In recent Program Budget Decision (PBD) memos, the Pentagon focuses funding on the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) and Air Force aircraft modernization projects starting in fiscal year 2008. The Defense Department also directs the Air Force to make sure it keeps to its proposed manpower cuts, apparently as part of the effort to retain the proposed F-22 multiyear buy.
Northrop Grumman's revenues were flat in 2006, but improved profit margins helped the company achieve a 10 percent gain in net income, according to financial results released Jan. 25.
Brian Green, assistant defense secretary for policy, says he's confident negotiations with Poland and the Czech Republic to secure sites for the U.S. missile defense system will continue. The Czech Republic will provide locations for basing a radar, while Poland will house up to 10 interceptors. The cost is about $3.5 billion, including $1 billion for construction, and some of that work could go to local firms.
Sen. John McCain, the senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, on Jan. 25 suggested setting benchmarks for the performance of Iraqi security forces in the Bush administration's new "surge" strategy. McCain, a staunch supporter of the Bush plan to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq to stem increasing violence in the insurgency against the government, denied his proposal was an attempt to soften two pending Senate resolutions criticizing the strategy.
NASA is studying the possibility of building an interim variant of its Ares rocket that could allow the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle to take a test swing around the moon and back prior to a lunar-landing attempt, akin to the Apollo 8 mission of 1968. Although such a flight is not currently part of NASA's plans, if the agency decides it is worth pursuing it could probably be mounted by 2015, NASA officials estimate. That is five years prior to the White House's deadline for returning astronauts to the moon.
Sparked by extra work created in current military conflicts, the defense electronics industry is firmly grounded now, but likely to lose some of its juice by the end of the decade, a recently released Forecast International report says. The "Overview of the U.S. Defense Electronics Market," which scrutinizes market trends and conditions for 2007 through 2016, forecasts the U.S. defense electronics market will be worth more than $107.5 billion during the 10-year period. Some fluctuation
QDR DEAD: It took less than 12 months, but top uniformed Army leaders are declaring the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review essentially dead. "We're being asked to do more than the strategy, and we weren't resourced for the strategy," Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes, deputy chief of staff, told reporters on Jan. 23. "Current demands exceed the strategy that was outlined in the Quadrennial Defense Review," Chief Gen. Peter Schoomaker told lawmakers.
The U.S. Air Force's fledgling Cyberspace Command is pursuing a "pretty aggressive" startup schedule to influence the Pentagon's fiscal 2010-2015 program objective memorandum (POM) process and achieve full operational capability by 2009, according to Lt. Gen. Robert Elder, commander of Eighth Air Force.
SpaceX has delayed the next attempt to launch its Falcon 1 rocket until February, skipping an opportunity after it discovered a problem with the vehicle's second-stage thrust vector control pitch actuator. A planned static test at the U.S. Army's Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands is still on the books for Jan. 27 since the second stage won't be involved. But after the planned 4-second hot fire test, crews will roll the Falcon back to its hangar for a second-stage checkout aimed at fixing the actuator.
International Space Station crew members are unpacking a fresh Russian Progress cargo capsule, which made an automated rendezvous and docking at the station's Russian-side Pirs docking compartment on Jan. 19. Progress 24 delivered more than two and a half tons of supplies, including 1,720 pounds of propellant for the station's Russian thrusters and 110 pounds of oxygen.
BRADLEY RESET; The U.S. Army's Tank-automotive Command (TACOM) Life Cycle Management Command has awarded BAE Systems two fiscal 2007 contracts totaling $412 million for the reset of Bradley Fighting Vehicles, which the company says brings the total value of its Bradley contracts from FY '05 through FY '07 to $3.5 billion. That total includes a $1.16 billion contract for the remanufacture and upgrade of 610 Bradley vehicles awarded in November 2006.
FIRST IMAGES: France's Corot planet-finding mission has sent back initial images from its high-precision afocal photometric telescope, intended to identify terrestrial planets in other stars of our galaxy that previous space- and ground-based instruments have been unable to see. The operation, which followed removal of the telescope's protective cover on Jan. 17, produced views "equal in quality to simulated imagery," said Michel Auvergne, an astrophysicist at the Observatory of Paris-Meudon who is lead scientist for the mission.
The vast majority of required equipment purchases to outfit the U.S. Marine Corps in coming years will be additional, existing weapons systems, but the Corps will also buy so-called next-generation equipment to keep up with technological advances "when it makes sense," according to Gen. James Conway, Marine commandant.
The U.S. Navy will fund at least $140 million worth of Hurricane Katrina-related shipyard repair and improvement projects, including to Northrop Grumman Corp. and Textron Inc., according to a Defense Department announcement. Winning projects were submitted by Atlantic Marine and Austal USA, both in Mobile, Ala.; Northrop Grumman Ship Systems' yards in Pascagoula and Gulfport, Miss., and New Orleans; Seemanns Composites in Gulfport, Swiftships in Morgan City, La.; and Textron Marine and Land Systems in New Orleans.
RADIO SYSTEM CONTRACT: Israel's Ministry of Defense has awarded a $20.5 million contract to Tadiran Communications for a radio system with next generation wireless capability. Several Israeli military organizations will use the equipment. The contract is an add on to a previous one of about equal value. The company says this is its flagship project.
Eurocopter hopes to firm up its order with Belgium for 10 NH90s no later than May, adding to the growing backlog for the military transport rotorcraft. The deal is only one of several that the NH Industries consortium, in which Eurocopter is the leading member, believes is in store this year. The group also is in talks through the French government to finalize a deal for Saudi Arabia to buy the helicopter, and other deals are in the works, says Eurocopter CEO Lutz Bertling.
NEW INTELSAT BIRD: Intelsat has picked Space Systems/Loral to build Intelsat 14, a high power C- and Ku-band communications link intended to begin serving the Western Hemisphere, Europe and Africa after 2009. Based on the Palo Alto, Calif.-based manufacturer's 1300 spacecraft bus, Intelsat 14 will be sent to the orbital slot at 45 degrees west longitude now occupied by the PAS-1R satellite, which it will replace. The new satellite will carry 40 C-band and 22 Ku-band transponders feeding four different beams for its trans-Atlantic service area.
GROUND BUSINESS: General Dynamics Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Nicholas Chabraja says spending on Iraq, Afghanistan and other U.S. military combat operations abroad have diverted possible spending for the company's Information Systems and Technology defense electronics unit, yet other lines of revenue for large defense contractor have grown. He also said Jan. 24 that precise financial forecasting has become more difficult under supplemental appropriations, which provide less advance time and insight into the Defense Department's plans.
British troops in Afghanistan are the first in the world to be using the new steel-armored Viking amphibious all terrain vehicle, the U.K. defense ministry says. Royal Marines have received 108 of the vehicles following a two-year trial and development program. The 10-ton Viking boasts a 5.9-liter turbo diesel engine and can reach speeds of 50 mph. The vehicle's four tracks allow excellent mobility on soft terrain, and with less than two minutes preparation the Viking is also fully amphibious, traveling 3.1 miles per hour in water.
Good times lie ahead for the aircraft industry - even excluding unmanned aerial vehicles - according to a recent report by the industry analyst Teal Group. Teal Group forecast production of 41,107 aircraft worth $1.16 trillion between 2006 and 2015 in its December World Military & Civil Aircraft Briefing. The military component of the market is worth $321.1 billion, the report said.
