AUV PROTEST: The Government Accountability Office has upheld Hydroid LLC's bid protest over a small-business set-aside order to Brooke Ocean Technology USA Inc. for an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Hydroid asserted that Brooke was ineligible for the order as a small business. Brooke, a small business, submitted a quotation offering an AUV manufactured by Bluefin Robotics Corp., a large business. Hydroid, also a small business, submitted a quotation to provide its own AUV, the GAO decided Jan. 31.
Several U.S. Navy aviation programs are being scaled back in coming years to help underpin shipbuilding and increased Marine Corps ground forces, service officials said Feb. 5 as the Defense Department unveiled a second fiscal 2007 supplemental spending request and two fiscal 2008 budget submissions.
The proposed topline fiscal year 2008 Air Force budget of $153.9 billion represents a 5 percent increase over the $146 billion appropriated in fiscal 2007 and includes a $2.3 billion jump in modernization and capitalization funding. That topline budget request includes $25 billion in funding for programs included in the Air Force line items, but are not controlled by the service, such as intelligence gathering missions, Air Force Maj. Gen. Frank Faykes, deputy assistant secretary for budget, said during the Feb. 5 budget briefing.
AIR FORCE ENGINES: Rolls-Royce said Feb. 2 that it has signed two contracts with the U.S. Air Force for aftermarket services and spares for C-130J military transport aircraft worth up to $235 million over five years. Under the contracts, Rolls-Royce will provide comprehensive propulsion system services for its AE 2100D3 engines, Dowty R-391 propellers and other propulsion system items on C-130J aircraft. Rolls-Royce also will supply 17 AE 2100D3 engines and additional spare parts required to ensure full propulsion system availability.
F/A-18C TRAINERS: The Swiss government has chosen Link Simulation and Training to build four networked F/A-18C Tactical Operational Flight Trainers (TOFT) as part of the Swiss Air Force's F/A-18 flight simulator upgrade program. The TOFTs will allow pilots to train as a tactical team. Plans call for deliveries to begin late in 2008 to Payerne Air Force Base. Link Simulation and Training is a division of L-3 Communications.
The U.S. Air Force is awarding Lockheed Martin Corp. a $9.7 million contract for a Non-Traditional Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (NT-ISR) capability and concepts on tactical platforms, such as fifth-generation aircraft and the need to transmit NT-ISR products in a timely manner. The proposed Radar Common Data Link (R-CDL) program will accomplish this, the Pentagon announced Feb. 1, via development, laboratory test and demonstration, followed by flight-test and demonstration.
LATER PUBLICATION: The Feb. 6 edition of Aerospace Daily & Defense report will be sent to readers a few hours later than normal to allow for full coverage of the Bush administration's fiscal 2008 defense budget proposal, which will be unveiled on Feb. 5.
Feb. 6 - 7 -- 10th Annual FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference: "Commercial Space, Competing in a Global Market," Sheraton Crystal City Hotel, Arlington, Va. For more information call (202) 267-7982 or go to www.faa.gov/news/conferences_events/ commercial_space/10/. Feb. 7 - 9 -- Assn. for Unmanned Vehicles System International's Unmanned Systems Program Review 2007, Omni Shoreham Hotel, Washington, D.C. For more information call (703) 845-9671 or go to www.auvsi.org/ events.
Esterline Technologies Corp.'s deal to acquire Canadian avionics concern CMC Electronics Inc. is another sign of supplier-level consolidation in aerospace, not to mention the growing role of private equity firms in industry mergers and acquisitions.
HELO SPARES: The U.S. Department of Defense has announced two large helicopter spare parts orders placed by the Naval Inventory Control Point. One went to Bell Helicopter Textron, which received an $18.3 million order under a previously awarded contract for spare components for the V-22 aircraft. Bell will perform the work in Fort Worth, Texas, and should finish the job by next January. In addition, Boeing Helicopter won an $8 million order under a previously awarded contract for spare components for the V-22 aircraft.
