ARMY LORD Corporation, Erie , Pa. , was awarded a $13,152,000 firm-fixed-price contract on Feb. 14, 2011. The award will provide for at least 2,400 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. The work will be performed in Erie , with an estimated completion date of Jan. 31, 2016. Two bids were solicited with two bids received. The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal , Ala. , is the contracting activity (W58RGZ-11-D-0108).
LONDON — Continued unease about Defense Ministry program management and decisions made in its recent defense review is driving the U.K. parliament to ask the government to spell out, by the end of April, the full implications of last year’s Strategic Defense and Security Review (SDSR).
After trailing in the funding wake of aircraft programs for more than a decade, major U.S. Navy shipbuilding programs are picking up enough steam in the service’s fiscal 2012 budget request to keep them on a steady course through the rest of the decade.
ARMY Raytheon, Dallas, Texas, was awarded on Feb. 11 a $68,680,036 firm-fixed-price indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quality contract. The award will provide for the purchase of 9,001 thermal weapon systems. The work will be performed in Dallas , with an estimated completion date of June 30, 2012. Three bids were solicited with three bids received. The U.S. Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. , is the contracting activity (W91CRB-07-D-0029). AIR FORCE
A&D M&A: Aerospace and defense (A&D) sector merger and acquisition (M&A) activity is set to improve this year after the grueling global recession, according to the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) A&D practice group. “We believe that the overall level of aerospace and defense M&A activity will continue to grow for a number of reasons,” says Scott Thompson, PwC’s U.S. A&D leader.
SPACE WAR: The Obama administration’s new NASA budget request sets up a conflict with lawmakers who ordered faster work on government-built vehicles and less emphasis on commercial travel to low Earth orbit. The request does not keep the six-year pace set for a new heavy-lift launch vehicle in the three-year NASA authorization enacted in December, and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) quickly threw down the gauntlet. “The president’s budget does not follow the bipartisan NASA law Congress passed late last year,” he says.
ORLANDO, Fla. — The U.S. Air Force is planning to announce a winner for its KC-X aerial replacement tanker competition as soon as this week, according to numerous industry and military officials. The service is expecting a protest from the losing bidder, and has prepared for this likely eventuality. The decade-long tanker replacement effort has been marred by scandal, bid protests, award reversal and, most recently, a data swap mishap that saw bidders receiving their competitor’s information. A decision could happen as soon as Friday, Feb. 25.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) feb. 23 - 24 — UBM Asia-Pacific Aerospace’s Aircraft and Engine Financing and leasing Conference, Goodwood Park hotel, Singapore. For more information go to www.asiaaircraftfinanceandleasing.com feb. 23 - 25 — AUSA Winter 2011, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. For more information go to www.ausa.org
ORBITAL BIRD: Orbital Sciences Corp. has been selected to supply a new communications satellite to SES World Skies. SES-8, equipped with 33 Ku-band transponders and intended to provide growth capacity to India and Southeast Asia, is expected to be lofted in the first quarter of 2013 to 95 deg. E. and could be followed by a larger spacecraft at a later date, according to SES Chairman/CEO Romain Bausch.
ORLANDO, Fla. — The U.S. Air Force is not seeking funding to push the technological edge in military space projects, setting the stage for potentially more fixed-price contracts with companies already struggling to make money in this business.
ORLANDO, Fla. — The U.S Air Force is proposing to use the Economy Act—which allows government to take unconventional actions to balance the federal budget—to bypass a competition and sole-source the Common Vertical Lift Support Program (CVLSP) helicopter in the fiscal 2012 budget request sent to Capitol Hill on Feb. 14.
In observance of the U.S. Presidents’ Day holiday, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report will not publish an issue on Feb. 22. The next issue will be dated Feb. 23.
