SEA-BASED UAV: Geneva Aerospace Inc. and Vought Aircraft Industries Inc. are pursuing a sea-based unmanned aerial vehicle under a $497,000 contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The DARPA award will investigate the feasibility of a UAV designed to take off and land on water. Vought will modify Geneva's Dakota UAV for water operations, removing landing gear and adding floats, according to an April 13 statement by Dave Duggan, Geneva vice president of business development. Vought expects testing to be completed by the end of the year.
The Senate Commerce Committee will vote on the nomination of Johns Hopkins University physicist Mike Griffin to be the next administrator of NASA during a markup hearing on Capitol Hill April 14. If the committee approves Griffin, his nomination will go to the floor of the Senate for a vote. During Griffin's confirmation hearing April 12, Commerce Committee Chairman Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and other lawmakers said they hoped that Griffin might be able to take the reins at NASA as early as next week.
With Virginia-class nuclear submarine design work winding down and no other major submarine-design project under way, the submarine design and engineering base is facing the prospect - for the first time in about 50 years - of having no major submarine design project, a congressional researcher told senators April 12.
Satellite and launch vehicle builder Orbital Sciences Corp. expects 2005 revenue to reach $700-750 million, compared with 2004 revenue of $676 million, said David Thompson, Orbital's chairman and chief financial officer. Thompson spoke April 12 at the SunTrust Robinson Humphrey's 34th Annual Institutional Conference in Atlanta, Ga. Orbital expects its main launch vehicle segment revenue to grow 5-7% a year for the next three years. Operating profit margins for this segment are expected to be 11-12% for the same time period, he said.
Prime contractor ITT Industries and partner Raytheon Corp. are developing new night vision goggles for the U.S. Army that will merge image intensification (I2) with next-generation infrared (IR) imaging.
Mike Griffin, the Bush Administration's nominee to head NASA, told Senate lawmakers April 12 that fixing NASA's accounting will be one of his top priorities if confirmed and that he will meet with Chief Financial Officer Gwendolyn Sykes immediately upon joining the agency to discuss the recent cuts made to its financial reform effort.
Microwave technology provider Herley Industries Inc. has purchased Innovative Concepts Inc., which produces wireless communications technology and real-time embedded systems, for about $20 million in cash, Herley said April 13. Innovative Concepts, based in McLean, Va., had revenues of about $28 million in its last fiscal year and is profitable, Herley Chairman Lee N. Blatt said in a statement. The buy increases Lancaster, Pa.-based Herley's staff to more than 1,000 workers, including 70 software engineers from Innovative Concepts.
Northrop Grumman Corp. conducted the first flight of a new configuration of the U.S. Army's RQ-5A unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system, called the Endurance Hunter (E-Hunter). Conducted on March 17, the test is part of an ongoing cooperative effort with the Army to extend the range, endurance and payload capacity of the Hunter system. Northrop Grumman operated the new UAV under the control of a prototype Army One System ground control station, the company said April 11.
The Senate Armed Services Committee's readiness and management support subcommittee has drafted legislation calling for a chief management official (CMO) at the Defense Department, a move long advocated by critics of DOD's business management although the department continues to resist the change.
Gregory P. Boyer has been named to the board of directors. Boyer served as principal of Century Administrative Services in St. Louis. Daniel A. Rodrigues has been promoted to president and chief operating officer. Michael F. Shanahan Sr. will serve as nonexecutive chairman of the board of directors. Shanahan co-founded ESS and has been president, CEO and chairman for 23 years.
Peter C. Belford Sr. and Rear Adm. Daniel P. March (USN-Ret.) have been named to the board of directors. Belford was president of the former Analex Corp. March is a former commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet and is a consultant to the Navy, Defense Department and intelligence community.
Bernard W. Chau has been promoted to general manager of the Imagery Programs Division in Chantilly, Va. Wayne R. Fenner has been named a distinguished engineer in the Planning and Communications Division. Randolph L. Kendall has been appointed principal director of the Launch Directorate in El Segundo. Stephen A. Stoops has been named principal director of the Communications Systems Information Engineering Directorate at Chantilly.
Two U.S. Air Force entities have agreed to work together to improve the sharing of surveillance information among air, space and near-space systems. Lt. Gen. Charles Johnson, commander of the Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., and Lt. Gen. Brian Arnold, head of Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif., approved the new arrangement, said Gen. Gregory Martin, commander of Air Force Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
C-130J SHAKEUP: The U.S. Air Force announced late April 13 that it is converting the C-130J program from a commercial contract structure to a more traditional one. Critics have said that the commercial contract makes it difficult to audit the government's costs. The Air Force said the new structure will apply to modification and sustainment of the C-130J, as well as any purchases of additional aircraft.
Lockheed Martin and Boeing delivered the first Modernized Target Acquisition Designation Sight/Pilot Night Vision Sensor (MTADS/PNVS) system to the U.S. Army this month for deployment on AH-64D Apache helicopters. The Army's first unit equipped with MTADS will be fielded this July, Frank Winget, manager of business development for MTADS at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, told The DAILY April 12. MTADS is an upgrade to TADS, which are being used on Apaches in Iraq.
Orbital Sciences Corp. has successfully launched an $80 million experimental Air Force satellite designed to explore future military space applications and a new Medium Range Target vehicle for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, the company said April 12.
EnerSys, which builds industrial batteries, announced April 11 that it was awarded a $4.6 million contract by the U.S. Navy for continued development of advanced submarine batteries. The contract - coming after an initial $1 million award to the Reading, Pa.-based company in March 2004 - is part of an ongoing effort by the Navy to retrofit the entire nuclear submarine fleet with valve-regulated lead-acid batteries in place of flooded lead-acid batteries.
