Senate and House appropriators agreed to back the Navy's DD(X) destroyer program and add two Littoral Combat Ships as part of a deal on the fiscal 2006 defense spending bill, which also cuts some space programs and the Army's Future Combat Systems but fully funds the F-22A Raptor and the C-17 Globemaster III. The conference agreement details were released Dec. 18, and the House ratified the deal at 5 a.m. Dec. 19, less than six hours after the agreement's report was filed for consideration.
Lockheed Martin said Dec. 16 that it has agreed to buy Aspen Systems Corp. of Rockville, Md., which provides business process and technology systems mainly to U.S. government civil agencies. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the company said it is not expected to have a "material impact" on its operations, financial position or cash flows.
A Raytheon-built Precision Attack Air-to-Surface Missile (PAASM) was successfully launched Dec. 13 from an unmanned UH-1 Huey helicopter at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., the company said Dec. 19. The PAASM was fired from a standard M299 digital launcher and "met planned test objectives," the company said. After getting the launch command, the missile successfully ignited and separated from the launcher, then transitioned into stable flight.
SOLE SOURCE: Although the aerospace industry is posing sales growth, the industrial base is not as strong as the figures might suggest, Aerospace Industries Association President and CEO John Douglass says. He warns that many products and components are produced by just one company. "It means that if that weapon system gets into political trouble" or stops being produced, there may be nothing to replace it. As an example, he says when the Navy decided to stop building Seawolf submarines in the 1990s, it created the Virginia-class sub to maintain the industrial base.
READYING DISCOVERY: Work continues at NASA's Kennedy Space Center to prepare shuttle Discovery for its next mission, STS-121, scheduled for no earlier than May 2006. On Dec. 14 technicians installed the Orbiter Boom Sensor System, which is used to inspect the shuttle's heat shield, in the shuttle's cargo bay. Adjustments of the mechanical release latches that hold the 50-foot boom in place will follow in the next few weeks, NASA says. Meanwhile, wire inspections and chafe protection installation continue on the vehicle's steering jets used in space.
FIRE SCOUT: Northrop Grumman Corp. plans to conduct shipboard testing of the Fire Scout vertical takeoff and landing tactical unmanned aerial vehicle, including shipboard installation and flight testing on the High Speed Vessel 2 (Swift), under an $8.3 million Navy contract. The add-on testing will be performed in San Diego and is expected to be completed in June 2006. The Swift, a contracted Australian ship, and its sister ships have been test beds and predecessors to the Littoral Combat Ship (DAILY, Nov. 21).
Jan. 9 - 12, 2006 -- American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics' Aerospace Sciences 44th Annual Meeting & Exhibit, Reno Hilton, Nev. Call 1-703-264-7500 or go to www.aiaa.org. Jan. 11 - 13 -- Aviation Symposium and Exhibition: "Army Aviation, Enabling Transformation Through Modernization," Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade Center, Washington. Call +1 (800) 336-4570 or +1 (703) 841-4300 or go to www.ausa.org.
The Air Force understated the cost growth in the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle program when it notified Congress earlier this year that the effort had breached Nunn-McCurdy cost growth caps, according to a Dec. 15 Government Accountability Office report. In April the Air Force said the unit cost of the Global Hawk program had increased 18 percent over the original baseline estimate. However, this calculation did not include $400.6 million in additional procurement costs that should have been factored in, the GAO said.
General Dynamics on Dec. 15 delivered the first two of 72 low-rate initial production (LRIP) Stryker mobile gun system (MGS) variant vehicles to the U.S. Army at Anniston (Ala.) Army Depot. The Stryker MGS variant is a direct-fire infantry platform with a 105mm cannon mounted in a stabilized turret and integrated into the Stryker chassis. It carries 18 rounds of NATO-standard 105mm main gun ammunition; 400 rounds of .50-caliber ammunition; and 3,400 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition, according to General Dynamics.
The 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) will result in relatively few programmatic changes or cancellations, let alone major transformation, while military officials are "scrambling" to find $7 billion to close a gap in the next Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP), according to a well-connected think tank expert.
