Thursday, July 14, 2011

DTN News - BOEING DEFENSE NEWS: 2nd Boeing GPS IIF Satellite Ready For Launch From Cape Canaveral

DTN News - BOEING DEFENSE NEWS: 2nd Boeing GPS IIF Satellite Ready For Launch From Cape Canaveral
GPS IIF-2 scheduled for launch on July 15
GPS IIF capabilities strengthen the GPS constellation

(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - July 14, 2011: Boeing [NYSE: BA] announced today that the second of 12 GPS IIF satellites it is building for the U.S. Air Force has successfully completed prelaunch testing. GPS IIF-2 is ready for launch on July 15 aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta IV vehicle from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

"Nearly every piece of military equipment uses GPS precision timing and navigation capabilities to perform its missions more safely and effectively," said Air Force Col. Bernard Gruber, director of the GPS Directorate. "Because of the GPS IIF satellites and stewardship of the entire GPS constellation, performance will be improved, resulting in continuing mission success." GPS is a space-based, worldwide navigation system providing users with highly accurate, three-dimensional position, velocity and timing information 24 hours a day in all weather conditions. The GPS IIF satellites' new and enhanced capabilities include improved anti-jam performance for warfighters and improved security for all users.

"Boeing, in close partnership with the Air Force, is focused on execution and mission assurance and is committed to the success of GPS IIF," said Craig Cooning, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space & Intelligence Systems. "We completed a robust test program and compatibility testing with the Operational Control Segment ground system to ensure that the GPS IIF-2 satellite is ready for launch. Boeing satellites will form the core of the GPS system for many years to come."

Boeing built and tested the GPS IIF-2 spacecraft at its Satellite Development Center in El Segundo. After arriving at Cape Canaveral on April 20, the satellite was moved into a processing facility to complete a series of prelaunch tests that validated the satellite's operational readiness, including its ability to communicate with the ground control segment and launch site. GPS IIF-2 will be controlled for the launch by the Boeing-built Operational Control Segment, which gained full operational acceptance with the Air Force in April.

When operational, GPS IIF-2 will join SVN-62 (formerly GPS IIF-1), which entered service with the Air Force on Aug. 26 after launching from Cape Canaveral on May 27, 2010. SVN-62 is demonstrating the best accuracy performance to date of any GPS satellite.

A unit of The Boeing Company, Boeing Defense, Space & Security is one of the world's largest defense, space and security businesses specializing in innovative and capabilities-driven customer solutions, and the world's largest and most versatile manufacturer of military aircraft. Headquartered in St. Louis, Boeing Defense, Space & Security is a $32 billion business with 65,000 employees worldwide. Follow us on Twitter: @BoeingDefense.

More information on the GPS IIF program is available on Boeing's online media kit atwww.boeing.com/bds/mediakit/2011/gpslaunch.

Contact:

Angie Yoshimura Space & Intelligence Systems 310-227-6568 angie.e.yoshimura@boeing.com

Matthew Billingsley Space & Intelligence Systems 703-203-9435 matthew.p.billingsley@boeing.com

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GPS IIF pulse line
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DTN News - AFGHAN WAR NEWS: First Batch Of 1,000 U.S. Soldiers Leave From Bagram Air Base In Afghan Drawdown

