AIR FORCE The Air Force is modifying a firm fixed price contract with Lockheed Martin Corp. of Fort Worth, Texas for $797,132,785. The contract action will provide 14 F-16C and 16 F-16D Block 50 aircraft for the government of Turkey. At this time, $682,158,785 of Foreign Military Sales funds have been obligated. 312 AESG/SYKA, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio is the contracting activity (FA8615-07-C-6034, PZ0005). ARMY
Textron will sell its actuation systems unit HR Textron to Woodward Governor for $365 million in cash as it seeks to shore up capital in the face of steep losses in its commercial finance business. The sale is expected to generate $265 million in net after-tax cash when it closes in the second quarter. HR Textron, which produces flight-control actuators, engine-control servovalves and fuel-system components, had sales of $260 million in 2008.
MOSCOW – Russian Vice Adm. Anatoly Shlemov, the head of defense contracts for Russia’s United Shipbuilding Corp., says Russian designers are developing a new nuclear aircraft carrier. “Scientists and designers already started works on future carrier development... We are drawing up specifications, requests for proposal, [holding] technical meetings. So far it is determined that the carrier will have a nuclear powerplant and would be 50-60 thousand metric tons displacement,” Shlemov was quoted as saying by Russian wire agencies.
PLANCK MEETS HERSCHEL: Spacecraft named for two more European scientists are in place for an April 16 launch to the L2 Sun-Earth Lagrange Point, with the arrival Feb. 18 of ESA’s Planck observatory at the European launch center near Kourou, French Guiana. Named for Max Planck, the German physicist who helped found quantum theory, the 1,900-kilogram (4,200-pound) spacecraft will use a six-step cooling system and a 1.5-meter primary mirror to measure variations in the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation left over after the Big Bang.
MEDEVAC PATHFINDER: Lockheed Martin recently wrapped up a six-month test program of its Pathfinder night vision sensor system on a U.S. Army HH-60L medevac helicopter, in coordination with the Army Aviation Applied Technology Directorate. Pathfinder is an adaptation of the Apache Pilot Night Vision Sensor system adapted for use on cargo and utility aircraft. According to Lockheed, the six-month Pathfinder test program resulted in 75 flight hours and a Technology Readiness Level of 7.
COMMANDING ROBOTS: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Aurora Flight Sciences are partnered on an effort for NASA to develop a software system for commanding diverse teams of mobile robots engaged in planetary exploration. Future robots exploring planets such as Mars will have to be able to coordinate with each other autonomously, since communications delays will preclude continuous, direct supervision from Earth.
The U.S. military is starting to assist Mexico’s fight against narcotics cartels with training and intelligence, surveillance & reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says. Appearing March 1 on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Gates said the two countries were able to start setting aside “some of the old biases” against cooperation between the two countries’ militaries.
The Pentagon continues to fumble efforts to develop its next-generation command-and-control systems, said Charles McQueary, DOD’s director of operational test and evaluation (DOT&E), in his recent annual report. “Software-intensive systems such as next-generation command-and-control systems and enterprise resource programs consistently encounter significant problems that delay successful fielding because they fail to perform as expected in the final stages of testing,” the report says.
MISSILE DEFENSE AGENCY The Air Force is modifying a contract with Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co., Sunnyvale, Calif., for $175,000,000. This action is to procure the congressionally mandated advance procurement of long-lead parts in FY ’08 and FY ’09 for the Advanced Extremely High Frequency Satellite Vehicle four. At this time $104,450,000 has been obligated. MCSW/PK, El Segundo, Calif., is the contracting activity (F04701-02-C-0002 POO347).
The Royal Australian Air Force could be the first non-U.S. military service to operate EA-18 Growler electronic attack aircraft under a deal announced in Australia Feb. 27. The deal also is noteworthy for the fact that it indicates the U.S. is willing to share some of its most advanced technology with close allies — neither the EA-6B nor EF-111 jammers were exported. The EA-18G deal comes not long after the Pentagon agreed to let Britain buy RC-135 Rivet Joints, the highly sensitive signals intelligence system.
