Can't take the heat? Fight in Afghanistan.

By Amir Shah - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Oct 14, 2008 12:03:14 EDT
KABUL, Afghanistan — U.S. military successes in Iraq have forced sophisticated and well-trained insurgents to pour into Afghanistan instead, the Afghan defense minister said Tuesday.

Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak, said terrorists who would have once fought in Iraq have been “diverted” to Afghanistan.

“The success of coalition forces in Iraq and also some other issues in some of the neighboring countries have made it possible that there is a major increase in the foreign fighters,” Wardak told a news conference. “There is no doubt that they are [better] equipped than before. They are well trained, more sophisticated, their coordination is much better.”

The top U.S. commander in eastern Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, said last month that he is seeing a spike in the number of foreign militants — including Arabs and Chechens — flowing into Afghanistan. He said militant Web sites have been encouraging fighters to go to Afghanistan instead of Iraq.

“I can’t prove they are coming from Iraq to Afghanistan, but I’ve seen it on Web sites that that’s what they’re being told to do,” Schloesser said.

Violence has risen steadily in Afghanistan since late 2005. More than 4,700 people — mostly militants — have been killed in insurgency related-violence this year, according to an Associated Press count of figured provided by Afghan and western officials.

U.S.-led troops killed five insurgents in central Ghazni province Monday during a raid to disrupt a foreign fighter network, the coalition said Tuesday.

The coalition also said one of its service members was killed and several others were wounded in southern Afghanistan on Monday when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb. No other information, including the service members’ nationalities or precise location of the attack, was released.

Blackswift cancelled or turned black?

Editors note: According to an article in Aviation Week & Space Technology Magazine, DARPA'S hypersonic aircraft study, Blackswift has been cancelled. My guess it has not been cancelled but has retreated into the black world because the technology behind the aircraft platform is as revolutionary as Low Observable (stealth) technology and thus now labeled as highly-classified. Coming soon to a non-existent test base in Nevada - Blackswift - redux.

AVW article follows: :

BLACKSWIFT canceled by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) after Congress slashed the program’s fiscal 2009 budget to $10 million, from $120 million.

Blackswift was to demonstrate an unmanned hypersonic vehicle able to take off, accelerate to a Mach 6 cruise and return to a runway landing.

“Congress made significant reductions in the amount of funds available to DARPA and the Air Force for the Blackswift testbed,” the agency said in a statement. “Based on this, DARPA determined that it would not be possible to proceed with the solicitation for the effort.”

DARPA had hoped to award a contract for the demonstrator later this year, and was believed to be negotiating with a Lockheed Martin Skunk Works-led team that included Boeing. The Blackswift was expected to fly in 2012. Meanwhile, DARPA says it will continue with the Falcon program to fly unpowered hypersonic test vehicles in 2009.

Congress was skeptical of Blackswift’s technical achievability and operational utility, cutting DARPA FY ‘09 funding from the requested $70 million to $10 million and eliminating the Air Force’s requested $50 million for the joint program.

“Obviously we are disappointed that we will not have the appropriated funds to move forward with the Blackswift flight test,” DARPA program manager Steven Walker said. He said a significant effort had been made to develop the propulsion technology and build a national government and industry team capable of developing and flying a reusable hypersonic testbed.

“The Blackswift testbed would have been able to take off under its own power, cruise at Mach 6, maneuver at hypersonic speeds and land, and then do it again,” Walker said. “Blackswift, or something very much like it, will be a required step prior to the U.S. developing an operational, reusable air-breathing hypersonic airplane.”

Blackswift was to be powered by turbine-based combined-cycle engines using a high-Mach turbojet to take the vehicle from standstill to the speed at which a dual-mode ramjet/scramjet took over and accelerated it to Mach 6. The turbojet and scramjet engines were to share inlets and nozzles.

Under DARPA’s Falcon program, Lockheed Martin is building two unpowered HTV-2 test vehicles, which will be launched by Orbital Sciences Minotaur boosters to demonstrate aerodynamic and structural technology for sustained hypersonic flight.

Brit's Lurker Bomb/Fire Shadow

The lurker bomb can hover for ten hours... and then strike its target in the space of a minute
By PETER ALMOND/London Times

A revolutionary missile that can stalk a target until the perfect moment to strike is being developed by the Ministry of Defence for use against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The so-called lurker bomb will also be able to shadow British troops for up to ten hours or 100 miles, ready to take out enemy targets with surgical precision at a minute’s notice.

