Stan Deal has been named vice president Asia/Pacific sales for Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Bill Hodgkins has been appointed senior executive and director of field marketing in Colorado. Rob Laird has been appointed vice president of greater China sales.
Democratic members of the House Science Committee are concerned about NASA's inability to file a congressionally mandated annual report due in January detailing the agency's overseas contract work and purchases from international vendors.
HELO SYSTEMS: L-3 Communications' Wescam subsidiary has received an order for Latvia's armed forces for four MX-15i electro-optical and infrared systems for installation on their Mil Mi-17 helicopters. The first unit will be delivered this month, with one unit per year to follow. The primary missions will be search and rescue and medevac air lifts. No dollar figure was disclosed.
SONAR SBIR: The U.S. Navy has awarded a $25 million Small Business Innovative Research Phase III contract to Signal Systems Corp. for "Air Antisubmarine Warfare Environmental Characterization using Existing Tactical Sensors" and "Continuous Active Sonar." The small business will provide services and materials to deliver real-time, single channel signal processing of the Air Deployable Active Receiver, according to a Defense Department statement. The award runs through December 2011, the DOD said Dec. 12.
MRO TAKEOVER: TAT Group has created a venture to take over selected maintenance, repair and overhaul activities of EADS Sogerma. The venture, known as Sogerma Services, will be 60 percent owned by EADS until early next year, when full ownership will be transferred to TAT. Sogerma Services will be located at Sogerma's Merignac plant near Bordeaux, France, and will employ 517 people. EADS decided to unload the unit earlier this year to stem mounting losses. It formerly employed 1,050.
The U.S. does not want to establish a "monopoly of space" and is embracing international cooperation in space to a greater degree than ever before, according to Robert Joseph, undersecretary for arms control and international security at the U.S. State Department. Released in unclassified form by the White House in October, the latest U.S. National Space Policy affirms America's commitment to the peaceful use of space, but also maintains the right of the U.S. to defend its space assets.
The German army on Dec. 13 took delivery of its first NH90 transport helicopters, according to a German defense ministry official. The handover comes more than two years after the original program plan and represents an important milestone for a program struggling with its development timeline. NH Industries officials say the Germany handover will be quickly followed with deliveries to Greece and Finland.
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, Texas - Astronauts used their eyeballs and a lot of sophisticated hardware and engineering expertise to furl a balky solar array on the International Space Station that had been exposed to the harsh space environment for six years, moving it far enough out of the way - at least temporarily - so a newer array could begin rotating through a full 360 degrees to get the most direct sunlight possible on its power-generating solar cells.
SPACE AGREEMENT: The U.S. and France plan to conclude a broad-ranging space cooperation agreement, setting down mutual responsibilities and liabilities in the many areas in which the two countries collaborate. The pact, to be inked in Paris in January by NASA administrator Mike Griffin and French research minister Francois Goulard, is intended to facilitate cooperation by replacing the multiple ad-hoc accords that have governed joint programs until now. Among them are a joint Mars sample return mission; collaboration on the U.S.
MOUNTED MISSILE: Indonesia's PT Pindad and MBDA will evaluate the possibility of jointly offering MBDA Mistral Atlas short-range ground-air missiles on Pindad's Light Military Vehicle to meet an Indonesian requirement for a fast, mobile, highly maneuverable air defense system. Cooperation could lead MBDA to mount other surface-air missiles on Pindad platforms.
Moves to boost the size of the Army and Marine Corps risk pinching the Pentagon's modernization and acquisition spending, but concerns over national security and domestic jobs should trump any potential decreases, Aerospace Industries Association chief executive John Douglass said Dec. 13 in unveiling the trade group's annual yearend review and forecast.
PARACHUTE CONTRACT: Irvin Aerospace will design the parachutes that ease NASA's planned Orion crew exploration vehicle back into the atmosphere after trips to the International Space Station and eventually the moon. The Santa Ana, Calif.-based company, which also designed the chutes that took Europe's Huygens probe to the surface of Saturn's moon Titan, will work with Jacobs Sverdrup and engineers from NASA's Johnson Space Center as an integrated product team for the government-furnished parachute system. Testing is expected to begin next spring.
EUTELSAT DEALS: Four private equity firms have bowed out of Eutelsat in two separate deals in what could be a prelude to a new satcom alliance. On Dec. 5, Nebozzo, Cinven and Goldman Sachs sold a combined 32 percent stake to Abertis, a Spanish telecom company. A remaining 2.8 percent stake was transferred to Lehman Brothers - a former Eutelsat shareholder - to prevent the sale from triggering a mandatory takeover bid. On Dec. 7, Eurazeo unloaded its 25.5 percent stake to French bank Caisse Nationale des Depots.
MINOTAUR SLIPS: Dec. 16 is now the earliest possible launch date for the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory's TacSat-2 spacecraft. Engineers at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., continue grappling with a possible problem with the spacecraft's flight software that they fear might cause TacSat-2 to improperly point its solar arrays when it arrives in orbit. TacSat-2 originally was scheduled to launch on Dec. 11.
RIVERINE RACE: Northrop Grumman Corp. and Aluminum Chambered Boats Inc. announced Dec. 12 that they have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore future combat system requirements and capabilities for the U.S. Navy's anticipated Riverine/Coastal Warfare program. They also agreed to design and build a riverine craft technology demonstrator featuring Northrop Grumman's navigation, surveillance, network and command and control systems aboard an ACB-designed riverine-class hull.
The U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army in the next few weeks are expected to announce an agreement to collaborate on the Predator and Warrior unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) programs. The Army's Warrior Extended Range/Multipurpose (ER/MP) UAV is built by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, which also produces the Air Force's Predator A and B UAVs. Pentagon acquisition chief Kenneth Krieg has sent a memo to the Air Force and Army secretaries requesting that the services look at integrating the programs at the acquisition level.
Flights of the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from Beale Air Force Base in California are on hold while the U.S. Air Force and manufacturer Northrop Grumman try to determine why the aircraft briefly lost communications with the ground during its first flight from the base last month.
Rep. Duncan Hunter, the outgoing chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a potential 2008 Republican presidential contender, has called on the Army to speed up spending the $17 billion it recently received for reset and recapitalization in the last supplemental spending measure. "The Army bureaucracy, right now, has a case of 'the slows,'" Hunter told reporters on Capitol Hill Dec. 12. "You asked for the money, we gave you every dime you asked for, spend it."
Australia and the United Kingdom have signed on to the production, sustainment, and follow-on development (PSFD) phase of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program, officials announced Dec. 12. "I have always been clear that the U.K. would only sign if we were satisfied that we would have operational sovereignty over our aircraft," said Paul Drayson, Britain's minister for defense procurement. "I have today received the necessary assurances from the U.S. on technology transfer to allow me to sign the MoU."
