OnAir has so far tested their calling/texting-only service on two aircraft--one operated by Air France, one by TAP Portugal--even though RyanAir announced plans that its planes would started being unwired with the service by late 2007. Still no word on that fleet progress.

Qantas will apparently launch cached Web browsing and limited Web email (probably through a proxy) along with instant messaging, with full Internet service coming "later in 2009." This is clearly due to a lack of satellite coverage that was just remediated a few weeks ago (see below). The first plane with limited service, a new A380, should be in flight 20-October-2008.

The Morning Herald seems to overstate the importance and scope of a complaint filed by the union representing American Airlines' flight attendants. The detailed coverage in the U.S. had more to do with the potential for issues, and likely attendants lack of interest in policing yet another media on the plane. Filtering doesn't work, the attendants probably already know, and this may just be a negotiating point with the airline.

On why Qantas is waiting until late 2009? This requires unwinding how OnAir gets its signal.

Aeromobile and OnAir both rely on Inmarsat satellites for their service. Both companies had several years ago staked their futures on the fourth-generation network Inmarsat was to inaugurate with three satellites that would use beamforming to allow precise delivery of nearly 500 Kbps per receiver, with hundreds or thousands of regions being able to be targeted from a single satellite. Inmarsat's third-gen network--don't confuse this with 3G cellular ground-based networks--can deliver about 64 Kbps per channel.

Now, unfortunately, Inmarsat was three years late on launching its trans-Pacific bird. While the company claims 85 percent coverage of the earth and 98 percent coverage of population, there's a big gap over the Pacific that also prevents them from having good overlap between the U.S. and Japan/China/Korea, as well as the southern Pacific, covering Australia. Since the biggest market for long-haul flights would likely be Australia, Japan, and China, traveling trans-Pacific or trans-hemispheric routes, that gap is rather large.

Aeromobile opted to build out a service, deployed only by Emirates airline as far as I can tell, that uses the 3G service since it was available, and most necessary equipment is already installed on most over-water planes. OnAir was waiting for 4G, which has necessitated a long wait, but allowed them to launch in Europe with a seemingly next-generation service. Given that OnAir is controlled by an airline-owned integration firm, SITA, and by Airbus, they're not going anywhere.

Inmarsat finally lofted its third satellite on Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on 19-August-2008, and the launch and separation was reported as successful. Previously, the company has needed up to a year to verify and deploy its 4G satellites. (You can read extremely close coverage of the launch at a Web site devoted to space enthusiasm.)

However, the dirty little secret about Inmarsat's BGAN is that it costs a fortune to heft bandwidth across it. Thus, in-flight broadband over BGAN, if it's ever available, is going to be changed on an extremely high per-MB rate. None of the providers want to say this. This is in contrast to Row 44 (and, once, Connexion by Boeing), which relies on leased Ku-band transponders where they can fix costs and they require high volumes to keep per-bit costs efffectively low.

OnAir's launch of calling on Air France's service involves paying a few euros per minute for calls, which might help you understand what data costs could ultimately run.

This is a big day for Aircell, which spent tens of millions to acquire the exclusive spectrum license that allows them to shoot Mbps to and from planes. My big question will be whether coverage remains seamless across an entire flight--how often one has to reconnect their VPN would be a big issue. If Aircell has architected the network correctly, passengers should never be reassigned an IP address, and connections shouldn't be dropped even if there's a hiccup in air-to-ground communication.

I've covered in-flight broadband for several years, and I've been wondering lately whether we'd be waiting until 2009 to see real production service. American is calling this a 3-to-6 month pilot to see what their passengers think. Just yesterday, I wrote up veteran travel writer Joe Brancatelli's frustration with the lack of information and some misinformation about in-flight broadband.

You can read more background on American's plans and Aircell's technology in a post I wrote for BoingBoing on 24-June-2008.

He's not very positive about it, because his research shows a mismatch between claims and work. He writes that an unnamed American airline executive is frustrated by the delay in launching the 3-to-6 month pilot on their trans-continental fleet; that Aircell hasn't submitted paperwork for Virgin's Airbus models for certification; and that the FAA just received a request to certify Delta's MD-80 craft, which makes a launch with 75 planes this year on that airline less likely.

Competitor Row 44 doesn't fare better in his analysis, as they promised spring and summer 2008 tests that still haven't happened, with Southwest and Alaska Airlines.

