Northrop Grumman said Nov. 18 it has successfully conducted a demonstration flight, as scheduled, of its new Scalable Agile Beam Radar sensor, which the company is developing at its own expense for the current F-16 fleet, and officials say it’s adaptable to other platforms. Northrop expects to fly SABR on an F-16 in 2009. • The Northrop Grumman-led team, that includes Raytheon and Alliant Techsystems, fired the first-stage rocket motor for the Missile Defense Agency’s Kinetic Energy Interceptor, in the fourth of five planned static fire tests that left officials “very confident” the first stage will “perform as designed” in the actual flight test in 2009, said Anthony Spehar, Northrop’s KEI program manager; his counterpart at Raytheon, Chuck Ross, said using a “test-like-you-fly methodology” is keeping the program “on track.” • A group called Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility has filed a lawsuit against officials at Tyndall AFB, Fla., charging they have let environmental violations slide and asking for a copy of an Air Force Office of Special Investigation report, according to a Nov. 20 report by WMBB News.
Members of the House Armed Services Committee say the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile program has been set back three months due to the ongoing government shutdown. The comment is noteworthy because the JATM's status has been kept tightly under wraps.
