They called it the launch of Mississippi’s recovery.
State and federal officials at Tuesday’s ribbon-cutting ceremonies for Northrop Grumman’s Unmanned Systems Center called its official opening an indication that the Mississippi Coast is making a comeback from Hurricane Katrina. They also predicted the center would draw more high-tech jobs to the region.
The center will assemble different parts of the Fire Scout and Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles.
“There will a lot of ribbons cut along the Gulf Coast in the weeks and months and years ahead,” Sen. Trent Lott said.
“A lot of them will be replacements of things that have been destroyed. But each one of them will be symbolic of the comeback that we’re going to make it in Mississippi.”
The Unmanned Systems Center, he said, is especially important because it involves a project that was conceived before Hurricane Katrina.
Source and more info: gulflive
Headwall Photonics, a supplier of high performance integrated systems for spectral imaging and chemical sensing solutions, announced the availability of the Micro-Hyperspec, the latest in the company’s line of award-winning hyperspectral imaging solutions. The Micro-Hyperspec sensor features exceptional spectral and spatial resolution in a very compact, robust form factor which was designed to meet the rigid size, weight, and performance requirements for deployment on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGV). The market for remote sensing technology on UAV platforms is growing at an exceptional rate.
According to John Antoniades, director of remote sensing, Advanced Technologies Group at BAE Systems ‘hyperspectral imaging is a key strategic technology within the DoD community, providing support for a range of applications from battle-space target tracking to border surveillance to spectral tagging’.
‘The ability to place high performance hyperspectral sensors on UAV platforms is a key area of interest’.
‘The Micro-Hyperspec product line was specifically designed to meet the needs of the DoD organizations that are placing considerable emphasis on the deployment of Tier 1 and Tier 2 UAV platforms’.
‘We have leveraged over 12 years of experience building hyperspectral systems for the military and have designed key features into the Micro-Hyperspec to provide exceptional imaging performance, enhanced field of view, and flight path efficiency’ said David Bannon, vice president of sales and marketing at Headwall Photonics.
‘We conducted extensive research and drove the technical specifications to deliver industry-leading performance for a wide range of harsh operating environments’.
In order to achieve superb imaging, the Micro-Hyperspec design offers very high signal-to- noise capabilities with very low stray light.
The design of the Micro-Hyperspec is based on Headwall’s patented, all-reflective, concentric imaging spectrometer.
Source and more info: laboratorytalk
The unmanned aerial vehicle that is supposed to replace the U-2 spy plane when it is retired next year is over budget and behind schedule, and the acquisition program is being restructured for the fourth time, according to government documents.
The Pentagon reported to Congress earlier this month that the Northrop Grumman-built Global Hawk UAV is more than 25 percent over budget. The Government Accountability Office reported in March that the program has experienced 166 percent cost growth over the projected costs in 2001. The Defense Department has spent more than $6 billion on the program since its inception a decade ago.
The effect of the cost growth and the delays is that the program has run afoul of the Nunn-McCurdy Act, which is meant to warn Congress when acquisition costs on individual programs climb more than 15 percent. The Office of the Secretary of Defense must now certify that Global Hawk is necessary to national security, that costs are now under control — the reason for the restructuring — and that no alternatives exist that can provide equal or greater military capability at less cost.
That certification will be complete by June 5, according to Air Force spokesman Doug Karas.
The case will be a hard to make to proponents of the U-2 ‘Dragon Lady’ spy plane, which the Air Force has decided to retire between 2007 and 2011, in part to free up money to fund the Global Hawk program. Retiring the U-2 by 2011 will save the Air Force about $1 billion and 3,300 personnel slots in operating costs, according to Defense Department budget documents.
Source and more info: monstersandcritics
Officials at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Tuesday for Northrop Grumman’s Unmanned Systems Center said the plant’s opening is a sign that the Mississippi Coast is making a comeback from Hurricane Katrina.
They also predicted the center would draw more high-tech jobs to the region.
The center will assemble different parts of the Fire Scout and Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles. The plant is expected to employ at least 200 people.
“There will a lot of ribbons cut along the Gulf Coast in the weeks and months and years ahead,” said U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss. “A lot of them will be replacements of things that have been destroyed. But each one of them will be symbolic of the comeback that were going to make it in Mississippi.”
Lott said the Unmanned Systems Center is especially important because it involves a project that was conceived before Hurricane Katrina.
“We stood here a year ago and we broke ground for what was supposed to be 40,000-square-foot-facility,” Lott said. “Now, were here to cut the ribbon on a 100,000-square-foot-facility.”
Gov. Haley Barbour said companies like Northrop Grumman come to Mississippi looking to locate high-technology programs that will pay high wages.
Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, which builds Navy and Coast Guard vessels in Pascagoula, is the state’s largest private employer with more than 12,000 workers.
Source and more info: sunherald
Officials at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Tuesday for Northrop Grumman’s Unmanned Systems Center said the plant’s opening is a sign that the Mississippi Coast is making a comeback from Hurricane Katrina.
They also predicted the center would draw more high-tech jobs to the region.
The center will assemble different parts of the Fire Scout and Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles. The plant is expected to employ at least 200 people.