I'm a little more positive about the future of in-flight broadband. There's no particular conspiracy. It's hard to make it work. Development and testing is tricky due to FAA limits, and getting in-flight handoffs to work for seamless service at 35,000 feet is far more difficult than, say, cellular handoffs in a moving car at 100 feet above sea level. My suspicion is that tuning the service to be entirely reliable at launch is what's taking so long.

Brancatelli blames the high price of Connexion on its failure, but I don't think the $27 fee for long-haul flights deterred users. Lufthansa, which deployed all its long-haul fleet, apparently had very good usage. Most other airlines had few craft equipped, which didn't allow business travelers, able to expense several hours of work for a $27 fee, the reliability of having on-board Internet when they needed it. Connexion also had many reports of spotty service in certain areas.

Connexion's failure came from deploying technology that was old when it was deployed, which weighed too much, and which was too expensive to install. Connexion's revenue and expenses were forecast based on having several hundred aircraft with Connexion service--recall that it was supposed to be a domestic U.S. service, too. In the end they had about 100, I believe.

Brancatelli is also modest when he says Boeing "lost" $300m. That's part of what they wrote down. My sources say they spent more than a billion in R&D, transponder leases, ground station operation, airline incentives, and payoffs at the end.

Delta's competitors with broadband interest, like Alaska, Southwest, and American, each have a different plan of attack. Alaska will test service soon with Row 44, which uses Ku-band satellite access, albeit with higher speeds and far lower costs, the company says, than Boeing's doomed Connexion service. Row 44 touts their over-water ability, critical for Alaska, which flies plenty of routes to the great northern state and to Mexico. A test is what's scheduled; not deployment.

Southwest did some deal with Row 44, but nothing further has been forthcoming. Summer's almost over, and we haven't heard more about the "four aircraft" mentioned in the linked press release.

American has the most fully formed plan, but they, too, are testing Aircell's service, and will shortly launch service on 15 trans-continental 767-200s, flying largely routes among SFO, LAX, JFK, and Miami. The company said in the past that they would decide on fleet deployment after the pilot stage.

I shouldn't forget Virgin America, which planned Internet access as part of a set of already-deployed in-flight networked services, but they have under a couple dozen planes at the moment, so they're not a real competitor except on a few routes. Their launch date hasn't been set.

Delta's announcement makes it clear that air-Fi is coming soon, and will likely change how business travelers plan trips. If you can get productive work done during a flight, that changes the financial equation of the trip's cost, and your time out of the office. Pair in-flight Wi-Fi with a cell data card, and you may curse the fact that you're always connected.

Weldon, who is currently being investigated by the FBI over alleged corruption during his time in office, visited Libya in March to discuss a possible military deal, according to a letter describing the trip from Weldon to Defense Solutions CEO Timothy Ringgold. In May, Weldon, together with Ringgold and another company representative, traveled to Moscow to discuss working with Russia's weapons-export agency on arms sales to the Middle East.

Both trips were part of the company's effort to tap into the growing -- and often legally murky -- market for selling weapons from former Eastern Bloc countries to the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Ex-Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Penn., is helping broker deals between Russian weapons suppliers and the Iraqi and Libyan governments through his company, Defense Solutions.
Photo: H. Rumph Jr/AP

The Russians want to sell weapons to Iraq directly, but "must go slow on Iraq because of political reasons" and want to work with an "intermediary" like Defense Solutions, CEO Ringgold subsequently wrote to colleagues. "They have not spoken with any American company that can offer the quid pro quo that we can or that has the connections in Russia that we have," he boasted.

A few years ago, an American company proposing to sell weapons to Libya might have triggered a congressional hearing. So, too, would have a proposal to conduct arms deals with Russia, which the United States has accused of selling high-tech weapons to Syria and Iran.

However, U.S. government efforts to rapidly equip countries like Afghanistan and Iraq -- which have largely Soviet-origin weapons -- have created legal ambiguities and loopholes in export controls that didn't exist in years past and given rise to a new class of arms trade middlemen. So, even though both Libya and the Russian arms export agency are on official U.S. blacklists, government officials and analysts involved in weapons sales say the rules have become unclear as the push to equip allies in the global war on terror has blazed new but uncertain legal ground.

Eagerly stepping into that virgin territory is Defense Solutions, a Pennsylvania-based company that is carving out a small but lucrative niche in a new international arms bazaar. The firm boasts as its advisors a number of influential Washington insiders, such as retired General Barry McCaffrey, the former White House drug czar.

