The U.S. Navy is pushing ahead on energy-enhancing programs meant to help the service with on-ship water desalination and provide additional power sources for buildings and vehicles. The Office of Naval Research (ONR) says it wants industry desalination ideas by May 2 for the Advanced Shipboard Desalination Future Naval Capability (FNC), which aims to increase fresh water production by more than 65% while reducing energy use per gallon of water by 65% — all in the same space or footprint of current systems.
ARMY CACI-WGI Inc., Chantilly, Va., was awarded a $9,044,000 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract on April 13, 2011. The award will provide for the rapidly deployable expertise and support in all aspects of counter-improvised explosive device operations. The work will be performed in Arlington, Va.; Afghanistan; and Iraq; with an estimated completion date of April 21, 2013. Four bids were solicited with two bids received. The U.S. Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., is the contracting activity (W91CRB-08-D-0027).
Northrop Grumman is starting system tests of a new Multi-Function Active Sensor (MFAS) being developed for use by the U.S. Navy onboard the MQ-4C Broad Area Maritime Surveillance unmanned aircraft.
ARMY L-3 Communications Aerospace, LLC, Madison, Miss., was awarded a $51,847,145 labor-hour contract on April 15, 2011. The award will provide for the mechanical support, quality control inspection and other services to aircraft production at Corpus Christi Army Depot. The work will be performed in Corpus Christi, Texas, with an estimated completion date of April 28, 2014. Sixteen bids were solicited with five bids received. The Corpus Christi Army Depot, Corpus Christi, is the contracting activity (GS-10F-0328N). MISSILE DEFENSE AGENCY
In a widely expected move, the U.S. Defense Department has officially terminated the General Electric/Rolls-Royce F136. But the companies have vowed to fight to restore funding for the Joint Strike Fighter alternate engine in the fiscal 2012 budget, indicating a willingness to help fund the remaining development. The termination notice follows a “stop-work” order issued on March 24 by Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter, pending final resolution of funding for the alternate engine in the fiscal 2011 budget.
Arianespace successfully launched the Yahsat Y1A and Intelsat New Dawn spacecraft at 5:37 p.m. EDT April 22 aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from the company’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. A March 30 launch attempt was aborted on the pad at the last moment when the rocket’s Vulcain main engine shut down (Aerospace DAILY, April 1).
ALMATY, Kazakhstan—Kazakhstan is reaching out to Western countries to help it develop its space industry, while at the same time continuing to cultivate its relationship with Russia.
Pratt & Whitney is replacing F135 engines in some F-35 Joint Strike Fighters with spares after a possible misassembly issue was identified in a ground-test engine that was removed from the test stand at Arnold Engineering Development Center in Tennessee in early March. “We identified a small number of F135 test/production engines that may be impacted by a possible misassembly issue,” a company spokesperson says. “These engines are being replaced by spare engines on site in Fort Worth, with no impact to the F-35 flight-test program.”
Lockheed Martin has delivered the first F-35 Lightning II Full Mission Simulator system to the 33rd Fighter Wing at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. Preparation and assembly is under way at the base’s F-35 Integrated Training Center for training to begin this fall. The simulator includes a 360-deg. visual display and can be reconfigured to represent any of the three variants of the stealthy fighter.
ARMY SRCTec Inc., Syracuse, N.Y., was awarded on April 20 a $78,000,000 firm-fixed-price, time-and-materials, cost-plus-fixed-fee contract. The award will provide for the modification of an existing contract to include primary Duke V3 system spares and increase the ordering ceiling to $278,000,000. The work will be performed in Syracuse, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 24, 2014. One bid was solicited with one bid received. The U.S. Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., is the contracting activity (W15P7T-09-D-M615).
ARMY Oshkosh Corp., Oshkosh, Wis., was awarded on April 18 a $71,837,142 firm-fixed-price contract. The award will provide for the procurement of 417 different Medium Tactical Vehicles. The work will be performed in Oshkosh, with an estimated completion date of March 31, 2012. The bid was solicited through the Internet with three bids received. The U.S. Army TACOM LCMC, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (W56HZV-09-D-0159). AIR FORCE
HOUSTON — U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), the wife of shuttle Endeavour commander Mark Kelly, has been medically cleared to attend the April 29 launch of Kelly’s STS-134 mission from Kennedy Space Center, Fla., according to a television interview with the veteran astronaut.
Advanced cybertraining is being shaped by rapid advances in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) gathering, information fusion and the immediate availability of data. The result is that in addition to standard cyberoperators and defenders, the cyber-career field needs intelligence, acquisition and engineering professionals that are cyber-focused for the majority of their careers.
NEW DELHI — India is poised to shortlist a manufacturer to provide much-needed basic trainer aircraft. The contenders — Grob’s G-120 TP, Embraer’s EMB-312 Super Tucano, Korea Aerospace Industries’ KT-1, Finmeccanica’s M-311 and Pilatus’ PC-7 — emerged following a request for proposals issued in early 2010. The deal is estimated to cost $1 billion.
Orbital Sciences Corp. reported year-over-year revenue growth for the first quarter of 2011, although its operating income took a hit from the early March failure of the company’s Taurus XL rocket. The March 4 fairing separation glitch claimed NASA’s Glory climate satellite, and echoed the 2009 loss of NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory , which also was lost when its Taurus XL fairing failed to open (Aerospace DAILY, March 7).
Vice Adm. David Venlet, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program executive officer, says he hopes that negotiations with Lockheed Martin on low-rate initial production (LRIP) lot V will progress more smoothly than they did for the previous lot. Lockheed is putting the finishing touches on its LRIP V proposal, which will comprise 35 aircraft. This will be the second fixed-price production contract for the company on the program. Protracted and contentious negotiations on LRIP IV took more than a year with a contract being signed in November.
MILITARY RESEARCH: The Defense Department is issuing 27 fiscal 2011 awards, totaling $191 million over five years, to academic institutions to perform multidisciplinary basic research under the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) program. MURI supports research that intersects “more than one traditional science and engineering discipline in order to accelerate research progress,” the Pentagon says. The awards will be made by the Army Research Office, the Office of Naval Research and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
One of the most intriguing recent comments by U.S. Navy brass is that the service has determined it would be cheaper in the long run to rebuild superstructures on its aging cruiser fleet using traditional metalwork instead of composites.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) Apr. 25 — Greater Washington Aviation Open 23rd annual golf tournament, Lansdowne Golf Resort, Lansdowne, Va. For more information email [email protected], or go to www.gwao.org
SAN FRANCISCO AND LONDON — German researchers hope the upcoming flight test of an ambitious hypersonic demonstrator will pave the way for follow-on flights of a small sub-orbital reentry vehicle in 2020.
