August 19, 2002 ARMY General Electric Company, Lynn, Mass., is being awarded a delivery order amount of $7,976,667 as part of a $53,955,720.84 firm-fixed-price contract for twelve 701C complete install engines for the Army Reserve. Work will be performed in Lynn, Mass., and is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2006. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This was a sole source contract initiated on June 20, 1997. The U. S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., (DAAJ09-97-D-0196).
The Navy and Raytheon Co. marked the first flight of the Tactical Tomahawk cruise missile on Aug. 23. The flight, at Naval Air Systems Command's Western Test Range Complex in California, was part of the contractor test and evaluation phase.
Lockheed Martin Corp. announced Aug. 26 it has entered into a joint venture with several Japanese companies to provide engineering and lifecycle support services to the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Forces (JMSDF). The joint venture company, to be called MLS Corp., consists of Lockheed Martin, Mitsubishi Electric Corp., SAMPA Kogyo K.K. and Mitsubishi Corp.
NEW DELHI - U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage visited Sri Lanka's war-ravaged northern Jaffna area Aug. 22, signaling Washington's interest in ending the country's long-running civil war. Armitage is the most senior U.S. official to visit Jaffna since the war began between Tamil Tiger rebels and Sri Lankan forces. According to Agence France Presse, peace talks between the warring factions are slated for mid-September, and Armitage said the U.S. strongly supports an end to the violence.
AEA FLIGHT: Boeing has completed two more flight demonstrations of its EA-18G Airborne Electronic Attack (AEA) concept aircraft, the company said Aug. 26. The EA-18G, an F/A-18F Super Hornet equipped with jamming pods, is one of the aircraft being considered to replace the EA-6B Prowler fleet (DAILY, June 7). The latest flights took place Aug. 20 and 22, Boeing said. Other flights took place earlier this year and late last year.
The Department of Defense plans to launch a pilot program in the next fiscal year aimed at studying ways to protect military installations against chemical and biological attacks, a senior official in the Office of the Secretary of Defense said Aug. 26. Senior Program Analyst Paul Bergeron said the program, called the Joint Service Installation Pilot Project, would take place at nine installations throughout the continental U.S., at a cost of about $32.9 million.
The team behind NASA's Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR) mission, which apparently was lost after an engine burn Aug. 15, already is considering proposing a replacement mission that could launch as early as 2006. CONTOUR was to have flown by two comets - Encke and Schwassman-Wachmann 3 - in unprecedented proximity, with enough mission flexibility to allow a rendezvous with another comet if the opportunity presented itself.
The first step in Defense Department plans to use the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle for chemical point detection was completed earlier this month when a mini-UAV was successfully launched from the Predator, according to General Atomics Aeronautical Systems. The first Predator demonstration was designed to test the ability to launch a single mini-UAV off an airborne UAV, although future plans include a "near-simultaneous" launch of mini-UAVs off both wings of the Predator.
After a series of test failures that set back the B-1B bomber upgrade program by well over a year, the Air Force thinks BAE Systems' Fiber Optic Towed Decoy may be on the road to a full recovery, according to program officials. The Defense Department announced earlier this month that problems with the ALE-55 decoy had set back the entire B-1B upgrade program by up to 20 months (Aug. 21). While more testing is needed, it appears the decoy is on the mend, according to Air Force Lt. Col. Peter Knudsen, the chief of the B-1 defense system upgrade division.
Set to launch in 2006, NASA's Gamma ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) will help provide insight into powerful gamma ray sources that have been observed but not identified by previous missions. Gamma rays are the most energetic form of light, and can be generated only under the most extreme conditions of gravity, temperature, or magnetic field. GLAST will detect gamma rays that are roughly 10 million to 150 billion times more powerful than the light visible to the human eye.
Expedition Five Commander Valery Korzun and Flight Engineer Sergei Treschev completed a five-hour, 21-minute spacewalk on Aug. 26 from the International Space Station, NASA said. During the spacewalk, Korzun and Treschev swapped out Japanese space exposure experiments and a Russian experiment that measures jet thruster residue on the exterior of the station's Zvezda service module. The next station spacewalk is planned for October, according to NASA.
Space Shuttle Atlantis' planned September launch to the International Space Station has been bumped to Oct. 2 at the earliest, and orbiter Columbia's scientific flight has moved from November to January, according to NASA. Atlantis is scheduled to deliver the station's 45-foot-long, 15-ton S1 truss segment, which will be attached to the starboard end of the already installed S0 truss and enable future expansion of the station.