“There will a lot of ribbons cut along the Gulf Coast in the weeks and months and years ahead,” said U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss. “A lot of them will be replacements of things that have been destroyed. But each one of them will be symbolic of the comeback that were going to make it in Mississippi.”
Lott said the Unmanned Systems Center is especially important because it involves a project that was conceived before Hurricane Katrina.
“We stood here a year ago and we broke ground for what was supposed to be 40,000-square-foot-facility,” Lott said. “Now, were here to cut the ribbon on a 100,000-square-foot-facility.”
Gov. Haley Barbour said companies like Northrop Grumman come to Mississippi looking to locate high-technology programs that will pay high wages.
Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, which builds Navy and Coast Guard vessels in Pascagoula, is the state’s largest private employer with more than 12,000 workers.
Source and more info: sunherald
They’ve been called drones, robot planes and “spies in the sky,” but for the past several years, the pilotless planes flown by the U.S. Air Force, the Navy and in the future, the U.S. Army, have been given a name and an acronym that has become synonymous for any aircraft flown without a pilot — Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, or, more commonly, UAV.
he U.S. Department of Defense defines a UAV as “a powered, aerial vehicle that does not carry a human operator, uses aerodynamic forces to provide vehicle lift, can fly autonomously or be piloted remotely, can be expendable (lost) or recoverable, and can carry a lethal or non-lethal payload.
For Jackson County, UAV means two distinct aircraft: Fire Scout and Global Hawk. Currently, both unmanned aircraft provide the same services for their military handlers, surveillance, reconnaissance and intelligence.
In other words, they are designed to tell military units not only what’s hiding behind the next hill or around the next turn, but also what’s going on hundreds, even thousands of miles from the base or the unit’s location.
Fire Scout, a vertical takeoff and landing aircraft system, will be used by the Army and the Navy.
Source and more info: gulflive
Arotech (Nasdaq: ARTX) announced last week that its Electric Fuel subsidiary was awarded a development contract to develop a high energy density rechargeable lithium battery and smart charger from a supplier of Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs). The supplier was described as “world-leading,” but was not named, nor was the volume of the contract disclosed.
The batteries and chargers will be used to power the company’s man-packed, hand-launched UAV, used for close range, over-the-hill reconnaissance missions.
To date, Arotech has received several development contracts for powering UAVs, which includes both primary and rechargeable batteries and chargers.
Source and more info: tmcnet
Air Combat Command officials are examining whether the Air Force’s next long-range bomber and its future gunship could be based on the same airframe, Inside the Air Force has learned.
With both next-generation aircraft tasked with carrying out global persistent attack missions — coupled with ever-tightening defense budgets — Air Force officials plan to study whether developing a common baseline airframe is feasible, Lt. Col. Steven Knutson, Air Force Special Operations Command’s test, technology and experimentation division chief, told ITAF April 3.
The initial capabilities document for AFSOC’s AC-130 gunship replacement has been designated a foundation document for the analysis of alternatives ACC is conducting on the military’s future long-range bomber, he said.
Prior to the release of the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review in February, the Office of the Secretary of Defense told U.S. Special Operations Command its numbers for a gunship are so small that you need to look at the possibility of joining up with ACC and using [the] platform the Langley, VA-based command will eventually pursue for the new bomber, Knutson said.
If Air Force and Pentagon officials eventually opt to use the same aircraft and modify them into bombing and gunship variants, the two platforms would have some similarities, but not all the sensors and the munitions would be used on both, Knutson told ITAF. Air Force officials are merely studying whether they could build a new gunship out of the basic platform that ACC is going to develop, he added.
Source and more info: military
The country’s first prototype unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is set to take off in July, less than a year after the Government announced the decision to develop the mini aircraft.
Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the full-scale prototype would undergo rigorous testing by the army.
“We would like to see how it performs, and how powerful it is,” he told a press conference after chairing the Malaysian Defence Industry Council meeting here yesterday.
“If the specifications meet our requirement, we will proceed with the bookings.”
The meeting was held at Motor Teknologi & Industri Sdn Bhd (MTI) plant to coincide with his visit to the engine-refurbishing centre.
The mini aircraft can fly on its own via the auto-pilot system and can be equipped with cameras of various sensitivity, depending on the purpose.
Source and more info: thestar
Unmanned aerial vehicles are successfully transforming the way the Air Force does business, and the service is committed to supporting and developing more of them.
Innovative UAV tactics have transformed the battle space as witnessed in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Maj. Gen. Stanley Gorenc, Air Force deputy chief of staff for air and space operations, at testimony before the House Armed Services Committee subcommittee on tactical air and land forces April 6.
“UAVs are transforming the way Air Force and the joint team fight, and are a critical component of the future joint force,” the general said. “UAVs give us operational capability in persistent and precise ways while offering the promise of even more capability in the future.
“The Department of Defense has embraced the distinctive capabilities unmanned systems bring to the joint fight, and the Air Force stands firmly behind this endeavor,” General Gorenc said.
UAVs not only provide persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, but also enable accurate and timely direct and indirect fire, he said. Their success has led combatant commanders to request them in ever greater numbers and we are doing our best to make sure that we meet their requirements.”
Source and more info: military
