COMBAT-READY: Boeing announced Aug. 14 that its CH-47F Chinook helicopter is certified combat-ready by the U.S. Army, and has been fielded to the first operational unit. Boeing unveiled the aircraft in June 2006, after which the CH-47F successfully completed air worthiness and functional tests. In April 2007, the aircraft completed more than 60 hours of flight-testing, which included simulated mission scenarios, air assault, combat resupply, and transport operations.
JSF SOFTWARE: Prime contractor Lockheed Martin has accepted delivery from Northrop Grumman of the initial release of software required to perform manufacturing checkout of the F-35B Lightning II short takeoff vertical landing (STOVL) variant. The initial laboratory release of the software was in October 2006, as part of a larger subcontract with Lockheed Martin, the value of which is unspecified at this time. Northrop Grumman has been delivering software for the first F-35 STOVL for the past two years, according to the company.
BLUE FORCE UPGRADES: The U.S. Army's Communications-Electronics Life Cycle Management Command is awarding DRS Technologies a $131 million contract for Applique computer systems for the service's Force XXI Battle Command, Brigade and Below/Blue Force Tracking programs. The company's Melbourne, Fla., unit will perform the work and is scheduled to begin delivering the computer systems this November. The systems will include multicore processors and increased memory for better graphics processing, data handling and system networking capabilities.
SPACE TELEMETRY: The U.S. Air Force has awarded ViaSat, Inc. an $8 million contract for Space Telemetry Tracking and Commanding (TT&C) Ground Operating Increment One (GOE I1). The GOE I1 will replace the existing GOE and will be the space TT&C solution for new satellite ground stations. So far, $1.23 million has been obligated. Solicitations began in Dec. 2006 and negotiations were completed in June 2007. Work is scheduled to be finished by July 2012.
The Bush administration on Aug. 14 released a report that proposes giving the Interior Department responsibility for coordinating and planning the future of Landsat-type imagery of the Earth's surface. No single government agency up to this point has been assigned responsibility for ensuring the future of Landsat imagery, which is distributed by the Interior Department's U.S. Geological Survey.
NASA's new $1.8 billion development contract with Alliant Techsystems (ATK) for the first stage of the Ares I crew launch vehicle will support a suborbital test of a boilerplate version as early as April 2009. Development and subsequent production of the five-segment version of the four-segment reusable solid rocket motor (RSRM) that the company already builds for the space shuttle program also will help keep the 1,500-person ATK workforce for the hardware stable as NASA shifts from the shuttle to the Ares I and its heavy-lift Ares V variant.
Earlier this month, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) completed its tenth autonomous airborne refueling demonstration (AARD) flight, demonstrating the capability of unmanned aircraft to refuel autonomously while airborne.
Boeing has been awarded a $30 million contract to continue providing Boeing Broadband Satcom Network (BBSN) service to the U.S. Air Force's Mobility Command. The program - a government analog to the canceled Connexion by Boeing commercial airline service - provides high-speed Internet communications and direct broadcast satellite television for the U.S. government's special air mission and VIP aircraft.
PROJECT LISTENER: L-3 Communications Integrated Systems is one of two preferred bidders in the $2 million, 10-month assessment phase of Project Listener for the British military, the company said Aug. 14. Main Gate for the project is scheduled for 2009 following this risk reduction and definition phase. Project Listener is supposed to integrate sensor products for targets and provide interoperability between the U.K., U.S. and coalition ISR and target-acquisition systems. The company had an advantage in that it equipped U.K.
STATION SUPPLIES: Astronauts and cosmonauts on space shuttle Endeavour and the International Space Station (ISS) stayed indoors Aug. 14, transferring supplies from the shuttle to the station and unneeded hardware the other way, and using the robot arm to install another external stowage platform (ESP-3) to the port-side ISS truss. Endeavour mission specialist Rick Mastracchio was scheduled to take his third spacewalk of the mission Aug. 15, accompanied by ISS Expedition 15 flight engineer Clay Anderson.
Forecasting "decades" of "persistent conflict," top U.S. Army Gen. George Casey called on Washington leaders and the U.S. public to ante up and sustain a multiyear effort to grow, modernize and reorganize the "stressed and strained" land force. "It's hard for me to believe we're really not in for decades of persistent conflict," the Army chief of staff told a National Press Club audience Aug. 14.
NORWEGIAN AEGIS: U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command is awarding Lockheed Martin's Maritime Systems & Sensors unit a $23.1 million contract for the operation and maintenance of a limited in-service support program for the Royal Norwegian Navy new frigate (NNF) F310 CL program, the Pentagon said Aug. 13.
The crew of space shuttle Endeavour should be safe to return to Earth with a divot extending across two belly tiles in the orbiter's thermal protection system, but NASA engineers still may call for an in-orbit repair job to avoid a long turnaround delay on the ground.
Spacewalkers Rick Mastracchio and Dave Williams replaced a control moment gyro (CMG) on the International Space Station (ISS) Aug. 13, moving steadily through their second well-rehearsed extravehicular activity (EVA) on the STS-118/13A.1 ISS assembly mission. The pair has completed the primary assembly and maintenance tasks for the mission. On Aug. 11 Mastracchio and Williams went outside to guide a 5-foot section of the starboard truss into place and bolt it down.
AEGIS RADAR: Lockheed Martin has won a $34 million, sole-source contract for logistics support of the Aegis SPY-1 radar weapon system. The contract includes a 3-year base period plus two 1-year option periods, which, if exercised, bring the total estimated value of the contract to $59.6 million. Work will be completed by August 2010.
A new RAND Corp. study calls for carving out 9,000 Army National Guard soldiers to form 10 homeland security (HLS) specific task forces, including training and equipping, ahead of the next major natural disaster or domestic terrorist attack. RAND researchers Lynn Davis and others suggest the Guard formally be given the federal HLS mission, as with military counter-drug operations, and to stand up the 10 units as regional response forces.
President Bush signed the America COMPETES Act into law Aug. 9 in a rare White House ceremony but foreshadowed conflict over matching appropriations with the authorizing legislation. The president maintained that COMPETES supports many of the key elements of his American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI), which he introduced in his 2006 State of the Union speech, and said that is why he enacted the bill. Yet Bush hinted at continued friction between his ACI budget requests and the authorization measure.
After a long lobbying campaign, Raytheon apparently has succeeded in getting defense officials to try out its long-range, land-based, wide-area surveillance system for aircraft and ships. The U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center is awarding Raytheon an estimated $72.7 million more for hardware engineering and a demonstration of the supposed homeland security capabilities of a Relocatable Over the Horizon Radar (ROTHR) Two-dimensional Receive Antenna Array, the Pentagon announced Aug. 9.
