Pentagon provocateur Winslow Wheeler, Straus Military Reform Project director, is calling for an independent program review panel that listens to, but does not comprise representatives of, the U.S. military services.
INTERNATIONAL TRAINERS: The Boeing Company and Alenia Aermacchi, a company of Finmeccanica, announced May 26 an agreement to cooperate on marketing, sales, training and product support activities in international markets for the M-346 next-generation Advanced and Lead-in-Fighter Trainer and the M-311 basic-advanced trainer designed and manufactured by Alenia Aermacchi. Under the agreement, Boeing will be responsible for several aspects of the program’s logistics support and training.
PASADENA, Calif. – NASA is preparing to unstow the robotic arm on the Phoenix Mars Lander after restoring full communications via the Mars Odyssey orbiter. The instructions for what is the next critical phase of the exploration project were to be sent May 28 to Phoenix via the Mars Odyssey spacecraft after the agency decided to make it the principal relay vehicle following the unexpected shutdown of the UHF radio on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) May 27 (Aerospace DAILY, May 28).
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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The U.S. Army Research Lab (ARL) is working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Institute of Soldier Nanotechnologies (ISN) to get inside soldiers’ heads – or rather, inside their helmets – to come up with headgear that incorporates the ramifications of traumatic brain injury (TBI) into the design.
DOD has asked Congress for permission to shift $9.7 billion in funding to cover shortfalls in the U.S. Army and Special Operations Command (SOCOM) accounts in the absence of new supplemental funds.
U.S. Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) is again pushing for a program to replace its aging UH-1N helicopters, saying that its current aircraft are too slow to handle the modern nuclear weapons support mission.
Northrop Grumman’s MQ-8B Fire Scout is being considered as a replacement for the U.S. Coast Guard’s scrapped vertical take off unmanned aerial vehicle (VUAV), but officials say the unmanned rotorcraft’s radar needs to be upgraded. “Fire Scout is probably the lead runner out there, but the Coast Guard has not made a decision yet,” Rear Adm. Gary Blore, the service’s acquisition chief, told reporters May 27.
CSAR-X BIDS: Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky have submitted their latest revised proposals for the U.S. Air Force Combat, Search and Rescue (CSAR-X) helicopter program, responding to Amendment 6 to the request for proposals. Boeing won the first round of the $15 billion procurement, but the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) twice upheld protests of the award by the losers, prompting the recompetition. A new contract is expected this fall. (For more on the CSAR-X, see pp. 1, 5-7).
SPACE SOFTWARE: Lockheed Martin has delivered the first of two major blocks of flight software designed to provide command and control of the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) geosynchronous orbit (GEO) spacecraft, the company announced May 27. According to Lockheed Martin, the new software will enable more robust command and data handling, fault management and safe-hold capabilities on the GEO satellite.
NAVY BAE Systems Land & Armaments LP, Ground Systems Division, York, Pa., is being awarded a $35,211,759 firm-fixed-priced modification to previously awarded delivery order #0005 under contract (M67854-07-D-5025) for integrated logistic support sustainment to support Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles. The work will be performed in York, Pa., and is expected to be completed by January 2009. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Marine Corps Systems Command, Quantico, Va., is the contracting activity.
EQ-36: Lockheed Martin’s Enhanced AN/TPQ-36 counter-fire acquisition (EQ-36) radar made it through critical design review (CDR), the company announced May 27. The program is now cleared to move into an initial production phase for five radar systems. The U.S. Army’s new EQ-36 radar will provide the capability to detect, classify, track and determine the location of enemy indirect fire such as mortars, artillery and rockets in either 90-degree or 360-degree modes, according to Lockheed Martin.
Saab has begun flight-testing the Gripen Demo prototype for the next-generation Gripen multirole fighter. The upgraded aircraft completed a 30-minute first flight from Linkoping, Sweden, on May 27, flown by test pilots Mikael Seidl and Magnus Ljungdahl. A test platform for the Gripen NG being offered to Denmark, Norway and other customers, the Gripen Demo has a more powerful General Electric F414G engine, increased internal fuel capacity, higher maximum takeoff weight and additional weapon pylons.
Editor’s Note: These are the last in an exclusive series of articles exploring how the U.S. Air Force came to initially choose Boeing’s HH-47 for its Combat Search and Rescue helicopter replacement (CSAR-X), and the ramifications of that choice for the service, the industry competitors and the warfighter (Aerospace DAILY, May 22, 23, 27).
MAJOR MILESTONES: The Northrop Grumman team announced May 27 the completion of the integrated baseline review for the U.S. Air Force Next-Generation Global Positioning System (GPS) Ground Control Segment (OCX). The integrated baseline review identified key schedule milestones, ensured adequate resources are available to complete program tasks and verified that the tasks are planned and can be objectively measured, the company said.
Air support – both for personnel transportation and cargo lift – will be U.S. Africa Command’s (AFRICOM) greatest near-term equipment need, the new regional command’s deputy commander said May 27. “Getting back and forth to the continent and around the continent will be something that will need a lot of air support. That’s probably the biggest need we anticipate in the years to come,” Vice Adm. Robert Moeller told an audience at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.
NETWORK JAM: A Northrop Grumman study has demonstrated that airborne electronic jammer aircraft are more effective and efficient when networked and enhanced by decision aids. The study, conducted for the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, aimed to determine the effectiveness of networked jammers when they are supported by specialized computer programs that recognize enemy radars, communications and other electronic activities. Initial tests demonstrated a baseline effectiveness for the jammers.
ARMY Machining Technologies Inc., (MaTech), Salisbury, Md., was awarded on May 15, 2008, an $11,352,260 firm-fixed price contract for 60mm and 81mm lightweight mortar bipods. The work is to be performed in Salisbury, Md., with an estimated completion date of Sept. 30, 2012. Bids were solicited via the Web with two bids received. U.S. Army Joint Munitions & Lethality Life Cycle Management Command, Acquisition Center Picatinny, N.J., is the contracting activity. (W15QKN-08-C-0455)
Northrop Grumman received contracts totaling more than $2.5 billion for secret aircraft programs in the first quarter of 2008, strongly supporting reports and indications that the company has won a U.S. Air Force contract to build a prototype for the Next Generation Bomber (NGB) program. First-quarter results issued April 26 state that Northrop Grumman “was awarded approximately $2.6 billion for restricted programs during this period.” The results showed a comparable increase in backlog for the company’s aircraft business, the Integrated Systems sector.
The Corot planet-finding mission has identified two more exoplanets and an unknown celestial object, mission managers reported at an International Astronomical Union conference in Massachusetts earlier this month. It also detected extremely faint signals of another exoplanet that appears to be 1.7 times the radius of Earth. If confirmed, it would be the first rocky exoplanet to be found. Discovery of earthlike planets is the primary focus of the Corot mission, which was launched in December 2006.
As spring melted into summer 2005, U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) officers responsible for developing the Combat, Search and Rescue (CSAR-X) helicopter replacement fleet continued to stretch and strip key performance parameters (KPPs). So much so, initial requirement writers would later say, that some of the final KPPs would bear little resemblance to the originals.
PASADENA, Calif. – NASA has hit its first hiccup with the Phoenix Mars Lander mission following a radio shutdown on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which is being used to relay commands to the vehicle on the surface.