Helping the firm make key connections is Curt Weldon, a former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania at the center of an FBI investigation into alleged conflicts of interest during his time in office. Weldon, now a key executive at Defense Solutions, is working with the company to set up these weapons deals.

Defense Solutions has also proposed refurbishing Libya's BTR-60 armored personnel carriers, according to a sales proposal seen by Wired.com. Defense Solutions denies drafting a sales proposal to Libya.

It's an unusual, if not an entirely unexpected chapter for Weldon, whose time in office included frequent trips to Russia. As an influential member of the House Armed Services Committee, Weldon pushed for multibillion-dollar defense programs, like ballistic missile defense, and earned a reputation as a foreign policy gadfly, boasting of his contacts with officials in nations labeled by the administration as "rogue states" such as Libya and North Korea. Weldon's wild claims about a 9/11 cover-up and his sensationalist book warning of an Iranian terror plot, sometimes earned him official scorn and public ridicule, but it was accusations that he steered contracts to Eastern European businesses linked to his daughter's lobbying firm that drew the government's attention.

Weldon was voted out of office in 2006 just weeks after the FBI raided his daughter's home, and that of one of her associates.

Weldon did not respond to e-mails and phone requests to be interviewed or comment for this article. But in a 2006 interview, before the FBI probe was public, Weldon spoke enthusiastically about setting up a "front company" to work with the Russian arms agency, Rosoboronexport. Weldon hoped this company could sell weapons to the Middle East, and other regions, particularly to countries where the U.S. has strained relations. He claimed the director of Rosoboronexport approached him to work with "an American company that would act as a front for weapons these nations want to buy."

Weldon called the proposal an "unbelievable offer."

The administration, he acknowledged at the time, did not welcome the idea of an American company selling Russian weapons to potentially unfriendly countries. But two years later, Weldon, now a private citizen and chief strategic officer for Defense Solutions, appears to be working on precisely that sort of deal. And whether illegal or not, Defense Solutions' business represents a new phenomenon in the international arms trade business.

In years past arms brokers -- firms or individuals who serve as middlemen to facilitate weapons sales between countries -- were largely the stuff of spy thrillers. Unlike traditional American defense companies, like Lockheed Martin or Boeing, which typically sell weapons directly to NATO countries or other governments regarded as friendly to the United States, brokers are often small outfits run by people with sometimes questionable experience and reputations they will sell to anyone. One of the most infamous arms brokers, a Russian named Viktor Bout, is charged by the United States, United Nations, Interpol and others of funneling arms to terrorists and rebels around the world. He was recently arrested in Thailand. The United States is requesting his extradition on charges of supplying arms to a terrorist organization.

Two Marines lower the trim vane on the front of an Iraqi BMP-1 mechanized infantry combat vehicle that was captured during Operation Desert Storm. The American defense consulting firm Defense Solutions has proposed refurbishing Libya's aging fleet of BMP-1s. Defense Solutions denies drafting a sales proposal to Libya.

But ironically, Iraq has fueled a new market for these professional middlemen; the United States is funneling billions of dollars into modernizing Iraq's army so that the country's government can fend for itself after coalition troops withdraw. And Iraq's largely Soviet-equipped military is a natural market for Eastern European countries brimming with old or out-of-date equipment they would like to unload. The middlemen, in these cases, serve a key role by allowing the U.S. government to do business with an American company, which in turn buys equipment from Eastern Bloc countries in deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars, much of it financed with U.S. taxpayer dollars.

One of Defense Solutions' sales -- a deal to sell Hungarian-owed T-72 tanks to Iraq in 2005 -- was typical of these new foreign military sales. But on the more questionable side is the company's plans to work with Rosoboronexport, which is barred from doing business with the U.S. government, and Libya, which is still on the State Department's arms embargo list.

The Eastern European-Middle East arms-brokering business, while in some cases sanctioned by the U.S. government, has run into problems, including outright corruption and quality. Defense contractor Dale Stoffel, the president of Wye Oak Technology, and another American were gunned down in Iraq in December 2004 after Stoffel alleged that the Iraqi Ministry of Defense was involved in a kickback scheme. Like Defense Solutions, the company Stoffel worked for was refurbishing the Iraq's army Eastern Bloc equipment.

