The U.S. Missile Defense Agency is considering putting some of the interceptors for the Ground-based Mid-course Defense (GMD) system on a sea-based platform instead of on land.
PRAGUE, Czech Republic - The Czech cabinet will discuss next week a proposed text for a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Sweden on the lease of 14 new JAS-39 Gripens, according to senior Czech defense officials. The decision by the defense ministry to present a MOU for discussion at the scheduled March 11 government meeting has ended recent press speculation that talks between the two countries had run into trouble.
ROSETTA AWAY: After more than a year of delays, the European Space Agency's Rosetta comet rendezvous mission successfully launched March 2. Rosetta is to be the first mission to land on a comet when it visits Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko in November 2014.
INFORMATION NETWORK INC. (Infonetic) of Lanham, Md., will provide technical information services to Goddard Space Flight Center under a five-year, $34 million contract, NASA said. The company will provide management and communications support, among other work, and is teamed with Zimmerman Associates Inc. of Fairfax, Va., and Maslow Media Group Inc. of Washington.
GOODRICH CORP. will supply a high-temperature, composite flaperon control surface to be tested on Boeing's X-37 reusable launch vehicle under a contract from NASA's Langley Research Center. The flaperon helps steer the vehicle, Goodrich said. The work is expected to be worth $1.4 million in revenue over the next two years.
NEW DELHI - India's Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) will supply tail rotor blades for Bell 206 helicopters under a $5 million contract from Bell Helicopter. The deal, agreed to at the Asian Aerospace 2004 show in Singapore, likely will lead to expanded collaboration between HAL and Bell, HAL Chairman Nalini Ranjan Mohanty told The DAILY. He said the contract will be signed later. Bell approved HAL last year as an authorized component repair and overhaul provider for the 44 Bell 407s operating in the civil and defense sectors in India.
The U.S. Air Force has made a slight increase in the number of F/A-22 Raptors it plans to buy, reflecting cost savings identified last year, according to documents and a service spokeswoman. Documents recently prepared for Congress to explain the Bush Administration's fiscal 2005 budget request show that the "current program estimate supports procurement of 277" F/A-22s, up from the 276 figure the Air Force had previously presented as its purchase target.
The upcoming retirement of Vance Coffman as chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, announced March 1, may signal the beginnings of a new challenge to its position as the top U.S. defense contractor from Northrop Grumman, analysts said. "They've got to be very concerned with Northrop targeting them, because much like Boeing targeted Lockheed to become number two, my view is that Northrop is clearly targeting Lockheed to become number two," Robbin Laird of International Communications and Strategic Assessments, Arlington, Va., said in an interview.
SPECTRUM ASTRO said the Revuen Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) satellite has completed its second year of on-orbit operations. The company built the satellite for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Md., and the University of California, Berkeley. RHESSI was launched on Feb. 5, 2002, and has observed more than 8,000 solar activity events, the company said.
NASA's new Office of Exploration Systems (Code T) will apply lessons learned from U.S. Defense Department acquisition programs to the development of the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) and other space technologies, according to Rear Adm. Craig Steidle.
ALCATEL, FINMECCANICA and VINCI CONCESSIONS has formed a consortium that has been shortlisted for the concession for Europe's Galileo satellite navigation system, the companies said. The Galileo Joint Undertaking is expected to award the concession in early 2005 to a company or consortium that would be responsible for financing, deploying and operating the program.
NASA has selected 43 consortia to receive funding in 2004 under the National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program. The consortia were selected based on their plans to enlarge and enhance the pool of higher education graduates and faculty involved with NASA as employees, contractors or principal investigators. "These efforts advance our commitment, in President Bush's words, to inspire a new generation of innovators and pioneers," Adena Loston, NASA's associate administrator for education, said in a statement.
International Launch Services (ILS), a Lockheed Martin Corp. joint venture with the Russian companies Khrunichev and RSC Energia, will conduct its first Atlas V launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., the company announced March 2. The launch will be from Space Launch Complex 3-East (SLC-3E), which is being refurbished to support a late 2005 launch for a national security mission.
NASA's Opportunity Mars rover landed in a place where "liquid water once drenched the area," associate administrator Ed Weiler said March 2, which makes it clear that a mission to return martian samples to Earth is needed. Steve Squyres of Cornell University, the Mars Exploration Rover principal investigator, said at a press briefing that evidence found in a rock outcropping near the rover's Meridiani Planum landing site led to that conclusion.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or the Department of Defense general counsel should appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee to explain the agency's continued refusal to turn over emails and documents related to the KC-767 tanker lease negotiations, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) told U.S. Air Force leaders March 2. "There is no way any self-respecting Congress cannot insist on these documents unless there is executive privilege here," said Levin, the committee's ranking Democrat, and he said even that would not apply in this case.
ACCENTURE of Reston, Va., will provide support services for NASA's Integrated Financial Management Program (IFMP), which is aimed at improving the financial, physical and human resources management process throughout the aerospace agency. The work will be done under a five-year contract that could be worth up to $200 million, NASA said.
ALCATEL SPACE has been named the prime contractor for the MAESTRO program (Mobile Applications & Services based on Satellite & Terrestrial Networking), under a contract worth 10.2 million euros ($12.6 million). The program is aimed at encouraging the adoption of multimedia in Europe through the use of Satellite Digital Multimedia Broadcast technology.
LOCKHEED MARTIN SPACE OPERATIONS has been awarded a $39 million extension to NASA's Science, Engineering, Analysis and Test (SEAT) contract. Under the contract, the company provides engineering, scientific and technical support to research and development projects, among other functions. The total value of the 11-year contract is $1.9 billion.
Competing teams led by Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman have turned in their proposals to the U.S. Air Force for the next phase of the Space Based Radar (SBR) program, according to company representatives. Proposals were due March 1. The Air Force is expected to award two 24-month study contracts worth approximately $230 million each in May, and to select a prime contractor for the program in 2006.
The U.S. Department of Defense will send Congress "relatively soon" a proposed budget amendment that would take money that had been allocated to the canceled RAH-66 Comanche helicopter program and use it to modernize and buy more than 2,000 military aircraft, the department's comptroller said March 1.
DRS Technologies Inc. will design, integrate and manufacture an Altitude Hold and Hover Stabilization (AHHS) system for U.S. Air Force MH-53M Pave Low Helicopters, the company announced March 1. The AHHS system is installed on Air Force HH-60G Pave Hawk Rescue Helicopters.
