Lexington Institute Chief Operating Officer Loren Thompson said May 3 that the Pentagon should forego the Army and Air Force's proposed Joint Cargo Aircraft. "Does it make sense to buy a specialized airlift asset to support a limited mission set at the same time budget constraints are forcing the Air Force to terminate more capable airlift programs? You could buy 80 new C-130s or two dozen C-17s for $5 billion, each of which is more versatile than the proposed Joint Cargo Aircraft."
The U.S. Air Force has completed the weighted checkout flight of Northrop Grumman's high-flying Proteus test bed, which will lead to further demonstrations this summer of a new advanced radar enabling the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle to eventually track moving ground targets.
The Pentagon would be required to maintain minimum forces of 48 attack submarines and 299 strategic lift aircraft under the fiscal 2007 Defense authorization bill being considered by the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) on May 3. Much of the groundwork was laid last week by the 62-member panel's six subcommittees that voted on authorizations under their jurisdictions.
The U.S. Coast Guard's revised planning for its massive Deepwater recapitalization program change the final mix of Deepwater aircraft more significantly than changes for ships, according to the congressional Government Accountability Office.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is recommending that the Defense Department delay the Milestone C production decision for the U.S. Marine Corps' Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) in light of the program's ballooning costs and risks. Milestone C for the EFV, when the first low-rate initial production (LRIP) lots will be approved, is scheduled for September. That date slipped from December 2005 as a result of a $1.5 billion budget cut levied against the program in the Pentagon's December 2004 program budget decision (DAILY, Nov. 16).
MARINE JERRVS: The U.S. Marine Corps Systems Command has awarded Force Protection Industries Inc. of Ladson, S.C., a $50.9 million contract for up to 79 Joint Explosive Ordnance Disposal Rapid Response Vehicles (JERRV) and associated manuals, spares, field support and training. The vehicles will be built in Ladson and Charlotte, Mich., and should be finished by next May.
The Senate is incongruously working its way to finishing its version of the latest fiscal 2006 supplemental spending request, with attempts to pare down its size failing and the final tally threatened by a White House veto. Senators worked in spurts May 3 as they digested amendment proposals, none of which by press time dealt with defense programs by themselves.
The Energy Department and the Air Force drove the majority of information technology-related prime contracts during the second quarter of this fiscal year, which ended in March, with nearly $5 billion in combined awards, according to Input, an IT market research firm. Most of DOE's contract dollars stemmed from its $2.5 billion award to National Security Technologies LLC for management and operation of the Nevada nuclear test site and its related facilities and laboratories, Input said.
HAIRY BUFFALO: The U.S. Navy has awarded small business Knight Aerospace Products Inc. of San Antonio, Texas, a $10 million contract for up to 20 palletized rack mission systems in support of the AIR-4.5 Hairy Buffalo program. Knight, whose contract was not competitively procured, is expected to finish the award in April 2009. The Hairy Buffalo, a modified NP-3C, is a flying test bed dedicated to introducing new time-critical targeting capabilities into network-centric warfare.
HELO AVIONICS: The U.S. Naval Air Systems Command awarded Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Systems Integration-Owego, N.Y., unit an estimated $51 million advance acquisition contract for long-lead efforts and materials associated with the production and delivery of the fiscal 2007 full rate production of 25 Lot V MH-60R mission avionics systems. The contract, not competitively procured, is expected to be completed in January 2007.
The China People's Daily newspaper, the official voice for the Communist Chinese government, is beginning what will be a steadily increasing campaign of open pressure on the Bush administration to sign a space cooperation pact with China. The Bush administration signaled in early 2005 that it was ready for "measured and appropriate levels of space cooperation" with China. And NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin has accepted an invitation to visit the country by year's end.
CRIPPEN HONORED: Robert L. Crippen, who joined John Young on the flight deck of the first space shuttle mission, received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor at an April 26 ceremony commemorating the shuttle program's 25th anniversary. Authorized by Congress in 1969 as the highest U.S. award for spaceflight, the Space Medal of Honor has gone to 28 astronauts, including Young - commander of the STS-1 mission - Neil Armstrong, John Glenn and the lost crews of Apollo 1 and the shuttles Challenger and Columbia.
The U.S. Coast Guard has made progress in responding to most congressional investigators' recommendations for underpinning the massive Deepwater recapitalization program, but overall program management and oversight "remain problematic," the Government Accountability Office said.
A conservative Oklahoma senator on May 2 took on Mississippi's two high-profile Republican senators and lost over insurance-related appropriations to Northrop Grumman Corp.'s shipyards damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
During a frank discussion with the National Academies' Space Science Board in Washington May 2, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin defended his decision to slow science programs at the agency to address short-term budget needs in human spaceflight. NASA's FY '07 budget proposes to reduce science programs at NASA by $3.1 billion through FY '10 as compared to projections in the FY '06 budget to fund a shortfall in the space shuttle budget and complete construction of the International Space Station (ISS).
Unable so far to informally agree on a price for its 20 percent stake in Airbus with EADS, BAE Systems is setting in motion the formal valuation process, the first part of the so-called Put Option. BAE on May 2 confirmed it had "issued a Put Option Intention Notice to EADS." EADS holds the majority share in Airbus, with BAE as the junior partner. The BAE move sets in motion a 30-day notification period.
James Kennedy, who directs the NASA Kennedy Space Center, will retire in January, 2007, but stay on to run the center for the next one or two shuttle missions. Kennedy leaves after 35 years of government service, 31 of them with NASA in various assignments. He has overseen nearly 15,000 NASA and contractor employees involved in the return-to-flight effort at the shuttle launch site since taking over the director slot in early 2003.
