APACHE AWARD: U.S. Army Aviation & Missile Command has awarded an $11 million contract to QinetiQ North America’s Systems Engineering Group to provide airworthiness and qualification engineering to the Apache Helicopter Division of the Aviation Engineering Directorate. QinetiQ is to provide review of airworthiness documents and system safety issues and risk management assessments.
BOMBS AWAY: The U.S. Navy has said it took delivery of its first Lockheed Martin-led Dual-Mode Laser-Guided Bomb (DMLGB) under a contract valued at $260 million. The DMLGB is supposed to provide Navy F/A-18s and Marine Corps AV-8Bs the ability to drop a precision weapon with a Global Positioning System-aided inertial navigation system (INS) or laser-guidance in all weather conditions. It entails a retrofit to an existing laser-guided bomb kit, upgrading the existing computer control group with an INS/GPS capability.
AXCESS POINT: BAE Systems has demonstrated networked communications technology that bridges dissimilar radio systems. The so-called Assured Exchange of Communications and Enterprise Services System (Axcess) is designed to enable pilots and soldiers to communicate with Internet protocol-based radios that span multiple bandwidths and frequencies. The company demonstrated the system during the U.S. Air Force’s Electronic Systems Group’s Capstone II test event in Patuxent River, Md.
MAINTAINING TIES: Boeing officially awarded Alsalam Aircraft Co. – a Saudi Arabian company partially owned by Boeing Industrial Technology Group – a three-year, $29 million contract to provide programmed depot maintenance for the Royal Saudi Air Force C-130 fleet. Under the contract, Alsalam will perform repairs, inspections, maintenance and modifications and repainting work for 50 C-130 transport aircraft at its facilities in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The Pentagon and other federal agencies should develop a more cohesive plan for collecting, storing and checking biometrics data, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) says in a recent report. GAO recommends that DOD establish guidance specifying a standard set of biometrics data for collection during military operations in the field, and that the secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security address biometrics data sharing gaps in accordance with U.S. and international law.
Lockheed Martin CFO Bruce Tanner on Oct. 21 downplayed the financial effect if the Pentagon’s embattled Transformational Satellite (TSAT) program is shelved – as is now expected – and asserted that Lockheed’s position as the provider of TSAT’s predecessor should leave it well situated. Citing the company’s Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellite system, Tanner told analysts during the company’s financial earnings call that “TSAT is kind of the follow-on to secure communications.
Sierra Nevada Corp. agreed Oct. 21 to pay $38 million to acquire SpaceDev, an 11-year-old company near San Diego that produces a wide range of space products, including microsatellites and maneuvering orbit transfer vehicles.
ACQUISITION STRATEGY: Rockwell Collins intends to buy SEOS, a global supplier of highly realistic visual display products for commercial and military flight simulators, the company announced Oct. 17. After the deal is completed, which is expected within a month, SEOS will operate under the Rockwell Collins name and become part of the Simulation and Training Solutions unit.
The backshell for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) has arrived at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., as NASA scrambles to get the troubled rover mission ready for its launch next fall. The backshell is half of the two-part Lockheed Martin-built aeroshell that will encapsulate the golf cart-sized rover and protect it from atmospheric friction when it makes its descent to the surface of Mars. The aeroshell is 15 feet in diameter, which is nearly twice the size of the aeroshells that protected the Mars Exploration Rovers.
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An independent review team is set to meet Oct. 22 to assess risks associated with returning the Hubble Space Telescope to operation before astronauts visit the orbiting observatory next year for a servicing mission. The review team, headed by Wallops Flight Facility director John Campbell, and the Hubble program itself are continuing to work on correcting the two on-board anomalies that stymied controllers just as they were wrapping up a complex set of commands designed to reactivate the telescope after an automatic shutdown Sept. 27.
The U.S. Coast Guard is estimating that commodity price increases and a steep exchange rate between the euro and the U.S. dollar will drive $100 million in cost growth on the next new National Security Cutter. But the final price tag remains nebulous. Rear Adm. Gary Blore, Coast Guard Acquisition chief, said, “We won’t have a proposal [on the fourth ship] until this spring. Then we’ll know what industry says the cost impact will be.”
United Technologies (UTC) has named Hamilton Sundstrand President David Hess, 53, to succeed Stephen Finger as president of Pratt & Whitney when Finger retires Jan. 1, 2009. Hess led Hamilton Sundstrand as the leading component supplier for the Boeing 787 with eight major packages comprising 1,300 major components. The company also won major awards to supply the Airbus A380, Joint Strike Fighter, Sikorsky CH-53K helicopter and Embraer and Mitsubishi regional jet families.
SHUTTLE SHUFFLE: The space shuttle Atlantis was rolled from Launch Complex 39A back to the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center Oct. 20, clearing the way for the rollover of Endeavour to 39A from Complex 39B for launch around Nov. 14 on mission STS-126 to the International Space Station (ISS). Atlantis was to have launched by now on a servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, but malfunctions onboard the observatory have forced a servicing mission delay until at least February 2009. Endeavour was to roll to Pad 39A by Oct.
The French army has begun operations with its SA341/342 Gazelle helicopters in Afghanistan. The rotorcraft were sent there in the wake of a disastrous August patrol in which 10 French military personnel died. Lack of air cover was partly blamed for the mission gone wrong, prompting soul-searching in France and the decision to increase the helicopter force in Afghanistan. The Gazelles will eventually operate the HOT anti-tank missile, but that hasn’t happened yet. The helos are there to provide both reconnaissance and close air support if needed.
A small battle is brewing across Capitol Hill over whether Congress genuinely appropriated $5 million to fund a study toward space-based interceptors that conservative advocates have long desired and Democratic-led critics have equally opposed.
NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer mission (IBEX) was launched successfully from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean Oct. 19, kicking off its planned two-year mission to map the outer edge of the solar system. Equatorial launch via Orbital Sciences’ Pegasus booster took place at 1:47 p.m. EDT, and the spacecraft separated from the third stage of the rocket at 1:53 p.m. The operations team is continuing to check out spacecraft subsystems, according to NASA. Heliosphere
MINUTEMAN SECURITY: Boeing announced Oct. 20 that it will manufacture and deliver control system hardware and modification kits to improve security at more than 450 Minuteman III facilities as part of the U.S. Air Force’s Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Security Modernization Program. Boeing will perform the production work under a $10 million subcontract to Northrop Grumman Mission Systems. The 42-month contract has a maximum value of $27 million. The security systems are called Fast Rising B-Plug Kits, and essentially are improved access hatches.
NAVY Bechtel Plant Machinery Inc., Pittsburgh, Pa., is being awarded a $348,986,474 cost plus fixed fee contract for naval nuclear propulsion components. The work will be performed in Pittsburgh, Pa., (77 percent) and Schenectady, N.Y., (23 percent). Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. No completion date or additional information is provided on Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program contracts. The Naval Sea Systems Command is the contracting activity (N00024-09-C-2108). ARMY
Piasecki is preparing to modify the X-49A SpeedHawk for high-speed flight-testing under a second program phase, and the firm indicates that Capitol Hill and the Pentagon are signaling their support to keep pursuing the unique rotorcraft. The company’s confidence has grown recently after a period of ambiguity over the sole prototype. CEO John Piasecki says U.S. Army funding is in place to begin work on Phase 2, while the Navy has signaled that it will allow Piasecki to push the X-49A beyond the SH-60F’s approved flight envelope (Aerospace DAILY, June 11).
