ARMY BAE Systems, US Combat Systems, York, Pa., was awarded on April 21 a $53,309,854 firm-fixed-price contract. The award will provide for the procurement of 3,034 Bradley Advanced Survivability Kits III to outfit the Bradley Fighting Vehicles to the BUSK III configuration. The work will be performed in York, with an estimated completion date of June 30, 2011. One bid was solicited with one bid received. The U.S. Army Contracting Command, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (W56HZV-05-D-0005). DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY
New Delhi – A state-run Pawan Hans helicopter carrying an Indian minister and four other people has been missing since April 30 in India’s northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh. The AS350 B-3 was carrying Dorjee Khandu, the chief minister of the state, along with the others. The aircraft’s last radio contact with the ground was about 20 min. after takeoff while flying over Sela Pass along the Chinese border. The incident comes after another Pawan Hans helicopter crashed in Tawang on April 19, killing 17 people and injuring six.
ARMY Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Stratford, Conn., was awarded on April 26 a $26,816,836 firm-fixed-price contract. The award will provide for the procurement of two UH-60L Black Hawk helicopters for Saudi Arabia under the Foreign Military Sales program. The work will be performed in Stratford, with an estimated completion date of Sept. 30, 2012. One bid was solicited with one bid received. The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, Army Contracting Center, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (DAAH23-02-C-0006).
HOUSTON – NASA’s mission management team is aiming for May 8, at the earliest, for the next bid to launch the space shuttle Endeavour on its 25th and final flight, as technicians began on May 2 to remove the aft compartment avionics box suspected of prompting the scrub for the first attempt to equip the International Space Station with the $2 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer.
The death of Osama bin Laden may prompt calls to quicken the pace of withdrawal from Afghanistan and to magnify the push to cut defense dollars, but those are not coming from the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) told reporters May 2 that the Al Qaeda leader’s death had changed little on either front. “My position is we need to find savings in the defense budget,” Levin said during a conference call. “The need was there before. The need is still there after.”
AIR FORCE Raytheon Co., McKinney, Texas, is being awarded a $22,654,214 firm-fixed-price contract for logistical support of the Multispectral Targeting Systems for the Predator/Reaper program. At this time, $22,654,214 has been obligated. The work will be performed in McKinney. ASC/WIIK, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8620-06-G-4041, DO 0019).
A day after U.S. companies were shut out from the competition to secure the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) program for the Indian air force, the Obama administration is promoting the sale of Boeing’s C-17 transport to New Delhi. The air force had shortlisted the C-17 to be its new heavy-lift transport aircraft two years ago That deal is worth about $4 billion.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) may 4 - 6 — SpeedNews 9th Annual Military Aviation Suppliers Conference, The Jonathan Club, Los Angeles, Calif. For more information go to www.speednews.com MAY 8 - 12—Aerospace Medical Association’s 82nd Annual Scientific Meeting, Hilton Anchorage (Alaska) and Capt. Cook Hotels. For more information call 703-739-2240 or go to www.asma.org
Raytheon recently delivered critical mission systems early for the U.S. Navy’s DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer. The company delivered the first Total Ship Computing Environment (TSCE) data center two months ahead of schedule and the AN/SQS-60 mid-frequency sonar array eight months ahead of schedule, the company reports.
AEROSPACE AWARDS: NASA has awarded five sole-source contracts to Aerospace Corp. of El Segundo, Calif., for independent assessments of selected NASA programs. The contracts last through November 2018 and have a total maximum value of $658.25 million.
A Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) trainer jet crashed April 28 in southern India during a routine sortie barely a week after an advanced light helicopter, also developed by the state-owned company, went down near the Indo-China border. “The intermediate jet trainer [IJT], prototype aircraft S-3466, was carrying out routine flight testing when it met with a mishap in the afternoon. Both of the test pilots onboard ejected safely,” HAL says in a statement. The company has begun an accident investigation.
REMEDIAL ACTION: An Australian defense ministry review of the MRH-90 has recommended that the multirole helicopter not be added to the “Project of Concern” watch list, but it wants contractor Australian Aerospace to “implement a remediation plan to improve the availability of the helicopters by addressing engineering and reliability issues.” The review was ordered in February by Defense Minister Stephen Smith and Defense Materiel Minister Jason Clare after the program suffered delays of 12 months for the navy’s helicopters and 18 months for the army’s aircraft.
Unmanned aircraft are useful for countries that can afford them, but many of the world’s air forces, governments and agencies cannot sustain long-term spending on training, personnel or force structure that UAVs require. A cheaper option is light, Predator-sized, manned aircraft equipped with sensors and weapons designed for the UAV market.
NEW DELHI — The Indian army’s artillery buy remains snarled in a maze as British defense and security company BAE Systems has opted not to bid on a program for 1,580 towed guns.
LOS ANGELES —Bolstered by its recent second-round NASA Commercial Crew Development Program (CCDev2) win to continue development of the Dream Chaser spaceship, Sierra Nevada Corp. is revealing new details of its plan to conduct full-scale drop tests in 2012 using the Scaled Composites-developed WhiteKnightTwo mothership.
Sept. 28, 201I IFEMA, Madrid, Spain This event provides a forum for knowledge delivery and information exchange on defense sustainment in Europe. Attendees will benefit from fist-hand information from Military and Defense agencies on how they’re overcoming current challenges and changes facing maintenance and sustainment, including budgets, cutbacks, and shifting mission requirements. Co-located with MRO Europe! Learn more and register today at www.aviationweek.com/events
HOUSTON—NASA’s Mission Management Team (MMT) is looking to May 2 at 2:33 p.m. EDT, as the earliest it can make a second bid to launch space shuttle Endeavour’s STS-134 mission to the International Space Station, following the failure of primary and secondary Auxiliary Power Unit fuel-line heaters during an April 29 countdown.
The U.S. Navy has released $1.2 billion for construction of the 14th Virginia-class submarine (SSN-787) to General Dynamics Electric Boat, marking the beginning of production of two submarines per year on the Virginia-class program.
FAR TO GO: Retired Gen. Lance Lord, former commander of U.S. Air Force Space Command, says “there is a lot of work to be done to align the government’s operational requirements and timetables with the commercial constraints of the private sector when it comes to the details of acquiring, designing, manufacturing and deploying payloads into space.” Still, hosted payloads on commercial satellites are an opportunity for the U.S. government to leverage commercial investments to provide access to space, Lord stresses.