CSAR BUZZ: Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael "Buzz" Moseley apparently isn't enthusiastic about his service's $15 billion decision to buy a variant of the CH-47 for its future combat search and rescue helicopter. "Buzz ...doesn't want his special operations guys having to fly the Chinook design," says a senior Air Force official, who adds that it's an older-generation aircraft than its CSAR competitors, Lockheed Martin/AgustaWestland's US101 variant and Sikorsky's S-92 derivative.
President Bush's "surge" strategy for Iraq could cost up to $27 billion and entail sending as many as 28,000 additional support personnel to back up the projected 21,500 combat troops in the plan, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates.
JOINT MISSILE: Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace and Lockheed Martin have signed a joint marketing agreement for an air-launched version of the Norwegian company's Naval Strike Missile (NSM). Called the Joint Strike Missile (JSM), it will be adapted for Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), including for inside the F-35's internal weapons bay. In a statement, Kongsberg said that it will take "three years to reach the technological maturity required for the missile to be an option for deployment on the JSF." Lockheed Martin on Feb.
EADS and Northrop Grumman -- teamed as EuroHawk GmbH -- has won a 430 million euro ($559.9 million) contract from the German Ministry of Defense for development, test and support of an unmanned signals intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft. The Euro Hawk is a derivative of the U.S. Air Force's RQ-4 Block 20 Global Hawk UAV. The sigint system would allow the new aircraft to collect and identify electronic signals, such as radar, as well as intercept tactical communications at standoff ranges.
NAVAL SERVICES: BAE Systems Applied Technologies Inc. of Rockville, Md., has been awarded an $18,792,574 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to provide approximately 298,000 hours of engineering and technical services in support of the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division's Special Communications Requirements Division's Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I) communications-electronics program, including incidental materials. The work will be performed in California, Md. (80 percent), and St. Inigoes, Md.
HELO LOSSES: Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says he is taking a look at recent helicopter losses in Iraq to see if they represent proportional shootdowns for the amount of flying done there or whether there are new tactics and techniques being employed by insurgents. "Clearly, they've been more effective ground fire - or ground fire that has been more effective against our helicopters in the last couple of weeks," he told reporters Feb. 2.
Having been stymied so far in its efforts to equip intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with conventional warheads, the Defense Department is turning to possible commercial alternatives for prompt global strike. Worried about the international reaction, Congress last year denied funding to the Conventional Trident Modification (CTM) program, which would have equipped 24 submarine-based Trident II (D-5) ICBMs with conventional warheads (DAILY, Aug. 6, 2006). CTM would have been capable of striking a target anywhere in the world in less than an hour.
U.S. troops are now finding and defusing nearly half of the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq, and casualties from the devices are holding steady despite a sharp increase in the number being placed, according to the chief scientist for the Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO).
The Department of Defense is proceeding with a new joint concept technology demonstration (JCTD) led by the U.S. Air Force and Navy that will allow nodes in an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) network to take over and direct datalink-equipped weapons to their targets. The JCTD just received approval from Congress and will have its first demonstration in two months, according to John Wilcox, JCTD program director at the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD).
KEI TEST: The U.S. Missile Defense Agency's (MDA) Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) program is on schedule to perform a booster test flight in 2008 despite the nearly $50 million cut levied against the program's $405 million fiscal 2007 budget request, prime contractor Northrop Grumman says. KEI is designed to intercept missiles in their boost, ascent or midcourse phase of flight. The program achieved all its key milestones in 2006, Northrop Grumman says, including Stage 1 and 2 static motor firings, fire control system demonstrations and high-speed wind tunnel tests.
Norway has signed the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) production, sustainment and follow-on development memorandum of understanding with the United States for the next phase of the largest-ever U.S. Defense Department program. The signing ceremony took place in Oslo, Norway, on Jan. 31. Norway's contribution in the first phase is $92 million. Italy and Denmark are expected to sign on in February.
PHOENIX OVERRUN: The budget overrun on NASA's Phoenix lander (DAILY, Jan. 10) is coming in at $31 million, according to program officials. Part of NASA's Mars Scout program, Phoenix ran over as a result of problems with the radar altimeter that the spacecraft will use when it lands on the red planet in May 2008. The overrun will have to be compensated for by cuts to other Mars exploration efforts. The Phoenix spacecraft and lander are built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems near Denver.