NASA has selected Spectrum Astro of Gilbert, Ariz., to build the Gamma ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), NASA said Aug. 23. GLAST will observe thousands of black holes, magnetized pulsars, gamma ray bursts, and other gamma ray sources, according to NASA. Under the $107 million contract, Spectrum Astro will be responsible for the design and fabrication of the GLAST observatory, integration of its instruments, testing and on-orbit checkout.
WEALTH OF INFORMATION: The Defense Department has reconsidered its practice of posting its science and technology plans on the web, according to a senior official in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The plans, which include the Joint Warfighting Science and Technology Plan and the Defense Technology Objectives plan, generated considerable interest from computer users in China soon after the DOD began putting them online, OSD Deputy Director of Plans and Programs Robert Baker says. "We got over 1,000 hits in one week, and they all came from China," Baker says.
Pratt & Whitney Canada Corp. announced Aug. 23 that aviation authorities in Canada and the United States have certified its new PT6C-67D engine, which will be used in the company's Huey helicopter UH-1H Plus upgrade program. Transport Canada granted the certification Aug. 12 followed by the Federal Aviation Administration on Aug. 14, the company said.
TRW Inc. won a $4.5 billion federal contract Aug. 23 to build the nation's next generation of polar-orbiting weather satellites, upsetting Lockheed Martin Corp., which has dominated that sector of the space business for decades. The Defense Department, NASA and NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) announced that TRW's Space and Electronics Group, based in Redondo Beach, Calif., will get the contract for the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS).
IT'S OUR BUSINESS: Rosoboronexport, the Russian state-owned arms export company, is looking to recapture the markets lost with the dissolution of the former Soviet Union, says company CEO Andrei Belyaninov. "We believe that our presence in Central and Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia, which hold much promise for Russian arms, is inadequate, but we're working towards strengthening our position there," Belyaninov said at a press conference last week in Moscow. The company appears to be on target to meet its revenue goal of $3.5 billion for the year, he says.
Aug. 27 - 29 -- Hannover Fairs USA will host the International Satellite & Communications Exchange Conference and Expo - Long Beach Convention Center, Long Beach, Calif. For more information call (609) 987-1202 or visit www.satcomexchange.com. Aug. 31 - Sept. 2 -- The Cleveland National Air Show, 1501 North Marginal Road, Burke Lakefront Airport, Cleveland, Ohio. For more information call Kim Dell at (216) 781-0747 or visit www.clevelandairshow.com.
A senior official in the Office of the Secretary of Defense said last week he is pleased with the general spending direction the Air Force is taking with its science and technology programs. Robert Baker, the OSD deputy director for plans and programs, spoke to a committee reviewing the effectiveness of Air Force science and technology program changes, and said he reviewed the Air Force's proposed S&T funding plans for fiscal years 2003-2005.
As the Defense Department prepares to go forward with the next constellation of the Global Positioning System, GPS III, the Department of Transportation is looking ahead to some key budgetary and programmatic requirements for civilian users.
The Army has found the wreckage of an AH-64A Apache helicopter that crashed in South Korea, a Defense Department spokesman said Aug. 23. The Apache had been missing since about midnight Aug. 22, when it was flying from Camp Page in Chunchon, South Korea to Camp Eagle at Wonju. Two crewmembers belonging to the 8th Army died in the crash, according to the spokesman.
WEATHER REPORT: The European Space Agency (ESA) is considering developing a network of weather services that could issue space weather information, the agency says. That information could complement conventional weather forecasting, according to ESA, and could include space weather forecasting and a database of space weather events. "We have just issued an announcement of opportunity inviting the community to propose contributions to such a space weather service," says Alexi Glover, of ESA's ESTEC organization in the Netherlands.
RATINGS REVISION: As it had predicted, the ratings service Standard & Poor's revised its ratings of Orbital Science Corp. after that company said it would apply the proceeds of a recent transaction to repay $100 million in convertible bonds coming due Oct. 1 (DAILY, Aug. 23). Standard & Poor's revised the CreditWatch implications of Orbital's ratings to positive from developing.
SAO PAOLO, Brazil - Despite intense speculation here, official sources say a final decision has not been made about the winner of a $700 million Brazilian air force contract for 12 to 24 fighter aircraft. "There has been a lot of speculation, but I can assure that there is no winner yet," said Mauricio Botelho, the chief executive officer of Brazilian aircraft maker Embraer, which is bidding on the contract. "We are confident that we have the best proposal," Botelho told local media last week.
