Boeing is reviewing the U.S. Air Force's draft request for proposals for the second increment of the Small Diameter Bomb, and remains confident it will win the contested bid for the 250-pound weapon capable of hitting moving targets in any kind of weather. "We feel extremely well positioned," Darryl Davis, Boeing vice president for global strike products, told reporters during the Air Force Association's Air & Space Conference in Washington on Sept. 13. He said the company's SDB I weapon has recorded a 95% successful drop rate.
Vice Adm. Phillip M. Balisle (USN Ret.) has been appointed senior vice president, maritime strategic plans and programs for the company's Washington operations.
Officials from Washington think tanks agreed Sept. 14 that the Defense Department's ongoing Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) should not focus on immediate needs and that allies will be increasingly important over the next two decades, but they disagreed on whether the Air Force's tactical aircraft and the Navy's ships should be sacrificed for newer efforts.
Two weeks before Hurricane Katrina, Northrop Grumman studied a hypothetical scenario in which one of the company's Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles was deployed from Edwards Air Force Base in California to assist with disaster relief following a powerful hurricane hitting the Gulf Coast of the United States.
South Korea's defense ministry has proposed an 11.1% annual hike in military spending over the next 10 years as part of a plan to modernize its forces, the Korean Overseas Information Service said Sept. 14. If approved, South Korea would spend a total of KRW 289 trillion ($281 billion) on military expenditures. Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung said the goal is to make his country's armed forces "smaller but stronger" for futuristic warfare. The proposal includes the purchase of:
JAMMER: Rockwell Collins said Sept. 14 that it has been awarded a $28 million contract to provide the Rubicon II jammer for the U.S. Marine Corps Communication Emitter Sensing and Attack System (CESAS) and the Mobile Electronic Warfare Support System (MEWSS). Deliveries are set to start in March 2006. The Rubicon II allows the U.S. military to monitor, target and deny enemy communications.
Four Republican senators representing NASA research centers and a Democrat from Washington state are trying to amend the agency's appropriations for the next fiscal year to maintain the same level for aeronautics research and development programs as in fiscal 2005. Sens. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), George Voinovich (R-Ohio), George Allen (R-Va.), John Warner (R-Va.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) have proposed an amendment to the FY '06 spending bill covering NASA that would earmark $906.2 million for aeronautics R&D out of NASA's budget.
William W. Parsons has been named the new director of the John C. Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, NASA said Sept. 13. Parsons succeeds Rear Adm. Thomas Donaldson (USN Ret.) and returns to the position he held before becoming space shuttle program manager in 2003.
The National Reconnaissance Office and Naval Research Laboratory have declassified Poppy, a Cold War-era electronic intelligence reconnaissance program that involved seven satellites launched from 1962 to 1971. NRO Deputy Director Dennis Fitzgerald hosted a recognition ceremony at NRO headquarters in Chantilly, Va., on Sept. 12 to recognize key program participants.
BAE Systems said Sept. 13 that it has been awarded a ZAR 15 million (USD $2.3 million) contract to upgrade a second batch of the South Africa army's Olifant MK1B Main Battle Tanks. The award follows a ZAR 11 million (USD $1.7 million) contract the company received in 2003 for similar work.
Suppliers for the U.S. Defense Department's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will soon be asked to formally bid for work on the program's first production jets, according to prime contractor Lockheed Martin. A draft request for proposals (RFP) for those initial production aircraft will be sent to suppliers later this week, said Dan Crowley, executive vice president and F-35 general manager at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co.
Boeing's first in-flight test of the Northrop Grumman Multi-mode Electronically Scanned Array radar aboard a 737 aircraft for Australia's Project Wedgetail was "very successful, very clean," according to a Boeing official. The six-hour test, conducted Aug. 1 over Washington state, achieved mission objectives, said Jack DeLange, airborne early warning and control integration and test manager. "Northrop Grumman was wildly enthusiastic about the data that they got," he said in a telephone interview.
Despite rumors that the German government's effort to buy Northrop Grumman's Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle might be delayed further or even canceled, the company hopes it will receive a contract for the first air vehicle by next spring.
PRAGUE - Bristol, United Kingdom-based communications products firm Scotty Group said Sept. 13 that the prototype phase of its Aero Mission Gear package has been successfully completed in flight trials with a German army helicopter.
