The U.S. Army has begun real-world testing of a new system that allows a gun mounted atop a Humvee to be operated from inside the vehicle. Four prototypes of the Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station (CROWS) were installed on Humvees and sent to Iraq in December for urban missions, including patrols. CROWS, developed for the Army by Recon/Optical Inc. (ROI) of Barrington, Ill., eliminates the need for a gunner to be outside the vehicle, where there is little protection against enemy fire and severe weather.
DIRECTED ENERGY: The U.S. Army is eyeing mid-March as the likely time for a summit on directed energy weapons. Brig. Gen. Robert Lennox, deputy commanding general for operations at Army Space and Missile Defense Command, has been trying to organize the event to coordinate the service's formulation of requirements for directed energy systems (DAILY, Dec. 12, 2003).
The U.S. Army is using virtual reality to improve and integrate its training for convoy and urban operations, according to Lt. Col. Joseph Giunta, the Army's program manager for Ground Combat Tactical Trainers. Deficiencies in convoy training have been highlighted as more convoys come under fire in Iraq, according to Giunta.
PANTERA TESTS: Norway's air force is Lockheed Martin's first international customer to flight test the Precision Attack Navigation and Targeting pod (PANTERA), the company said Feb. 6. All the features were exercised in the December tests and "performed accurately," the company said.
Telecommunications market analysts differ on the health of the commercial satellite market, although Intelsat Ltd. said this week that market waters appear good for its initial public offering (IPO). Intelsat will offer up to $500 million shares, and Intelsat's current shareholders will be allowed to sell ordinary shares in the offering. The IPO registration statement will be filed with the SEC in the first quarter of this year, the company announced Feb. 4 (DAILY, Feb. 5).
SAMPLE RETURN: NASA's fiscal year 2005 budget request includes a funding wedge that will allow the agency to invest in long-lead technologies for a Mars sample return mission that could take place as early as 2013. A sample return mission actually is three missions in one, according to Orlando Figueroa, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program Office. The first mission is landing on Mars and obtaining the samples, the second mission is getting the samples into Mars orbit, and the third mission is getting the samples back to Earth, he says.
SAN DIEGO - A major multinational initiative aimed at thwarting terrorist attacks on the United States and other nations with shipborne weapons of mass destruction is underway, according to Adm. Walter F. Doran, Pacific Fleet Commander. "We need to gain visibility of what travels via the sea throughout the region - we need the same situational awareness of what is on our oceans and waterways that we have about what is traveling through the skies," Doran said.
Lockheed Martin expects to decide by April whether to use a continuously moving assembly line to produce the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a company official said Feb. 5. Current-generation fighters are built on pulsed or bay-build assembly lines, meaning an aircraft stays in one place for a long time while it is worked on. The downside to that approach is that a problem can quietly fester because it is isolated from the rest of the assembly line, said Edward Linhart, vice president for JSF production operations at Lockheed Martin.
The U.S. Army has awarded Northrop Grumman Corporation's Information Technology (IT) sector a $10 million task order contract over three years to provide support to the Army's newly created Research, Development, and Engineering Command (RDECOM), the company announced Feb. 5. Northrop Grumman estimates this contract will bring approximately 10 new jobs to Northrop Grumman IT. Work on the contract will be conducted at the Northrop Grumman IT site in Aberdeen, Md.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The U.S. and Canada could reach an agreement within the next month on a famework for cooperation on missile defense, according to Lt. Gen. E.A. "Rick" Findley, deputy commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). David Pratt, Canada's minister of defense, and U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and their staffs "have all really accelerated the framework for an amendment to the NORAD agreement [between the two countries] within the next four weeks," Findley said Jan. 29 at a conference here.
LAUNCHERS: Lockheed Martin has received a $3.2 million Army contract to supply an additional 92 M299 helicopter-mounted missile launchers for U.S. and international forces, the company announced Feb. 5. The order includes 34 launcher units for the U.S. Army and 58 units for Israel and Kuwait. Deliveries are scheduled to run through the third quarter of 2005.
Senior leaders at Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and the Marine Corps will meet at Camp Lejeune, N.C., next month to discuss ways of making the two organizations more interoperable, according to Brig. Gen. Robert Neller, director of the operations division at Marine Corps headquarters.
Although Northrop Grumman's sales for the fourth quarter of 2003 increased to $7.1 billion from $4.8 billion, the net income of $224 million was the same for both reporting periods, the company said Feb. 4.
SAN DIEGO - The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy are creating a "maritime NORAD" to monitor ship movements and identify terrorist threats, according to Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of Naval operations. The idea is in the concept development stage, Clark said Feb. 4 at the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association and U.S. Naval Institute West 2004 conference here.
SECURE COMMUNICATIONS: Palomar Products will supply the secure communications capability for the US101 medium-lift helicopter, US101 team member Lockheed Martin said Feb. 5. Lockheed Martin, AgustaWestland and Bell Helicopter Textron are pitting the US101, a variant of AgustaWestland's EH101, against Sikorsky's VH-92 for the VXX competition to replace the presidential helicopter fleet. Their proposals were submitted to the Navy earlier this week (DAILY, Feb. 4).
Negotiations between the U.S. Air Force and the Boeing Co. over a KC-767 lease-purchase deal are suspended until at least May, when the results of four Defense Department reviews are due, a defense official told The DAILY. A Pentagon source said Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will wait for reports from the Defense Policy and Science Board, the National Defense University and the DOD inspector general and general counsel before proceeding with the controversial plan.
Australia soon may request additional information from Northrop Grumman on the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle, a company official said Feb. 5. Australia's defense minister, Robert Hill, spelled out a need for a squadron of long-endurance UAVs for land and maritime surveillance on Feb. 4, saying the requirement was spurred by the Global Hawk's performance in Afghanistan and Iraq. He made the comments as he released Australia's new defense budget (DAILY, Feb. 5).
The U.S. Air Force plans to start taking a serious look at potential replacements for several C-130 variants used by its special operations forces, a service representative said Feb. 5. Maj. Gen. John Dorris said the Bush Administration's fiscal 2005 budget request, submitted to Congress Feb. 2, contains "seed money" to develop concepts for an "MX" aircraft, which would replace the MC-130E/H airdrop/transport aircraft, and an "AX" which would replace the AC-130 gunship. The analysis could take about two years.
The Defense Department's new safety council is forming 10 task forces to focus on reducing hazards in specific areas, including aviation and acquisition programs. The task forces are being "established to foster 'quick wins' and other initiatives for implementation across DOD," according to a recent Pentagon briefing paper obtained by The DAILY.
Intelsat plans to conduct an initial public offering (IPO) by June 30, the satellite communications company said Jan. 4. The company, which converted from an intergovernmental organization in 2001, plans to offer up to $500 million in shares and will use the money to repay outstanding debt and for "general corporate purposes."
