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A problem that rendered as many as 10,000 U.S. military GPS receivers useless for days is a warning to safeguard a system that enemies would love to disrupt, a defense expert says. The Air Force has not said how many weapons, planes or other systems were affected or whether any were in use in Iraq or Afghanistan. But the problem, blamed on incompatible software, highlights the military's reliance on the Global Positioning System and the need to protect technology that has become essential for protecting troops, tracking vehicles and targeting weapons. "Everything that moves uses it," said John Pike, director...

A team of amateur sky watchers has pierced the veil of secrecy surrounding the debut flight of the nation’s first robotic spaceplane, finding clues that suggest the military craft is engaged in the development of spy satellites rather than space weapons, which some experts have suspected but the Pentagon strongly denies. Last month, the unmanned successor to the space shuttle blasted off from Florida on its debut mission but attracted little public notice because no one knew where it was going or what it was doing. The spaceship, known as the X-37B, was shrouded in operational secrecy, even as civilian...

India Embraces Defense Technology Road Map By Asia-Pacific Staff New Delhi India is embracing medium- and long-range precision-strike weapons, short-range directed-energy air defenses and unmanned combat air vehicles as key aspirations for its future arsenal, according to a technology plan expected to be released imminently. The need for these capabilities is spelled out in the defense ministry’s ambitious Technology Perspective and Capability Road Map 2010, its first effort to provide industry with an overview of what the armed services hope to field by the middle of the next decade. The document’s stated intent is to drive the “technology and development...

Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Cheyenne (SSN-773) in conjunction with Commander, U.S. 7th Fleet and members of Naval Special Warfare Group (NSWG) 3 successfully fired a Block IV-E Tomahawk Land Attack Missile. The missile launch took place off the southern coast of California into China Lake Test Range and marks the first time a forward-deployed operational command acted as the Tomahawk strike coordinator and primary missile controller for an operational test launch. "The Navy's ability to conduct strike operations on re-locatable targets is currently very challenging," said Master Chief Fire Controlman (SW) David Brewer, U.S. 7th Fleet Tomahawk strike coordinator....

military did no advance testing on a specific type of military GPS receiver that had problems picking up locator signals after a change in ground-control software, the Air Force said Monday. The Air Force tested other equipment, but none of it contained the type of receiver that was unable to lock on to Global Positioning System satellites after the change, said Joe Davidson, a spokesman for the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center. The manufacturer of the receivers, Trimble Advanced and Military Systems, said it ran its own advance tests using specifications from the Air Force GPS Wing and...

The Army says it is recalling 44,000 advanced combat helmets that have been issued to soldiers worldwide because they do not meet military specifications. The Army said in a statement Friday that the risk to soldiers wearing the helmets is still being determined. New helmets are being issued to anyone who has a defective one. The recall amounts to 4 percent of all advanced combat helmets issued by the Army. The helmets are made by ArmorSource LLC. The company, based in Hebron, Ohio, is a leading maker of combat headgear for the military and police. The army said tests showed...

Marines have high hopes for new EFVs, even if they've been met with criticismThe United States Marine Corps hopes to usher in a new era of multi-million dollar vehicles with its recent unveiling of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) earlier in the week. Military officials expect the faster, more dynamic EFV will replace the USMC's older amphibious assault vehicles. The EFV can travel more than 40 mph on land and 23 to 29 mph while in the water. It also has a 30mm day/night weapons system and better design to pinpoint IEDs and RPGs, which is "vitally important," according to...

Prompt Global Strike (PGS) is an initiative of the United States military to develop a system capable of a conventional weapon strike anywhere in the world within an hour. The system is designed for time-critical strike in emergency situation, or to counter terrorist activities like attacking a terrorist leader based on inputs of his location, or against a rogue state preparing to launch an attack by localised destruction of his weapon assets. Need for Conventional Prompt Global Strike (CPGS) can be described in a given scenario where the United States has learned of a terrorist group’s plan to transport a...

Regina Dugan last summer took over as chief of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). In a profile of the 47-year-old PhD in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology, The New York Times noted that in recent years DARPA has lost some of the luster it gained over decades as an agency that develops cutting edge military technologies that also filter into the consumer and civilian arena. The agency has been criticized in recent years for shifting its focus too closely to tools and technologies that could have an immediate impact for U.S. soldiers on the front...

U.S. military technologies such as guided bombs and night vision rely heavily upon rare earth elements supplied by China, and rebuilding an independent U.S. supply chain to wean the country off that foreign dependency could take up to 15 years, according to a new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). Both "light" and "heavy" rare earth elements represent a family of minerals found in commercial products ranging from TV displays to cell phones, as well as green technologies such as hybrid electric motors and wind turbines. For example, the rare earth element neodymium is very magnetic and is...

