Standard&Poor's assigned its triple B minus rating to Northrop Grumman Corp.'s $1.5 billion senior unsecured debt to be issued under Rule 144A, with registration rights. Proceeds will be used to partially fund the acquisition of shipbuilding and information technologies company Litton Industries Inc. Should that acquisition not occur, the company will use the proceeds for general corporate purposes, including the payment of about $1 billion, in 2002, to cover deferred taxes due at completion of the B-2 program, Standard&Poor's stated.
A U.S. Air Force Milstar II military communications satellite is ready for liftoff Saturday from Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., aboard a Titan IV launch vehicle.
An article in The DAILY of Feb. 20 about A-10 aircraft modification misstated the location of Lockheed Martin Systems Integration due to an editing error. It is located in Owego, N.Y., not Oswego, N.Y.
Northrop Grumman Corp. will provide five AN/SPQ-9B shipboard radars, plus an update kit for a sixth radar, under a $22.5 million U.S. Navy contract. The company said its Oceanic and Naval Systems business unit, headquartered in Melville, N.Y., will build and deliver five lightweight configuration, low-rate initial production radars and one lightweight antenna engineering change kit to covert a previously delivered SPQ-9B heavyweight antenna radar to the more efficient configuration.
The Senate Armed Services Committee announced yesterday it will hold a confirmation hearing Tuesday for Paul Wolfowitz to be deputy secretary of defense. President George W. Bush said Feb. 5 that Wolfowitz was his choice to be the No. 2 official at the Defense Dept. (DAILY, Feb. 6). Wolfowitz was undersecretary of defense for policy in the first Bush Administration, and his current nomination has received bipartisan praise.
The Air Force has awarded Spectrum Astro Co., Gilbert, Ariz., $15.4 million for spacecraft development, sensor integration, launch support, and on-orbit support for the Communication/Navigation Outage Forecasting System (C/NOFS). The contract is part of a $50.9 million total potential contract award.
General Dynamics' Ordnance and Tactical Systems unit, Marion, Ill., has won a $3.2 million U.S. Army add-on contract to produce more than 380,00 rounds of 20mm ammunition.
A German appeals court yesterday ruled in favor of the expansion of the Airbus Hamburg assembly site. The ruling was essential for final assembly and interior outfitting work of the Airbus A380 to be allocated to Hamburg.
NATO TALKS: Rep. Doug Bereuter (R-Neb.) led a congressional delegation to Brussels for this week's meeting of NATO's Parliamentary Assembly. Missile defense and the European Union's proposed Rapid Reaction Force were expected to be among the topics.
LEAVING HASC: House Armed Services Committee member Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) announced Wednesday that he will run for the Senate in 2002 rather than seek re-election to the House. Graham, a former Air Force lawyer, hopes to succeed retiring Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.).
Britain's government is ready to extend its own efforts in multilateral defense cooperation and to raise the profile of such efforts among its partners in NATO and the Western European Union. In a new policy paper issued yesterday, the Defense Ministry said that "now is the right time to extend ... cooperation," adding that "conditions are now right to build on" decades of success in this arena.
Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. announced its Sikorsky Support Services Inc. (SSSI) subsidiary has been awarded a contract to service aircraft for the Navy's Tactical Air Warfare Program. The one-year contract, with six one-year options, is worth more than $100 million over seven years. SSSI will provide support for F-5E/F Tiger II aircraft located at Naval Air Station Fallon, Nev., and Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Ariz. The fighter jets are used as adversary aircraft and fly against "Strike U" aircraft during combat training exercises.
Gen. John P. Jumper revealed his Air Combat Command's newest concept of operations here, called Global Strike Task Force (GSTF), calling for an F-22/B-2 initial strike package designed in part to address anti-access problems seen during the 1990s. GSTF, the Air Force's contribution to the joint Global Reconnaissance Strike plan for warfighting, has been presented here as the service's second phase of transformation, following its Expeditionary Air Force (EAF) concept.
The U.S. military could ease the strain on American aircraft enforcing the Southern No-Fly Zone in Iraq by scaling back surveillance of the area and threatening to bomb Iraqi airfields if Saddam Hussein undertakes significant hostile action, a Brookings Institution scholar said yesterday.
