HOT SIGHTS: BAE Systems said July 2 a $183 million U.S. Army award it recently received for thermal weapons sights is the first award under a five-year, indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract that could reach $1 billion. The award from the Army's Program Executive Office Soldier includes increasing production rates to 3,000 per month. The company already is under contract to produce and deliver more than 29,600 Thermal Weapon Sites-II (TWS-II). That five-year, $295 million contract is administered by the Communications-Electronics Command (DAILY, Jan. 22).
AIR FORCE L3 Communications, Link Simulation and Training, Arlington, Texas, is being awarded a firm-fixed-price contract for $18,786,687. The action provides for one Aircrew Training Device (ATD) for the Hellenic Air Force, upgrades to current ATD and associated Contractor Logistics Support (CLS). The work will be complete by June 2011. To date, total funds have been obligated. Headquarters Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8621-07-C-6260).
BAE Systems and the U.K. Royal Air Force (RAF) will deliver a "Convex Flying Program" - part of the contract to supply a total training solution for an order of 66 Hawk advance jet trainers - converting Indian air force-qualified flying instructors and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) test pilots onto the new Indian Hawk.
AESA APPROVED: The U.S. Navy has approved its APG-79 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radars for full-rate production. After review by Navy acquisition chief Delores Etter, the program office was approved June 25 for 437 units. The move marks the end of low-rate initial production of 84 radars that began with delivery of the first unit in July 2003. The radar, headed for Super Hornet Block II aircraft, has proven to be seven times more reliable than the legacy system it replaces.
The U.S. Air Force says it is holding firm on the planned launch dates for upcoming Atlas V and Delta IV missions using the Pratt & Whitney RL10 upper-stage engine, having traced the launch anomaly on a recent National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) classified satellite launch to a stuck valve on the Atlas V's Lockheed Martin Centaur upper stage. The stuck valve depleted the Centaur's hydrogen fuel, according to the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) in Los Angeles.
The fiscal 2008 NASA budget approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee last week gives the agency a topline of $17.46 billion - $150 million above the Bush administration's request - which includes a number of plus-ups to various science programs. The topline recommendation is $1.175 billion above the FY '07 enacted level. The bill includes $5.655 billion for science, $554 million for aeronautics research and $3.972 billion for exploration systems. $4 billion for space shuttle
Boeing has collected data through the years that, combined with the results of a computer simulation, show the downwash for its HH-47 combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) helicopter variant already meets U.S. Air Force requirements, company officials said. The data and simulation show the aircraft's tandem rotors spread out the force necessary to keep the helicopter aloft and disperse the resulting downwash, said Bill Ripley, HH-47 chief engineer.
DIRECTV 10: An International Launch Services (ILS) Proton M rocket with a Breeze M upper stage will orbit the DirecTV 10 satellite on July 7 at 7:16 a.m. local time (9:16 p.m. EDT July 6). The 5,893-kilogram (12,990-pound) spacecraft was built by Boeing based on its 702 bus. Launch will take place from Launch Pad 39 at Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan.
The Defense Department is crafting new regulations to waive domestic sourcing restrictions over specialty metals for acquisitions of commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) items.
In the battle for the U.S. Air Force's combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) helicopter fleet construction contract worth up to $15 billion, the amount of downwash the aircraft can produce is stirring up controversy.
EVOLVED SEASPARROW: The U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command is awarding Raytheon a $223 million firm-fixed-price contract modification for 294 Evolved Seasparrow Missiles and 68 shipping containers and spares for the NATO Seasparrow Consortium. The contract runs through February 2010, according to the June 27 contract announcement. The missile is an international upgrade effort over the RIM-7 NATO Seasparrow missile.
The Mars rover Opportunity will begin its descent into Victoria crater on about July 9. The descent will be at a location called Duck Bay near where the rover first arrived at the half-mile-wide, 200-foot-deep crater last fall. Opportunity has spent months going about one-third of the way around the edge of Victoria, scouting its steep walls for key science discoveries and also looking for the best way in and out.
While American-led and other global military actions have splintered many terrorists groups, anti-terrorist efforts also have forced some of these groups to share technology and combine resources, according to a recently released RAND report. "Operation Enduring Freedom and the global war on terrorism forced many members of al Qaeda to disperse," the report says. But "some like-minded terrorist groups that perhaps do not have the global reach of a pre-9/11 al Qaeda nevertheless have formed regional alliances." 'Emerging alliances'
NOORDWIJK, Netherlands -- European Space Agency executives appear to have accepted the idea of launching the Automated Transfer Vehicle freighter after the Columbus orbital laboratory, even though policy since the two programs were conceived has been predicated on exactly the opposite.
A reinvigorated missile defense caucus in the House is speaking up to try to support President Bush's missile defense spending requests, especially more money for the Airborne Laser (ABL) boost-phase effort and approval to move forward with proposed ground-based interceptor facilities in Eastern Europe. Ardent missile defense advocate Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), a caucus co-chair and member of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), said June 28 the group will push for full authorization of the Bush administration's $550 million ABL request.
In a Senate Appropriations Committee markup hearing June 28, Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) Subcommittee Chair Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) agreed to postpone the introduction of an amendment to the fiscal 2008 CJS spending bill that would add $1 billion to help NASA recover from the lingering financial effects of the 2003 Columbia accident.