DTN News - AFGHAN WAR NEWS: First Batch Of 1,000 U.S. Soldiers Leave From Bagram Air Base In Afghan Drawdown
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada / BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan - July 14, 2011: The first troops to leave Afghanistan as part of the U.S. drawdown handed over their slice of battlefield yesterday to a unit less than half their size and started packing for home.
When the 650 members of the Iowa National Guard’s 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment arrived in Afghanistan in November 2010, bases didn’t have enough housing, translators were in short supply and chow halls were packed. Commanders were using a buildup of 33,000 extra troops for a major push that they said would turn the tide of the war against the Taliban insurgency.
Nine months later, it’s unclear whether that push has succeeded, but the pullback has begun. Although major combat units are not expected to start leaving until late fall, two National Guard regiments totaling about 1,000 soldiers are withdrawing this month: the Iowa soldiers from Parwan province in eastern Afghanistan, and the other group from the capital, Kabul.
U.S. President Barack Obama announced last month that he will pull 10,000 of the extra troops out in 2011 and the remaining 23,000 by the summer of 2012.
Three hundred soldiers will take over from the 650 departing troops who oversaw security in Parwan, including the area outside the main U.S. military base at Bagram.
In violence yesterday, a suicide bomber killed five French soldiers guarding a meeting between NATO officers and Afghan tribal elders northeast of Kabul.
The deaths, confirmed in a statement from President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, occurred one day after he visited Kabul and announced that France will withdraw 1,000 of its approximately 4,000 troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2012. Meanwhile, the commander of the outgoing unit said yesterday that he expects his successors will be able to build on his unit’s accomplishments.
“They may not be as robust as us, or have as many as us, but they certainly will have the ability to secure the Bagram security zone,” said Army Lt. Col. David Updegraff. He said he could have completed his mission with a smaller force, but the extra numbers made it significantly easier.
Some in the 113th said 650 soldiers were barely enough.
Outgoing soldiers said they needed all their numbers to do the type of intensive training and mentoring called for by a strategy focused on building up the Afghan forces. They had to spend extra time demonstrating techniques to Afghan police officers who were illiterate, and they had to teach Afghan soldiers basic map-reading skills, said Staff Sgt. Doug Stanger, 42, of Iowa.
Information from The New York Times was included in this story.
U.S. war dead
Includes combat and noncombat military deaths:
• In Afghanistan, 1,580 have died since military operations began on Oct. 7, 2001.
• In Iraq, 4,472 have died since military operations began on March 19, 2003.
Note: The Afghan toll includes
deaths in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. Both tolls include those who died from their wounds after returning to the United States or Germany.
Sources: Defense Department, icasualties.org
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DTN News - BATTLE FOR LIBYA: Libyan Rebels Retake Village In Advance On Tripoli

DTN News - BATTLE FOR LIBYA: Libyan Rebels Retake Village In Advance On Tripoli
**Libyan rebels attempting to advance on Tripoli from the south-west launched a counter-attack on Thursday, driving regime forces out of a key village lost the day before.
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - July 14, 2011:The rebels retook Qawalish, a hillside village 60 miles from the capital, and pushed further on towards Gharyan, a loyalist town regarded as the gateway to Tripoli.
Despite the unexpected setback on Wednesday, when their undermanned posts were caught by surprise by regime troops, morale was high enough to fight back immediately.
Hundreds of young men piled into pickup trucks bound for the front line, many dressed in T-shirts and flip-flops. Most were fighters from local villages, a mixture of Berbers, who are generally fiercely anti-Gaddafi, and Arab tribes.
"All the military heads from the different villages are here – from Kikla, Zintan, Jadu, Rojban," said one fighter, Osama Azumi, who came to the front line in his taxi. "We are just waiting for the order to attack."
Moktar Akhdar, chief operations field commander, said four government soldiers had been captured, of whom two were Algerians and one Somali. The fourth was Libyan.
Eight rebels were killed in the fighting on Wednesday, six from the single small mountain town of Zintan. They were buried there on Thursday.
"This does not just make us determined to fight harder, it makes us determined to finish this," said one rebel, Abdullah Ahmed With their proximity to Tripoli, the battles in Libya's western mountains are increasingly regarded as the most promising of the rebel's three main front lines, though even here they are impeded by a lack of co-ordination.
There is also a mixture of anti- and pro-Gaddafi villages in the area.
Al-Sabha, the village before Gharyan, is also traditionally loyal to the regime. Meanwhile, though the rebels are said to have been re-equipped by France, who airdropped light munitions last month, men on the ground say they have not seen a single new weapon.
In the central front, rebel forces who broke the siege of Misurata have been unable to break through the government-held town of Zlitan, while in the east, they are still trying to take the oil town of Brega where they have been stuck for several months.
The Nato alliance is keen to see an end to the four-month bombing campaign, and in Istanbul on Friday leaders including William Hague, the foreign secretary, and Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, will hear new proposals to bring the conflict to an end.
Turkey is to set out a "road map for peace", while France and the African Union have also been conducting their own negotiations, directly or through proxies.
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    • Telegraph.co.uk

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    UN moves to ease Libya sanctions

    AFP - Andrew Beatty - ‎Jul 8, 2011‎
    BENGHAZI, Libya — Fearing an acute shortage of medical and other essential supplies, Libya'srival factions are in talks with the United Nations to ease international sanctions on the war-torn nation, AFP has learned. Well-placed UN officials said ...
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    AFP: UN Considers Easing Libya Sanctions
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