Incoming House Armed Services Committee Chair, Howard “Buck” McKeon, today laid out his stances on the embattled F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter, its alternate engine program and his defense spending priorities as the new top man on the committee.

The Senate Appropriations Committee today revealed its proposed government funding package containing $667.7 billion in defense cash, some $10.3 billion below the Pentagon’s FY-11 budget request.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead, repeatedly stressed that the dual buy of 20 LCSs from both Lockheed Martin and Austal USA would save the service $2.9 billion over the next five years and allow the purchase of 10 ships from each class versus the 19 single class ships as previously planned.

Aimed at reducing redundancy and guiding government agency policies and investments, the Secure World Foundation’s National Space Strategy Project seeks the establishment of a space strategy taking into account the nation’s military, civilian government and commercial space needs in a way that reflects the county’s overall strategic goals, said the project’s principal investigator Eligar Sadeh during a press conference today in Washington to unveil the project.

The aerospace and defense industries continue pushing arms export reform hard but several well-place sources within the industry say very little change is likely to happen in the next year. In the latest thrust, President Obama announced the beginnings of a yet another review of the Munitions List, which describes which weapons and parts are subject to the control of the State Department, and of the Department of Commerce’s version.

If the House Continuing Resolution makes it to President Obama’s desk, the Pentagon will be left $19 billion short of its 2011 budget request. This appears to be why the House appropriators, not known for their excessive kindness to the Pentagon, granted the military permission — subject to congressional approval — to move money around.

With the F-35B getting a reprieve, it is time for all good Marines to look to the fate of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos faces difficult budget choices between the V-22, the F-35B and the EFV. The V-22 clearly boasts the greatest support from the Corps, followed by the STOVL version of the JSF.

House CR Allows Dual LCS Buy

The Senate seems to be leaning toward an omnibus spending bill to keep the government going next year. The House is moving a continuing resolution that would effectively freeze spending at current levels. Why does all this matter for the F136, the second engine for the Joint Strike Fighter? After four conversations with congressional aides and congressional experts to try and figure out just what this might mean for the F136, one conclusion stands out stark and clear. It all depends.

UPDATED: Corrects Who Called Whom
Boeing and EADS NA are busy spending the holiday season preparing for the KC-X contract award sometime early next year. It’s not exactly a factory to build KC-45s from the ground up, but EADS NA said today it wants bids to build a “conversion” facility in Mobile, Ala. And Boeing launched what looks like a clever pysops campaign to out-psych EADS, using defense analyst and consultant Loren Thompson to spread the word that — shock, horror — it may well lose the tanker competition after having seen some of the bidding data that the Air Force shared with the two companies.

A senior DHS official today revealed that the Sutxnet worm could threaten U.S. systems computer systems despite the fact that it appears to specifically target Iranian nuclear facilities, for now.

The Coast Guard, who scrambled to respond to the BP oil well explosion and oil spill, is about to lose an entire class of ships to the masters of federal spending at the Office of Management and Budget. The Offshore Patrol Cutter, which the Coast Guard is getting ready to begin buying, appears likely to fall to the OMB ax, says one source who closely follows the Coast Guard. Worth somewhere between $300 million and $400 million through the life of the program, the OPC would replace the Famour and Reliance class cutters.

Lured by the promise of rapid updates, easily adaptable software and the ubiquity of cell phone technology, the Army is preparing to offer a smart phone to every soldier. This decision comes after almost a year of Army testing of phones to see how they can best be used and best made secure. In addition to supplying phones, the Army may pay for their cell phone service

The wonderfully sort-of-secret X-37B is back on terra firma after a long stay in space. Very little information beyond its appearance, dimensions and the fact that the Air Force is deploying it is known about the vehicle, which looks a lot like a mini space shuttle. The vehicle can stay in orbit for at least nine months. Is it a sensor platform, a mobile satellite launcher, or…?

Cartwright Says Cuts Coming Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ budget strategy of deferring defense budget cuts by offering $100 billion in efficiencies looks to lie in tatters as pressure for Pentagon cuts rises to seemingly unstoppable levels. In the face of America’s fiscal strains, the nation must choose a new global strategy that better conforms to our ability to spend, three top defense experts argue. And the nation’s Nr. 2 uniformed officer says DoD is bracing for cuts.

America’s top four space agencies — NASA, the NRO, Space and Missile Systems Command and the Missile Defense Agency — are joining together to improve how they design, buy and build launchers, sensors and satellites. The memorandum of understanding — signed so far by the spy satellite builders and operators at NRO and the SMC folks — will help them share information and work together.

While reports vary about just what Ash Carter, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, said about Joint Strike Fighter costs, one thing is crystal clear: he is frustrated and appears to be genuinely angry about continuing cost increases. “I’m not happy with the situation we’re in now,” Carter told an investment conference yesterday. […]

Today, Rep. Ike Skelton, outgoing chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, offered the nation his final speech from the House of Representatives after 34 years of service. He spoke simply and with some eloquence about how polio challenged him, about the dangers our nation faces and about a “hollowed out” political center he fears may hamper Congress’ ability to do the crucial job of overseeing and guiding the military