Another problem is quality. Weapons from the former Soviet Bloc, which the U.S. military euphemistically calls "nonstandard equipment," have been flagged as substandard, acknowledges Brigadier General Charles Luckey, who is in charge of security assistance at Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq. In an interview from Iraq, Brigadier General Luckey said: "One of the frustrating things about buying nonstandard [weapons], is that I'm the guy who has to deal with the fact that some broker I've never heard of allowed weapons to get to Iraq before they were inspected."

Defense Solutions is carving a new niche in the arms trade, selling Soviet-made weapons to Middle Eastern countries like Afghanistan and Iraq. Defense Solutions sold Hungarian-owed T-72 tanks to Iraq in 2005.

In one high-profile case, Iraqi officials alleged that a corrupt firm sold them $400 million in shoddy helicopters from Poland. More recently, a company led by a 21-year-old and a former masseur was offered a U.S. government contract worth nearly $300 million to sell ammunition to Afghanistan. The ammunition turned out to be outdated and of dubious origin and several people connected with the company have been indicted. A congressional investigation concluded that the company, which was on a State Department watch list, was able to take advantage of regulatory loopholes by using middlemen.

For those concerned about illicit arms trade, this new wave of weapons deals is rife with the potential for corruption and abuse, but for companies eager to pursue markets once regarded as dubious, it represents a lucrative business opportunity. The problem in these cases, according to those familiar with arms sales, is that it's no longer clear what's legal and what's not.

Rachel Stohl, an expert on international arms trade and a senior analyst at Center for Defense Information, says that in many ways, the rush to equip Iraq has led the United States to throw caution to the wind. She points to a report by the Government Accountability Office last year that found that some 190,000 weapons sold to Iraq have gone missing. "I think the reality is we won't know, until way after the fact, about all of these irregularities with the Iraq weapons provision program," she said. "We were providing them all these assault rifles that have gone missing. Why? They were not following the standard procedures that were in place."

But Iraq and Afghanistan aren't the only markets available to arms brokers like Defense Solutions. The gradual normalization of relations with Libya opens another door into a quasi-legal area of sales.

Like Iraq, Libya has a substantial arsenal of Soviet-origin military weapons, offering a potential market for brokers working with Russia and other former Soviet states. But even when there's not an outright ban, sales to the Middle East are often fraught with controversy, particularly to countries like Libya, which was under international sanction for more than a decade. Even as sanctions against it have been lifted, European companies proposing to sell arms to Libya have faced steep criticism, particularly since the country is still ruled by dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who took power in a military coup in 1969.

While the United States lifted Libya's "state sponsor of terrorism" designation in 2006, other restrictions, such as on the sale of arms, remain in place. A State Department spokesperson confirmed that exports of "lethal munitions" to Libya, such as tanks or related equipment, are still banned, although sales of nonlethal equipment are now allowed on a case-by-case basis.

In late March, Weldon traveled to Libya for a weeklong trip at the invitation of the Gaddafi Foundation, a group run by the son of Libya's leader, and the chairman of Libya's foreign affairs committee, according to the report he sent to Defense Solutions (.pdf), a copy of which was obtained by Wired.com. The trip reports states: "Agreement reached for Weldon to quickly return to Libya for meetings with son [of Libyan leader Gaddafi] Morti regarding defense and security cooperation."

A document dated April 16, just two weeks after Weldon's trip, outlines Defense Solutions' proposal to Libya to refurbish the country's fleet of armored vehicles, including its T-72 tanks, BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles, and BTR-60 armored personnel carriers. A copy of the sales proposal, also provided to Wired.com, is on Defense Solutions' letterhead, appears to bear the signature of company CEO Timothy Ringgold, and is addressed to Libya's defense procurement council. "Defense Solutions is committed to delivering a full end-to-end solution to its clients," the proposal states. "Besides refurbishing these vehicles, we are capable of providing a full logistics support package, including a two year supply of spare parts, maintenance and repair services, and operator, maintenance, and repair training."

In an interview with Wired.com, Ringgold admitted that he's interested in doing business in Libya and confirms receiving Weldon's trip report from Libya, but denies drafting or signing an arms-sale proposal. "I've never made such a document to Libya," Ringgold insisted, after being read the proposal, and told that his signature is on it.

In addition to the Libyan arms-deal document, Wired.com has also reviewed copies of e-mails from Ringgold discussing the Libyan deal.

