FLORIDA OPS: Boeing on May 14 named Kevin Hoshstrasser site director for the company’s Florida operations at Kennedy Space Center. Hoshstrasser will manage the site, which comprises the Checkout, Assembly and Payload Processing Services and Space Shuttle Operations programs, supported by about 953 Boeing personnel. He also will continue his role as site director of Florida Space Shuttle Operations.
Democrats controlling the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) rebuffed Republican efforts May 14 to restore major cuts to the fiscal 2009 White House budget requests for European-based missile defense, the Multiple Kill Vehicle and a study for the controversial Space-based Testbed. Voting broke down largely by political party affiliation, but the three Republican amendment proposals to the committee’s fiscal 2009 defense authorization bill each fell about 10 votes short of opponents, led by strategic forces subcommittee Chair Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.).
PROFITABLE PROTESTING: Protesting their way onto large multi-award contracts seems to be working for federal information technology businesses, consultancy Input says. In early May, the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) announced that it had made 14 awards for their ENCORE II Information Technology Solutions deal for large businesses. “Four of the awardees were companies that protested the original awards back in 2007, continuing the trend we have observed lately of companies that protest subsequently receiving awards on those contracts,” says Input’s John Slye.
Improper obligations of funds shortchanged Navy maintenance and repair needs, a recent Pentagon Inspector General (IG) report has found. “The Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, and South Central Regional Maintenance Centers inappropriately obligated funds for contingent liabilities on ship maintenance and repair contracts. As a result of the inappropriate obligations, at least $103 million of U.S. Fleet Forces Command Operation and Maintenance funds were not available for other ships,” said the IG report, released late last month.
The Philippines will renew its force of Alenia Aermacchi SF-260 armed trainers with 18 new-build SF-260F/PAF aircraft worth $13.8 million. Aerotech Industries Philippines will assemble the 194-kilowatt (260 horsepower) piston-engine aircraft and deliver the first of them 12 months after contract signature. All 18 aircraft are to be delivered within 18 months from the first aircraft handover. Airstrikes
Boeing plans to cautiously restart the CH-47 Chinook helicopter production line May 15, after shutting it down May 13 following the discovery of what the company is calling irregularities in two aircraft.
BETTER BUSINESS: Business-process IT blueprints within the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Army departments have yet to exceed their initial stages, let alone advance to a level that can be considered fully mature, congressional auditors say. As a whole, it means the Defense Department “is not as well positioned as it should be to realize the significant benefits that a well-managed federation of architectures can afford its business systems modernization efforts,” according to a May 12 report by the Government Accountability Office.
WIRELESS SHIPS: Mikros Systems and subcontractor Intelli-Check – Mobilisa will work to design a wireless shipboard network that avoids interfering with critical radar and communications systems for U.S. Navy and Marine Corps combat ships. Under two Navy contracts, the companies will pursue pilot programs involving their AIRchitect-EMC design for LHD amphibious ships and Ford-class aircraft carriers. The product was developed for the Navy under a Small Business Innovative Research Phase II development contract to study radar wireless spectral efficiency.
In a move to better integrate computer networks to enhance national security, DOD chief information officers and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) are creating strategic guidelines for information sharing.
International Launch Services (ILS) says an independent review of the cause of a Proton failure in early April concurs with the findings of a report issued by the Russian State Commission earlier this month. The State Commission blamed the mishap on a ruptured exhaust gas duct that caused the breeze M upper stage engine turbopump to shut down prematurely, leaving its payload stranded in useless orbit (Aerospace Daily, April 23). The Failure Review Oversight Board (FROB) said May 14 that it agreed.
An embattled effort to overhaul the U.S. nuclear weaponry complex will take years and the “concerted” attention of several consecutive directors of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), according to its current chief. And that assumes a skeptical Congress and the public sustain the necessary funding.
SASSA STIRRING: The U.S. Air Force’s Self-Awareness Space Situational Awareness (SASSA) program is expected to make its award late this year, according to one major bidder for the $30 million technology demonstration effort. Lockheed Martin said May 13 that it submitted its bid at the start of the month to the Space Superiority Systems Wing of the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif.
ROXEL REINFORCED: Bayern-Chemie has completed the spinoff of Protac, an affiliate specialized in complex metal structures, thermal insulation, laser welding and civil pyrotechnics, to Roxel, a rocket motor and solid propellant venture owned by MBDA and SNPE. The sale will permit Bayern-Chemie, acquired by MBDA last year, to focus on its core rocket motor business, and reinforce Roxel’s product range. Protac employs 90 people at a plant in La Ferte Saint-Aubin, France, 100 miles south of Paris, and generates annual sales of 28 million euros ($45 million).
