NAVY Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Sensors, Owego, N.Y., is being awarded a $14,740,000 delivery order against a previously issued basic ordering agreement (N00019-09-G-0005) for non-recurring efforts in support of airborne mine countermeasures (AMCM) testing and systems development. The work will be performed in Owego and is expected to be completed in December 2011. Contract funds in the amount of $1,602,000 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity.
THREE FOR ONE: Raytheon has won a $21.3 million U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contract to begin design of a high-speed, long-range air-to-air/air-to-surface missile that can engage aircraft, cruise missiles and air defense systems. The Triple Target Terminator (T3) would be carried internally or externally on fighters, bombers and unmanned aircraft, and would be able to switch between the air-to-air role now performed by the AIM-120 Amraam and the air-to-ground role currently handled by the AGM-88 Harm missile.
LONDON — The competition to supply a new fighter to the Qatar Emiri Air Force (QEAF) is now formally underway. Evaluation of program candidates has begun, the service’s commander, Brig. Gen. Mubarak Bin Mohammed Al-Khayarin, tells the Shephard Air Power Middle East conference here. The goal is to make a type selection before the end of 2012. The size of the program is still under discussion, with 24-36 fighters likely to be acquired. The aircraft would replace Dassault Mirage 2000-5s.
BEIJING — China’s Long March 2, 3 and 4 launchers will continue to serve for at least 10 years, according to Meng Guang, vice president of Shanghai-based space contractor SAST. The current Long March 2, 3 and 4 are distinguished from the upcoming Long March 5, 6 and 7 rockets by their use of hydrazine fuel. The first launch of the Long March 5 heavy rocket is due in 2014.
HOUSTON — NASA has postponed the launch of Discovery’s 11-day mission to the International Space Station until no earlier than Nov. 30, following a substantial leak of hydrogen gas at a launch pad vent-line fitting during a Nov. 5 countdown to the orbiter’s 39th and final mission. The leak at the Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate (GUCP), surfaced before 8 a.m. EDT, and the pre-launch Mission Management Team (MMT) initially braced for repairs that would permit another flight attempt on Nov. 8, a day beyond the nominal closing of the launch window.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) Nov. 9 - 11 — Maritime Systems and Technology (MAST) 2010, Palazzo De Congress “ Rome, Italy, D.C. For more information go to www.mastconfex.com Nov. 10 - 13 — Indo Defence 2010 Expo & Forum, “The 4th Indonesia’s Official Tri-Service Defence Event, JIExpo Kemayoran Jakarta, Indonesia. For more information go to www.indodefence.com
The U.S. Marine Corps will have to think small to win big in current military conflicts. That’s the general message in the first official planning guidance released to the corps from its new commandant, Gen. James Amos. Amos focuses on the need to better develop small-unit capabilities with lighter equipment that is more compact and energy-efficient. From a procurement perspective, it appears the Marines will be looking for more cyber-relevant equipment and ways to grease the logistical chain to deal with irregular threats.
A $21.7 million U.S. Army contract to refurbish OH-58A cabins to the D configuration marks the start to what Bell Helicopter Textron hopes is a much larger project to keep the Kiowa Warrior reconnaissance helicopter fleet viable for years to come. Eventually, the company plans to demonstrate improved propulsion capabilities for what it calls the Kiowa Warrior Block II, which could be an entrant if the Army kicks off a competition to build a future Armed Aerial Scout helicopter.
NASA is trying to determine why the Cassini spacecraft entered safe mode at 7 p.m. EDT Nov. 2. Safe mode is a precautionary standby mode entered by the flight computer when it encounters a problem that requires assistance from mission control. Cassini has stopped sending science data, instead relaying information only on spacecraft health.
TEST RESET: The first two low-rate initial production (LRIP) F-35As, which were planned to be delivered to the Joint Strike Fighter integrated training center at Eglin AFB, Fla., by the end of the year, are instead being fitted with instrumentation and will be delivered to Edwards AFB, Calif., in April 2011 to help accelerate flight testing. This will delay the start of flight training. Aircraft AF-6 and -7, which have yet to fly, are now being fitted with test instrumentation on the flight line at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth plant.
LONDON — The customers and companies involved in developing the A400M military transport have taken another step toward putting the European program on a new contractual baseline, with governments extracting slightly better payment terms following months of talks.
The U.S. Marine Corps Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) is undergoing a critical testing phase that it must pass, program officials acknowledge, if the service expects to continue building what it considers the linchpin of its expeditionary future. “The focus now is on RGT — our reliability and growth testing,” says Manny Pacheco, program spokesman. “We’re doing developmental tests to make sure all the engineering changes work the way they’re supposed to.”
The U.S. Army’s Research, Development and Engineering Command wants to hear from industry on what it can bring to the fight against improvised explosive devices, specifically the hard-to-detect non-metallic IEDs so prevalent in Afghanistan.
COSMO-SKYMED 4: Launch of the COSMO-SkyMed 4 mission aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., was pushed back one day to Nov. 5 at 10:20 p.m. EDT, after spacecraft builder Thales Alenia Space concluded that launch could not take place Nov. 4 due to “technical reasons” that would prevent the new Earth observation satellite from being properly inserted into the current three-satellite COSMO-SkyMed constellation. The slip is unrelated to a low second-stage battery voltage reading that caused liftoff to slip from an earlier Nov. 2 target.
Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Army are discussing the operational deployment of an airborne penetrating radar, now in flight testing, in the first half of next year. The UHF-band Tactical Reconnaissance and Counter-Concealment-Enabled Radar (Tracer) is being flight tested on a NASA-operated Predator B unmanned aircraft. The synthetic aperture radar (SAR) provides foliage, camouflage and ground penetration.
AUCKLAND — A new white paper issued by the New Zealand government outlines a need for short-to-medium range maritime patrol aircraft and boosts the number of light utility helicopters being added to the fleet.
NASA’s Epoxi spacecraft flew by comet Hartley 2 from a distance of 435 mi. at 9:59 a.m. EDT Nov. 4, capturing strikingly clear images of its nucleus and making Epoxi the only spacecraft ever to image two different comets. Epoxi is the repurposed Deep Impact, which deployed an impactor to strike comet Tempel 1 in 2005. Hartley 2 is only the fifth comet nucleus ever to be photographed by a spacecraft. Hartley 2’s nucleus is about 2 km. (1.2 mi.) long and 0.4 km. (0.25 mi.) across at its narrow “neck,” according to NASA.
HOUSTON — Efforts to launch the shuttle Discovery from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center were rescheduled for Nov. 5 following an early weather scrub on Nov. 4 due to widespread rain showers and low cloud ceilings associated with the passage of a cold front. The early decision by the Mission Management Team, ahead of Discovery’s fueling, preserved the possibility of daily launch attempts at the Florida shuttle base through the weekend.
When Congress enacted the Fiscal 2010 Supplemental Appropriations Act in late July, military operations associated with Iraq and Afghanistan topped the $1.1 trillion mark, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
The U.S. Navy said Nov. 4 that it wants to split the buy for 20 new Littoral Combat Ships through 2015, 10 from Lockheed Martin and 10 from the Austal/General Dynamics team, both of which have built one ship each and are now at work on their second hulls.