The ABL did everything it was supposed to do. Now, the Pentagon wants to call it quits. On the night of Feb. 11, off the coast of Southern California, the Missile Defense Agency scored a major achievement by destroying a liquid-fueled ballistic missile target in flight. The important part was that it did so using a laser weapon carried onboard a Boeing 747-400 aircraft. This milestone event constituted the first publicly announced test success for the Airborne Laser (ABL). However, the success was actually the second of its kind within an eight-day period. On Feb. 3, the ABL aircraft was...

The Boeing Company has successfully completed the preliminary design of the U.S. Navy's Free Electron Laser (FEL) weapon system, a key step toward building a FEL prototype for realistic tests at sea. During the preliminary design review held March 9 to March 11 at a Boeing facility in Arlington, Va., the company presented its design to more than 30 U.S. government and National Laboratory representatives. This electric laser will operate by passing a beam of high-energy electrons through a series of powerful magnetic fields, generating an intense emission of laser light that can disable or destroy targets. "The Free Electron...

EO DAS and Related Information: AN/AAQ-37 EO DAS AN/APG-81 AESA Radar for the F-35 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Looks like we have a real winner. I will soon be hitting the rack. Please just enjoy the video and do understand if all they claim is true we still have the edge in dog fights, and air to ground elimination of potential AA defenses. And as some have seen today here and elsewhere, it appears the production F-35 can demonstrate safe hovering. Don't blast me please. I as some are still angry the F22 was dropped. I cannot offer any educated...

It was Christmas Eve 2007 and US Army Rangers were searching for suspected Al-Qaeda members in Mosul, Iraq. They were using their night vision goggles so they would have the element of surprise on their side. The story, detailed in a USA Today article, dramatically demonstrates the advantage night vision capabilities provide to US troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Rangers found 2 Al-Qaeda suspects who were holding an 11-year-old Iraqi boy hostage. Using their night vision capabilities, they were able to shoot the suspects without harming the boy. After that encounter, a firefight erupted between the...

Boeing connected the F-22 Mission Training Center (MTC) at Langley Air Force Base, Va., to the U.S. Air Force's Distributed Mission Operations Network (DMON) in November, allowing F-22 pilots at the base to train virtually with pilots in other aircraft platforms for the first time. The MTC at Langley is the first of four F-22 training centers that Boeing will link to the network over the next three years. The Air Force's Distributed Mission Operations (DMO) configuration enables MTC sites to connect with one another via the DMON, increasing the scale and improving the accuracy of training operations. Connecting the...

In a flight test reminiscent of the early days of the historic X-15 program 50 years earlier, the X-51A Waverider was carried aloft for the first time over Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., Wednesday, Dec. 9 by an Air Force Flight Test Center B-52H Stratofortress. The "captive carry" test was a key milestone in preparation for the X-51 to light its supersonic combustion ramjet engine and propel the WaverRider at hypersonic speed for about 5 minutes, before plunging into the Pacific Ocean. That flight test is currently planned in about two months, said Charlie Brink, X-51A program manager with the...

By Graham Warwick The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) is seeking funding in Fiscal 2011 for ArcLight, a program to flight-test a long-range, high-speed strike weapon based on the Raytheon SM-3 ballistic-missile interceptor. ArcLight will be based on an SM-3 Block II booster stack and a hypersonic glider, and designed to carry a 100-200 pound payload more than 2,000 nautical miles. The weapon will be compatible with the Mark 41 vertical launch system and capable of launch from U.S. Navy warships and submarines as well as Air Force assets. The program is getting under way in Fiscal 2010...

Those splendid brainboxes at DARPA - the Pentagon's in-house bazaar of the bizarre - have outdone themselves this time. They now plan an entirely uncrewed, automated ghost frigate able to cruise the oceans of the world for months or years on end without human input. The new project is called Anti-submarine warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV), and is intended to produce "an X-ship founded on the assumption that no person steps aboard at any point in its operating cycle". The uncrewed frigate would have enough range and endurance for "global, months long deployments with no underway human maintenance", being...

The U.S. Army is sending the troops a new generation of "see-through-the-wall" devices. The Eagle series of sensors use low power ultra-wideband radio waves to detect what is behind walls (except metal ones). These devices weigh 3.5-6 pounds (there are three versions) and all are handheld. The M model can detect motion, of people or animals who are up to six meters behind a 20cm concrete wall. The P model can see into the ground (3-4 meters down) and detect objects, as well as tunnels. The V model produces sharper images, but at shorter ranges. All these devices use rechargeable...

BAE Systems has unveiled its brand new howitzer for deployment in the U.S. Army and eventually for military customers elsewhere. The next-generation howitzer is an upgraded Paladin Integrated Management vehicle in the M-109 Paladin family of vehicles, a combat-proven weapon system manufactured by BAE Systems in York, Pa. It was not immediately clear when the weapon would be marketed outside the United States, currently its major user. Previous PIM models are known to be operational with the Israeli army, and usage has been reported in Kuwait and Taiwan. Congressional representatives, community leaders and BAE employees attended a ceremony at the...