PRAGUE - BAE Systems has withdrawn from a CZK 20 billion (USD $830 million) tender to supply at least 199 armored personnel carriers to the Czech military. The company said its newly formed Land and Armaments division pulled out of the competition after realizing it could not meet delivery deadlines outlined in the tender documentation.
A pilot program by the National Association of Manufacturers to boost the quality and quantity of skilled shipbuilding workers has hit a snag after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. The Washington-based trade group and Bollinger Shipyards Inc. were about to start an educational program for low-income residents around New Orleans, according to NAM's Stacy Wagner, speaking at a National Shipbuilding Research Program conference on Sept. 20.
DIVIDEND: Kaman Corp.'s board of directors has declared a quarterly dividend of 12.5 cents per share, the helicopter maker said Sept. 20. The dividend will be paid on Oct. 26 to shareholders of record as of Oct. 12.
A third Dassault Falcon 7X business jet flew for the first time on Sept. 20 from the company's facility in Bordeaux-Merignac, France, the company said. The aircraft, which the company said uses technologies derived from military aircraft, reached an altitude of 41,000 feet and flew at Mach .82, Dassault said. The aircraft mainly will be used for avionics, systems and function and reliability testing.
Top Pentagon officials said Sept. 20 that it is too early to know whether Defense Department funding will be cut to help pay for Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts. Although the Bush Administration has signaled that it wants to pay for Katrina's projected $200 billion-plus price tag by cutting other federal spending, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon press briefing that the White House has given no indication so far that DOD's budget will be reduced.
President Bush has signed an unprecedented national strategy for maritime security, with a heavy emphasis on awareness and threat knowledge, as well as "credible" deterrent and interdiction capabilities. "To maximize domain awareness, the United States will leverage its global maritime intelligence capability and the diverse expertise of the intelligence and law enforcement communities," says the National Strategy for Maritime Security, released Sept. 20.
CDR AND QDR: The House Armed Services Committee will release its own "committee defense review" report next year that will identify and categorize potential strategic threats to United States national security over the next 20 years (DAILY, Sept. 15). The HASC's "Threat Panel," a 12-member group led by Reps. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) and Michael Turner (R-Ohio), will begin meeting Sept. 21 and focus on Latin America. The unofficial Threat Panel will be followed by a second series of panels that will identify existing U.S.
When it comes to military platforms, Tyco Electronics is virtually everywhere, the company says. The Harrisburg, Pa.-based firm, a subsidiary of Tyco International Ltd., produces 80,000 different connectors, fiber optics relays, sensors, antennas, semiconductors and other electronic components that are contained in most every air- and ground-based defense platform in the United States, company officials say. Tyco makes commercial components too, providing the composite cable for the Boeing 787's high-voltage electrical system.
NEXT HURRICANE: The U.S. Northern Command has requested approval from the U.S. military's Joint Staff for four heavy-lift and four medium-lift helicopters to be forward-staged at Patrick Air Force Base, near Cocoa Beach, Fla., and to be available for potential damage assessments from Hurricane Rita. Likewise, the USS Bataan is headed to Mayport, Fla., for resupply and will take aboard four MH-60 Black Hawk and two MH-53 Pave Low helicopters, the Pentagon said Sept. 20. Bataan will sail behind the storm to support potential Rita relief efforts.
Many U.S. Army program managers think they still don't have, and won't get, enough responsibility over resources and management authority to act on new acquisition-reform guidance and take the risks they are being told to take, the RAND Corp. has said in a study. Army program managers are being asked to "be more innovative" and "take more risks" under Defense Department acquisition reform efforts started in the mid-1990s, the RAND report said.
NASA on Sept. 20 announced new discoveries about surface changes on Mars detected by the agency's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, which has been orbiting the red planet since 1997 and is now the longest-lived Mars explorer. MGS has operated around Mars longer than any other spacecraft and sent back more images than all previous Mars missions combined, according to NASA. Its primary instrument, the Mars Orbiter Camera, is the most powerful camera currently orbiting the planet and has imaged nearly 4.5% of Mars' surface in high resolution.
Orbital Sciences will build the THOR II-R communications satellite for Telenor ASA, which will use it for Ku-band fixed telecommunications and direct-to-home TV broadcasts. The satellite, due to be delivered in the fourth quarter of 2007, has 24 transponders, with three times the payload power of the THOR II satellite. It will be used to improve Telenor services in the Nordic countries, Europe and the Middle East.
CPI Aerostructures of Edgewood, N.Y., will provide the U.S. Air Force with 37 aircraft wing skins for the A-10 Thunderbolt under a $569,000 contract. The company, which builds structural aircraft parts, provided leading edges for the A-10 fleet under a multiyear contract through 2000, which included follow-on work through 2004. It also has provided components to the C-5A Galaxy cargo aircraft, the T-38 Talon trainer, the E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft and the MH-60S mine-countermeasures helicopter.
Curtiss-Wright Controls Inc. will continue to deliver hardware for Lot 9 V-22 Ospreys. The $1.8 million contract, from Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, calls for more Cockpit Control, Feel and Drive (CCFD) Actuators and an Aerial Retractable Refueling Probe (ARRP) Manual Drive Gearbox. Each V-22 has three CCFD Actuators and one ARRP Manual Drive Gearbox. The work is being done at the Curtiss-Wright Controls Engineered Systems facility in Shelby, N.C.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center is requesting information from industry about lightweight spacecraft buses that could carry a proposed solar sail mission vying for the chance to launch in 2010. Goddard's ST-9 Solar Sail mission is a candidate for the New Millennium Program's Space Technology 9 (ST-9) flight opportunity. The mission would validate solar sail technology through the orbital deployment of a steerable solar sail that provides predictable and measurable acceleration.
NASA's newly unveiled exploration architecture could allow for crews of astronauts to remain on the lunar surface up to six months at a time, should such stays be deemed necessary, according to Administrator Michael Griffin. NASA's first mission back to the moon, targeted for 2018, would have a crew of four astronauts staying no more than a week on the surface (DAILY, Sept. 20). After NASA gains more experience, "we could take crew to the moon, let them work for six months, and then return them," Griffin said in Washington Sept. 19.
The Bush Administration is defining how national security space programs will be coordinated and managed in light of recent changes in how the government is organized, top defense officials said Sept. 20. Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the Administration is finalizing a plan to spell out how the Air Force and National Reconnaissance Office will interact now that a single person is no longer serving as both undersecretary of the Air Force and director of the National Reconnaissance Office.
Ballistic Recovery Systems, which builds whole-aircraft emergency parachutes, has reached a settlement resolving breach-of-contract claims made by Charles F. Parsons and Aerospace Marketing, which was to market BRS products to the Cessna aftermarket. BRS, of South St. Paul, Minn., will pay Parsons $1.9 million over eight years. The deal allows BRS "to continue on its growth path in selling aviation safety products while not adversely affecting ongoing operations," company CEO Larry E. Williams said in a statement.
