BRITISH EMBRACED: The U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command has upgraded the British HMS Manchester commensurate with U.S. Navy ships and systems to fully integrate as part of the USS Harry S. Truman Strike Group on its next Sixth Fleet deployment to the Mediterranean Sea. Systems upgrades included Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNET), Combined Enterprise Regional Information Exchange System and Link 16 Joint Tactical Information Distribution System for interoperable tactical data communication.
The choice of departing FAA Administrator Marion Blakey to be the next head of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) surprised many aerospace and defense analysts but most agree that it was a smart move. Blakey, head of the FAA since September 2002, will succeed John Douglass Sept. 13 as president and CEO of the industry group (DAILY, Aug. 22). The announcement surprised Richard Aboulafia, vice president of analysis for the Teal Group, "because she is so closely identified with the commercial side of the business."
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is investigating a promising form of solid-state laser technology under its Revolution in Fiber Lasers (RIFL) program, which could eventually lead to a new class of highly efficient, lightweight and lethal laser weapons.
HEADS-UP RESULT: Rockwell Collins' heads-up displays (HUDs) essentially saved the U.S. Air Force's C-130 Avionics Modernization Program (AMP) in recent Nunn-McCurdy cost growth and schedule slippage reviews, according to Air Force acquisition chief Sue Payton. The HUDs allow for cutting out a navigator, a manpower savings - otherwise, the C-130 AMP would have had a "very" difficult experience getting through Nunn-McCurdy, she told an industry conference audience last week.
OUTER PLANETS: NASA planetary-science managers are moving into the final phase of evaluating candidates for the next Cassini-class mission to the outer planets, on a schedule that will cut the four contenders to two by the end of 2007 and pick the winner at the end of 2008. In the running are large-scale missions to Titan, Enceladus, Europa and a general Jupiter icy moons mission - "a 21st-century Galileo" in the words of Alan Stern, associate administrator for science.
DTCI CONCERNS: While the recently awarded $1.6 billion contract by U.S. Transportation Command (DAILY, Aug. 22) will create something of a domestic freight czar by putting large chunks of continental U.S. military cargo into the hands of Menlo Worldwide Government Services, there's still plenty of DOD freight not included in the deal. The Menlo contract, awarded under the Defense Transportation Coordination Initiative (DTCI), has plenty of exclusions, says Air Force Col. James Lovell, the DTCI program director.
SMALL OUTREACH: The U.S. Missile Defense Agency's (MDA) Office of Small Business Programs will host its eighth annual Small Business Conference on Sept. 19 at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville, Ala. The latest small-business outreach comes as MDA tries to grow and sustain an industrial base for missile defense innovation -- especially by shepherding small companies through the financial "Valley of Death" after they've developed a product or service but before they've landed customers or started major production.
AMES STUDY: Commissioners for Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) have approved paying NASA's Ames Research Center up to $2 million to study potential safety improvements for the north runways at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). NASA Ames will have six months to conclude its study and offer its recommendations. The LAWA vote came just a few days after a WestJet Boeing 737 and a Northwest Airbus A320 nearly collided on an LAX runway.
SLY DEVELOPMENT: In a ground-effects research and development program called Sly Fox Program Mission 9 (SFPM9), the U.S. Navy is investigating the unmanned military capabilities of a hybrid hovercraft and ground-effects vehicle. "Our team of junior engineers and scientists will be exploring the concepts and designs for changing this vehicle from a commercial water craft into a military system," says Dohn Burnett, SFPM9 manager.
The U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program has reached a milestone with BAE Systems' demonstration of the first hybrid electric drive system for ground combat vehicles.
The European Space Agency (ESA) may join NASA in mounting a low-cost sample cache on its next rover mission to Mars, as discussions advance on a joint U.S.-European Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission as early as 2016. Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Ames Research Center have finished their conceptual design for a $2 million cache system to store interesting rocks on the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover, which is set for launch in 2009.
U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to testify before Congress ahead of the Sept. 15 deadline for a progress report on the Bush administration's surge strategy, a White House spokesman said Aug. 20. The report to Congress, on whether the influx of more than 30,000 U.S. troops to Baghdad and other trouble spots is having the desired effect of tamping down the insurgency, was due on Sept. 15 - a Saturday.
As a setback in procurement for new aircraft plagues India's air force, the country is looking to improve the performance of the Rolls-Royce Adour 811 engines in its more than 25-year-old Jaguar fleet of about 120 aircraft. Rolls-Royce is offering its Adour 821 and Honeywell the F125 for the upgrade project.
CROWS AWARD: The U.S. Army is awarding Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace a potential five-year deal for up to 6,500 Protector Remote Weapon Stations for the Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station (CROWS) program. The company said Aug. 23 the deal could reach $1.35 billion, while the Pentagon's Aug. 22 announcement said it was a potentially $1 billion firm-fixed-price and time-and-materials contract. Three bids were received for the Army Joint Munitions and Lethality Life Cycle Command award.
FT. WORTH, Texas - A tiger team consisting of Lockheed Martin executives and stakeholders from each Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) partner nation will conduct its first meeting next month to explore the particulars of a collective international buy, according to Dan Crowley, the company's F-35 vice president. Through that effort, called Lightning Strike, Lockheed Martin hopes to secure commitments for 100 aircraft through 2011 and an additional 1,300 (including 800 for the U.S. and another 500 from partner nations) thereafter.
Lockheed Martin is speaking up to protect and promote Bell Helicopter Textron's Eagle Eye vertical-takeoff-and-landing unmanned aircraft ahead of likely revisions to the U.S. Coast Guard's massive Deepwater recapitalization program. A position paper being shopped around Washington - including Capitol Hill where the Democratic-run Congress has imposed increased oversight and major changes to Deepwater - reiterates Eagle Eye's purported potential capabilities, as well as industry's own investments against programmatic risk.
NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) has discovered a new astrophysical phenomenon being displayed by the well-known red giant star Mira - a comet-like tail of ejected material stretching 13 light years that could be planting the seeds for new solar systems.
GOES-R: NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Aug. 23 announced a $92 million contract with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder to design and develop the Extreme Ultra Violet and X-Ray Irradiance Sensors (EXIS), which will help forecast solar disturbances when it flies on NOAA's next-generation Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES-R). The GOES-R prime contract will be awarded early next year, and the first spacecraft is slated to launch in December 2014.
ZUMWALT'S EARS: The U.S. Navy has given Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) approval to transition the Zumwalt-class destroyer program's undersea warfare systems, known as the acoustic sensor suite, into production, the company said Aug. 23. The modularity of the suite's design offers the potential for "widespread" use on other naval platforms. The system is supposed to cut manpower requirements for equivalent functions by a third - reflecting the Navy's major goal of cutting its ranks by modernizing and upgrading through better, yet unproven, technology.
