With 1,000 new officers about to hit the ground at the U.S.-Mexico border, and a new generation of commercial-off-the-shelf surveillance technologies on the way, a high-ranking Border Patrol official thinks illegal traffic will be forced to shift to the waters along the Gulf of Mexico and Pacific coasts.
EXTRA C-17: Australia’s fifth C-17 Globemaster will be an addition to Boeing’s order book, the U.S. manufacturer says, clarifying uncertainty arising from the possibility of Canberra taking an aircraft allocated to the U.S. Air Force. The deputy chief of the Royal Australian Air Force had said a C-17 already being built for the U.S. Air Force could be diverted to fill Australia’s requirement. While that seemed to leave open the possibility that Boeing would not get an extra order, a company official confirms that it will.
QUAKE COPING: No aerospace suppliers to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries have reported production difficulties from either earthquake damage or a shortage of electricity, a spokesman for the company says. Mitsubishi, itself located far from the epicenter of Japan’s March 11 earthquake that knocked out power stations, has also had no trouble as a result of damage or electricity stoppages, the spokesman says.
Israel and Russia will work more closely in space activities under a framework agreement between the two nations’ civil space agencies that was signed March 27 in Tel Aviv.
HOUSTON — Not every element of NASA’s space shuttle fleet is headed for a museum or the trash bin, as the three-decade old program is retired following the scheduled missions of Endeavour in late April and Atlantis in late June.
LONDON — NATO’s protracted effort to field a ground-surveillance system has suffered another setback, with the program now reduced to fielding six unmanned aircraft rather than the planned eight.
NEW DELHI — The first test flight of the Indo-Israeli long-range, surface-to-air missile (LR-SAM), also called Barak-2, will be undertaken this year, says a senior official at India’s defense research agency.
While the U.S. government has made progress countering piracy in collaboration with industry, the nation’s leaders have failed to update the country’s overall plan to fight pirates despite the escalation in attacks, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) says in a recent report. The U.S. has advised industry partners on self-protection measures, contributed leadership and assets to an international coalition patrolling pirate-infested waters, and concluded a prosecution arrangement with the Seychelles government, GAO notes in its March report.
BEIJING — Component supplies to Fuji Heavy Industries and deliveries from the company are assured until the end of April, as earthquake-hit suppliers progressively resume operations or dispatch parts from stocks. Fuji, one of Japan’s four big aerospace companies and a key partner in the Boeing 787 program, is improvising to mitigate the effects of power stoppages, which it said last week were a bigger problem than physical damage to suppliers’ factories.
HOUSTON — Japan’s HTV-2 cargo capsule departed the International Space Station on March 28, signaling a post-earthquake resumption of command and control over major ISS operations by flight controllers at the Tsukuba Space Center, northeast of Tokyo.
LONDON — In a bid to grow its services activities, EADS has completed the acquisition of Vector Aerospace. EADS confirmed last week it was in exclusive talks with the Canadian firm, which had put itself up for sale. The business is being made part of Eurocopter, which has a mandate to increase services activity.
ARMY Critical Solutions International Inc., Carrollton, Texas, was awarded on March 16 a $214,284,932 firm-fixed-price contract. The award will provide for the procurement of 118 vehicle mounted mine-detection MKK II Type II systems. The work will be performed in Gauteng, South Africa, with an estimated completion date of Oct. 16, 2012. One bid was solicited with one bid received. The U.S. Army TACOM LCMC, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (W56HZV-08-D-0001). NAVY
GULFPORT, Miss. — U.S. Navy and Marine Corps brass used the March 26 christening of the amphibious transport dock ship LPD-24 Arlington to tout the vessel’s attributes for military and humanitarian missions. The San Antonio ship-class is perfect for working in the coastal waters of littoral regions where the Navy and Marines are being tasked to fight or offer assistance in the aftermaths of natural disasters, officers say.
BENGALURU, India — A new Indian coast guard station (ICGS) was commissioned at Ratnagiri in the state of Maharashtra on March 26. According to a defense spokesperson, the station was established in response to the expansion of coast guard responsibilities that has taken place since the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks.
ARMY Navistar Defense, Warrenville, Ill., was awarded on March 23 a $40,832,977 firm-fixed-price contract. The award will provide for the acquisition of 829 rocket-propelled grenade net kits for the MaxxPro Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle. The work will be performed in Warrenville, with an estimated completion date of July 28, 2011. One bid was solicited with one bid received. The U.S. Army TACOM LCMC, Contracting Center, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (W56HZV-10-D-0014).
BEIJING — Precision machine tool builder Mitsui Seiki Kogyo says it is now operating almost normally, having lost only about two days’ production from the March 11 earthquake. The company, a crucial supplier to the global aerospace industry, says it is largely coping with electricity stoppages. Perhaps most importantly, it says that its machine tools in service with Japanese customers rode out the earthquake and can work to specification.
Budget politics could threaten the safety of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and leave the nation vulnerable to nuclear terrorists, the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee says in a letter to House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan. Republicans pledged not to touch security spending in 2011, but the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) was part of across-the-board spending cuts, says subcommittee chairman Michael Turner (R-Ohio) in the March 23 letter to Ryan.
SUBSIDY SHOWDOWN: International Launch Services is filing a complaint with the European Commission over European Space Agency (ESA) aid to its competitor, Arianespace, and may take the case to the World Trade Organization. Frank McKenna, president of the Reston, Va.-based launch services company, argues the European Guaranteed Access to Space program has pumped more than €1 billion ($1.4 billion) into Arianespace since 2003.
GULFPORT, Miss. — As Northrop Grumman was preparing for the March 24 christening of the amphibious transport dock ship LPD-24 Arlington, the company also was putting together the mast for the LPD-25 using the same fabric of composite materials that not only make the LPD unique but, company officials say, represent the future of U.S. Navy shipbuilding.
New guidelines from the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) provide a step-by-step guide to ensure that members continue to play a role in saying how taxpayer dollars are spent on military gear despite bans on earmarks. HASC Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) issued the how-to as part of the committee’s procedure for developing the fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill. It shows members how to file a budgetary legislative proposal.