The 12ft weapon – officially named Fire Shadow and made in Britain by leading missile manufacturer MBDA – will be operated by the Royal Artillery.

It made its first test flight in Wales earlier this year and is expected to be operational by 2010.

One of the biggest problems facing British troops in Afghanistan is Taliban ambushes. The insurgents often escape before a counter-attack can be launched because they know the Afghan terrain well, it takes time for air support to arrive, and the British are reluctant to use existing powerful missiles for fear of causing collateral damage such as killing civilians or flattening homes.

Fire Shadow’s ability to ‘stooge’ above the troops means it can be guided to a target within seconds. And its deadly precision requires only a small warhead of 50lb, compared with the RAF’s smallest bomb of 500lb.

The Army wants to be able to fire salvos of Fire Shadows, having several in the air at once to hit multiple targets. The missiles, also known as ‘loitering munitions’, are expected to replace some RAF patrols.

Fire Shadow can be guided to its target by troops on the ground with lasers, by operators in aircraft or helicopters, or by the Army’s new Watchkeeper surveillance drone.


Once airborne, however, Fire Shadow is unable to return to base. If it is not used in action, it is brought down in a controlled crash after it runs out of fuel.

Akram Ghulam, head of loitering munitions at MBDA in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, said: ‘I can see these being used where small, surgically precise effects will have greater utility than an artillery shell or a bomb.’

MBDA leads the Fire Shadow development team, which cost the MoD £74million in its first year. It includes British firms Qinetiq, Thales and Roxcel, and several smaller and academic organisations.

The concept of a lurker bomb is the cornerstone of the MoD’s Indirect-Fire Precision Attack project. Fire Shadow is one of six projects that include an artillery shell that can electronically ‘sense’ its target, a new anti-aircraft missile for the Royal Navy, and advanced guidance for the new Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS).

The first GMLRS batteries have already been in action in Afghanistan’s Helmand area where British troops are operating. Nicknamed the 70km sniper – the rocket’s maximum range – about 250 precision-guided rockets have been fired so far this year, according to an MoD spokesman. At £60,000 a rocket that works out at £15million, a cost that the MoD is well aware of as it seeks to develop Fire Shadow.

‘We need to get Fire Shadow’s price to around that, which is a big challenge,’ said an industry source.

40 Afghan Militants Killed In Battle With Nato Troops

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Two separate battles that militants fought with Afghan and NATO troops in southern Afghanistan over the weekend left at least 100 insurgents dead, authorities said Sunday.

In the first incident, Afghan authorities called in NATO support after they spotted insurgents gathering on the outskirts of Laskhar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, late Saturday night.

NATO troops bombed the gathering that was planning to launch mortar attacks on an Afghan army compound, according to a statement from the International Security Assistance Force.

The force is an alliance of about 40 nations charged with supporting the Afghan government in maintaining security.

In the second incident, 46 militants were killed during a three-day operation that began Thursday in the Nad Ali district, also in Helmand.

No Afghan or NATO soldiers died during the operations, said Assadullah Shirzad, the province's police chief.

Helmand is an important front in the war against Islamic militants. It is considered the world's largest opium poppy growing region, and that trade has helped fund insurgent activities.

ESA's Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle

Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle

9 October 2008
In 2012, Vega will carry ESA’s Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle into space. The vehicle will then return to Earth to test a range of enabling systems and technologies for atmospheric re-entry.

Part of ESA’s Future Launchers Preparatory Programme has been devoted to optimising a long-term European roadmap for in-flight experimentation with atmospheric re-entry enabling systems and technologies. The Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV) project is the next core step of this effort.

The IXV project objectives are the design, development, manufacturing, and on-ground and in-flight verification of an autonomous European lifting and aerodynamically controlled re-entry system. Among the critical technologies of interest, special attention is being paid to: advanced instrumentation for aerodynamics and aerothermodynamics
thermal protection and hot-structures solutions guidance, navigation and flight control through a combination of jets and aerodynamic flaps.

The project is particularly focussed on technology integration at the system level for in-flight verification.

As indicated by its name, the IXV is designed to be the ‘intermediate’ element of a technology-effective and cost-efficient European programme for in-flight verification of technologies necessary for future operational systems.

The IXV design activities are well under way, with the system preliminary design review planned for November 2008, which will allow the start of the full development (Phase-C/D) by the beginning of January 2009.

IXV will be launched in 2012 from Europe’s spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana, using the new Vega small launch vehicle. After re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere and being slowed down by air drag, IXV will descend by parachute and land in the Pacific Ocean to await recovery and post-flight analysis.