The U.S. Department of Defense needs a full-time top-level manager to oversee the agency's massive financial system to meet a 2007 deadline for streamlining and restructuring its accounting practices, according to the administration's top auditor. U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker and DOD Comptroller Dov S. Zakheim told the Senate Armed Services Committee's readiness subcommittee that aggressive changes would have to be made to meet Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's 2007 goal of transforming the agency's financial management systems.
U.S. Coast Guard equipment is failing at a higher rate than when the Integrated Deepwater System recapitalization project was conceived, forcing the service to keep repairing older, legacy ships, helicopters and cutters while buying new platforms, Commandant Adm. Thomas H. Collins told senators March 23.
A problem with some space shuttle components probably won't hurt the return-to-flight schedule as much as agency officials feared last week, program manager William Parsons said March 22.
Enigma Inc., which provides equipment maintenance software for U.S. defense systems, such as the Marine Corps' Light Armored Vehicle (LAV) and the Navy Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC), will announce a "significant" Army contract as early as this week, John Snow, the company's vice president of marketing and business development, told The DAILY. Enigma's 3C Platform software allows the warfighter in the field and mechanics and engineers back at bases to quickly assess what is wrong with military equipment and fix it, Snow said.
TRAINING SYSTEMS: Bombardier Aerospace's Military Aviation Training business has been awarded the CF-18 Distributed Combat Training System contract by the government of Canada. The $202.5 million, eight-year contract is to provide Canadian CF-18 pilots with simulator training, the company said.
A Boeing/Sikorsky industry team has received instructions from the U.S. Army on what components to continue manufacturing from the canceled Army RAH-66 Comanche program, an Army official said. "The Army issued a partial termination for convenience March 18 to stop all work, make no further shipments, and place no further orders relating to the contract, except for the following efforts through September 30," Bob Hunt, a spokesman at the Army Aviation and Missile Command, told The DAILY March 22. Work is to continue on:
Northrop Grumman announced March 22 that it has added BAE Systems to its team competing to be the prime contractor for the U.S. Army-led Aerial Common Sensor (ACS) intelligence-gathering aircraft.
The U.S. Navy plans to begin deploying an Aegis destroyer in the Sea of Japan in September to provide a forward-based sensor for the Army-operated Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, officials said March 22.
DYNCORP TECHNICAL SERVICES of Fort Worth, Texas, will provide maintenance and modification services for part of NASA's aircraft fleet under a contract that could be worth up to $200 million. The Aircraft Maintenance and Modification Program Services contract includes support for Johnson Space Center operations at Ellington Field and other facilities, NASA said. The award is a follow-on to an existing services contract. Major subcontractors include Qualified Technical Services Inc., Muniz Engineering Inc., Avpol International and Lockheed Martin Space Operations.
Senate appropriators are being asked to restore funding to the National Institutes of Standards and Technology's Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) after an attempt to do that was defeated last week by the House Budget Committee. The White House cut funding for MEP, which assists defense contractors and others with technical and business support, in an effort to eventually eliminate the program. The Administration wants to avoid subsidizing competition, according to budget documents.
A joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Raytheon announced March 22 that it has been awarded a $1.1 billion contract to develop the Non-Line-of-Sight-Launch Space system (NLOS-LS) for the U.S. Army. The sole-source contract, whose award had been expected (DAILY, Oct. 13, 2003), is for a six-year system development and demonstration (SDD) phase. Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are expected to split the contract funding evenly.
An active protection system for ground vehicles that is a leading candidate for inclusion in the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) will resume testing in the third quarter of this year, according to Mark Middione, program manager at United Defense.
SURVEILLANCE: DRS Technologies will provide major electro-optical subsystems for the U.S. Army's Long Range Advanced Scout Surveillance System (LRAS3) under a $24.3 million subcontract from Raytheon's Network Centric Systems, the company said March 22. LRAS3 enables Army troops and Stryker Brigade Combat Teams to conduct surveillance and reconnaissance missions from safe distances, the company said. The work will be done by DRS Technologies' DRS Optronics unit, of Palm Bay, Fla.
The Air Force successfully launched the 50th Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite, GPS IIR-11, aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla., March 20. The three-stage rocket lifted off from Launch Complex 17B at 12:53 p.m. EST, according to Boeing. The spacecraft was deployed to a transfer orbit 68 minutes later. Lockheed Martin built GPS IIR-11, which features a number of upgrades including an advanced antenna panel that will provide greater power and performance for GPS receivers, according to the company.
Boeing's X-45A unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is expected to perform its first inert weapon drop at Edwards, Calif., within a week, according to a Boeing spokesman. The first drop will be unguided, using a dummy Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) deployed from the aircraft's weapons bay, according to Boeing spokesman Bill Barksdale. A guided drop is expected to follow by early April.
PORTSMOUTH, VA. - One of the goals of the Joint National Training Capability (JNTC) is to integrate Combat ID and Blue Force Tracking across Department of Defense operations, according to Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) officials said at a conference here March 18. Combat ID is the process of accurately identifying objects to enable the use of the correct military options and weapons. Blue Force Tracking is a satellite-based system installed in ground vehicles and helicopters that monitors the movement of friendly forces.
HAPPY TOGETHER: Redesignating the secretary of the Navy as the secretary of the Navy and Marine Corps would help clarify the Marine Corps' status, former military leaders say. Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) has pushed for such a change for years, and Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, says he supports it. "... While both services have made tremendous contributions to the cause of freedom, only one service in this team is recognized in the title of secretary of the department," Hunter says.
