-foil bipolar plates held together with titanium straps to serve as the backbone of the system.

“The decision to move to metal bipolar plates allowed us to leverage a lot of know how from the automotive industry’s large investment in hydrogen fuel cells,” said Benjamin Gould, chief scientist for the fuel cell project at NRL.

“NRL having the know how to build their own fuel cells in house gives (Office of Naval Research) and the U.S. Navy the understanding and tools needed for transitioning fuel cells to the fleet,” added Michele Anderson, a program manager at ONR.

The research laboratory also developed a lightweight air compressor and microcontroller for the system along with a computational fluid design suite to design and validate gas and coolant flow fields.

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NASA’s 8-Satellite Cyclone Surveillance System Reaches Orbit
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NASA’s 8-Satellite Cyclone Surveillance System Reaches Orbit


NASA's 8-Satellite Cyclone Surveillance System Reaches OrbitNASA has said the space agency’s new group of eight small Earth science mission satellites reached orbit safely and is on track to monitor tropical storms and hurricanes.

The Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System will work to measure ocean surface winds within and near a hurricane’s inner core such as regions beneath the eyewall and intense inner rainbands, NASA said Friday.

CYGNSS was launched Thursday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida aboard an Orbital ATK-built Pegasus rocket.

Christopher Ruf, CYGNSS principal investigator at the University of Michigan’s climate and space sciences and engineering department, said measurements from the satellite constellation will aid hurricane tracking and intensity forecasting activities.

The constellation is designed to use direct and reflected signals from existing GPS satellites to measure surface wind speed over the ocean, NASA noted.

The agency selected CYGNSS as the first orbital mission under the Earth Venture program which aims to support low-cost Earth science missions.

Southwest Research Institute led the development, integration and operation of CYGNSS microsatellites while the University of Michigan College of Engineering oversees mission execution and science investigation.

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DOJ: 3 Romanians Extradited and Charged With Cyber Fraud Conspiracy in US
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DOJ: 3 Romanians Extradited and Charged With Cyber Fraud Conspiracy in US


DOJ: 3 Romanians Extradited and Charged With Cyber Fraud Conspiracy in USThree Romanian nationals have been indicted on charges of wire fraud, conspiracy, identity theft and money laundering associated with a cyber fraud operation that infected more than 60,000 computers and resulted in the transmission of 11 million malicious emails.

The 21-count indictment was revealed Friday following the extradition of Bogdan Nicolescu, Radu Miclaus and Tiberiu Danet to the U.S., the Justice Department said Friday.

Nicolescu, Miclaus and Danet allegedly started their cyber operation in Romania in 2007 through the use of a malware to infect computers and collect credit card data, passwords and other personally identifiable information from victims.

The Romanian nationals also posted over 1,000 malware-infected listings of motorcycles and automobiles on auction websites that led to the theft of more than $4 million from victims.

The FBI conducted the investigation in collaboration with the Romanian national police and the office of international affairs under DOJ’s criminal division.

Symantec also launched a research campaign to gather intelligence on the Romanian nationals that are part of the cyber crime group known as “Bayrob.”

Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan: F-35 Program Has Been On Schedule, On Budget Since 2011
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Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan: F-35 Program Has Been On Schedule, On Budget Since 2011


Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan: F-35 Program Has Been On Schedule, On Budget Since 2011
Chris Bogdan

Air Force Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan, head of the F-35 joint program office, has said the Lockheed Martin-built F-35 fighter aircraft has been on budget and on schedule since his office restructured the program in 2011, Breaking Defense reported Monday.

Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. writes Bogdan’s remarks are in response to President-elect Donald Trump’s comment that the F-35 program’s cost “was out of control.”

He noted that a contract for the low-rate initial production of lot 9 F-35s will procure a total of 57 aircraft that includes 34 jets for the U.S. and 23 for allied countries such as Norway, Japan, Italy, Israel and the U.K.

Bogdan said that the LRIP lot 9 contract represents a 5.5 percent drop in prices for the F-35A variant, 1.8 percent decline for F-35Bs and a 2.5 percent rise for F-35Cs compared with the previous lot, Freedberg reports.

He associated the 2.5 percent price increase in F-35Cs with the U.S. Navy’s decision to reduce its procurement of the variant to two under the latest lot from four under LRIP lot 8.

Bogdan said his team aims to reduce the cost of F-35 from $102 million apiece to less than $85 million per aircraft by 2018, according to a report by Doug Cameron and Paul Sonne for the Wall Street Journal.

He also noted that ethical issues are not the cause of the program’s problems in the past and that the fighter jet’s capabilities should not be reduced as part of cost-cutting efforts, the report added.

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Reports: Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Plant Unveils Photos of Russia’s T-50 Fighter Jet
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Reports: Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Plant Unveils Photos of Russia’s T-50 Fighter Jet


Reports: Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Plant Unveils Photos of Russia’s T-50 Fighter JetThe Komsomolsk-on-Amur aircraft plant has published on its website new photos of a prototype of Russia’s T-50 fighter aircraft, RT.com reported Sunday.

The pictures show the fighter jet, which costs approximately $50 million per aircraft, undergoing initial test flights.

The report noted that Russian company Sukhoi develops the aircraft to replace the Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jet.

Yury Borisov, Russia’s deputy defense minister, said in September that the country’s defense ministry will begin mass production of T-50 in 2017 with a plan to acquire at least one squadron of the aircraft by next year, RT.com added.

The T-50 single-seat aircraft is comparable to the U.S.’ F-35 and F-22 jets as well as China’s J-20 plane, according to a report by Brad Lendon for CNN.

The twin-engine fighter jet has a 30mm cannon designed to fire 1,800 tracer and incendiary rounds per minute at land-based targets at a range of up to 1800 meters.

Another version of T-50 is under development phase for export to India’s air force, Lendon added.

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Ray Mabus Talks Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship Program, Efforts to Increase Fleet Size
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Ray Mabus Talks Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship Program, Efforts to Increase Fleet Size


Ray Mabus Talks Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship Program, Efforts to Increase Fleet Size
Ray Mabus

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has offered updates on the littoral combat ship program and other efforts to build up the service branch’s fleet size.

Mabus told Defense News senior naval reporter Christopher P. Cavas in an interview published Sunday how the military branch worked to address capability, cost and schedule issues with the LCS program, which he says provides “capabilities that no other ship does.”

He noted that three aircraft carriers and two amphibious ships are in the construction phase and that the Navy has started to procure 10 destroyers and 10 submarines over a period of five years in an effort to address the declining number of ships.

“You better have an eye on 15 years down the road because if that secretary of the Navy in 2021 who is bragging on the fact that he or she grew the fleet isn’t doing the same thing then whoever the secretary in 2031 is going to be in rough shape and is going to get pounded for it,” Mabus said.

He told the publication that the service branch has begun to move forward with the amphibious ship program, LXR, as a replacement for the landing ship dock.

Mabus also discussed the Navy’s aircraft acquisition, efforts to protect research and development funds, personnel initiatives and biofuel adoption.

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