During her final days in office, former U.S. Air Force acquisition chief Sue Payton fired off a letter to Northrop Grumman saying she was “increasingly concerned” about the company’s management of the Global Hawk high-altitude unmanned aerial system program.
LOS ANGELES — Officials from the U.S. Defense Department’s operationally responsive space (ORS) office say an upcoming military utility assessment study of the soon-to-be-launched experimental TacSat-3 satellite will be conducted to help bolster support for the Pentagon’s low-cost spacecraft concept.
The Obama administration has cleared NASA to use $150 million of the $1 billion in economic stimulus package funding it will receive this year to advance possible commercial human spaceflight to the International Space Station (ISS)
PARIS — The slowdown in civil aerostructures business is forcing Saab to restructure and lay off another 300 employees, with more job terminations possible. “There has been too low production volume,” Saab Chief Executive Officer Ake Svensson says. As a result “we are reviewing the organization of the whole aeronautics segment,” he says. More focus will be put on aerosystems and the continued push to sell more Gripen fighters.
PARIS — Airbus Military has completed testing of receiver flight control laws demonstrating the ability of the manufacturer’s A330-200 multirole tanker transport (MRTT) to be refueled by French air force Boeing KC-135 tankers.
ISTANBUL, Turkey — The AgustaWestland AW-149 has grown in weight and cabin size since its unveiling two years ago, as the rotorcraft maker has made changes to better meet customer expectations. Whereas the AW-149 two years ago was defined as a 7-8 metric-ton maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) platform, MTOW has now reached 8.1 metric tons and could grow further.
If Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) development prototypes do not get lighter, the U.S. Marine Corps will not participate in the program, according to the armed service’s commandant. Gen. James Conway told reporters at the Pentagon on April 29 that the Marines “will not buy a vehicle that’s 20,000 pounds.” Depending on what the “evolution of development looks like, we may have to depart that buy and rehabilitate what we’ve got,” he said.
USAMS II: Six prime contractors are being identified for U.S. Strategic Command’s Systems and Mission Support II (USAMS II) program. The multiple-award contract, worth up to $900 million, is for advisory and assistance services support for management and professional services such as studies, analysis and evaluations, as well as engineering and technical services. CACI said it received one of the indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity deals — which allows it to compete for task orders later — with a one-year base period and four one-year options.
DATA RELAY: Boeing announced April 29 that it recently completed the system-level Preliminary Design Review (PDR) for its Tracking and Data Relay Satellite system (TDRS) K-L program. The PDR marks another step toward full integration of the TDRS K satellite for NASA. The review included presentations on systems engineering, program management, safety and mission assurance, the spacecraft, the launch vehicle, the ground segment and mission operations.
MUMBAI, India — Spanish shipbuilder Navantia is looking to India as a target market for its F-100 class frigates, and the company is awaiting a request for proposals. The arrival of the Spanish Navy’s F-103 Blas de Lezo here marks the first time a Spanish warship has come to India. In a presentation made to the Indian Navy, Navantia said it was also interested in providing LPD/LHD amphibious ships, submarines, diving support vehicles and OPVs.
MORE STIMULATION: The Pentagon announced April 28 that the Defense Department was allocated $835 million more for new construction and repair projects under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the so-called stimulus law. The new money is in addition to the approximate $6.1 billion contained in the first infrastructure investment list announced March 20, making for about 850 activities altogether. The total is less than 1 percent of the entire $787 billion ARRA package, DOD noted.
FORGING AHEAD: SoftwareForge, the first component of the U.S. military’s Forge.mil to be deployed, is now available for limited, unclassified use. It is supposed to provide a collaborative development and distribution of open-source software and Defense Department-based community software.
AMPLIFIED AWARD: The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Microsystems Technology Office is contracting out for research and development services leading to the delivery of prototype terahertz-frequency, high-power amplifiers. Science Applications International Corp., one down-selected bidder, said its multiple-award contract has a two-year base with two one-year options for a total value above $11 million.
France would like the U.S. to make up its mind on a tanker aircraft so they can plan modernization of their own aerial refueling fleet with 14-15 new aircraft, a senior French official in Washington says.
Before the Defense Department hires 20,000 civilian workers to replace contractors in its acquisition workforce, it might be wise to first figure out just what all those contractors do and why they were hired, congressional auditors say.
LONDON — British reserve forces are under-resourced, under-managed and — arguably — overburdened, according to a new British Defense Ministry review. The government-commissioned report, released April 28, found the U.K.’s reserve forces have been “left almost to run themselves during and since the Cold War and so [are] not receiving as much attention from [the defense ministry] and from their regular force counterparts as research reveals they urgently deserve.” The report lauds the reserve forces’ “remarkable qualities and achievements.”
The U.S. Army’s apparent preference for a certain helicopter and the service’s rush to get its Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) program off the ground set up a series of missteps that doomed the acquisition from the beginning, according to the Army Audit Agency (AAA). “Although management processes and controls were in place, they weren’t fully effective to result in a successful ARH program,” the AAA says in its after action report on the cancellation of the program, which was obtained by Aerospace DAILY.
WHAT TO DO: AgustaWestland on April 28 finished delivery of the so called “Increment 1” of the U.S. Presidential Helicopter Replacement Program, with the last of nine VH-71s now bound for completion with Lockheed Martin. Irrespective of the program facing the axe, AgustaWestland CEO Giuseppe Orsi said at a ceremony to mark completion: “The delivery of the final aircraft today has been achieved just over four years after the contract was awarded in 2005. All the aircraft delivered are completely compliant to the specifications required by the U.S.
Two years after they failed to reach a business agreement and parted company, Northrop Grumman has acquired the KillerBee line of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from Swift Engineering. Renamed the Bat, the blended wing-body UAV will be offered in wingspans ranging from 6.5 feet to 33.2 feet. Swift already has teamed with Raytheon to offer the KillerBee for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps’ Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (STUAS)/Tier II program. Northrop Grumman says it has licensed Raytheon to offer the Bat for STUAS and other programs.
Tracked and wheeled vehicles programs are being hit particularly hard in the new Pentagon budget proposal, James McAleese of McAleese and Associates said at the recent National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) 34th Atlanta Executive Seminar. Such a move would mean a screeching stop and sudden reverse for those programs, which have been rising in importance and funding throughout the decade thanks to need for them in Iraq (Aerospace DAILY, Feb. 25, March 5).