While Ringgold denies proposing an arms sale to Libya, he is open about speaking with Rosoboronexport, which has been on a U.S. government sanctions list since 2006, after the Russian state agency allegedly violated the Iran and Syria Nonproliferation Act. An April e-mail provided to Wired.com describes Ringgold, Weldon and Stephan Minikes, a senior advisor to Defense Solutions and a former ambassador, meeting with Rosoboronexport. The conversations included a number of potential deals, including supplying Mi-17 helicopters to Afghanistan and spare parts for Iraq's infantry fighting vehicles. Ringgold wrote to colleagues following the visit, describing the meetings as a "spectacular success," saying the Russian agency "has the ability to undercut all cost proposals from brokers."

Ringgold confirmed those discussions and said that his company has sought to do business with Rosoboronexport. Asked whether Ringgold considers his dealings with Russia to be legal, he argued that U.S. companies could work with Rosoboronexport on a "case-by-case" basis. "The particular purpose of the meeting we had -- and I want to be crystal clear -- was in response to a U.S. government requirement," he said.

A number of officials at the State Department and in the Pentagon, when contacted for this article, could not say whether working with Rosoboronexport is legal or not. A Pentagon spokeswoman said she was familiar with the issue, but deferred the question to the State Department. When asked about Rosoboronexport's status on the blacklist, John Herzberg, a State Department spokesman replied: "What's on there is on there."

Asked whether, given the ban, there was any way a company could legally work with Rosoboronexport, as Ringgold suggested, Herzberg provided an equivocal answer. "At the stage of the process we're at, I'm unable to give you an answer," he said. "You can try elsewhere in government, and maybe they'll be braver than me."

In an interview from Iraq, General Luckey conceded it was a murky area, but said, "My understanding is they are currently on our no-go list."

The confusion over debarred parties has even led the U.S. government into its own legal tangles, according to Jim McAleese, a Washington attorney who specializes in government contracting and foreign military sales. Because the Russian government violated U.S. nonproliferation laws, even NASA had to go to Congress to ensure it could work with Russia on Soyuz flights to the international space station. "What I'm warning you about is, don't be surprised by the confusion," McAleese said. "There are a whole bunch of different statutes that were adopted piecemeal and were never intended to be reconciled."

But it's the very ambiguity of the law that troubles those who monitor export control. "It's highly unusual to do anything with the Russians, particularly Rosoboronexport," said Scott Jones, director of Export Control Programs at the Center for International Trade and Security at the University of Georgia.

Legal or not, reputable American companies simply don't want to work with banned entities, Jones said, for fear of risking their reputations and business. "Even if it's not an outright prohibition, most companies don't want to put themselves in a liability situation that has really bad PR … and they stay away from it," Jones said. "But if that's your business, pimping out arms from the U.S. or Russia, that's the way it works, and you push as much as possible."

Finding any U.S. defense company working with the Russian government at this point would be "remarkable," Jones added.

In the meantime, the future for Weldon is unclear. The FBI investigation continues and Weldon's former chief of staff recently pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge and is cooperating with the government, notes Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which filed a complaint against Weldon in 2004. Sloan speculated that Weldon may be charged with "honest service fraud" for misusing his office for personal gain. "It's an easier standard than bribery," she said. "I wouldn't be surprised [if he's charged] with bribery, but I think it will be honest services fraud."

Ringgold insists that he and Weldon are on the right side of the law. "Everything we do is in strict compliance with international and U.S. law and we operate only in the best interests of the U.S. government," he said. "I didn't serve 30 years in the United States Army to throw that away on a whim."

Asked if Weldon is still working for the company, Ringgold replied: "Absolutely, proudly so."

TAP Portugal adds in-flight calling: OnAir's satellite-based call service is now in a trial on a single Airbus A319 in TAP's fleet. The six-month trial will determine how they move forward. TAP was originally slated to launch a trial nearly three years ago, but technical and regulatory issues have delayed in-flight mobile use in Europe. This isn't broadband, by the way: it's pricey per-minute calls, texts, and cell-based email.

Boingo offers free day pass for downloading connection software: The hotspot aggregator will give you 24 hours of use at a location in their network for downloading their lightweight connection software by 6-July-2008. The software identifies Boingo-partnered networks, and lets you sign in without any fuss.

AT&T launches downtown St. Louis network: The company found that it couldn't complete its city-wide proposal due to light pole issues. They've built out a square mile in the downtown, instead. The service is $8 per day and $16 per week, or free for up to 20 hours per month when ads are viewed. AT&T DSL, fiber, and remote business customers get free use of the network.

