BAE Systems has pulled out of the competition for the training systems integrator portion of the United King-dom's 12 billion pound ($21.36 billion) Military Flying Training System (MFTS) program, but will continue to work on the advanced jet trainer part of the program, a company spokesman said. "It was a bit of no-brainer," said Mike Sweeney. MFTS, he said in a telephone interview from London, is aimed at giving industry the job of training all U.K. military aircrews - "pilots, rear crew, fast jets, multi-engine, rotary wing."
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee this week approved a $1.1 billion authorization for the U.S. Coast Guard's Integrated Deepwater Program, but there is disagreement about whether that will accelerate the program. Some lawmakers object to Coast Guard plans to complete the recapitalization program in 22 years, instead of the original 20 years. Rep. Rep. Frank LoBiondo, chairman of the Transporta-tion and Infrastructure Committee's Coast Guard subcommittee, is among those who would like to accelerate its completion to 15 years.
EMS SATELLITE NETWORKS, a division of EMS Technologies Inc., has launched a new DVB-RCS hub, the company said. The hub is designed to support thousands of terminals and hundreds of megabits of data traffic. "Our release 2.0 DVB-RCS hub is economically attractive for smaller service providers and private networks, while maintaining the scalability and performance expected from our carrier-class customers," Don Osborne, the company's senior vice president and general manager, said in a statement.
A study funded by the U.S. Navy is exploring the possibility of adapting the Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) for use against ships, service officials said April 21. The study is slated for completion this summer, said Dale Bridges, program manager for JASSM, a joint Air Force and Navy program.
NASA has modified its competition to operate its NASA Shared Services Center, which is to perform consolidated administration activities and transactions now performed at NASA Headquarters in Washington and at agency field centers. The aerospace agency had received six proposals for the NSSC site, and had assumed that "one site would be materially superior to all others," and companies competing for the work would factor that site into their proposals, NASA said.
ALCATEL SPACE of Paris has been selected as the prime contractor for the European research and development project Service of Coordinated Operational Emergency & Rescue using EGNOS (SCORE), the company said. EGNOS is the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service, and the company would integrate its positioning data with that of the planned Galileo satellite navigation service. "Alcatel Space will lead a European consortium in setting up emergency call positioning ... and rescue force guidance services during accidents or natural disasters," the company said.
LOCKHEED MARTIN COMMERCIAL SPACE SYSTEMS (LMCSS) will build another telecommunications satellite for JSAT Corp. of Japan, the company said. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The satellite, JCSAT-10, is scheduled to be launched in 2006 to provide communications services throughout Japan and Asia. The satellite will carry Ku-band and C-band transponders and will be based on LMCS' A2100AX platform. The Newtown, Pa.-based company already is building JCSAT-9, which uses the same bus and is scheduled to launch next year.
ANALYTICAL GRAPHICS INC. (AGI) of Malvern, Pa., has joined the Coalition for Space Exploration, a group of companies aimed at increasing public support for NASA programs. The coalition was established in January and is promoting President Bush's call for missions to the moon and Mars. "The coalition aims to support not just the health and longevity of space exploration and technology, but that of our nation and world," Lauren Miller, AGI's director of marketing, said in a statement.
THE AEROSPACE CORP., El Segundo, Calif. Linda F. Halle has been promoted to principal director of program acquisition and management in the Advanced Technology Division at the company's Chantilly, Va., office. Susan M. Vogel has been promoted to principal director of the Hard Problems and Strategic Solutions Subdivision, Advanced Technology Division. DRS TECHNOLOGIES, Parsippany, N.J. Joseph E. Hart has been named vice president of marketing for aviation and unmanned programs at the company's Washington Operations in Arlington, Va.
House budget-writing lawmakers continued to press NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe for details on the Administration's space exploration initiative at a hearing April 21. Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-W.Va.), the ranking member of the House Appropriation's Committees VA/HUD/NASA subcommittee, said he "conceptually" supports the president's vision.
General Dynamics' 2004 first quarter revenues were $4.8 billion, a $1.4 billion increase over 2003 first quarter revenues of $3.4 billion, the company said April 21. "Our business aviation and marine groups both improved margin performance," Nicholas D. Chabraja, General Dynamics chairman and CEO, said in a statement. "In addition, information systems and technology [IS&T] and combat systems provided healthy margins on materially increased volume, evidencing the successful integration of the GM Defense and Veridian acquisitions."
