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04 Mar 10. The U.S. Army has think tanks – it calls them centers of excellence – to address fires, maneuvers, sustainment and other aspects of combat. Now the service is setting up one to help identify what leaders will need for today and tomorrow. The Army is creating a Mission Command Center of Excellence at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., said Lt. Gen. David Valcourt, deputy commanding general of Army Training and Doctrine Command. Until now, the Army has had a center of excellence for each of its war-fighting functions except battle command, Valcourt said. The Army decided to change the term to Mission Command to reflect the full spectrum of operations that soldiers now face, he said. “‘Battle command brings to mind major combat operations; what we’re seeing is much broader than that,” Valcourt said. The centers are intended to identify Army capability gaps and then put in motion the processes to close those gaps, said Lt. Col. Steven Leonard, director of the Commander’s Initiatives Group at Fort Leavenworth. Mission Command will help the Army identify and develop the tools that leaders will need, Leonard added. The center will develop the concept and organizational design for Mission Command and is expected to coordinate doctrine, training and materiel development for stability operations, security force assistance and counterinsurgency. The center will also coordinate efforts for capabilities that enable Mission Command: “We’ve been really wrestling with how do we account for electronic warfare, information operations and cyber,” he said. “All three cut across the war-fighting functions, so, under Mission Command, we’re putting a former division commander in charge of trying to orchestrate and synchronize, across the doctrine, materiel, training, personnel … intel, signals, electronic warfare, information operations and cyber synergy.” (Source: Defense News)

03 Mar 10. Dutch Thermoplastic Components, a composite parts manufacturer specialized in advanced thermoplastic composites, announces the opening of a new sales office in Oregon City, Oregon, USA. Industry veteran Larry Stevens is appointed business development manager North America. This new office places DTC in a stronger position to support North American based aerospace and other high tech industry with continuous reinforced thermoplastic parts. Since 1999, DTC has been pioneering press molding of continuous fiber reinforced thermoplastics such as peek, pps, pekk, pei and polyamides. Today DTC’s main products are structural brackets and clips for aero-structures, small aircraft interior structure such as seating components and lightweight machine parts. The fast thermoplastic molding technology that DTC uses, offers customers a lightweight and cost effective replacement of aluminum and titanium parts. DTC is an AS9100 certified company and is qualified to manufacture and inspect thermoplastic composite parts for both

01 Mar 10. Lockheed Martin Corp, the No. 1 information technology provider to the U.S. government, is working hard to better predict and protect against increasingly sophisticated and stealthy cyber attacks. Lockheed, also the Pentagon’s biggest contractor, is opening a second internal security intelligence center in Denver this week to complement the one it opened in May 2008 in Gaithersburg, Maryland, north of Washington. Some analysts and software developers at the Gaithersburg center starred in a video Lockheed recently posted on YouTube, (here), which portrays the cyber security problem as a complex chess match between U.S. government and industry on one side, and a host of smart attackers from nation states and criminal groups on the other. “It is a cat-and mouse game between the two sides,” said Eric Hutchins, a Lockheed cyber intelligence analyst. “They’re constantly trying to develop new ways of attacking us and we’re constantly trying to develop new ways of defending us.” Cyber attacks are becoming more sophisticated,