Last week's U.S. and British air strikes in Iraq have paradoxically given the Bush Administration ammunition for scaling back the Defense Dept.'s planned purchases of tactical aircraft, an aviation expert said yesterday. The apparently successful attack on Iraqi air defenses was achieved with just two dozen strike aircraft, a tiny fraction of the 3,700 or so Joint Strike Fighters, F-22s and F/A-18E/Fs that the Pentagon plans to buy.
Six months after the launch of four solar research satellites called Salsa, Samba, Rumba and Tango, scientists at the European Space Agency are delighted at the early results from the Cluster mission.
General Dynamics Armament Systems, Burlington, Vt., is being awarded a $29,970,403 firm-fixed-price contract for AEGIS Guided Missile MK 82 Mod 0 Directors with MK 200 Mod 0 Director Controllers. Equipment will be installed aboard DDG 99 through DDG 107 Arleigh Burke Class destroyers. The MK82 mounts the antenna assembly on an elevation-over-train pedestal and provides space stabilization for the radar Line of Sight (LOS). The Director supplies train and elevation position data and radar LOS rates in traverse and elevation for use by the fire control system computer.
Three days after bad weather postponed its scheduled return from orbit, Space Shuttle Atlantis and its five astronauts Tuesday landed safely at NASA's backup landing site at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. Atlantis commander Ken Cockrell steered the 100-ton winged spacecraft to a gliding landing in the Mojave desert at 3:33 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, a little over an hour after he fired the Shuttle's engines to break out of Earth orbit.
PRIMEX Technologies, St. Petersburg, Fla., is being awarded a $72,162,074 modification to firm-fixed-price, multi-year contract DAAA09-99-C-0021, for 46,196 M831A1 TP-T 120mm cartridges and 103,966 M865 TPDSCS-T 120mm cartridges. The M831A1 is the high explosive training round and the M865 is the kinetic energy training round. Both rounds have inert projectiles and both rounds are used in live-fire training for M1A1 and M1A2 Abrams tanks. Work will be performed at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, Middletown, Iowa, and is expected to be completed by Oct. 31, 2004.
Raytheon Co. has been awarded an $89 million not-to-exceed contract by the U.S. Army for 1,007 Stinger Block 1 missiles and equipment for foreign military sales to Italy, Greece and the U.K., the company announced Monday.
The government of Israel has signed a letter of offer and acceptance with the U.S. Dept. of Defense for the purchase of nine AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopters, the Boeing Co. announced Monday. Once government-to-government negotiations are completed through a foreign military sales agreement, the U.S. Army will contract with Boeing for the Israeli aircraft and equipment. The company estimated the whole program could be worth up to nearly $500 million, including aircraft, ordnance, spares, training and support.
THE BFGOODRICH CO. of Charlotte, N.C., has received a follow-on order from the U.S. Air Force to supply advanced wheel and carbon brake systems for the balance of 750 F-16 Block 32 and prior aircraft. This order completes a contract award originally announced in November 1999. The total contract is valued at about $30 million, and follow-on deliveries are scheduled to begin in August 2001.
The Boeing Company, St. Louis, Mo., is being awarded a $16,652,011 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, cost type line items contract for organizational, selected intermediate and as an over and above item, limited depot level maintenance for aircraft operated by the Adversary and Strike Squadron based at Naval Air Station Fallon, Nev. Work will be performed in Fallon, Nev., and is expected to be completed by February 2002. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), co-chairman of the House Electronic Warfare Working Group, plans to push for increased EW spending later this year, a spokesman told The DAILY yesterday. Pitts, a former EW officer in the Air Force, is concerned about shortfalls across the military in electronic attack and protection capabilities, spokesman Gabe Neville said. Among Pitts' concerns is identifying an eventual successor to the Navy's aging EA-6B Prowler, the only airborne radar jammer available to protect Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy aircraft.
The release of a General Accounting Office (GAO) report that found considerable shortcomings with the Marine Corps MV-22 tiltrotor aircraft should be taken with a grain of salt, according to Pentagon sources familiar with the program. While the report faults the V-22 program for inadequate testing and evaluation, specifically in areas where the Bell Boeing aircraft is susceptible to vortex ring state, the Marines defend their beloved program. Several program insiders told The DAILY to consider the source and bias of the report.