As it opens negotiations with machinists on a three-year contract, Boeing is proposing that those at its Wichita Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) unit in Kansas be paid on a different scale than the airplane workers in Portland, Ore., and Washington’s Puget Sound area surrounding Seattle, where wages are said to be about 30 percent higher. ‘Divide and conquer’
General Dynamics C4 Systems will produce engineering design models of the so-called Advanced Cryptographic Module (ACM) for the U.S. Army’s Programmable Objective Encryption Technologies (POET) program following a recent successful critical design review. Contract option
Although commercial aviation contracts represent 51 percent of Vought Aircraft Industries’ revenues, it relied on military contracts to overcome first quarter revenue shortfalls from the 787 program. High delivery rates for the U.S. Army’s H-60 Black Hawk helicopter program and a boost in the manufacture of wings for the Northrop Grumman Global Hawk are the big factors in Vought’s military growth during the quarter. C-17
The U.S. Air Force has placed the first Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) satellite into operation over the Pacific region, manufacturer Boeing announced May 12, and the second and third WGS satellites are scheduled for launch by the end of this year. “WGS is the first satellite able to communicate” across frequency bands, according to Boeing WGS program director Mark Spiwak. The capability allows soldiers to talk to each other whether they are communicating using X-band or Ka-band frequencies. “That’s a huge advantage to the warfighter,” Spiwak added.
LONDON – U.K.-headquartered defense company Cobham is picking up U.S. microwave subsystems manufacturer M/A-COM from parent Tyco Electronics for $425 million as part of its ongoing strategy to build its U.S. presence. M/A-COM’s aerospace and defense and commercial activities are being sold to Cobham. The former will complement Cobham’s Defense Electronics Systems business unit, but the commercial business is to be offered for resale.
The 100-plus teams competing in the DOD’s Wearable Power Prize competition are preparing for the last big hurdle before the 92-hour bench test in September. On June 3, each team will have to submit a System Description, which will be used as the second part of the Safety Evaluation process. William Rees, deputy under secretary of defense for laboratories and basic sciences, said the evaluation period will be “very intense, very busy. ... A technically detailed time for the overall competition.” Evaluation
CHINOOK SHUTDOWN: Boeing has put a temporary halt on its Ridley Township, Penn., CH-47 Chinook helicopter line after discovering possible manufacturing irregularities in two aircraft. According to Boeing, the company notified its security organization and the site’s resident Defense Contract Management Agency representatives who oversee all U.S. government contracts at the facility. Because the incident is still under investigation, Boeing said “it would not be appropriate or prudent to comment further until the investigation is complete.”
Italy’s Finmeccanica has gotten a potential leg up on European aerospace rival EADS by agreeing to a major U.S. defense acquisition, confirming a rumored deal to acquire DRS for $5.2 billion, including $1.2 billion in debt. New Jersey-headquartered DRS would operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Finmeccanica, retaining its current management and with a U.S. board. But it remains to be seen whether its takeover by a non-U.S. company will pass Pentagon and antitrust reviews.
GENERATING BUSINESS: DRS Technologies has been chosen by the U.S. Army’s Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM) at Fort Monmouth, N.J., to manufacture more than 2,300 Tactical Quiet Generators (TQGs). The delivery orders are part of a $369 million indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity CECOM contract, placed immediately prior to the initial delivery award, which was announced May 12. Generators under the initial orders – worth $55 million and including 5-, 10- and 15-kilowatt TQGs – will be manufactured and delivered through April 2009.
ARLINGTON, Va. – Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) president and CEO Marion Blakey announced May 13 aerospace industry employment numbers showing a slight but steady increase. At the end of the first quarter of this year, the total was 651,700 workers, Blakey said. “That’s up from the 2007 year-end average of 645,000. That’s good news,” she added.
Human spaceflight managers at NASA have extended the upcoming STS-124 International Space Station (ISS) assembly mission by one day to give the crew of the shuttle Discovery time to change out a spacesuit-battery recharger in the U.S. Quest airlock. Veteran astronauts Mark Kelly, the STS-124 commander, and Mike Fossum, lead extravehicular activity (EVA) crew member for the flight, will remove the airlock’s battery charger module and replace it with a fresh module that Discovery will carry to orbit.
BIG ARMY: Two conservative-associated think tank analysts in Washington are calling for at least 1 million active duty U.S. Army soldiers. The cost to build up such a force, roughly double the final planned roster under President Bush’s ongoing initiative, would amount to roughly 1 percent of the gross domestic product, according to Thomas Donnelly and Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
