11-NEWS-0019 mda.mil  October 6, 2011

Army Lt. Gen. Patrick J. O’Reilly, Missile Defense Agency director, officiated at a ribbon cutting ceremony today marking the grand opening of the Von Braun III facility on Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala. The 839,873 square foot facility has office space to accommodate 2,649 positions and is the largest single building on Redstone Arsenal.

Other participants in today’s ribbon cutting ceremony included Mr. John H. James, Jr., MDA Executive Director, Air Force Maj. Gen. Terrence Feehan, MDA Program Executive for Programs and Integration, Army Maj. Gen. Todd T. Semonite, Commander, South Atlantic Division, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and representatives from U.S. Senator Richard Shelby’s office and from the offices of U.S. Representatives Mo Brooks and Robert Aderholt. Also in attendance today was Army Lt. Gen. Richard P. Formica, Commander, U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command.

The VBIII facility is a part of the Von Braun Complex and includes 750,000 square feet of administrative space, an 800 seat auditorium, a cafeteria, and a fitness center. The building was constructed by Archer Western Contractors, Ltd., headquartered in Atlanta under the oversight of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The VBIII facility also houses the 2,248 MDA positions that were realigned from the Washington, D.C. area as a result of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) legislation. In August, the MDA held a ceremony which marked the official opening of the MDA Headquarters at Fort Belvoir, Va. All MDA BRAC moves and requirements were completed on September 15, 2011 as required by law.

Richard Lehner, 571-231-8212, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

July 8, 2011, By Mr Jason B. Cutshaw (USASMDC/ARSTRAT)

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - For a few young students, their journey to reach the stars began early.

Sixteen students were the recipients of the Air, Space, and Missile Defense Association Space Camp scholarship and got to spend a week at Space Camp at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville the week of July 3-8.

On July 6, the scholarship winners were treated to a lunch by members of the ASMDA board and got a chance to speak to those who made the week possible.

“The technologies that you are going to take away from here and study are the ones that are going to take us back to the moon and beyond,” said Deborah Barnhart, U.S. Space and Rocket Center chief executive officer. “Someone your age is going to be the first person to step on Mars. The reason you are here, the reason people thought so much of your intellect and your capability is so you can take us forward into the future.

Huntsville Leaders Discuss Cyber Security Lessons Learned From April 27 Tornado Outbreak

Group shares tornado outbreak lessons, improvement plans

Michelle Stark WHNT News 19 Anchor & Technology Correspondent

1:31 p.m. CDT, June 28, 2011

HUNTSVILLE, AL—

The massive tornado outbreak on April 27 knocked out power, disrupted essential services and took down communications infrastructure all across the Tennessee Valley. Local business and government leaders hope finding lessons in those failures will make the community safer.

Tuesday morning, roughly 180 people attended the “Resilience of Our Critical Infrastructure and Cyber Security Summit” at ADTRAN, Inc. in Cummings Research Park. The event, hosted by CyberHuntsville and Energy Huntsville – initiatives for the Tennessee Valley – was planned as a way to improve the area’s cyber and traditional infrastructure.

Source: defenseprocurementnews.com April 1, 2011 by Matthew Potter

Even with the current budgetary situation in the United States where the Defense Department and the rest of the Federal government is operating without a budget and faces a possible shutdown in a week’s time the U.S. continues its operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya as well as working on existing defense programs. Part of this is the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) keeping its different programs going with the announcement of two major contracts in the last few days.

The 2012 MDA budget has been released.

WASHINGTON - On February 1, 2010, David Altwegg, Executive Director of the Missile Defense Agency, held a Department of Defense News Briefing on their 2011 Fiscal Year Budget.

The budget request for 2011 was $8.4 billion, about $500 million more than 2010.

Mr. Altwegg said the budget would go towards supporting the agency’s emphasis on development, testing, fielding, and sustainment, emphasis in the agency having shifted from ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles to short- and medium-range missiles, which make up about 99 percent of the ballistic missile threat.

MDA

Computer Sciences Corp., of Huntsville, Ala.

SOURCE: MDA Press Release, 08-NEWS-0004, Feb 22,2008

Lt. General Henry A. "Trey" Obering, Missile Defense Agency director, announced today that all six chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL) modules have been installed aboard the Airborne Laser (ABL) aircraft.