The first series production Eurofighter Typhoon has been delivered to the German air force, and Spain's air force has completed the acceptance flight of its first aircraft, Eurofighter consortium member EADS CASA said Aug. 4. Germany is the first Eurofighter partner country to accept delivery of the aircraft for service use, the company said. The aircraft, GT003, will be used for service pilot instructor training at Manching.
NEW DELHI - The Indo-U.S. Defense Policy Group (DPG) plans to hold a two-day meeting in Washington beginning Aug. 6. India's defense secretary, Ajay Prasad, left here Aug. 4 to attend the meeting, along with officials from the defense and external affairs ministries, the Defence Research and Development Organization and other officials.
CryoSat, part of the European Space Agency's Living Planet program, is entering the final assembly stage on the way to being launched next year, ESA said Aug. 4. CryoSat is designed to measure changes in the Earth's terrestrial and marine ice fields, with the idea of providing "conclusive evidence" of whether polar ice is diminishing due to climate change, ESA said.
At a July 30 meeting, the major players in the "Access Five" initiative to enable routine unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operations in the national airspace agreed to move forward, despite lingering questions over the source of the necessary funding. The meeting, which took place in Washington, involved high-level representatives from NASA, the FAA, the Department of Defense (DOD), and the UNITE (UAV National Industry Team Endeavor) group, whose members are Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Atomics, AeroVironment and Aurora Flight Sciences.
The Naval Sea Systems Command awarded Raytheon a $105 million contract modification on Aug. 1 to further define the requirements for portions of the Aegis Combat System that will be installed aboard six warships. Those portions, along with the rest of the Aegis Weapon System, will be installed on two U.S. Navy DDG-51 destroyers, three South Korean ships, and one Japanese destroyer.
The design of a U.S. Air Force network linking 13 command and control sensors is being shaped under a contract awarded to a Lockheed Martin-led team, the company announced Aug. 4. The Air Force's Electronic Systems Center launched the three-year program to develop the architecture for the Command and Control Constellation (C2C) with a one-year, $3 million award to the Lockheed Martin team. The contract could be worth up to $50 million.
Leaders of two multi-service force protection acquisition efforts met for the first time last week and agreed to tailor their systems to be complementary rather than competitive. The pledge covers the U.S. Army's $1 billion Guardian program and the Air Force's $300 million Integrated Base Defense Security System (IBDSS), which is nearing the final stages of a competitive downselect.
PRAGUE - Several national and international tenders will be called in coming months for NATO-approved projects at air bases in the Czech Republic. The move follows recent Czech government approval for a series of modernization and construction programs within the NATO Security Investments Program (BSIP). The projects, some of which were approved in principle by NATO in 1999, include the modernization of an aircraft hangar at Caslav airbase.
July 28, 2003 AIR FORCE United Technologies Corp., Pratt and Whitney Aircraft Group, East Hartford, Conn., is being awarded a $12,256,898 contract to provide for turbine nozzle segment, quantity: 6,826 each, applicable to the F-15 and F-16 aircraft. No funds have been obligated. This work will be complete February 2004. Solicitations began April 2003 and negotiations were complete July 2003. The Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center, Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., is the contracting activity (F34601-01-G-0006-0632).
TRAINING DEVICES: AAI Corporation Engineering Support Inc. (ESI) will build and deliver three additional maintenance trainers for U.S. Air Force Globemaster III aircraft under a $37.7 million contract, the company said July 31. ESI will build the trainers in Charleston, S.C. and expects to deliver the first one in mid-2005.
MOSCOW - The launch of a Progress supply vehicle to the International Space Station later this year might not be possible without more money to finish building the spacecraft, an official with spacecraft builder RSC Energia said Aug. 4. Nikolai Zelenschikov, RSC Energia's first deputy general designer, said the vehicle is on the assembly line but might not be finished unless the company gets additional funding.
