Northrop Grumman Corp. has won the second phase of a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) contract to develop electronic components made from gallium nitride, a next-generation semiconductor material system aimed at providing improved communications, radar and intelligence capability to warfighters.
The House Science Committee is concerned that the FAA's Office of the Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation (AST) is "continuing to develop burdensome and costly launch regulations that will undermine the competitiveness of the existing U.S. expendable launch industry," according to the committee's recent "Views and Estimates" report on the Bush Administration's fiscal year 2006 budget request.
BAE Systems North America has agreed to acquire United Defense Industries Inc. (UDI) for $4.1 billion, BAE Systems said March 7. "The acquisition, for the first time, allows BAE Systems to become a prime contractor in the United States," Jim McAleese, founder of McAleese & Associates, a law firm that analyzes defense issues, told The DAILY. "BAE isn't a prime in the U.S. except for on the Advanced Tactical Infrared Countermeasures System [ATIRCMS] program."
The House Science Committee in a new report expresses concern over current laws preventing the United States from buying Soyuz rockets from Russia, warning that they could bring the International Space Station (ISS) program to a standstill in the coming year.
NO MERGER: EADS and Thales should not merge, the head of DaimlerChrysler told Financial Times Deutschland. There are areas where they could cooperate, Jurgen Schrempp said, but "I don't see any point in a merger." DaimlerChrysler owns about a third of EADS.
Although the Boeing Co. is involved in yet another ethics scandal - this time involving the ouster of President and CEO Harry Stonecipher for an alleged affair with a female executive - this is not expected to affect the Air Force's recent decision to lift the company's 20-month suspension from space launch competitions, said Maj. Karen Finn, an Air Force spokeswoman.
DISCOVERY PROCESSING: Technicians at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida continue to prepare the space shuttle Discovery for rollout to the Vehicle Assembly Building later this month, where it will be mated with its tank and boosters in anticipation of launch between May 15 and June 3. The shuttle currently is in Orbiter Processing Facility bay 3, where technicians are working on assembly fasteners for the Boom Manipulator Positioning Mechanism, installing and verifying the Remote Manipulator System camera and inspecting airlock wiring.
C-130J: The acting secretary of the U.S. Air Force, Peter Teets, said last week that a fiscal 2006 budget amendment to address funding the C-130J program is forthcoming.
Navy Rear Adm. William Landay III, program executive officer for littoral and mine warfare, on Feb. 28 approved the milestone B decision for the Coastal Battlefield Reconnaissance and Analysis system (COBRA). The decision allows the program to move toward Block I system development in fiscal 2006.
ANTI-CORRUPTION EFFORT: South Korea's defense ministry adopted several anti-corruption measures during the first meeting of audit and inspection officials on March 7, the Korean Information Service said. A plan will be established to prevent corruption for all military-related business worth more than 50 billion won ($50 million). Information networking also will be expanded between internal audit and inspection bureaus to improve expertise and independence, the ministry said.
ARMY Datapath Inc., Norcross, Ga., was awarded on Feb. 23, 2005, a $28,657,329 firm-fixed-price contract for hardware, training, testing, and on-site contractor support. Work will be performed in Norcross, Ga., and is expected to be completed by May 31, 2005. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This was a sole source contract initiated on Feb. 15, 2005. The U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command, Fort Monmouth, N.J., is the contracting activity (W15P7T-05-C-G203).
Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) said he expects the Defense Department and industry to gather for a "summit" of sorts on modeling and simulation (M&S) technologies later this year, he told The DAILY. Forbes, who has organized an M&S caucus in Congress to try to turn lawmakers' attention toward the technology development issue (DAILY, Feb. 7), said he does not foresee specific legislation this year for the business line. But he also wants to make sure Congress does not pass laws with unintended negative consequences on the nascent technology.
NEW DELHI - India has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on cooperation in space science and technology with Venezuela's ministry of science and technology. The MOU calls for long-term cooperation between India and Venezuela in space and includes the study of cooperative programs in satellites for space science research and remote sensing, studies related to space applications in telemedicine and tele-education, and human resource development.
Construction of the Javelin aircraft demonstrator prototype is on schedule, Aviation Technology Group (ATG) said March 7. The prototype is undergoing final assembly at ATG's research and development facilities, the company said. The first flight of the executive jet prototype is planned for "early 2005," the company said. ATG and Israel Aircraft Industries recently announced they have signed a cooperative agreement to design and build an advanced jet trainer based on the Javelin.
Norway-based Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSS) has signed a 43 million kroner ($6.9 million) contract with Orbimage Inc. of Dulles, Va., for data downloading and control of the OrbView-5 (Nextview 2) satellite, KSS said March 7. With options, the contract could be worth 199 kroners ($32 million) over a 10-year period.
The Pentagon plans to convene a high-level panel on March 8 to conduct a "status review" of the Air Force's Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle program, according to a Defense Department spokeswoman. No milestone decisions are expected to result from the Defense Acquisition Board meeting, formally known as an interim program review, the Air Force said March 7. The last such review occurred in December 2002. The Office of the Secretary of Defense received an informal update on the program in October 2003.
The top contractor for the Joint Common Missile (JCM) is insisting that it has taken steps to avert the kinds of potential cost and schedule overruns that the Defense Department is using to justify its proposal to kill the program.
DEFENSE OUTLAYS: Outlays for defense and nondefense programs have increased at about the same pace so far this fiscal year, about 7%, compared with the same period in FY 2004, the Congressional Budget Office said in its latest monthly budget review. By the end of fiscal 2005, CBO expects defense spending will be up by around 9% and nondefense spending by 6.5%. If the supplemental appropriations and other policies recently proposed by President Bush are enacted, the deficit for FY '05 will reach $394 billion.
The Global Information Grid Bandwidth Expansion (GIG-BE) program initially won't provide all of the quality-of-service features of the Defense Department's legacy telecommunications networks, but its capacity for transporting encrypted traffic will be about double, the Congressional Budget Office said. In a Feb. 28 letter to Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), one of the ranking Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee, the CBO said the GIG-BE eventually would provide about 10 times the encrypted capacity of a similar legacy network.
