Satellite service provider SES Americom has acquired Verestar of Fairfax, Va., for $18.5 million, the company announced Dec. 1. Verestar had been operating under bankruptcy protection since December 2003. SES Americom announced its intention to purchase the company in April 2004 and received final approval from the Federal Communications Commission on Nov. 19. SES Americom plans to fully integrate Verestar's operations, including its people, teleports and other assets around the world.
Although the U.S. Marine Corps is concerned about the survivability of its Light Armored Vehicle (LAV), there currently isn't funding for upgrades to improve it, Marine Corps officials said Dec. 1. The LAVs are vulnerable to heavy machine gun fire, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and improvised explosive devices (IEDs), said Col. Len Blasiol, director of the Materiel Capabilities Division at Marine Corps Combat Development Command. He spoke at the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement's Light Armored Vehicles conference in Washington.
The U.S. Air Force Research Lab's Space Vehicles Directorate continues to study the idea of getting satellites from the drawing board to orbit in what it calls "phenomenally short time frames, perhaps days." Last year, the operation, based at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., asked industry and academia for ideas to support research based on the Lego toy concept - using a small family of building blocks to quickly construct nearly any kind of complex structure in space.
Italy's Finmeccanica has completed its buy of the other half of AgustaWestland, which it formerly shared with the United Kingdom's GKN, the company said Nov. 30. Finmeccanica and GNK formed AgustaWestland in 2001 as a 50-50 joint venture, but Italy's largest defense contractor announced in May that it intended to buy the other half to try to expand its growth in the U.S. market (DAILY, May 28).
Herley Industries Inc. of Lancaster, Pa., has been awarded $7.2 million in contracts to provide microwave hardware for several U.S. defense programs, the company said Dec. 1. Herley has won a $1.1 million contract to produce integrated microwave assemblies for F-16 aircraft; $2.8 million in contracts to provide microwave hardware for missile test applications; and a $3.3 million contract to provide avionics system hardware for the Air Force Security Assistance Training program, the company said.
JSOW WORK: Raytheon Co. will provide 216 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) AGM-154A weapons, containers and related equipment under a $48 million contract modification from the U.S. Navy, the company said Nov. 30. The work is expected to be completed in July 2007. The JSOW-A variant dispenses BLU-97 bomblets and is produced for use on the F/A-18, F-16, F-15E, F-22, B-1, B-2 and B-52 aircraft.
ACTUATORS: Curtiss-Wright Corp. will provide aircraft canopy actuators for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet to the Boeing Co., the company said Dec. 1. The work could be worth up to $7.2 million over five years. The actuators will allow some commonality of parts on the E single-seat and F dual-seat versions of the aircraft, Curtiss-Wright said.
President Bush's vision for space exploration is "winning" on Capitol Hill, but is likely to progressively eat into NASA's space science budget as the years pass, according to Bob Palmer, Democratic staff director for the House Science Committee.
As part of the U.S. Marine Corps' logistics modernization program, the service plans to put out a request for proposals for an information technology systems integrator for logistics "any day now," said Col. Bob Ruark (USMC), head of logistics enterprise integration. The systems integration work is for the Global Combat Support System (GCSS), the modernization's key technology enabler, he told The DAILY. The IT integration contractor will be selected in early 2005, he told The DAILY. Oracle Corp. was chosen as the GCSS software supplier this fall.
London-based Rolls-Royce and Lufthansa Technik of Hamburg, Germany, will locate their 100 million euro aero engine overhaul facility in Thuringia, Germany, the companies said Nov. 29. The plant eventually will employ about 500 people. Construction is set to start in late 2005 and be finished in late 2006.
The U.S. Army's Tank-automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) is conducting a Coalition Interoperability Experiment with Defence Research & Development Canada (DRDC) to demonstrate how two coalition forces can communicate through linked crew station simulators. TARDEC announced the effort at the Army Science Conference in Orlando, Fla., on Nov. 29.
The U.S. Defense Department has endorsed building a prototype of the Missile Defense Agency's High Altitude Airship (HAA), but has decided to slow the program in the face of budget constraints and technical hurdles, DOD sources said Nov. 30.
NASA and Northrop Grumman will spend the next few weeks refining the details of their codesigned Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) spacecraft, before turning their attention early next year to devising firm cost estimates for the ambitious mission in anticipation of its first major program review.
FINANCING: Forklift designer and manufacturer Airtrax Inc. of Hammonton, N.J., has secured $1.3 million in financing from institutional investors, the company said Nov. 29. The money will be used for working capital and to fund FiLCO GmbH, Airtrax's new 235,000-square-foot facility in Mulheim a.d. Ruhr, Germany. The company developed its omnidirectional forklift, the Sidewinder, using a patented wheel Airtrax developed after receiving a technology transfer from the U.S. Navy.
Northrop Grumman Corp. has won a five-year, $65.3 million contract to support electronic systems on U.S. Navy ships and submarines, the company said Nov. 30. The contract was awarded to Northrop Grumman's Charlottesville, Va.-based Sperry Marine business unit by Naval Inventory Control Point of Mechanicsburg, Pa. The agreement contains three one-year options, Northrop Grumman said.
Pakistan test fired its short-range, nuclear-capable Ghaznavi missile on Nov. 29, the Press Trust of India said. India was informed of the launch under an agreement with Pakistan about such test launches (DAILY, Oct. 6, 2003). The test was one of a series intended to improve the missile's operating parameters, the Press Trust said. India test fired its similar Akash missile on Nov. 26.
Lockheed Martin has awarded electronic products maker LaBarge Inc. of St. Louis a $1.4 million contract to produce cable assemblies for Lockheed Martin's Chaparral Air Defense Missile system, the company said Nov. 30. LaBarge has made cable assemblies for the Chaparral system for more than a decade, Lockheed Martin said. The assemblies are manufactured at LaBarge's plant in Berryville, Ark. Production is expected to continue through February 2005.
LMI Aerospace Inc. of St. Louis has entered into a three-year financing agreement with Wells Fargo Business Credit Inc., the company said Nov. 30. The agreement includes a revolving note of up to $18 million secured by accounts receivable and inventory, a $4.7 million equipment term note secured by all of LMI's machinery and equipment, and a $3.6 million real estate term note secured by some of the company's land and buildings.
Australia-based Metal Storm Ltd. reported a net loss of $1.8 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2004. The company had reported a net loss of $896,371 for the same period last year, and said the increase was driven partly by higher research and development expenses and last year's acquisition of the U.S. subsidiary ProCam LLC (DAILY, Dec. 12, 2003).
The Global Positioning System (GPS) has reached an all-time high of 30 operational satellites following the checkout of GPS IIR-13, which launched on Nov. 6 from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The constellation now includes 18 Boeing-built Block II and IIA spacecraft and 12 new-generation Block IIR spacecraft built by Lockheed Martin. GPS requires a minimum of 24 satellites.
