NEW DELHI – India’s state-owned Bharat Electronics Ltd. (BEL) and French aerospace and electronics firm Thales are joining forces to make civilian and military radars. Both BEL and Thales have approved the formation of a joint venture company (JVC), subject to statutory approval by the governments of India and France.
FRANKFURT — EADS has added two Airbus managers – Chief Operating Officer Günther Butschek and Chief Operating Officer Customers John Leahy – to the company’s executive committee. The appointments represent further integration of Airbus and its parent company, although fully merging the two entities is not foreseen.
Speaking recently about the potential effects of sequestration, the chief executive officer of Huntington Ingalls Industries, the Pentagon’s top shipbuilder, lamented that he would have no idea how to build a percentage of a ship if the U.S. Navy had to cut programs equally across the board. CEO Michael Petters’ point is that each Navy ship has a set size and requirement set. The service either gets the whole vessel, or no ship at all.
Researchers at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) are working to help the Navy understand how alternative fuels will perform in existing gas turbine and diesel engines. The goal is to seamlessly transition to biofuel blends without having to change any engine components. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus is pushing the service to meet energy-saving goals, including a 50% reduction in petroleum-based fuel consumption in the fleet by 2020.
PARIS — On his first trip to Brussels as France’s new defense minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian met with senior EU officials Sept. 3 to discuss top priorities, including the revitalization of European defense. Le Drian was slated to meet with Herman van Rompuy, president of the Council of the European Union, and Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm. Talks with Michel Barnier, commissioner for internal market and services, and European Defense Agency (EDA) Director Claude-France Arnould were also on the agenda.
POLISH AIRLIFT: Poland has ordered five more C295 military transport aircraft to augment 11 of the Spanish-built Airbus Military aircraft already in service for transport and logistics missions. Deliveries will start by the end of 2012 and continue into 2013. The C295 is part of Airbus Military’s family of light and medium airlifters, which also includes the smaller C212 and CN235 variants. In total, the company boasts 113 orders for the medium transport, including 27 announced this year.
Don’t expect this year’s record $65 billion in weapons sales to be repeated over time, says the deputy director of the agency managing U.S. foreign military sales. The overwhelming annual record was driven off the charts primarily by the $29.4 billion sale of Boeing F-15s to Saudi Arabia.
Three years after its launch, the U.S. government group drafting export-control reform measures has started publishing proposed rule changes and is about to deliver a unified set of export controls governing U.S. business. Speaking Sept. 5 in Washington at the ComDef conference, officials from the State and Commerce departments and Defense Technology Security Administration (DTSA) reported on the progress and the challenges tackled.
CLUSTER DISCOVERY: Adding evidence to how diverse the universe is, NASA’s Kepler planet-hunting satellite has observed the first instance of multiple planets orbiting two suns, what astronomers call a circumbinary planetary system. The system, named Kepler-47, is 4,900 light years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. One star is the size of the Sun but only 84% as bright; the other star is diminutive. The inner planet, Kepler-47b, has a radius three times the size of Earth and orbits the two stars in just 50 days, making its surface too hot for life.
HOUSTON — Step by step, the overarching elements of a human mission to a near-Earth asteroid are coming together at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC), even though the needed hardware is still in development, timelines are hazy and budgets are uncertain.
ARMY Alliant Techsystems Operation L.L.C., Keyser, W.Va., was awarded an $84,100,000 firm-fixed-price contract. The award will provide for the procurement of the MK 437 Multi-Option Fuze, Navy. The work will be performed in Keyser, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 15, 2017. Two bids were solicited, with two bids received. The U.S. Army Contracting Command, Picatinny Arsenal, N.J., is the contracting activity (W15QKN-12-D-0089).
Click here to view the pdf Fiscal 2013 Senate Defense Appropriations Markup:Other Procurement: U.S. Navy, Army, Air Force ($ in thousands) Fiscal 2013 Senate Defense Appropriations Markup: Other Procurement: U.S.
NEW DELHI — India’s defense ministry is in talks with French firm Sextant to buy 95 more autopilot systems for Indian air force (IAF) Jaguar fighters. “Procurement of autopilot for 55 Jaguar aircraft has been completed and commercial discussions for repeat procurement of additional 95 autopilots are [under way],” Defense Minister A. K. Antony said in parliament Sept. 3.
ARMY Lockheed Martin Gyrocam Systems, Sarasota, Fla., was awarded a $333,300,000 firm-fixed-price contract. The award will provide for the procurement of spare and repair parts to support the Vehicle Optics Sensor System. The work will be performed in Sarasota, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 22, 2014. The bid was solicited through the Internet, with one bid received. The U.S. Army Contracting Command, Alexandria, Va., is the contracting activity (W909MY-12-D-0017). NAVY
ARMY PAR Government Corp., Rome, N.Y., was awarded a $48,000,000 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract. The award will provide for the services, including Full-Motion Video, Geospatial Information Systems and Surveillance and Reconnaissance related applications. The work will be performed in Rome, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 27, 2017. One bid was solicited, with one bid received. The U.S. Army Contracting Command, Natick, Mass., is the contracting activity (W911QY-12-D-0010).
