WELIN DAVITS: The U.S. Navy is awarding Welin Lambie of the United Kingdom a $6.3 million time and materials, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for engineering and technical services to repair, overhaul and maintain U.S. Navy FFG-, LHA-, LSD-class and Coast Guard WHEC-, WMEC-, WAGB-, WLB- and WLBB-class boat davits made by the company. The contract also provides for services to investigate and resolve systemic problems, training and installation support services, and for technical documentation.
The onus is on the British National Space Centre Headquarters (BNSC) to develop and brand a comprehensive space strategy that will take the country into 2010, according to a recent report issued by the British House of Commons' Science and Technology Committee The U.K. invested two-thirds of its 207 million-plus pound (US $426 million) budget for fiscal 2005-2006 in the European Space Agency (ESA). The report requests an ESA center be set up in the U.K., with a small budget devoted solely to the activities of the BNSC.
The Airborne Laser (ABL) still has a number of major unresolved issues that Congress must consider, a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report says. Technical, funding, treaty and basing issues still surround ABL, according to the July 9 report. Also, MDA is exploring alternatives to ABL for the Boost Phase Intercept (BPI) mission.
Northrop Grumman expects its acquisition of Scaled Composites to clear its regulatory hurdles and close some time in August, according to Northrop spokesman Dan McClain. "Burt Rutan and the whole executive team is staying on, and we intend to continue to operate Scaled Composites in its current operating mode as a separate entity within" Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems, McClain said
The two Orbital Express satellites were decommissioned this past weekend, bringing down the curtain on the pioneering joint mission to demonstrate on-orbit satellite servicing. Ball Aerospace's NextSat, which served as the "client" spacecraft, was shut down July 21 and Boeing Phantom Works' ASTRO (Autonomous Space Transport Robotic Operations) servicer was shut down July 22.
International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 15 crewmembers Clay Anderson and Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin successfully completed a 7-hour, 41-minute spacewalk July 23 that included the removal and jettisoning of a refrigerator-sized ammonia reservoir.
MORE MINEHUNTERS: A U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command award for $23.2 million to Raytheon for AN/AQS-20A mine-hunting sonar engineering services and support brings the total value of the 2005 contract to $139 million so far, the company said July 23. The Navy's new Remote Mine Hunting System, a semi-submersible ship-based vehicle, is testing the AN/AQS-20A sonar and will use it for the first time operationally during a deployment this fall with the guided missile destroyer USS Bainbridge.
T-AKE ORDER: General Dynamics was awarded a $100 million contract modification from the U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command for long-lead materials, like ship engines, for the construction of a 10th T-AKE dry cargo-ammunition ship, according to the Pentagon and the company. A contract that funds construction of the ship is expected to be awarded by January, and construction of T-AKE 10 is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2009. Delivery to the Navy's Military Sealift Command (MSC) is slated for the first quarter of 2011.
Trade lobbyists have persuaded the House Ways and Means Committee to seek a one-year delay in a new 3 percent withholding requirement for payments made by any federal, state or local governments for goods and services. The withholding requirement, which the previous, Republican-controlled Congress made law, is slated to take effect in 2011. But the House panel's proposed Tax Collection Responsibility Act (H.R. 3056) would delay its implementation until 2012 and task the Treasury Department to study the impact of the measure.
A recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report shows how the Defense Department has had to change its mindset to operate in Iraq and also details the expected rise in operations costs in the country. The operations there don't come cheaply, especially with a "surge," according to the July 15 report.
ISR UAV AWARD: The Pentagon announced late July 20 that Marine Corps Systems Command awarded Boeing a competitively procured award that could reach $381.5 million for unmanned aircraft-based ISR services for global counter-terrorism and Iraq and Afghanistan operations. Contracted work will be performed in Iraq first in support of Marine Expeditionary Forces I and II. The initial $10.5 million allotment of the indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract will run out in December, but contract options could carry the award through December 2010.
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is conducting exercises July 23-24 across the National Capital Region (NCR) to gauge the capabilities of NORAD's intercept and identification operations and the region's visual warning system. Training flights are to be held in coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration, the NCR Region Command Center, the Joint Air Defense Operations Center (JADOC), Civil Air Patrol and NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector.
Just as the panic about Iranian nuclear bomb development was beginning to be eclipsed by other world crises, satellite photos have revealed new construction - in particular a tunnel complex under a mountain - at the Natanz nuclear facility. Only a year and a half ago, Israeli officials said that Iran's research and development of nuclear weapons had to be interrupted by the end of 2007. Defense officials privately say no active operational preparation is under way in either the U.S. or Israel.
To successfully battle improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the U.S. military is going to need to look differently at the fight, according to a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council (NRC). "Counter-IED and counterinsurgency efforts are [inextricably] linked, and counterinsurgency concepts can be used as tools to defeat an IED campaign," the report says.
30 AMPHIBS: The U.S. Marine Corps wants as many 34 amphibious warships to meet its requirement for a two-brigade invasion plan, but a fleet of 30 such ships is absolutely necessary, the Marine commandant says. Gen. James Conway, the top Marine general, says that to make sure 30 ships are available at any one time, the Navy really should seek 31 to 33 altogether. The Marines and Navy have been haggling over the necessary size of the amphibious portion of the Navy's fleet as that service struggles with a tenuous shipbuilding and fleet-size plan.
GERMAN AARGM: Alliant Techsystems (ATK) and German defense contractor MBDA LFK-Lenkflugkorpersysteme GmbH are teaming to identify shared opportunities with the German Defense Ministry on the AGM-88E Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile (AARGM). The pair will focus on opportunities in the German production and product improvement phase of the AARGM program, as well as opportunities for additional derivatives of the AGM-88 High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile. In 2005, Italy became the U.S.