KADISH & BUSH: Air Force Gen. Ronald Kadish, director of the Missile Defense Agency, is expected to give President Bush an in-person update on missile defense programs later this month, according to an industry source. A likely subject of the briefing, which is slated to take place at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, is the Bush Administration's plans to begin deploying the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system in September 2004.
JSF AWARDS: Three more Australian companies won contracts to support the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program, bringing the national total to five awards, Australian government officials announced Aug. 1. Production Parts, of Victoria, won a bid to manufacture aluminum components for the F136 engine being designed by GE Aircraft Engines, the government says. Marand Precision Engineering, of Victoria, will produce a customized maintenance trailer to support JSF engines.
U.S. Special Operations Command says it will extend its CV-22 tiltrotor aircraft contract with the Bell-Boeing Joint Program Office to help ensure that various studies and analyses are completed well before the aircraft enters service, and to continue development of tactics required for clandestine missions. The CV-22 Trade Studies and Tactics Development contract will be extended for four more years, from 2004 to 2007, USSOCOM said in an Aug. 1 FedBizOpps notice.
INTEL BILL: The fiscal 2004 intelligence authorization bill, which would authorize funds for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) and other intelligence agencies, will head to a House-Senate conference committee after the August congressional recess, now that the Senate approved its version of the bill July 31. The House passed its version in June. Many of the details in the House and Senate legislation are not disclosed.
EUROCOPTER: American Eurocopter will break ground for a new manufacturing facility in Columbus, Miss., on Aug. 7. American Eurocopter is a subsidiary of Eurocopter, the largest helicopter manufacturer in the world, which is owned by the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS). "The newest American Eurocopter facility represents the confirmation of a commitment made by EADS North America and its subsidiaries to expand our footprint in the United States and contribute to economic growth, job creation and good citizenship," EADS says.
Although Loral Space & Communications and Orbital Sciences Corp. have experienced financial difficulties, the business strategies pursued by each company has led to very different results, according to two space analysts. Loral, a provider of large telecommunications satellites and satellite services, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on July 15 and agreed to sell nearly half its satellite fleet to Intelsat for cash (DAILY, July 16).
The U.S. Air Force and Boeing have chosen to delay the second Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) mission by at least a day to perform additional checks of insulation on the Delta IV launch vehicle. The Delta IV had been scheduled to launch the final Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS) spacecraft, DSCS III B6, from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Aug. 3. Liftoff has now been pushed back to Aug. 4 at approximately 7 p.m., although weather could push it back further, according to Boeing spokesman Robert Villanueva.
August 5 - 6 -- Naval-Industry R&D Partnership Conference 2003, "Technologies Enabling Naval Power 21," Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, Washington, D.C. For more information go to www.naval-industrypartners.com. August 11 - 17 -- Technical Information Division Annual Symposium, "Creating Competitive Edge: Integrating & Measuring Maturity of Processes," The Royal Sonesta Hotel, New Orleans, La. Contact Simone L. Baldwin at (703) 247-2596, email [email protected] or go to www.ndia.org.
The Future Combat Systems and other Army systems could suffer if Congress approves a proposed cut in funding for the Army Evaluation Center, according to the Defense Department.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has decided to amend its policies to allow for expanded and more flexible use of its Earth observation satellites for homeland security, national security, law enforcement, and humanitarian operations. The new rules, announced in the Federal Register Aug. 1, revise 1998 regulations that govern the "non-environmental" use of data collection systems (DCS) on NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) and Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites (POES).
FLIR NEED: Combat experience in Operation Iraqi Freedom shows the U.S. Army's AH-64 Apache fleet urgently needs to upgrade Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) sensors, says an after-action report compiled by the 3rd Infantry Division. The report urges the Army to buy and install second-generation FLIR systems "as soon as possible" for the Apache fleet. The deficiency was identified during the march to Baghdad, as aircraft faced enemy air defense artillery units hidden in palm groves and farms near the Euphrates River, the report says.
