Lockheed Martin has lost its bid to be reinstated to the competition to provide the U.S. Army and Air Force with a Joint Cargo Aircraft. The program could involve up to 100 cargo aircraft worth $5 billion. Lockheed Martin pitched the only four-engine design - a version of its standard body C-130J. The other competitors offered twin-engine aircraft - the C-295 from Raytheon/EADS and the C-27J from L-3 Communications/Alenia North America/Boeing.
The Defense Department's latest calculation on major defense acquisition program cost, schedule and performance has risen more than $4.8 billion, mostly due to accounting changes, to more than $1.6 trillion total, according to DOD data provided to Congress.
NODE REPLACEMENT: NASA will replace one of the SGI Altix 3700 nodes on the Columbia supercomputer at the Ames Research Center with a Dual Core SGI Altix 4700 system, a move that provides the same computing power while using less space and power. The Altix 3700 is powered by a 512 single-core Intel Itanium 2 processor, while the 4700 uses a 256 dual-core Itanium 2 processor with 1 terabite of system memory.
RAPTOR AWARD: The U.S. Air Force has issued Lockheed Martin Corp. a firm-fixed-price contract modification for more than $1 billion for 23 F-22 aircraft and one replacement test aircraft under the company's Lot 6 full-production contract. At this time, almost $1.5 billion has been obligated, according to a Nov. 21 contract announcement by the Defense Department. The work is to be completed by Feb. 2010.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected Cray Inc. and IBM to proceed to the next phase of the High Productivity Computing Systems (HPCS) program, which is aimed at accelerating the state of the art in supercomputing. Between now and the end of Phase III in 2010, Cray will receive $250 million total and IBM $244 million. The initial award value was $25 million for Cray and $12.2 million for IBM. Sun Microsystems also proposed for Phase III but was not selected.
EGYPTIAN BOATS: Almost a year after awarding VT Halter Marine Inc. a functional design award, the Naval Sea Systems Command is issuing the company a $165.5 million contract modification for long lead time materials for detail design and construction of three Egyptian Fast Missile Crafts. The efforts required include all hardware, software, licensing, design engineering, production engineering, manufacturing, test engineering, technical documentation, and program management through factory acceptance testing and shipyard delivery, according to a Nov.
NASA plans to use the Opportunity Mars Exploration Rover (MER) to listen for any signals from the silent Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) satellite, but hopes are dimming for regaining contact with the decade-old orbiter. "We believe that the prospect of recovery of MGS is not looking very good at all," said Fuk Li, Mars program manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "But ... MGS has been a good friend. The data it's collected has taught us a lot about Mars."
NATO member countries are likely to agree to common funding of more and more aspects of alliance operations in the future, according to Daniel Freed, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. The push toward common funding has been led primarily by Poland and Spain, Freed said during a Defense Writers Group breakfast in Washington Nov. 21.
UNCLEAN BOOKS: Audited accounting from the Defense, Energy, Homeland Security and State departments, as well as NASA, all were deemed so problematic that federal auditors could not evaluate their submissions, according to White House Office of Management and Budget data. Otherwise, 18 of 24 federal agencies received "clean" or "qualified" audit opinions for fiscal 2006, the OMB announced Nov. 16.
SPLIT AWARDS: SES Global has split awards for two new spacecraft, contracting NSS-9, intended for its New Skies affiliate, to Orbital Sciences Corp. and Astra 3b to EADS Astrium. NSS-9, a 2.2 metric ton 2.3 kW spacecraft with 28 active C-band transponders, will be launched to 183 degrees east longitude in 2008, permitting NSS-5 to be moved to an as-yet undisclosed orbital slot.
The federal government, except for the Defense and Homeland Security departments, remains funded by a continuing resolution (CR) through Dec. 8 - and may even stay there for the rest of fiscal 2007 under one scenario brewing on Capitol Hill.
RESEARCH CENTER: Thales has opened a vast new research center in Palaiseau, France,which is intended to enhance synergies with public universities and research institutes. Sized to house 500 researchers, the center near Paris is located next to Polytechnique, France's most prestigious engineering school, and near other major R&D centers, including the Saclay complex operated by the Atomic Energy Commission CEA.
The United States will sell $1.5 billion worth of defense articles and services to Saudi Arabia, namely 155 General Electric F110-GE129 engines for the country's F-15S aircraft and 20 Pratt & Whitney F100-PW229 engines to restore the current inventory there.
ProtoStar, a Bermuda-based startup planning to offer direct-to-home broadcasting coverage across Asia, says it has completed financing needed to acquire and launch the first of three spacecraft to provide the service. The $210 million financing package, consisting of $160 million in senior secured convertible notes and $50 million in equity from venture and private equity funds, will complement initial funding raised in early 2005 from the new Enterprise Association and SpaceVest.
The U.S. Navy is on the cusp of an unprecedented transition in its mine warfare capabilities, assuming Congress and defense planners follow through on planned funding, the program manager for mine warfare told The DAILY on Nov. 21.
CV-22 SUPPORT: Boeing and partner Bell Helicopter are performing support services for the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command's CV-22 Osprey tiltrotor at Hurlburt Field, Fla., following a Nov. 16 ceremony commemorating the first aircraft delivery there. The Bell-Boeing team is providing performance-based support for the first nine production CV-22s, five of which will be assigned to the 8th Special Operations Squadron at Hurlburt Field. The remaining four are assigned to the 71st Special Operations Squadron at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M.
The U.S. Air Force still has work to do to improve its cost estimates at the outset of space acquisition programs, which have been marred by over-optimism and pressure to keep costs unrealistically low, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