NASA has decided that a robotic servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is feasible and may decide to release a request for proposals (RFP) for such a mission by the fall, according to Associate Administrator for Space Science Ed Weiler.
The U.S. military needs to improve its joint urban warfare operations to ensure smoother transitions between combat and support and stability operations, according to an upcoming RAND Corp. study that focuses on the lessons learned from Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). The study, due to be released in October, was sponsored by the Joint Forces Command.
AEROASTRO INC. of Ashburn, Va., which provides small satellites and related equipment, said it will develop joining techniques for reconfigurable spacecraft based on Vaccro technology, developed by VACCO Industries of South El Monte, Calif., which AeroAstro said could be used in a way similar to Velcro. "By leveraging VACCO's proven Vaccro technology, AeroAstro will quickly turn the concept of reconfigurable spacecraft into reality," AeroAstro CEO Rick Fleeter said in a statement.
Full effects of an effort to revise the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) High program will be known by June, the Air Force said in an April 21 statement. The statement followed an April 20 Pentagon review of the program, which has had cost and schedule problems. "Preliminary cost estimates indicate a program growth at approximately $1 billion through FY '13, and a 1-year delay in the launch of the geostationary satellites," the statement said.
TOMAHAWK BUY: The United Kingdom Ministry of Defence will buy 64 Tactical Tomahawk land-attack missiles for $112.7 million, the British Embassy in Washington said April 21. The Raytheon-built missiles can be fired from current Trafalgar-class submarines and from new Astute-class submarines when they enter service, the embassy said.
Some Senate appropriators expressed concern April 21 over the high cost of the planned ballistic missile defense program, saying the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is rushing to deploy it at a time when threats to the country have changed. "This is a lot of money for a system that has not been tested in its entirety," Sen. Dianne Feinsten, (D-Calif.), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee, said at a hearing on the agency's fiscal 2005 budget request.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved a fiscal 2005 U.S. Coast Guard authorization bill April 21 that would provide $7.9 billion for the agency, including $1.1 billion for the 20-year Integrated Deepwater System modernization program. The bill, H.R. 3879, is aimed at accelerating the Deepwater program. It is nearly identical to the version produced by the committee's Coast Guard subcommittee earlier this month (DAILY, April 5).
FORT BELVOIR, Va. - Several key components of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, including the radar, software and weapons bay, are achieving key milestones, program representatives said April 20.
PAYLOAD CDR: Northrop Grumman Corp. has completed the critical design review for the payload of the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellite communications system, the company said April 20. The program now will focus on design verification and production of the flight payload to support the launch of the first AEHF satellite in early 2007, the company's Space Technology sector said. The payloads will be delivered to Lockheed Martin Space Systems, the prime contractor for the satellite program.
TEAM KEYPORT SERVICES, a joint venture of BAE SYSTEMS and RAYTHEON INTEGRATED DEFENSE SYSTEMS, will provide engineering, professional and business management support to the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) in Keyport, Wash., under a $54.7 million contract. The contract, awarded by the Fleet and Industrial Supply Center, Bremerton, Wash., and could reach $301.7 million if all four one-year options are exercised, BAE Systems said. Twenty-four subcontractors are part of the joint venture, the company said.
Space and defense company Aeroject, owned by GenCorp and based in Sacramento, Calif., expects a 10 to 15 percent revenue increase this year, GenCorp CEO and President Terry Hall said April 20. "We expect to make half a billion this year in revenue at Aerojet, up from $321 million in sales in fiscal 2003," he said in a meeting with Aerospace Daily & Defense report and Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine. "We expect 5, 6, 7 and 8 percent growth in the following consecutive years."
BAE SYSTEMS is leading a team that has developed a next-generation transistor technology that improves the speed, integration density and power consumption for solid-state integrated circuits, the company said. "This is another piece to the technology puzzle that will be used to develop the next-generation of miniature digital receivers and exciters that are needed for future strike, surveillance and electronic attack missions," Frank Stroili, the BAE Systems' technology development manager, said in a statement.