READY: The dual-satellite payload has been integrated on an Ariane 5 booster in preparation for its Dec. 21 launch, Arianespace said Dec. 16. The booster is to carry India's INSAT-4A satellite and Europe's MSG-2 satellite into orbit from Europe's spaceport in French Guiana.
FALCON 1: On Dec. 19 at 11 a.m. Pacific Time, SpaceX again will attempt to have the first flight of its Falcon 1 rocket from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Priced at $6.7 million per launch, the two-stage Falcon 1 is the lowest-cost orbital rocket in the world, according to SpaceX. If successful, it also will be the first privately developed liquid-fueled rocket to reach orbit, the company says. The Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency purchased the flight, which will orbit the FalconSat-2 spacecraft.
DELAYED: The European Space Agency's plan to launch its first Galileo satellite navigation system spacecraft on Dec. 26 has hit a snag, as a problem detected in the ground station network for the satellite will delay the launch by at least two days. The spacecraft, GIOVE-A, is to be launched atop a Soyuz-Fregat rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It is intended to lead to a 30-satellite system to give Europe its own global positioning and timing system.
NAME CHANGE: The U.S. Air Force's Raptor fighter has been declared to have reached initial operational capability, and has gotten a name change to boot. The former F/A-22 Raptor now is the F-22A Raptor, aircraft builder Lockheed Martin says. The F-22 was renamed the F/A-22 in 2002 to show that it was a multirole system capable of air-to-ground strike (DAILY, Sept. 18, 2002), but this month the Air Force reversed that.
The U.S. Naval Air Systems Command has chosen DynCorp International of Fort Worth, Texas, for a $13.7 million contract to provide maintenance and support services for the Kuwaiti air force F/A-18 program under the Foreign Military Sales Program. Ninety percent of the work will be performed in Kuwait while the rest will be done in Fort Worth. DynCorp is expected to finish in December 2006. This contract was competitively procured through an electronic request for proposals, with three offers received, according to a Dec. 15 Pentagon announcement.
BATTERIES: Saft, headquartered in France, says the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command has awarded it a $3.8 million contract to develop lithium ion (Li-ion) cells and batteries for use in the Joint Unmanned Combat Aerial System (J-UCAS). The company said its batteries also were recently chosen for the Global Hawk RQ-4B and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The Aviation Group at the Saft America facility in Valdosta, Ga., will carry out the J-UCAS project.
Aerospace and defense contractor Esterline Corp. of Bellevue, Wash., said Dec. 16 that it has bought Darchem Holdings Ltd. of the United Kingdom for about $120 million in cash. Darchem builds thermally engineered components for aerospace and defense markets, including lightweight thermal insulation for jet exhaust ducting and heat shields.
DEJA VU: "It feels and smells like the mid-1980s again," Pierre Chao of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says about ongoing defense acquisition reform. The difference is that there is no scandal on which the public hangs its anger, except for widespread disbelief over the initial lack of armor for vehicles and personnel in Iraq. The Darleen Druyun-Boeing tanker imbroglio was too much an insider-baseball Washington scandal, he says.
Pakistan is seeking 115 M109A5 155mm self-propelled howitzers in a deal that could be worth as much as $56 million, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress on Dec. 16. The deal also would include spare and repair parts, support and test equipment, publications and technical documentation, among other services, DSCA said. Pakistan will use the systems to re-equip existing units and retire older artillery pieces. It currently operates M109A2 howitzers.
NASA may try to drop a ground-truth sensor into a permanently dark crater at one of the lunar poles of the Earth's moon as early as 2008 to settle once and for all the question of whether there is water ice in the super-cold shade there.
UAV CONCERNS: Although the Department of Homeland Security's use of unmanned aerial vehicles for border surveillance is a "positive step," challenges remain in expanding their use, according to DHS Inspector General Richard Skinner. They have "significant limitations," including weather constraints and the effects of cloud cover on sensors, Skinner says. Also, UAVS "require a significant amount of logistical support," he says, including a crew of up to 20 support personnel.
