The Navy is in the early stages of integration testing involving its MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned helicopter and four classes of ships after U.S. Special Operations Command requested additional maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, the Fire Scout program manager said last week.744 words

The Office of Naval Research has selected Lockheed Martin and Aurora Flight Sciences to build prototype cargo unmanned aerial systems, which the Navy will push to develop into systems much more sophisticated than the K-MAX UAS, the program manager told Inside the Navy last week.661 words

The Navy has created Navy Expeditionary Combat Command Pacific to establish an administrative relationship between expeditionary combat forces and U.S. Pacific Fleet that has been lacking since NECC was created in 2006, an official told Inside the Navy last week.372 words

The Navy will release a draft request for proposals next month for a Ship Self-Defense System Combat System Engineering Agent (CSEA) to oversee integration of new warfighting capabilities, interoperability upgrades and improved shipboard training, a program official said last week.618 words

The Office of Naval Research has wrapped up testing of an unmanned aircraft launch-and-recovery system that could be placed aboard ships, the agency said in an Oct. 10 statement. ONR completed final demonstration flight testing for the Compact Launch and Recovery System Sept. 27 using a Scan Eagle unmanned aerial vehicle at a testing range in eastern Oregon. The system uses a compressed-air launcher to "shoot" the Scan Eagle, and then small hooks on the UAV's wings grab a rope suspended from the system's extendable mast when it returns, according to ONR. Insitu is developing the system for the Navy. 100 words

The Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle joint program office will plan an in-theater evaluation in early-to-mid-2013 before transitioning the program to the services, according to an Army spokesman.489 words

The Naval Aviation Center for Rotorcraft Advancement has installed sensors on its T-REX UH-1N helicopter test bed to test their ability to detect corrosion in parts in order to save money and make the aircraft safer, an official told Inside the Navy last week.318 words

The Navy recently awarded a $22-million information technology afloat operations bridge contract to cover Military Sealift Command ships as a direct result of a protest filed in May by incumbent contractor SRA International, according to a justification and approval document posted online.361 words

The Navy anticipates a milestone C decision for the Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services program in December, which will lead to the first installation of the system on a destroyer, according to a Navy spokesman.402 words

The Navy intends to expand the scope of an ongoing supplemental environmental impact statement for a live-fire training range complex on Guam to satisfy the needs of Marines who relocate to the area, according to a Federal Register notice.370 words

Seeking to respond to a successful electromagnetic railgun demonstration earlier this year by BAE Systems, General Atomics announced that it has delivered its own version of a railgun that it claims will be more powerful than previous versions that have been tested.479 words

Naval Air Systems Command will spend $111.8 million for 22 wide-area persistent surveillance systems used in the field to monitor large swaths of land, with possible future applications in the maritime environment, according to the manufacturer.291 words

Emerging foreign capabilities to hunt and defeat stealthy submarines will force the Navy to find new ways to maintain dominance in the undersea warfighting arena, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert writes in new internal guidance.409 words

Mitt Romney would boost the Navy's annual shipbuilding rate to 15 vessels during his first term if elected to the White House, the Republican presidential candidate's advisers asserted last week, but they did not explain how exactly a Romney administration would achieve the goal.737 words

The Pentagon and State Department are proceeding with multimillion-dollar plans to provide counterterrorism assistance to multiple countries through the new Global Security Contingency Fund, but further consultation with Congress will be needed before implementation, according to defense and diplomatic officials.350 words

The Pentagon should undertake a "unified, but modest" effort to study "biomarkers" and the potential for neurosciences and genomics research to help in understanding violent behavior, according to a panel set up to explore ways to predict violence in the wake of the 2009 massacre at Ft. Hood, TX.763 words

Aiming to bolster the independence of the testing process and improve verdicts of how reliable a system will be in combat, the Pentagon's top weapons tester wants to reduce the influence of non-testers during the operational evaluation of new programs.490 words