MULTIMISSION: The U.S. Navy awarded Northrop Grumman a $26.2 million full-rate production contract for its AN/SPQ-9B shipboard radar systems, to aid in detecting and tracking high-speed threats such as sea-skimming anti-ship missiles. Northrop Grumman will produce four shipsets. The contract includes options that could bring the total value to $281.5 million. The options encompass a wide range of U.S. aircraft carriers, cruisers and amphibious assault ships as well as the Coast Guard National Security Cutter.
Washington has been espousing a lot of talk about partnerships with Europe since President Obama came into the White House last year, but there is not much focus on how Europe and its industrial base fit into the overall defense framework in the United States, according to Jeff Bialos, a partner at Sutherland Asbill & Brennan and a former deputy under secretary of defense for industrial affairs.
MOSCOW — Russia has kicked off its 2010 military sales by signing aircraft deals with Libya and Vietnam. Libya’s defense minister, Maj. Gen. Abu-Bakr Yunis Jabr, signed a $1.8 billion agreement at the beginning of February that includes the acquisition of six Yak-130 jet trainers to be delivered in 2011-2012. The deal also provides for the overhaul and upgrade of the T-75 battle tanks in Libya’s inventory, as well as the completion of a Kalashnikov manufacturing plant in the country.
NEW DELHI — India’s Defense Research Development Organization (DRDO) plans to test its 5,000-kilometer (3,100-mile) range Agni-V ballistic missile in a year’s time, following the third successful trial of the 3,500-kilometer range Agni-3 on Feb. 7. Agni-5 is in the subsystem testing phase, according to DRDO chief V.K. Saraswat, scientific advisor to the defense minister.
PRECISION KILL: The U.S. Marine Corps has completed its operational assessment of BAE Systems’ Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS), scoring eight direct hits in eight shots over two weeks. Operational assessments provide Marines the opportunity to test a system before it is deployed. APKWS is designed to destroy soft and lightly armored targets while minimizing collateral damage. In a series of shots fired during the weeks of Jan. 11 and Jan. 18, Marine AH-1W Cobra helicopters flying a variety of scenarios fired laser-guided APKWS rockets at targets.
ACQUISITION PLANS: L-3 Communications chairman, president and CEO Michael Strianese has given the clearest indication yet that the company may grow through mergers and acquisitions (M&A) this year. “M&A is more likely than not,” Strianese said at the Cowen & Co. Aerospace and Defense Conference in New York on Feb. 10. Aside from growth through M&A, the company will see a lower growth rate this year, or “in the range of 2 percent,” Strianese said.
American Dynamics Flight Systems will wind tunnel test the ducted-fan propulsion system for its proposed AD-150 vertical-takeoff-and-landing unmanned aircraft with support from the University of Maryland (UMD). The university’s Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS) program has approved $135,150 in funding to test a scale model of the company’s patented High Torque Aerial Lift (HTAL) system in a tunnel at UMD. “We get to work with UMD and the state provides 90 percent of the funding,” says Wayne Morse, American Dynamics president and CEO.
REGIONAL ROLES: BAE Systems has targeted aerial firefighting as a potential market for its regionally oriented offerings, and it continues to eyes military uses too. So far only Minden Air has bought one aircraft for conversion for the firefighting role (with entry into service next year). But Steve Doughty, BAE Systems Regional Aircraft’s head of sales, suggests more business is in the works.
SOME JUSTICE: The roughly $450 million that BAE Systems agreed to pay U.K. and U.S. justice officials is not insignificant, but it pales in comparison to what the British Serious Fraud Office (SFO) once thought. The fine is the result of a slew of long-running investigations by the fraud office and the U.S. Justice Dept. In the end, BAE agreed to “plead guilty to one charge of breach of duty to keep accounting records in relation to payments made to a former marketing adviser in Tanzania” concerning the SFO investigation. It will pay a $46 million fine in the U.K.
NASA is preparing to launch the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) on Feb. 10 from Cape Canaveral, Fla., after pushing back 24 hours to accommodate the slip in the launch of space shuttle Endeavour on mission STS-130. The United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V 401 rocket carrying SDO is sitting on the pad at Launch Complex 41, having arrived there at 8:30 a.m. EST on Feb. 9. The Feb. 10 launch is set to occur during a window of 10:26 a.m.-11:26 a.m. The mission marks the first of 10 planned launches by ULA this year.
LONDON — Britain’s next government needs to avoid prejudging the outcome of a planned Strategic Defense Review by making cuts as a result of an “early stringency budget,” according to some key parliamentarians. Spending plans are certain to be scrutinized quickly following a general election — likely in early May — but the Parliament’s Defense Committee cautions that defense expenditures should not be sacrificed.
Raytheon is conducting early demonstrations of adding anti-brownout, target tracking, and three-dimensional audio capabilities to its distributed-aperture infrared sensor system, designed to provide 360-degree situational awareness to helicopter pilots. After completing flight tests of the prototype Advanced Distributed Aperture System (ADAS) on a UH-60 in 2008, Raytheon is now adding features to the system under a $13 million extension to the U.S. Army-led technology demonstration program.
Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) is the “clear front-runner” to take over the powerful post of chairing the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, according to sources on Capitol Hill. Dicks was the number two Democrat on the panel until Rep. John P. Murtha’s (D-Pa.) death Feb. 8 after complications following gallbladder surgery (Aerospace DAILY, Feb. 9). He and Murtha joined the committee together in 1979, according to George Behan, press secretary for Dicks.
A gigapixel surveillance sensor that can downlink 65 video streams from a single airborne platform is undergoing refinement before final demonstration flights later this year under a U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program.
LONDON — British industry, academia and government are setting out a highly ambitious vision to radically increase the size of the nation’s space sector at the heart of a 20-year plan. The Space Innovation and Growth Team (IGT) report, made public Feb. 10 in the U.K., calls for an overhaul of how London approaches the space sector, with increased government funding and greater coordination.
LONDON — The European Defense Agency (EDA) has taken another step in its quest to get unmanned aircraft integrated into European airspace by signing agreements with two consortia to provide satellite services to accomplish the task. The two contracts were inked with EADS and Indra — one signed by EDA and the other by the European Space Agency. EDA and ESA are trying to work more closely together, although ESA technically does not operate in the military domain. Each study is valued at €400,000 ($630,000).
PARIS and SINGAPORE — Pakistan and France are closing in on a deal to develop a “Westernized” variant of China’s FC-1 with advanced fire-control radar, weapons and avionics — provided some thorny political and financial issues do not get in the way.
A night of inspections with an instrumented 50-foot extension on the space shuttle Endeavour’s robotic arm turned up no apparent damage to the delicate thermal protection system, although it will take more time for engineers at Johnson Space Center (JSC) to evaluate the inspection data. They will get another data dump early Feb. 10, following the now-standard rendezvous pitch maneuver (RPM), a backflip to give the crew of the International Space Station (ISS) a view of the orbiter’s belly for photo documentation with telephoto lenses.
The chairman of the U.S. House Appropriations defense subcommittee, Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), died Feb. 8, leaving a vast and sudden vacancy in one of the most powerful aerospace and defense lawmaking positions on Capitol Hill. Murtha had been suffering from complications from gallbladder surgery. He died at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Va., near the Pentagon, early in the afternoon. He was 77.
