U.S. Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) has been funding a program that seeks to develop collaborative control for small and mid-sized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to make more effective use of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) data.
House Democrats are not trying to do away with the U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program or seriously diminish the multibillion dollar modernization project, the chairman of the Armed Services' air-land forces subcommittee said May 14.
A May 9 story on the U.S. Navy's Twin-line 29A Array (TL-29A) underwater sensor system listed the wrong manufacturer for the array. Lockheed Martin makes the array and also serves as the design agent, prime contractor and integrator for the TL-29A system. L-3 Communications provides many of the modules for the array. Aerospace Daily regrets the error.
The Pentagon's Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) is keeping acquisition control over the new Mine-Resistant, Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles being bought and fielded to Iraq to make sure they get delivered on time, said Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and JROC chairman.
The Department of Defense needs to improve its management of service contracts, which account for an ever-growing portion of military spending and reached $151 billion in fiscal 2006, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). "Over the past decade, DOD has increasingly relied on contractors to provide a range of mission-critical services from operating information technology systems to providing logistical support on the battlefield," GAO said in testimony delivered to the House Appropriations defense subcommittee May 10.
Russia launched another unpiloted Progress resupply vehicle to the International Space Station late May 11, setting up a docking early May 15 using the Kurs system. Progress M-60 (25P) lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 11:26 p.m. Eastern time, and antennas and arrays deployed as planned with orbital insertion. Subsequent tests were nominal, clearing the way for docking at about 1:10 a.m. Eastern time May 15 on the ISS Zvezda service module aft port.
The U.S. Air Force surprised no one May 14 by releasing its revised request for proposals (RFP) for the replacement fleet of its combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) helicopters with a narrow focus on certain lifecycle management issues, industry sources said. Those issues - or the Air Force's inability to deal with them appropriately when it awarded the contract to Boeing - were cited by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) in sustaining the bid protest by losing companies Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky (DAILY, April 20, 26).
AIR FORCE Goodrich Corp., Chelmsford, Mass., is being awarded a $37,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract. This action provides for delivery of two reconnaissance pods, one mobile ground station, and test and integration support. This effort supports foreign military sales to Greece. At this time, $18,449,876 have been obligated. This work will be complete May 2009. Headquarters Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8620-07-C-4021).
NAVY Bell Helicopter Textron, Hurst, Texas, is being awarded $17,485,372 for ceiling-priced-order #0225 under previously awarded contract (N00383-03-G-001B) for spare components for the CV-22 aircraft. Work will be performed in Ridley Park, Pa., and work is expected to be completed by December 2009. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not awarded competitively. The Naval Inventory Control Point is the contracting activity.
RICHARD E. BYRD: The U.S. Navy will christen the USNS Richard E. Byrd at 7:30 p.m. Pacific time May 15 at General Dynamics National Steel and Shipbuilding Company in San Diego, Calif. The 689-foot long vessel will be the fourth in the Navy's new 11-ship T-AKE 1 class of combat logistics force vessels that will replace the current capability of the T-AE 26 Kilauea class ammunition ships, T-AFS 1 Mars class and T-AFS 8 Sirius class combat stores ships.
A communications satellite developed by China for Nigeria is moving toward its geosynchronous orbit station over Somalia following launch from China's Xichang space center May 14 onboard a Long March 3B booster. The flight is China's fourth space mission this year and the 96th straight launch success since the Long March program was revamped in 1998. Two Compass navigation system spacecraft and an oceanographic satellite also have been launched by the Chinese this year.
Secret U.S. reconnaissance and eavesdropping spacecraft were specifically tasked with aiding the search for three U.S. Army soldiers taken prisoner by Al Qaeda or closely aligned terrorists in Iraq on May 12. The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) imaging constellation consists of four Advanced KH-11s with both visible and infrared capabilities and four Lacrosse imaging radar spacecraft. The spacecraft make a total of 16 passes daily over the Mahmoudiya Iraq target area about 20 miles south of Baghdad.
BURIED BY BERRY: "The implementation of the Berry Amendment is killing us," says Charles Riechers, principal deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Air Force for acquisition and management. He told the Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association's Northern Virginia Chapter that one Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile verification case cost more than $600,000 to audit for $1,400 worth of parts.
AEHF TESTS: The U.S. Air Force announced May 11 that Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman have completed the first system-level requirements verification intersegment test to ensure that the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) system will be able to communicate with legacy Milstar terminals used by the various military services. The first AEHF satellite will be launched in the spring of 2008.
The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee says he agrees with a recent report's finding that national intelligence estimates should include data on the threat of global climate change. Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) says consideration of climate change should also be given in defense strategies and the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review. "We know the threat. Our plans must reflect it," Biden said May 9 at the start of a committee hearing on the report about the national security threat posed by climate change.
The U.S. Air Force will continue to use award-fee contracts for its acquisition efforts rather than move substantially more toward fixed-price arrangements, but will try to be smarter about linking the contentious incentive payments to contractor performance, according to a leading service acquisition official.
FUTURE GUNSHIP: U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) is looking at an "exotic weapons suite" for its future gunship, according to AFSOC chief Lt. Gen. Michael W. Wooley. "The gunship of the future will not have any big guns on it," he says. "Rather, it would have directed energy, lasers, lethal and non-lethal capabilities." The gunship will fly higher, up to 30,000 feet or a little more, and will have round-the-clock, all-weather fight capability.
BRANCHING OUT: Spirit Aerosystem's contract to build the cabin and main fuselage for the Sikorsky CH-53K heavy-lift helicopter for the U.S. Marines is its first on a rotorcraft. Until 2005 when the company was spun off by Boeing, Spirit's work was naturally restricted to that airframer's fixed-wing products. Besides the 737 airframe, it also makes nose sections, pylons and nacelles for the 747, 767 and 777. Since becoming independent, it's gone on to win component work, mainly for wings, on the Hawker 800XP and Airbus A320, A330, A340 and A380.
