ARMY General Dynamics C4 Systems, Scottsdale, Ariz., was awarded a $385,550,000 firm-fixed-price and fixed-price-incentive-firm contract. The award will provide for the replacement of antiquated radars at four Army Test Centers with state of the art test-oriented equipment. The work will be performed in Scottsdale, with an estimated completion date of June 4, 2022. The bid was solicited through the Internet, with five bids received. The U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (W900KK-12-D-0003).
When the Pentagon and Obama administration released the nation’s new global defense posture earlier this year — with the “Pacific Pivot” refocus — one area of the world that seemed to get a little less attention was the African continent, especially in light of the recently created Africa Command (Africom). But, U.S. military officials say, Africom’s assets are expected to produce a lot of bang for the buck.
Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Virgin Galactic are working under U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) contracts to design air-launch systems that can orbit sub-100-lb. payloads for $1 million, including range costs. “Previous attempts at air launch did not focus enough on the rocket side,” says Mitchell Burnside Clapp, Darpa’s Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (Alasa) program manager. “They over-invested in an aircraft that could only do one thing—support the launch.”
ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy is sponsoring the development of technology that is designed to overcome size and weight limitations to placing radar detectors on small UAVs. The technology is contained in a multi-mode Analog-to-Information based Radar Warning Receiver (A21RWR), a device is being developed through Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) funding by SA Photonics of Los Gatos, Calif.
TEL AVIV - Rafael, Israel’s leading missile development center, has quietly been working on an air-to-air derivative of the Stunner interceptor to be designated Python 6, also known as the Future Advanced Air-to-Air Missile.
The first Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) ship scheduled to shift homeport to Naval Station Mayport, Fla., will arrive in the last quarter of 2013, earlier than Navy officials had indicated. U.S. Navy Secretary Navy Ray Mabus said June 15 that the USS New York, USS Iwo Jima and USS Fort McHenry will move to Mayport from Norfolk, Va. The USS New York will be the first to change homeport, followed by the Iwo Jima and Fort McHenry in 2014. Mabus previously had announced the ARG would arrive no later than 2015.
SKY DRAGON: China is starting to globally market a new medium-range, surface-to-air missile system called Sky Dragon. China North Industries Corp. claims an engagement range of 3-50 km (2-31 mi.), with a maximum engagement altitude of 20 km. The target set includes fighters, helicopters, unmanned aircraft and cruise missiles. A system comprises 3-6 launchers with four missiles each, an Ibis150 3D radar providing greater than 130-km detection range and a battle command system. The company says 12 missiles can be controlled at the same time.
NEW DELHI — India is likely to start receiving MBDA’s MICA missile beginning in 2015, a senior defense ministry official says. “We are hoping that MBDA will expedite its delivery of the MICA missiles to mount on the 51 Mirage 2000H aircraft that are being upgraded by France’s Thales and Dassault jointly with Bangalore-based Hindustan Aeronautics,” the official says.
NASA plans to launch an exterior Earth-observation platform to the International Space Station under a cooperative agreement with Teledyne Brown Engineering, Inc., which builds the flight releasable attachment mechanism (FRAM) manufactured by the Huntsville, Ala.-based subsidiary of Teledyne Technologies Inc.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) june 19 - 20 — RTCA Annual Symposium, Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Washington, D.C. For more information go to symposium.rtca.org june 24 - 27 — American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics: 43rd AIAA Fluid Dynamics Conference & Exhibition; Sheratonb San Diego Hotel & Marina, San Diego, CA, (703) 264-7622, www.aiaa.org/events
LONDON — The Norwegian government has kicked off the purchase of its F-35A Joint Strike Fighters after years of discussions and a recent budget move to adjust procurement plans. The deal also puts the Kongsberg Joint Strike Missile (JSM) on a path to integration on the fighter, which Norway sees as key to achieving its industrial goals.
As Obama administration and Pentagon officials ponder when to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, another crucial question is whether to use bombs or bytes. A reason for not conducting a conventional bombing attack on Iran is the ease with which the attacker can be identified. Cyber attack, on the other hand, offers an offensive capability without removing the cloak of anonymity.
The U.S. Navy is looking for a better way to track and analyze wear and tear on gearbox components and life cycle costs for helicopters and other platforms through a program being developed with Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) funding.
CYBER BUZZ: The recent revelation that the U.S. may have used cyberworms to infiltrate Iranian centrifuges has Washington abuzz with leak rumors, but also may spur a more public discussion of cyberwarfare. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta described this week how the nation is constantly fending off attacks and needs to move quickly to protect its critical infrastructure from cyber attacks. And now lawmakers are in the process of approving new mandates to draw up offensive cyber strategies and develop rules of engagement.
U.S. defense community and administration officials point to 2013 as a likely window for bombing Iran’s nuclear and missile facilities. It could happen earlier, timed to use the chaos of the Syrian government’s fall to disguise such an attack, or later, if international negotiations with Iran stretch out without failing completely. But there is strong evidence that Iran is not going to shut down its uranium enrichment program. In fact Tehran officials contend a notional nuclear submarine program would add more requirements for enriched uranium.
PARIS — The European Space Agency (ESA) will negotiate a late 2013 launch window for the first Sentinel Earth observation satellite and continue funding the joint Euro-Russian ExoMars program through the end of this year, according to ESA officials. During a June 13-14 meeting of the ESA ruling council here, the 19-member agency was told it could secure a three-month launch window for the Sentinel 1A satellite beginning in October 2013, despite uncertainty over funding for the spacecraft’s operations.
The U.S. Air Force needs to do a better job of accounting for some of its most important assets, according to the Pentagon’s Inspector General (IG). A June 7 IG report identifies several areas where the Air Force had made accounting mistakes: The service classified certain aircraft as military equipment that did not meet the Defense Department definition of military equipment.
With the 2012 Olympics just a month away, the U.S. government is poised to set a new world record of its own — pulling in more than $50 billion in foreign weapons sales for the fiscal year that is not yet over. The previous record was set just one year ago at a little more than $30 billion, according to Andrew Shapiro, the assistant secretary of state for political military affairs.
Technicians at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center soon will begin integrating the first instrument received there for the James Webb Space Telescope. The Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), assembled by the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the U.K., will cover wavelengths of 5-28 microns from the Webb’s planned perch at the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrangian point.