HIGH RISK: With budget growth slowing or even falling flat in coming years, the Pentagon must get better value for its weapon system spending and find ways to deliver necessary capability to combat personnel for less than it has spent in the past, congressional auditors declare in the latest update of their high-risk assessment of federal spending initiatives.
NEW DELHI — As India gears up for its first human spaceflight mission in 2017, work is ongoing at the Bengaluru-based Institute of Aerospace Medicine to upgrade facilities and equipment for training astronauts, including simulators and environmental chambers. The institute has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), which is outsourcing the training to it.
DEPOT DILEMMA: Congress has not coordinated with the Pentagon to maintain a “ready and controlled source” of depot maintenance, and this lack of oversight combined with decreased war funding in the next few years will lead to a reduction in depot maintenance and possible reductions in funding for depot maintenance requirements, according to a new report from consulting firm LMI.
MORE GLOBAL: U.S. Navy Adm. Gary Roughead, the chief of naval operations, says Africa and the Arctic region are likely to become bigger areas of concern for U.S. leaders and his sea service in the future. Speaking Feb.
EUTELSAT GROWS: Growth at Eutelsat continued unabated in the first half of its 2009-10 fiscal year, prompting the No. 3 fixed satellite service provider to reiterate its strong forecast for the full year and the next three years. Eutelsat reported revenues up 13.3% to €575.9 million ($783 million); earnings before taxes, depreciation and amortization were up 12.5% to €463 million. Profits jumped 25% to €174 million.
The Defense Department likely has cut or canceled all of the major costly programs it believes are too expensive or fail to meet current military needs, says Robert Hale, the Pentagon’s comptroller. It’s unlikely, he says, that service brass and contractors will see the wholesale ax-wielding that has chopped through Pentagon programs during the past two years. “We’ve weeded out those programs,” Hale said Feb. 16 following his briefing at Aviation Week’s Aerospace & Defense Technology and Requirements conference in Washington.
JAPAN’S TURN: Veteran astronaut Koichi Wakata will become the first Japanese to command the International Space Station, NASA and its partners announced Feb. 18 while unveiling a lineup of nine crew members newly assigned to expeditions 35 through 39 in 2013 and 14. Wakata will take command of Expedition 39, starting in March 2014. Wakata, an aerospace engineer, spent 138 days aboard the station as a flight engineer in 2009. He served as a mission specialist aboard the 13-day STS-92 station assembly mission in 2000 and the nine-day STS-72 mission in 1996.
ORLANDO, Fla. — The U.S. Air Force is conducting a review of its current, planned and needed intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) assets in order to create a more “balanced portfolio” for the future, says Secretary Michael Donley. “We are looking at how best to balance ISR assets across the spectrum of conflict,” Donley told an audience hosted by the Air Force Association at its annual Air Warfare Symposium.
WSMR SUPPORT: NASA has selected Jacobs Technology Inc. of Tullahoma, Tenn., for a potential $500 million, five-year contract to provide test evaluation and support services at the agency’s White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, N.M. The agreement, announced by the Johnson Space Center on Feb. 17, includes a three-year base period, valued at $300 million and effective May 1, as well as two one-year options, each valued at $100 million. Major subcontractors include ERC Inc. of Huntsville, Ala.; and GeoControl Systems Inc. and MEI Technologies Inc., both of Houston.
HOUSTON — The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) was moved from the Earth-facing (nadir) to the zenith (space-facing) port of the International Space Station’s Harmony module on Feb. 18, providing the required clearance for the space shuttle Discovery to dock on the STS-133 mission. Discovery’s scheduled liftoff on the long-delayed 11-12-day assembly and supply mission on Feb. 24 at 4:50 p.m. EST is expected to set up a Feb. 26 rendezvous and docking with the orbiting science laboratory at Harmony’s forward port.
PARIS — SES expects revenue growth to slow a bit this year because of launch delays and a solar array problem, but predicts expansion will resume in 2012 as new capacity—including a spacecraft ordered Feb. 17 —s added to the fleet.
