MORE ARMOR: Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is calling on the U.S. Army to increase the production of "armor survivability kits" that provide protection on doors, glass and the rear of military vehicles. Feinstein says the Sierra Army Depot, located in Herlong, Calif., is ready to meet that challenge. The depot has completed several orders for vehicle armor and expects to begin producing 625 kits later this month.
The U.S. Army Air Defense Artillery School is asking for industry help in a study of ways to overcome shortfalls in U.S. air and missile defense capability. The school, at Fort Bliss, Texas, lists five "overarching" gaps in a Dec. 22 FebBizOpps notice: * "Cannot defeat the full spectrum of potential air and missile attacks on the U.S. Homeland * Cannot "completely defend ... critical assets against the array of potential ballistic missile, cruise missile, and rockets, artillery and mortar (RAM) threats
SOLD: Honeywell said Dec. 22 that it has completed the sale of its Performance Fibers business to Sun Capital Partners Inc. The business supplies high-tenacity polyester fibers. Honeywell Specialty Materials sold the unit to continue its focus on core businesses that provide advanced fibers and composites, fluorines, electronic materials and other products, the company said. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
AURORA CONTRACTS: The European Space Agency plans to issue "invitations to tender for industrial contracts" in February for the European Aurora Mars exploration program, ESA says. Programs to issue tenders include the ExoMars mission, which would include an orbiter, a descent vehicle and a surface rover, and the Mars Sample Return mission. "Industry will be called upon to contribute to the definition of a European space exploration strategy and architecture," ESA says.
NASA has picked six proposals for science payloads to fly on its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), the first spacecraft scheduled to be built as part of the agency's vision for space exploration. The LRO is scheduled to launch in the fall of 2008 and map the moon's surface, surveying natural resources and possible landing sites for future astronauts.
JOB INTERVIEWS: Unmanned aerial vehicle maker Aurora Flight Sciences of Manassas, Va., will conduct job interviews on Jan. 6-7 in Starkville, Miss., to staff its new Starkville facility, the company says. Aurora will build the Hunter II UAV in Starkville. The company is seeking a site manager, quality manager, office manager, composite lay-up technicians and assembly technicians. "We look forward to meeting face-to-face with many of the qualified individuals who will help Aurora launch this new venture," says Aurora Flight Sciences President John Langford.
INTERNAL MATTERS: A decision over the future leadership of EADS is among "important questions that will be decided within the group and not in public," an incoming co-CEO of EADS says. Thomas Enders, the company's German co-chair, tells Deutsche Welle German radio that EADS' strength lies in its "European cultural diversity." He and Noel Forgeard of France have been nominated to replace outgoing co-CEOs Rainer Hertrich and Philippe Camus this summer.
Raytheon Co.'s AGM-154C Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW-C) has received the go-ahead from the U.S. Navy to begin full-rate production, the Navy said Dec. 23. The production decision, made by Navy acquisition chief John Young, comes after test officials recently rated JSOW-C as "operationally effective and suitable" (DAILY, Sept. 23, Dec. 15). In operational testing, the glide weapon succeeded in 10 of 11 shots against various targets, including caves, hardened bunkers and radar sites.
International Launch Services (ILS) is expecting moderate growth in commercial satellite launches over the next few years as the high-definition television (HDTV) market grows in the U.S., according to ILS Vice President Frank McKenna.
ARMY DECISION: The U.S. Army probably will make a decision next year on a digital maintenance management system that would capture maintenance information for vehicles and automatically transfer it to a database for easy and quick use by the maintainer, says Greg Burton, director of advanced support concepts for Boeing Phantom Works. "We've been working on systems for rotorcraft, and have demonstrated it on the Chinook. But it could be used on ground vehicles," he says.
C-130J EXPORTS: Canada, India and Portugal are among the potential new customers for the Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules, the newest version of the C-130 transport, a company spokesman says. Australia, Denmark, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States already have bought or are buying the aircraft. By the end of December, Lockheed Martin expects to deliver the last of 22 C-130Js ordered by Italy.
SUB COMMISSIONING: The new submarine Jimmy Carter (SSN-23) will join the U.S. Navy fleet in a commissioning ceremony on Feb. 19 at the Navy submarine base in Groton, Conn., says the boat's builder, General Dynamics Electric Boat. The company delivered the sub to the Navy on Dec. 22. The sub honors the former U.S. president and Navy veteran who is only chief executive who was submarine-qualified.
Unable to secure further funding support from the Army, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has chosen to cancel the third phase of the Unmanned Combat Armed Rotorcraft (UCAR) program, an industry source told The DAILY. DARPA and the Army originally planned to split the cost of the $500 million program roughly 50/50, with DARPA paying most of its share in the early years, including two-thirds of the cost of Phase III. However, the Army pulled its support earlier this year to pay for other aviation priorities (DAILY, Sept. 20).
TPF PARTNERS: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center is seeking partners to help develop scientific instruments for the Terrestrial Planet Finder Coronagraph (TPF-C) mission, currently slated for launch in 2014 or 2015. The partners can help develop concepts for TPF-C's spectrograph or propose studies of an important element of the spectrograph, such as concepts for extracting and measuring the signal from an extrasolar planet, NASA says. The agency plans to fly two TPF observatories - TPF-C and a free-flying infrared interferometer known as TPF-I.
DEFENSE FAIRS: South Korea will increase funding for the country's defense contractors to take part in overseas defense fairs to $952,000 in 2005, up from $48,000 in 2004, the South Korean ministry of defense says. South Korea also says it had more than $400 million in military exports in 2004, a 75% jump from 2003's $240 million. The MOD attributes the increase to Daewoo International's $150 million contract to provide the Indonesian navy with four landing platform docks and $54 million in ammunition sales by South Korea to the United States and Australia.
UCAR REVIEWS: The Unmanned Combat Armed Rotorcraft (UCAR) teams led by Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman recently underwent reviews by DARPA in anticipation of the expected downselect early next year. The teams have been operating under bridge funding while the Army and DARPA work out funding issues that have delayed the next phase of the program.
ChoicePoint, which provides identification and credential verification services to government and industry, is buying i2, a United Kingdom-based provider of visual investigative and link analysis software for military, intelligence, and law enforcement markets. The transaction includes an initial payment of $90 million, with an additional payment of up to $10 million if some financial performance goals are met, ChoicePoint said Dec. 22. The acquisition is scheduled to close by Jan. 1, 2005.
Germany's procurement agency signed a contract with BAE Systems' Land Systems Hagglunds for 75 Bv206S all-terrain vehicles worth about 23 million pounds ($43.7 million), the company said Dec. 21. Hagglunds will work with Germany's Rheinmetall Landsysteme GmbH to deliver the vehicles, part of a planned German buy of 200. The vehicles, an armored variant of the Bv206, will be used by the German army's mountain brigade, based in Mittenwald.
In observance of the Christmas and New Year's holidays, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report will not publish Dec. 24 and Dec. 27 through Jan. 3. The next issue will be dated Dec. 27 and the issue after that will be dated Jan. 4. The next issue of NetDefense will be part of the Jan. 6 Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.
United Defense Industries Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif., will provide the U.S. Army with 43 tank simulators and related technical support under a $38.2 million contract modification, the company said Dec. 22.
Adm. James O. Ellis Jr. (USN-Ret.) has been named an adviser to the board of directors. Ellis was commander, U.S. Strategic Command, Offutt Air Force Base, Neb.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Dec. 22 that a recent test failure by the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system should be viewed as a "learning experience" instead of a source of serious concern. "It's expected that there will be things like that that will occur," since GMD is still in development, Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon press briefing.
