WASHINGTON, May 23 (Reuters) – The Pentagon on Thursday told
Congress that a recent restructuring of its heavy rocket launch
program to add 60 more launches and extend the schedule for a
decade would more than double the program’s projected cost to
$70.7 billion.

The Defense Department’s annual report to Congress on major
arms programs forecast an increase of $35.7 billion or 102
percent in the Air Force’s Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle
(EELV) program, under which contractors provide launch services
to lift big U.S. military, intelligence and NASA satellites into
orbit.

WASHINGTON, May 23 (Reuters) – The Pentagon on Thursday told
Congress it expected a 1 percent drop in the cost of its biggest
weapons program, the Lockheed Martin Corp. F-35 fighter
jet, while averting the huge cost increases seen on other
weapons programs in recent years.

The Defense Department’s annual report to lawmakers showed a
$40 billion, or 2.4 percent, cost increase in 78 major arms
programs, mainly due to accounting changes and higher order
quantities. But none of the cost increases were big enough to
trigger the congressionally mandated live-or-die reviews that
have been commonplace in recent years.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Public backlash against deadly overseas drone strikes may undermine promising uses of such technology for anything from disaster response to mail delivery, a top U.S. industry group said as it launched a lobbying effort to “demystify” unmanned planes.

The Aerospace Industries Association wants to prevent misperceptions and regulatory roadblocks from cutting into a market it says could be worth $89 billion over the next decade, according to a report the trade group will release on Thursday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Air Force plans to start operational use of Lockheed Martin Corp.-built (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) F-35 fighter jets in mid-2016, a year earlier than planned, using a similar software package as the Marine Corps, two sources familiar with the plans said on Monday.

The Air Force’s decision to accelerate its introduction with a slightly less capable version of the F-35 software package means the planes will carry fewer weapons at first, although the software will later be upgraded to the final version, said the sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly.

WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) – The U.S. government believes
a Chinese missile launch this week was the first test of a new
interceptor that could be used to destroy a satellite in orbit,
one U.S. defense official told Reuters on Wednesday.

China launched a large missile on Monday that reached 10,000
km (6,250 miles) above the earth, the highest suborbital launch
seen worldwide since 1976, according to Jonathan McDowell at the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon’s plans to put most of its 800,000 civilian employees on unpaid leave for 11 days could lead to delays on Lockheed Martin Corp’s (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and other weapons programs, a top company official said on Tuesday.

Chief Financial Officer Bruce Tanner said Lockheed had not been officially informed about the impact of the furloughs, but civilian government workers have played a big role in supporting flight testing and other work on the $396 billion F-35 jet, the Pentagon’s costliest weapons program.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The top U.S. general in charge of cyber security warned on Tuesday that the United States is increasingly vulnerable to attacks like those that destroyed data on tens of thousands of computers in Saudi Arabia and South Korea in the past year.

Army General Keith Alexander, who heads the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, told the Reuters Cybersecurity Summit in Washington that U.S. computer networks were already under constant attack and billions of dollars worth of intellectual property were flowing out of the country each year.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Boeing Co (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) could keep building its Super Hornet fighter jet and a modified electronic attack version through 2020, the company said, given prospects for over 200 foreign sales and what it sees as up to 150 more sales to the U.S. Navy.

Michael Gibbons, Boeing vice president for F/A-18 and EA-18 programs, spent part of this week pitching additional sales of Boeing’s last fighter jet to congressional staffers in a triple-wide trailer packed with simulators, displays and souvenirs.

WASHINGTON, May 8 (Reuters) – U.S. Army officials on
Wednesday said they do not expect to decide until later this
year whether to start a multibillion-dollar program to develop a
new armed scout helicopter, or extend the life of the current
Vietnam-era OH-58 Kiowa Warrior.

The news marks another delay for companies interested in
bidding for a program valued at $6 billion to $8 billion. The
Army’s decision was expected last December but had already been
put off until spring. On Wednesday, officials said they now
expected a decision in the summer or early autumn.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter on Tuesday said the U.S. military had launched a “long overdue” effort to safeguard U.S. national security satellites and develop ways to counter the space capabilities of potential adversaries.

“We have established, really, for the first time, an integrated effort to bring together our space programs, all of them, with those folks who understand best the anti-satellite threat, and also how we can operate, if we have to, without spacecraft,” Carter told reporters at the National Press Club.