Alltel launches domestic US hotspot service: Alltel is reselling Boingo's offering at $20 per month or $4 per day with no commitment. That's 25,000 US hotspots. The No. 5 cell operator, which is in the process of being acquired by Verizon, also runs a EVDO network available nationally as part of a Verizon partnership (Alltel covers a ton of areas Verizon doesn't), which costs $60 per month. Combine Wi-Fi and 3G and pay $70 per month.

Beijing's Wi-Fi network launches with a limp; no 3G at Olympics, either: The Wall Street Journal says the WiCity project that will cover the Olympic venue with Wi-Fi (about 100 sq km) got off to a rough start at its launch, with reports from their bureau and others of poor signal strength; no answer on the customer-support hotline; and broken links on the Web site. The blog entry also notes that visitors who expect 3G over their cell will be bitterly disappointed, as anyone in the industry knows: China didn't adopt either worldwide 3G standard. They claim that their own TD-SCDMA 3G technology will be up and running in time, but that won't really help visitors much, now will it? I'm surprised no waivers were granted to run temporary cell installations for EVDO and HSPA just for the games. Wouldn't have been that big a deal.

Hovering somewhere overhead, a tiny robot points its camera at the van and takes note of its color scheme and markings. An even bigger drone, thousands of feet above its hovering kin, maintains a God’s-eye vigil on the whole hunt.

Everything these robots see is radioed to monitors thousands of miles away -- and into the targeting systems of a B-52 bomber winging, silent and nearly invisible, several miles overhead.

This scenario, played out at a remote Nevada facility last week, was the first major test of the Army’s $160-billion, 20-year plan to build a high-tech family of networked robots and hybrid-electric armored vehicles. The “Future Combat Systems” program, co-managed by Boeing and consultants SAIC, aims to equip roughly a third of the Army with 14 new vehicle types that are connected constantly to a vast communications net.

The theory behind the FCS is that dispersed, intelligent robotic systems plugged into a universal communications network can help small numbers of U.S. troops riding in new vehicles to control huge swaths of terrain. Any ship, airplane or tank fitted with the FCS network devices will be able to see everything the others see.

The SkyNet-like network and dynamic coordination “is the most important thing,” Brigadier General James Terry says.

This is “a big deal for joint fires,” Army spokesman Paul Mehney told Wired.com.

“Joint fires” is mil-speak for getting all the military services to share info and coordinate their attacks. That kind of teamwork is a big factor in the U.S. military’s combat prowess. And if FCS works out as planned, the five U.S. military branches will team up better than ever.

Did the test work? Kinda.

The robots spotted the van; their targeting data bounced to a nearby unit of specially-equipped Humvees, then across the network to an Air Force intelligence cell in Langley, Virginia, then back to the B-52 -- all in just seconds. The bomber simulated dropping a guided bomb to “destroy” the van.

The Nevada test proved it was possible, according to Mehney.

But one critic says the test essentially was rigged -- that the conditions were too easy.

“There is ‘works’ and then there is ‘works,’” John Pike, an analyst with Globalsecurity,org, told Wired.com.

“A considerable fraction of the FCS network hardware does not currently exist,” Pike said. And the integration of that hardware that does exist has been touch-and-go.

In February, when testers “flipped the switch” for the first time on the network radios, there was a collective sigh of relief that the radios even worked -- this according to one FCS insider who spoke on background.

Last week’s desert test comes at a critical time for Future Combat Systems. Mounting criticism from the GAO plus the growing cost of fixing and upgrading the Army’s current war-weary vehicle fleet -- $120 billion over 10 years, according to the GAO -– has put the squeeze on the futuristic program. “It is not yet clear if or when the Army and [its contractors] can develop, build, and demonstrate the … network,” the Government Accountability Office reported in March.

One powerful congressman, nominally a supporter of FCS, has proposed injecting extra money into the program in order to rescue some of its technologies before canceling the rest.

Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), chair of the defense appropriations subcommittee, promised an extra $20 billion this year for FCS, provided the Army could use the money to wrap up the program quickly. “We need to accelerate FCS if we ever want to see anything accomplished,” Matt Mazonkey, a Murtha staffer, told Wired.com.

The Army is still preparing its response to Murtha’s query, Mehney said. Regardless, the service’s position on FCS has never wavered. The Army says that FCS is on-budget, on-schedule, and with continued funding will deliver on its promises to connect the ground service to itself and to all the other military branches.

And to ensure smooth progress despite a combined $900 million budget cut last year, the Army this month asked Congress to “re-appropriate” $250 million of other Army funds into FCS coffers.