A governmental commission is investigating whether Russia’s GEO-IK-2 satellite – designed to gather gravitational data to improve guidance of ballistic missiles and launched Feb 1/02 aboard a Rokot rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome – is stranded in a useless orbit.
Russian parliament ratifies military supply agreement with Belarus.
New report [PDF] examines US reliance on China as a near monopoly supplier of rare earth metals, which are used in high-tech weapons such as radar, night vision devices, and smart bombs.
Todd Shipyards gets a 5-year US Navy contract worth up to $80 million to provide drydocking of surface combat ships homeported at Naval Station Everett or visiting the Puget Sound area.
ITT’s AN/ALQ-211 SIFRC system [PDF] provides detection, analysis and protection against radar-guided threats, including triangulation and GPS geolocation of threats, advance warning that may enable a pilot to route around the threat, and cueing of countermeasures like chaff dispensers via integration with the CV-22’s entire self-protection suite. It’s a modular system with multiple sensors and electronic components installed all around a rotary-winged or fixed winged aircraft. Variants of the ALQ-211 SIFRC equip US AFSOCOM’s CV-22s (ALQ-211v2), as well helicopters like SOCOM MH-47s and MH-60s (ALQ-211v6/v7), some NH90s (ALQ-211v5), and AH-64D attack helicopters (ALQ-211v1). Foreign F-16 jet fighters also deploy the ALQ-211, most recently as the ALQ-211v4 AIDEWS integrated defensive system.
A 2005 contract from US Special Operations Command morphed into a much larger contract in 2008, and delivery orders continue…
