RUSSIAN ROCKETS: Israelis are unhappy about encountering some of Russia's top-of-the-line weapons during combat with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, including the Metis-M and laser-guided Kornet-E anti-tank weapons. U.S. aerospace industry officials, who spend their time developing defenses against these same weapons, say an Israeli government team was sent to Moscow to complain.
FLIGHT KITS: Boeing has snagged a $5.6 million contract to provide Air Mobility Command and the Air National Guard with 75 combat Track II flight kits. The systems, installed on tactical aircraft, use software that integrates national intelligence and theater tactical broadcasts to provide aircrews of bombers, tankers and airlift aircraft with real-time situational awareness of where threats are and what they're doing.
Sept. 12 - 14 -- 11th India International Defense/Civil Equipment & Aerospace Systems Conference & Exhibition, Ashok Hotel & Conference Center, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi. For more information email [email protected]. Sept. 13 - 14 -- 2006 European Air & Port Security Expo, Brussels. For more information call +44 (208) 842-9175 or go to www.aps-expo.com.
JOINT LCS: Expect the U.S. Navy to continue looking at ongoing Army and Air Force research, development and acquisition efforts to help fill in its Littoral Combat Ship mission package elements. The LCS mission packages program "will continue to actively seek economic efficiencies through the potential use of other Army (and Air Force) systems that fill our mission needs," says Capt. Walter Wright, program manager. Wright spoke Aug. 28 as the Army Aviation and Missile Command formally awarded NetFires, a limited liability company established by Lockheed Martin Corp.
NASA's selection of the Lockheed Martin team for the $8 billion Orion vehicle development to replace the space shuttle will fundamentally change contractor interaction with the space agency and turn the Kennedy Space Center into a more centralized manned flight hardware production, assembly and integration center. Lockheed Martin took a much more openly aggressive approach to the use of Kennedy than did the Northrop Grumman/Boeing team, although the losing team would have also broadened the launch site's scope had it won.
UNMANNED C2: Lockheed Martin Corp. expects to demonstrate simultaneous command and control (C2) of 10 unmanned vehicles in late 2007. The company's Intelligent Control and Autonomous Replanning of Unmanned Systems (ICARUS) project, funded by the Office of Naval Research and executed by the company's Aeronautics division in Fort Worth, Texas, is in its third phase and has already "illustrated" simultaneous operation of seven unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) - one HALE, four unmanned combat aerial systems and two Fire Scouts - by one operator.
DEEPER DEEPWATER: Former Lockheed Martin Corp. engineer Michael De Kort, who says he led C4ISR systems on the failed 110-foot Coast Guard patrol boat conversion effort under the Deepwater program, is alleging malfeasance in a unique way. With a self-posted video on the YouTube Web site, he asserts that camera security, FLIR and communications systems on the boats did not meet requirements but were passed over. The Coast Guard reportedly says it is cooperating with a Homeland Security Department inspector general review.
WHAT'S IN A NAME?: The Air Force, which hates calling its big, new MQ-9 the Predator B, has quietly named the turboprop-powered unmanned aerial vehicle the "Reaper." Since the UAV has six weapon stations and has been assigned the Killer portion of the Hunter/Killer mission, it appears there is an unspoken meaning, "as in Grim Reaper," confirms a senior defense official. Budget planning for fiscal 2008 leaves nearly all the UAV programs untouched, but without any large initiatives.
The Pentagon will keep its relatively new portfolio reviews, but the Defense Department is still working on how and where to schedule the acquisition studies. The DOD started the reviews earlier this year to ascertain how weapons programs fit into the overall scheme of Pentagon strategy at macro and micro levels. Defense contractors worried about the reviews, saying similar ones take place early on in the planning, development and acquisition of weapons programs - and then throughout the remainder of the process.
SHIP OVERHAUL: BAE Systems San Francisco Ship Repair has been awarded a $6.7 million contract to perform the overhaul and drydocking of Military Sealift Command's fast combat support ship USNS Rainier (T-AOE 7), the Defense Department said Aug. 31. The work includes main propulsion shafting, preservation of the hull and freeboard and overhauling of sea valves. It will be done in San Francisco and is expected to be finished in December 2006.
GPS BUSINESS: Thales has sold its GPS navigation business to Shah Capital Partners, a private equity firm, for $170 million. The business, to be renamed Magellan Navigation, employs 600 people in the U.S., France and Russia.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. - After winning two battles with Mother Nature and then completing successful negotiations with the Russians, NASA is poised next week for up to three tries to launch the shuttle Atlantis STS-115 mission to reinitiate International Space Station assembly. But the ISS is also about to be the setting of perhaps a bit of diplomatic drama involving the current U.S./Iranian situation.
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will continue to be the most dynamic growth sector of the world aerospace industry, according to the Teal Group, an aerospace and defense consultancy firm based in Fairfax, Va. The firm estimated Aug. 31 that UAV spending will more than triple over the next decade, from current worldwide UAV expenditures of $2.7 billion annually to $8.3 billion within a decade, totaling close to $55 billion in the next 10 years.
The two companies splitting almost $500 million in NASA funds under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program expect to add at least that much in other funds to develop two different ways to get supplies and eventually crew to the International Space Station.
LAUNCH RESET: Eumetsat has rescheduled the launch of its first polar weather satellite, Metop 1, to Oct. 7. The launch, originally planned for July 17, had to be pushed back three times because of problems with the ground segment of its Soyuz Fregate booster.
NASA has chosen Lockheed Martin Corp. over a Northrop Grumman Corp.-Boeing Co. team to develop and build the planned Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle to return astronauts to the moon and perhaps someday go on to Mars. Managers of NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate revealed Aug. 31 that Lockheed Martin of Bethesda, Md., was picked to build "what amounts to one of the most significant NASA procurements in more than 30 years." Past performance and cost were leading variables behind the decision for the roughly $8 billion award, they said.
The U.S. Army has awarded BAE Systems a $34 million modification to its Ground Standoff Mine Detection System-Future Combat Systems system development and demonstration contract, bringing the total value to $94 million, the company said Aug. 31. BAE was selected in 2004 to develop the integrated system for mine detection, marking, reporting and neutralization to be fielded on the Multipurpose Utility/Logistic Equipment (MULE) vehicle.
In-depth U.S. Navy analysis has found that aircraft wiring failures are significantly underreported and that wiring failures are a concern for the fleet, according to the Naval Air Systems Command. One major reason wiring failures are underreported is that maintenance personnel were overusing a malfunction classification code that had a generic description of why wires failed, according to detailed research on maintenance action forms and fleet surveys.
SAT SALE: Thrane & Thrane has agreed to acquire Nera Mobile Satellite Communications, a major maker of Inmarsat terminals. The move will make Thrane the largest supplier of Inmarsat equipment.
Democratic House Armed Services Committee members are seizing on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's recent remarks favoring more realistic ballistic missile defense testing, but are refuting that any comprehensive end-to-end test was slated under the Missile Defense Agency's test schedule.
Eric Barron, Jim Geringer, and Tracey Laws have been appointed to the board of directors. Barron is a geoscience school dean. Geringer is a former governor of Wyoming, and Laws is a reinsurance association vice president.
