The Pentagon continued to withhold contractor names for work in Afghanistan and Iraq, reporting about 525 contracts or contract modifications through the end of the first quarter worth about $208 million for deals in which the Defense Department listed the company’s names as “unavailable,” according to an Aerospace Daily analysis of military contracting data.
RESERVE CONTROL: A legislative fight is brewing on Capitol Hill between state governors and the Defense Department over who should control Reserve military personnel when they are ordered by the president to support state and local authorities. The battle comes as national lawmakers look to finalize their Fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill, although the issue could be sidelined due to its growing contentiousness while the bill moves forward.
SPOOKED CONCERN: Former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and former CIA Director Michael Hayden defend their use of contractors during the George W. Bush administration, and say that outsourced support and services are critical to the government’s capability. In an appearance last week at the National Press Club in Washington, Chertoff said instead of just complaining about contracting, Congress should appropriate more money if it wants federal workers to do more of the work.
AIR FORCE McDonnell Douglas Corp., St. Louis, Mo., was awarded a $98,000,000 cost plus fixed fee contract to provide integration and production of the laser joint direct attack munitions system on various Foreign Military Sales aircraft platforms throughout the life of the contract. At this time no funds have been obligated. 680 ARSSG/PK, Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., is the contracting activity (FA8681-09-D-0065).
Crew were fueling the space shuttle Discovery late Aug. 24 for an early morning liftoff on a maintenance and supply mission to the International Space Station, setting the stage for liftoff at 1:36 a.m. EDT Aug. 25. The STS-128 mission will be largely devoted to outfitting the ISS for full-scale scientific research with a crew of six. Scheduled as a 13-day flight, Discovery’s mission will include three spacewalks and a lot of transfer from the pressurized Leonardo module into the station.
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DIGITAL REVENUE: Northrop Grumman said its new indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract from the U.S. Army to continue providing information operations (IO) and computer networks operations (CNO) – offensive cyber capabilities – is worth as much as $430 million over five years. The contract was awarded by the Army’s Intelligence and Security Command, Fort Belvoir, Va. Northrop has provided IO and CNO support to the Army’s 1st Information Operations Command since 1997.
Several U.S. researchers in Washington painted a grim picture of the Russian military Aug. 24, saying the former Cold War adversary has embarked on a necessary reform campaign after decades of corruption and shrinking capacity.
FUTURE DEWEY: The U.S. Navy accepted delivery of the future USS Dewey Aug. 17 from Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss. The guided-missile destroyer completed a combined builder’s and acceptance trial, or “super trial,” in a three-day stint in the Gulf of Mexico in June. The future USS Dewey is the 57th destroyer in the Arleigh Burke class and is scheduled to be commissioned in December.
MULTILATERAL GUARD: The U.S. Coast Guard is hosting an international humanitarian service training exercise Aug. 24-27 in Port Angeles, Wash., in support of the North Pacific Coast Guard Forum (NPCGF). The forum is an international partnership of Coast Guard-like agencies from Japan, Russia, China, South Korea, Canada and the U.S. The training exercise, which gets under way Aug. 25, will train partner nations on Aids to Navigation, Search and Rescue and Maritime Security Operations. While Japan, Russia, Canada and the U.S.
The Brazilian Air Force has selected Vector Helicopter Services - North America to support its fleet of Bell H-1H helicopters under a five-year agreement worth $15 million. Vector will provide in-country support for airframe inspection, repair services and logistics from a military facility. Its Andalusia, Ala., facility also will repair dynamic components and overhaul transmissions, gearboxes and hydraulics for the Brazilian H-1H fleet.
New communications satellites for the Japanese and Australian markets are moving to their operational positions following a successful dual launch Aug. 21 on an Ariane 5 ECA vehicle from Kourou, French Guiana. The JCSAT-12 and Optus D3 satellites lifted off at 6:09 p.m. EDT and achieved their geostationary transfer orbits in good working order after the 32nd successful Ariane 5 launch in a row, according to launch service provider Arianespace.
TAKING OFF: A $1.7 million upgrade of the Australian Defense Force’s flight simulation research facility at the Defense Science and Technology Organization will go toward supporting in-service aircraft, as well as the acquisition of the Multi-Role Helicopter and to perform analysis for new Australian Super Hornets, ADF officials there say.
CYBER PEEKING: China and even Russia show signs of conducting cyber reconnaissance, a necessary step to win such battles before they even take place, says retired Lt. Col. Timothy Thomas, of the U.S. Army Command and Staff College. “The way you prepare for a cyber attack is, in peacetime, you do reconnaissance,” he tells a Hudson Institute audience Aug. 24. The think tank hosted a public conference on the Russian military, which has been alleged to have colluded with Russian hackers during the brief war with Georgia a year ago (see related article).
MARSHALL DIRECTOR: NASA Administrator Charles Bolden named Robert M. Lightfoot, Jr., director of Marshall Space Flight Center Aug. 24, in his first major personnel action as head of the space agency. Lightfoot, a propulsion engineer who has been serving as acting director since Dave King resigned in March, joined NASA at the Alabama field center in 1989. He also has served at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi and agency headquarters in Washington.
MOSCOW – Coming on the heels of a record $2.5 billion contract for 64 Sukhoi fighters signed last week, the Russian Defense Ministry has clinched a deal with Tactical Missiles Corp. (TRV) for air-to-air and air-to-ground guided missiles worth $193 million.
MILITARY MRO: Unmanned aerial systems, cyber defenses and government training, including military, will each be key areas of the aerospace and defense sector in coming years, according to Terence Yeh, managing director of KPMG Corporate Finance’s A&D transactions unit. But none of those will compare with the rise in maintenance, repair, overhaul and logistics support, Yeh tells Aviation Week. Defense is still the better side of A&D to be on versus commercial, he adds.
The upcoming report of the Review of U.S. Human Spaceflight Plans Committee will follow closely the options for NASA programs already discussed publicly, and will not march off in any new directions. The panel is bound by federal open meeting law, and it already has discussed what will be in its report in a series of public meetings (Aerospace DAILY, Aug. 3, 6, 13).
WEIGHING IN: GHL Acquisitions will hold a stockholders’ meeting Sept. 23 to approve its combining with Iridium as part of Iridium’s development of its NEXT satellite constellation series. GHL is acting after passing its last regulatory hurdle — approval by the Federal Communications Commission. Following the merger, Iridium will go public on the NASDAQ stock exchange (Aerospace DAILY, Aug. 12).