HELO TECH: Bell Helicopter, Boeing and Sikorsky will share a five-year, $40 million cost plus fixed-fee contract for subsonic rotary wing technology development awarded by NASA Ames Research Center. The three will compete on task orders for research and development support of a variety of rotorcraft needs, including a next-generation air traffic management system, prognostics and health management, advanced rotorcraft configurations, drive systems, avionic processors and wind tunnel test stands.
HERCULEAN BOOST: Lockheed Martin is planning to increase its annual output of C-130Js from its Marietta, Ga., facility beginning this year, says Jim Grant, a senior company executive. In recent years, 12 of the new Hercules aircraft rolled off the line annually. This year, it will increase to 16 and again to 27 in 2010. The ultimate goal is an annual production of more than 30 aircraft, Grant says. The boost comes after strong support from the U.S. Air Force and from foreign orders, including a recently announced deal from the United Arab Emirates.
SHARPER KIOWA: The U.S. Army’s Aviation Applied Technology Directorate plans a quick, minimum-integration demonstration of small guided munitions on the Bell OH-58D Kiowa Warrior armed scout helicopter. Flight tests are planned for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009. The Army is in discussions with five weapon manufacturers, three of them offering laser-guided 2.75-in rockets: Alliant Techsystems with GATR, BAE Systems with APKWS and Lockheed Martin with DAGR.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicated new calendar listing.) Mar. 3 — AVIATION WEEK Laureate Awards, Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, Washington, D.C., http://www.aviationweek.com/conferences Mar. 10 - 11 — Precision Strike Annual Review, Emerald Coast Conference Center, Fort Walton Beach, Fla. For more information call 703-247-2590 or go to www.precisionstrike.org
LONDON — The British Defense Ministry has been forced to delay deploying the Tornado GR4 to Afghanistan, slipping the move from its early April target to a new date during “summer.” Completing the integration of several urgent operational requirements to bring the GR4 to theater entry standard, and adding infrastructure at Kandahar air base have resulted in the date being shifted. The Tornado GR4 will replace the Harrier GR9 in Afghanistan.
NEW ROOST: After successfully rotating MV-22 units in Iraq, military officials are now exploring when the Bell-Boeing tiltrotor will be sent to Afghanistan. And it’s likely to be soon, according to a military official. The aircraft’s ability to both hover and fly quickly point-to-point is ideally suited to the support the influx of troops going into Afghanistan as President Barack Obama turns the Pentagon’s focus toward fighting al Qaeda and Taliban forces on the border with Pakistan.
NASA has slipped the launch of the Kepler observatory for finding Earth-like planets by one day to March 6 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. The space agency said it needed additional time to review all common hardware between the Delta II rocket carrying the Kepler telescope and the Taurus XL launch vehicle, which had an apparent fairing separation problem that led to the loss of NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory shortly after liftoff Feb. 24 (Aerospace DAILY, Feb. 25).
ATV NAMED: Workers at EADS Astrium in Bremen, Germany, and elsewhere are hard at work preparing the second Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) for its launch to the International Space Station in mid-2010. Now the vehicle has a name — the Johannes Kepler. Born in 1571, the German astronomer is best known for working out the laws of planetary motion.
SLOWER BUT STEADY: Thales management this year expects to see a slowdown in organic revenue growth from last year’s 8 percent, but still believes that despite the economic troubles it can achieve a 3-5 percent increase through December. The goal is to maintain an order book worth around two years of production, management said late last week in announcing full-year 2008 financial results. The company also hopes to improve its earnings margin in 2009. Thales closed 2008 with a 10 percent increase in orders and a 1 percent hike in revenue.
The Defense Department needs to better manage the reporting of its costs for war research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) supplemental spending, the Pentagon Inspector General (IG) says.
