GovernmentExecutive.com

Blind as Bats?

The black, bat-shaped B-2 bomber's radar operates in a portion of the Ku-frequency band (11.7-12.7 gigahertz) also used by commercial satellite operators such as the Dish Network and DirecTV. Since the military is a secondary user of this spectrum, the Air Force and B-2 contractor Northrop Grumman kicked off a $900 million project in October 2002 designed to upgrade the radar and modify defensive management systems.

It's now 2007, and according to the report on the 2008 Defense Department spending bill passed last month by the House Appropriations Committee (HAC), due to planned expansion of satellite operators in the Ku-band "in the near future, the B-2 will no longer be able to operate without high probability of interference" with the satellite operators.

The report added that the B-2 radar "must vacate its current frequency by a classified, near-term date" but said the Air Force has "run into technical maturity problems with the radar modernization program's antenna...."

I have never encountered a radar antenna "technical maturity" problem before and called up Brooks McKinney, a Northrop Grumman image therapist, for enlightenment. He put Kenny Linn, the company's director of business development, on the phone. Linn explained Northrop Grumman is replacing the mechanically steered bomber radar antenna with an advanced Active Electronically Scanned Array Antenna (AESA).

This antenna, under development by Raytheon, consists of 2,000 transmit/receive modules. Linn said the "technical maturity" problems relate to the task of just "physically building this antenna and making sure it works properly. Right now it's in development, and the first antenna has been installed on a test aircraft at Edwards [Air Force Base, Calif.]."

Linn could not say whether or not production antennas would be delivered to the Air Force in time to meet the near-term classified date the B-2 must vacate the portion of the Ku-band spectrum used by commercial satellite operators, deferring to the Air Force Aeronautical Systems Center, which has not yet responded to my query.

But based on the HAC report, it looks like the modernization program has serious problems, which could lead to B-2s flying around without radars so Americans can continue to watch "Fair and Balanced" Fox News.

Space is the (Expensive) Place

Sun Ra, the 1970s jazz rocker who said he was an emissary from Mars, had a number called "Space Is the Place," but he sure would be confounded by the current state of Defense space programs, as is the HAC.

Defense, the HAC report said, has requested funding in fiscal 2008 for space programs "that have not yet been fielded, and at the same time requests alternative or improved programs for the same mission area."

Take the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS), a 30-satellite constellation intended to provide warnings of missile attacks, originally hatched when my hair did not have a bit of gray in it (1995) and which has yet to put one, let alone 30 satellites, in orbit.

The Air Force, according to the committee, now wants to back up SBIRS with a new Alternative Infrared Satellite System and asked for $230 million in funding for this system. The HAC chopped that by $155 million to $75.9 million.

The list goes on. Since the launch date for the $16 billion Transformational Satellite Program has slipped to 2014 from 2011, Defense plans to plug the gap with the $1.8 billion Wideband Gapfiller Communications Satellite program, whose planned 2007 launch date also has slipped, with the cost of one of these birds pegged at $323.2 million in the fiscal 2008 budget, up from the originally planned $211 million.

The Air Force also requested funding for Global Positioning System II satellites slated for launch in 2013, but has yet to send into orbit any GPS II satellites, the HAC report said, and hacked $80 million from the $587 million GPS III funding request.

The appropriators said the "high cost of space acquisition is only increased when ... a program is cut off after spending billions of dollars to procure two, three or even a single satellite and to [then] spend billons of dollars to start a new acquisition." New programs might look good on paper, the report added, but that's because they have not entered "the riskiest periods of a satellite's life during integration, testing, launch, an on-orbit initialization," the report added.

Maybe it's time to put some of these wasted billions of dollars into the Operationally Responsive Space program at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., whose mission is to build, develop and deploy small satellites in months instead of the decades it takes for the larger systems.

JNN Taking Over WIN-T?

Based on the Appropriations Committee report, it looks like the Joint Network Node (JNN) broadband battlefield communications systems developed by General Dynamics around commercial satellite gear and routers has subsumed the Army's build-it-from-the ground up $10 billion Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T).

The House funded JNN to the tune of $372.3 million in its version of the fiscal 2008 Defense budget, and provided only $126.7 million for the WIN-T Area Common User System out of the $499 million Bridge to Future Networks funding line, which covers both JNN and WIN-T.

Since General Dynamics is a big player on both JNN and WIN-T, this is good news and bad news for the company, but it looks like the cash flow is positive for GD no matter which way the Army goes for its battlefield broadband requirements.

Brits Not Shy About Offensive Information Operations

While the United States has been slowly going public about its plans for offensive information operations, it appears that the United Kingdom views both offensive and defensive information as necessary in modern warfare, and has been at it for about five years.

The introduction to Joint Warfare Publication 3-80 on Information Operations, published by the UK Ministry of Defence 2002, says that though the publication "does not explicitly break down Info Ops into Offensive and Defensive Info Ops, the requirement for both offensive and defensive activity is implicit throughout this publication."

Ahh, they are understated, but do manage to get to the point quickly.