Nov. 30 – Dec. 1, 2011 New York, NY Join a powerful exchange of A&D’s top CEOs pitching to Wall Street! Hear about business development, investment opportunities and growth strategies from leading companies. Be part of the only investor event that is open to industry. Register Today! www.aviationweek.com/events
ARMY Lockheed Martin Corp., Grand Prairie, Texas, was awarded a $33,336,156 firm-fixed-price and cost-plus-fixed-fee contract. The award will provide for the modification of an existing contract to produce 12 launcher mod kits. The work will be performed in Grand Prairie; Camden, Ark.; Lufkin, Texas; Chelmsford, Mass.; and Ocala, Fla., with an estimated completion date of Nov. 30, 2013. One bid was solicited, with one bid received. The U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (W31P4Q-11-C-0001). NAVY
HOUSTON — Russia’s Progress 45 cargo capsule raced toward a rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS) on Oct. 31, a day after a closely watched launch aboard a Soyuz-U booster from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan eased concerns of a possible evacuation of the six-person orbiting science laboratory. Launches of the Soyuz-U and FG crew version of the booster were suspended following the Aug. 24 loss of the Progress 44 due to a premature shutdown of the third stage that sent the space freighter plummeting back to Earth.
Nov. 30 – Dec. 1, 2011 New York, NY Join a powerful exchange of A&D’s top CEOs pitching to Wall Street! Hear about business development, investment opportunities and growth strategies from leading companies. Be part of the only investor event that is open to industry. Register Today! www.aviationweek.com/events
Paris – German aerospace center DLR expects France to uphold the two countries’ commitment to upgrade Europe’s current Ariane 5 launch vehicle before starting development of a successor, despite recent statements by a top French official that cast doubt on available funding for both.
After a five-year wait, a United Launch Alliance Delta II successfully placed NPP, a weather and climate monitoring satellite built by Ball Aerospace, into orbit Friday from Vandenberg AFB, Calif. Formally known as the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project, NPP and the Raytheon Common Ground System that comes online with its launch will speed up weather data distribution for civil and military users while also monitoring the Earth’s climate.
The Pentagon is reducing the next buy of Lockheed Martin F-35s to 30 from 35 aircraft in order cover cost overruns incurred in earlier production lots, according to the Joint Program Office (JPO). The Navy and Air Force have agreed to reduce their quantities in low-rate initial production (LRIP) Lot 5 to “pay for the bills,” says Joe Dellavedova, JPO spokesman. “Controlling costs is an absolute must.”
While much of Washington is consumed with a glass-half-empty debate about impending reductions to defense spending, a new report takes the optimist’s approach: detailing the $1 trillion spent on military modernization during the last decade. “It is clear the military successfully modernized its capabilities, especially in building on existing systems and incorporating those not even anticipated,” says Russell Rumbaugh in the report, “What We Bought: Defense Procurement from FY01 to FY10.”
The top Democrat on the House International Relations Committee plans to introduce a bill Oct. 31 that would allow the president to remove satellites and their components from the U.S. munitions list, according to congressional aides. The export of satellites and their components have been restricted since 1998, in response to concerns about the transfer of sensitive technology to China.
When it comes to funding the U.S. Army’s ground vehicles, House and Senate appropriators agree the Abrams tank upgrade should receive more than double the fiscal 2012 request. For the rest, the House trimmed very little overall, but the Senate cut nearly one-third. The Abrams request was $181 million. House appropriators added $272 million; the Senate added $240 million.
The U.S. Air Force’s new Commercially Hosted Infrared Payload (Chirp) has been turned on and is operating as expected, says Lt. Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, who oversees the service’s Space and Missiles Center.
The U.S. and its allies could not have conducted recent operations in Libya and other areas without the Bell-Boeing MV-22 Osprey, says Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos. Amos cites the Tactical Recovery of Aircraft Personnel mission that an Osprey performed during Libyan operations to rescue an Air Force pilot after his F-15 was downed. The Osprey launched from the USS Kearsarge amphibious assault ship and returned with the pilot within about 90 min. — a feat, Amos says, no other aircraft could have completed.
Click here to view the pdf How Ground Programs Fared In Fiscal 2012 Markup How Ground Programs Fared In Fiscal 2012 Markup Acct-Line Description Request House % Change House
New Delhi – The U.S. is set to win some big-ticket defense equipment deals from India after the downselect of two of its fighters from the $11 billion competition to supply 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) to the Indian air force. Apparently in a bid to compensate for the MMRCA downselect, India, which is a strategic partner of the U.S., plans to award deals worth more than $10 billion for combat, military transport and reconnaissance aircraft.
Pentagon acquisition officials and contractors for programs outside the continental U.S. — especially those in Southwest Asia — will face more intense oversight by the Defense Department Inspector General (IG). “We learned a hard lesson a few years ago about the difficulty of conducting oversight over two wars without an adequate permanent presence in-theater,” says Pentagon Inspector General Gordon Heddell, in the Journal of Public Inquiry released this month by the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) Nov. 1 — Women in Aerospace 26th Annual Ceremony and Banquet, Ritz Carlton Pentagon City, Arlington, Va. For more information go to www.womeninaerospace.org Nov. 1 - 3 — National Defense Industrial Association's Aircraft Survivability Symposium 2011, Admiral Kidd Club, San Diego. For more information call (703) 247-2558 or go to www.ndia.org
COUGAR UPGRADE: Eurocopter will upgrade seven French military AS532 Cougar helicopters under a newly awarded contract as part of a wider effort to modernize 26 rotorcraft of the type. The latest contract covers work on one French air force and six French army Cougars. As part of the activity, the self-protection systems and avionics will be upgraded The upgrade is expected to enhance the ability of the helicopters’ operators to cooperate with land forces.
The wheels are about to fall off the vehicle-buying bonanza that has been driving Pentagon procurement in recent years. “We have 40,000 vehicles in the Marine Corps,” said Gen. James Amos, U.S. Marine Corps Commandant, during an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations on Oct. 26. “We need about 30,000. We’re not going to recapitalize all of those vehicles.” The Marines, he says, are going to buy “what’s good enough” to get through the next several years.
Managers of NASA’s planetary science program are seeking a way to protect at least some analysis from well-known ongoing deep-space missions as the agency faces swelling costs and a shrinking science budget. Jim Green, the planetary science director at NASA headquarters, told a subcommittee of the NASA Advisory Council Oct. 27 that over the next five years his chunk of the agency budget is scheduled to shrink by about 23% by fiscal 2016 from its $1.54 billion fiscal 2011 budget
Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli warned lawmakers Oct. 27 against discounting the ground forces and hollowing out the Army as the nation looks for ways to cut its deficit. And he mounted an impassioned defense of two of the service’s top ground vehicle programs – the Ground Combat Vehicle and the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle – which analysts have identified as prime targets for budget cuts.
Madrid-based Indra says its Manta directed infrared countermeasures system has completed trials during a NATO exercise that validated the Dircm’s maturity and production readiness. The laser-based system uses a set of predefined jamming techniques to thwart various types of infrared-guided surface-to-air missiles without first identifying their type. Indra has been working with Russia’s Rosoboronoexport on the system, as well as the Spanish national aeronautics research center, INTA.
NEW DELHI – The Indian army will soon receive 204 armored repair and recovery vehicles for revamping of its damaged T-72s — the Russian-made battle tanks used by the country’s armed forces, a defense ministry official says. The armored recovery vehicles (ARVs) will be built by the Bengaluru-based defense supplier Bharat Earth Movers under full technology transfer from Poland’s Bumar. A proposal was recently cleared by the federal Cabinet Committee on Security headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the official says.
