GERMAN RADAR: Germany’s F125 Special Forces and Stabilization frigates will be equipped with Rockwell Collins’ Radar Electronic Support Measures (R-ESM) suite starting in 2010 through 2013. The company will provide its CS-3600 R-ESM system, which contains the CS-3001 Pulse Analyzer Unit, CS-5998 wideband tuners, CS-5020 microwave tuners, IFMR-6070 Instantaneous Frequency Measuring Receiver and the CS-6090 PRISM (Precision Intercept Spectral Monitoring System).
CANADIAN SCAMP: The Canadian Department of National Defense awarded Rockwell Collins a five-year, $52.3 million contract for Extended Data Rate International Partners Variant Single Channel Anti-jam Manportable (SCAMP) terminals for use with U.S. Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellites. The Foreign Military Sales contract will be executed through the U.S. Army’s Communications-Electronics Command Group. SCAMP terminals are designed to provide worldwide, secure, jam-resistant, covert voice and data communications.
Boeing’s top executive denies that his company has gained unfair advantage in the battle for the U.S. Air Force’s KC-X refueling tanker contract and charges that the competing EADS-Northrop Grumman team is using a government-subsidized platform.
NASA rolled out a prototype of its first new human spaceflight vehicle in more than 25 years from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center early Oct. 20. The unmanned Ares I-X flight-test vehicle arrived at the pad atop its giant crawler-transporter at approximately 7:45 a.m. EDT, having departed the VAB at 1:39 a.m. The crawler moved at less than 1 mph during its 4.2-mile journey.
EADS has picked former NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe as the new CEO of its North American unit, turning to a veteran Washington insider to continue the company’s expansion into the large U.S. defense and space market.
SMASHING CABEUS: Deep diving into their instruments has turned up the answer that the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) science team expected after the mission’s Oct. 9 plunge into the 60-mile-wide Cabeus crater on the moon’s south pole. “There is a clear indication of a plume of vapor and fine debris,” says LCROSS Principal Investigator Anthony Colaprete.
Stuart D. Nozette, a principal investigator on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), faces life in prison on two counts of attempted espionage after allegedly accepting cash from an undercover FBI employee posing as an Israeli intelligence operative in exchange for classified U.S. defense information.
MUOS A COMPATIBLE BIRD: Lockheed Martin Space Systems has demonstrated that the first Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) spacecraft’s combination of legacy and next-generation Ultra High Frequency communications payloads is compatible with ground user test terminals. The test was aimed at ensuring that the existing UHF Follow On system will have a smooth transition when MUOS goes through an in-orbit handover to the U.S. Navy, now set for 2011.
Although today’s rudimentary non-kinetic weaponry can incapacitate a surface-to-air missile, radar, or even a tank, cyberwarriors still lack the tools necessary to determine right away if an attack has been effective. “There’s no smoking hole,” says a National Security Agency veteran. “It still looks like it can kill me.”
The British Defense Ministry intends to begin the assessment phase for a key element of its overall intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability in early 2010, with the system meant to provide an initial capability in 2012. The ministry will likely select two companies to start a nine-month assessment phase in January for the ISTAR Information Integration & Management (I3M) element of its Dabinett intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) program. British industry executives admit the time scale is demanding.
South Korean companies could bid for work on the Lockheed Martin F-35 if the country orders the stealth fighter, even though suppliers for the airframe were chosen years ago, the U.S. manufacturer says. As production builds up turning out one fighter a day, second-source suppliers will be needed for parts that Lockheed Martin itself is responsible for supplying, says Steve O’Bryan, vice president for F-35 business development.
The cancellation of three high-profile programs was “very disappointing” for Lockheed Martin in the near term, but looking ahead, growth in the F-35 and C-130J programs augured well for the company in the next two years, CEO Robert J. Stevens told analysts on Oct. 20.
SEAPORT SUPPORT: The U.S. Navy Seaport-Enhanced contract office awarded Northrop Grumman four task orders, valued at more than $80 million, to support Navy and joint programs. Under the terms of the three-year, Special Access Support Program (SASS) task order, Northrop Grumman will reside on site with the customer to support analytic, strategic, technical, managerial, planning, monitoring, evaluation, assessment and documentation of programs. Northrop Grumman will also support the three-year Information Technology, Modeling and Simulation Services task order.
Korea Aerospace Industries is studying a concept for a combat drone that it says would conduct air-to-air and air-to-ground missions, including suppression of enemy air defenses. The stealthy aircraft, called K-UCAV, would also operate as an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft with an “excellent sensor system,” the company says. No concrete South Korean requirement for a combat drone has been revealed, but research into such aircraft may be one way for Korea Aerospace to maintain its combat aircraft skills.
MARIETTA, Ga. – Lockheed Martin and Alenia Aeronautica plan to submit a proposal on their joint plan for an Italian final assembly and checkout (FACO) for the F-35 to the Italian Ministry of Defense next month, says Tom Burbage, Lockheed Martin’s executive vice president for F-35 program integration. The proposal will lay out the plan to build the facility. Burbage says Lockheed Martin plans to provide the tooling and technology transfer activities for the stealthy, single-engine fighter. Alenia will pay for the building and construction.
BEIJING — Avic General Aircraft is studying development of a multipurpose propeller aircraft in the 30-seat class, which it would build in partnership with the Guizhou provincial government. The latest in an ever-growing wave of new Chinese aircraft projects, the 30-seater would have civil and military applications, says the company’s parent, national aeronautics conglomerate Avic. The project has not yet been launched, but a committee of experts reviewed and passed a report on it last week.
Controllers are checking out a new military weather satellite launched Oct. 18 on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) F-18, the third in the Block 5D-3 series for the Lockheed Martin spacecraft, lifted off in dense fog from Vandenberg’s Space Launch Complex-3 at 12:12 p.m. EDT, under the authority of the U.S. Air Force’s 30th Space Wing
LONDON — The U.K. will deploy the first Royal Air Force Merlin medium-lift helicopters to Afghanistan within the next two weeks, as it plans a further increase of British forces in theater.
Northrop Grumman isn’t waiting on the military’s testing schedules for Fire Scout, and is pressing ahead with its own investments and components testing on the vertical takeoff unmanned aerial vehicle (VTUAV).
Congress is on its way to countering the Obama administration over a study of B61 nuclear warheads, with the Senate last week endorsing a congressional compromise for appropriations of just half of the related request.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is highly critical of the testing methods that the U.S. Army used last year in evaluating new plate designs for ballistic vests to be issued to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. As part of its audit, GAO observed Preliminary Design Model testing for the plates — tests which eventually resulted in the Army awarding contracts late last year valued at more than $8 billion.
