El Paso Native Selected for Promotion to Major General

An El Paso native whose Army career is opening doors for women in the service has been nominated for promotion to major general, the Defense Department announced on Wednesday.

Tobyhanna Strong On Radar Support

In the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, a large, white radome dominates the high ground at Tobyhanna Army Depot symbolizing the growing number of radars and sensors that depot personnel maintain for the military.

Luis Velez, left, and John Radzikowski set up a Lightweight Counter Mortar Radar system for rotation testing in an anechoic test chamber. Tobyhanna Army Depot employees conduct full organic repair on the entire AN/TPQ-48 LCMR system.

Radars at Tobyhanna run the gamut from Air Defense, Air Traffic Control, Ground Surveillance, Airborne, Shipborne, Range Threat systems and critical Counter Fire systems, supporting the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy.

Israel setting up missile defense center

Israel’s Ministry of Defense is working to integrate all four of the anti-missile defense systems developed in the country into a national command and control center for the interception of enemy missiles. Senior US officials say that this initiative will not only benefit Israel but also US forces stationed in the Middle East and “US allies that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel,” US weekly “Defense News” reports.

U.S. Navy Conducts Integration Flight Tests of ATK’s Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile

The AARGM weapon is a medium range, supersonic, air-launched tactical missile compatible with U.S. and Allied F/A-18, EA-6B, F-16 CJ/MJU and Tornado IDS/ECR aircraft.

ATK’s (NYSE: ATK) Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile (AARGM) recently completed an initial flight integration test on the EA-18G Growler electronic warfare aircraft in May and has completed multiple flight hours of integration testing on FA-18E/F Super Hornet aircraft. This series of successful captive-carry tests is part of the process to validate the compatibility of AARGM with these platforms and to pave the way for all U.S. Navy strike aircraft to leverage AARGM’s defense suppression capability. With continued successful flight performance, AARGM is expected to complete the Navy’s Operational Test Readiness Review and transition into initial operational test and evaluation later this year.

MDAA Defender of the Month, April 2011 – Captain Kirby Atwell

Dear Members and Friends,

On behalf of all of our members, we are proud to announce the April 2011 Defender of the Month, Captain Kirby Atwell, United States Army. CPT Atwell is currently the Commander, 10th Missile Defense Detachment, 100th Missile Defense Brigade (GMD) / 94th AAMDC (FWD) in Shariki, Japan. He is the first Commander of the forward-based AN/TPY-2 Radar stationed there.

Captain Atwell is the National Guard’s 1st Quarter selection for MDAA’s Defender of the Month.

Click Here to View Our One-on-One Interview with Captain Atwell

Click Here to View Past MDAA Defender of the Month Recipients

Respectfully,

Riki Ellison
Chairman & Founder
Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance

U.S.-Israeli Defense Technology Collaboration Began with Confrontation

Six years after the Pentagon cut off Israel from defense technology over concerns about leaks to China, U.S. military support for Israel’s missile defenses has produced interceptors capable of knocking out ballistic missiles and harder-to-hit artillery rockets.

The prize of U.S.-Israeli missile defense cooperation, the Arrow Missile system, was a major attraction Monday at the annual conference hosted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

U.S. Missile Engineers to Get New Simulation Tool

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency plans to award a $595 million contract in July for the Objective Simulation Framework (OSF), a suite of software that would be used to evaluate elements of the U.S. antimissile system before their deployment. The agency operates two modeling and simulation frameworks: the Digital Simulation Architecture digital representation and the Single Stimulation Framework, software that stimulates missile defense components by injecting simulated signals. The agency plans to replace those frameworks by merging them to create OSF.

Two industry teams have formed to pursue the OSF contract. Northrop Grumman is leading a team in partnership with Boeing, and Teledyne Brown Engineering in Huntsville, Ala., is working with Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.

Combining the two suites would provide “a more robust, flexible and affordable framework,” said Kelley Zelickson, Northrop’s vice president of air and missile defense systems.

NATO and United States Set to Test Missile Defense Link

For the first time, the United States and NATO plan to test an operational link between the NATO missile defense system and the U.S. system, which is in the early stages of deployment to Europe. NATO officials disclosed the plans for the tests following the March 26 to April 2 deployment of the USS Monterey, an Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense cruiser, to Antwerp, Belgium.

MDAA Alert: Lift Off – Video of SBIRS GEO-1 Launch

Atlas-V with SBIRS GEO-1 Payload

Dear Members and Friends,

The first satellite of the next generation of the Defense Support Program (DSP) was launched into space at Cape Canaveral, Florida. This new satellite can detect and process a diverse variety of heat sources, including missile launches, defining and distinguishing the type of missile and where these missiles are heading in an extremely short period of time.

US Missile Test Deal Offers Hope to Marshalls Slum

The United States has struck a deal with the Marshall Islands to continue using the key missile testing range at Kwajalein Atoll through to 2066, officials said on Wednesday.

The deal, which ends an eight-year impasse, offers new hope to the nearby overcrowded Marshalls island of Ebeye, referred to locally as the “slum of the Pacific”.