AIR FORCE Global Ground Support, Olathe, Kan., was awarded a $15,375,084 contract to provide two preproduction units as well as 49 production vehicles, and an estimated quantity of 196 deicer vehicles. At this time no money has been obligated. 642nd CBSG/GBKBB at Robins Air Force Base, Ga. is the contracting activity (FA8533-09-D-9002).
NEW DELHI — India and the U.S. have agreed on a defense pact that is expected to boost U.S. arms sales to India. In a significant step ahead in their bilateral relationship, India and the U.S. have agreed to enter into an understanding on the long-awaited end-use monitoring (EUM) agreement, which will allow the U.S. government to monitor India’s use of U.S.-made military equipment.
NEW DELHI — India’s first moon mission – Chandrayaan-I — has lost its star tracker, raising worries that it might not last out its two-year life span even though engineers at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) have devised a functional workaround to the problem. “With its loss we are really worried,” ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair says.
ARMY BAE Systems Land & Armaments Limited Partnership, Minneapolis, Minn. was awarded on July 14, 2009 a $ 21,007,124 firm-fixed-price contract for the purchase of 5,325 improved vehicle emergency escape windshield kits for the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV). The work is to be performed in Minneapolis, with an estimated completion date of March 30, 2010. One bid was solicited with one bid received. U.S. Army TACOM Contracting Center, Warren, Mich. is the contracting activity (W56HZV-09-C-0524).
With the military and political communities waiting for the Department of Defense to release its Quadrennial Defense Review next year, attention has been diverted from several other reviews that promise to shake things up in Washington.
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LAKOTA ABROAD: EADS North America has delivered the first two UH-72A Lakota Light Utility Helicopters to be based outside the continental U.S. to the U.S. Army for operations in Puerto Rico. These were the 66th and 67th Lakotas delivered to the Army and Army National Guard units by the company. The UH-72As are now based at San Juan’s Isla Grande Airport, operated by the Puerto Rico National Guard and equipped for general aviation support missions. To date, 128 UH-72As have been ordered by the Army, with plans to acquire 345 helicopters through 2016.
The Pentagon’s unnamed contractors placed 14th on the Defense Department’s ranking of top contractors for 2008, according to an Aerospace DAILY analysis of an independent national database of government contracting data.
Astronauts Dave Wolf and Tom Marshburn bolted three big spare parts to the International Space Station (ISS) truss July 20 in the second of five spacewalks of the STS-127 mission of the space shuttle Endeavour. With Wolf riding the station’s robotic arm, the two removed a space-to-ground antenna, a coolant pump and a motor/transmission combo for the station’s mobile transporter from the integrated cargo carrier (ICC) that held them inside Endeavour’s payload bay and mounted them on an external stowage platform.
PARIS — Elbit Systems is not easing up on acquisitions, having just announced that it is adding military training and simulation systems company BVR Systems to its portfolio. Israel’s largest publicly traded defense company says it is paying $34 million for BVR, which reported $3.3 million in net profits in the first quarter and an order backlog of $48.4 million.
F-22 AMENDMENT: Now that the Senate has voted to add an anti-hate crime measure to the fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill, it can take up an amendment to cap F-22 procurement at 187 aircraft. Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) the panel’s ranking member, are expected to re-introduce their amendment to strip out a provision in the bill authorizing $1.75 billion to be spent on seven more F-22 Raptors.
SUB UPGRADE: The team of Lockheed Martin and Granite State Manufacturing will design and build an upgraded Multifunction Mast Antenna System for improved submarine communications under a $6.9 million U.S. Navy contract. Like many other projects in the defense community, the mast-mounted OE-538 system is to allow the use of many disparate systems to improve communications and the gathering of navigation information. The MMAS will offer improved UHF, Link-16, Iridium and Mobile User Objective System UHF satellite communications.
UAV BOTTOMLINE: Financial analysts at Macquarie Capital expect global unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) funding to continue to grow from $4.5 billion per year now to about $10 billion within a decade. Over the past 10 years, funding for UAVs in the United States alone has grown at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29 percent, according to the Wall Street advisors. “The low cost of these platforms has driven this demand and subsequently it tends to be the ‘cheaper’ mid-size and smaller UAVs that are targeted for international procurement,” the analysts say.
NASA’s failure review panel for the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) mission that was lost Feb. 24 points to four suspected causes, all relating to the Taurus XL launcher’s payload fairing and separation systems, but draws no specific conclusions.
ROVER FATE: NASA could still kill its Mars Science Laboratory rover if cost growth in the troubled program continues, science chief Ed Weiler tells the NASA Advisory Committee (NAC) Weiler informs the NAC science panel he’s going to run his own “personal” milestone review in September, focusing on actuators and avionics with a small group that will include the program directors from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Goddard Space Flight Center. An agency review of the project is scheduled for November.
HYBRID HOVER: Aurora Flight Sciences has flown its Excalibur experimental high-speed vertical takeoff and landing unmanned aircraft. The half-scale proof-of-principle aircraft is a testbed for a hybrid turbine-electric propulsion system that combines a tilting jet engine and battery-powered lift fans. The Excalibur completed a first hover flight lasting just under 2 minutes on June 24 at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. Visit aviationweek.com for exclusive pictures and video of the flight.
BUFFALO SUCCESSOR: Canada has given industry two months to provide ideas on how the country’s search-and-rescue (SAR) mission could be performed, but has not furnished requirements, numbers or a timeline for a new fixed-wing fleet to replace its aging DHC-5 Buffalos and CC-130E Hercules. The Department of National Defense held an industry day for the long-delayed Fixed-Wing Search and Rescue (FWSAR) program in Ottawa on July 14, and gave interested bidders until September 15 to submit their ideas on SAR concepts.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. July 21 - 23 — Shephard Group’s UV 2009, The Celtic Manor Resort, Newport, Wales, and West Wales Airport. For more information go to www.shephard.co.uk/events July 22 - 23 — Shephard Group’s UV Europe unmanned Vehicles Conference and Exhibition, The Celtic Manor Hotel, Newport, Wales. For more information go to www.shephard.co.uk/events
MOSCOW — The R-30 Bulava (SS-NX-30) solid-propellant ballistic missile experienced another test launch failure July 15, during its 11th test flight. Launch took place from the Borey-class flagship submarine Yury Dolgoruky in the White Sea. According to a Russian Defense Ministry statement the first stage of the missile malfunctioned and the weapon self-destructed. A special investigation commission has already been established to find the cause of the failure, a ministry representative told reporters.
LAUNCH ORDER: International Launch Services (ILS) will orbit QuetzSat-1, a Ku-band spacecraft to be launched in 2011 to serve Mexico and the U.S. QuetzSat, a joint venture of SES and Mexican media companies, earlier concluded a deal to supply direct-to-home TV capacity to Dish Mexico, an affiliate of EchoStar, and is also expected to supply EchoStar’s U.S. DTH unit, Dish Network Corp. It was the tenth deal of the year for ILS.
LONDON — The British government has examined — and rejected — the idea of accelerating planned deployment of the Merlin transport helicopter to Afghanistan, once eyed for December. It is continuing to examine whether the provision of additional Chinooks can be advanced. The government is under pressure from both the military and the political opposition over the support for British forces deployed in theater. The limited number of support helicopters deployed with the U.K. force — now totaling 9,000 personnel — has repeatedly been criticized.
